Photography Apprentice

This was the morning of the fall concert...the morning after the far-away football game...the morning after some students' cars were vandalized while they were on the bus returning from the far-away game...the morning after one senior hit a racoon on his way home, broke a hole into his radiator and sat beside the road until help arrived at two o'clock in the morning.

However, placidly unaware of these earth-shattering events, my passengers and I rode into a gorgeous orange sky on the way to school. I knew If I stopped the suburban to take pictures we might be late, so I handed my camera to the "shotgun" rider, Tori.

She took pictures through the windshield, experimenting with the night setting--which, by the way, is too blurry for a hand held snap from a moving vehicle. Here are some of her best shots.

Wordless Wednesday

Bump In The Night

At two o'clock in the morning--back when my husband was young and brave and impetuous--we heard a fearsome bumping in the basement. Since the door to our cellar opened onto the back porch, and the door to the back porch had a latch that didn't work well, anybody could have sneaked into that damp hole under the house. Who knew...maybe an antique dealer was going to dig for old medicine bottles down there, or maybe some big-time second-hand appliance dealer wanted our nearly new hot water heater. This called for rapid intervention. There was no time for panic. Grabbing up the nearest weapon, my superhero in the undies but minus the cape, bounded out the back door, down the stairs to the basement and strung an arrow into his compound bow. It was dark. There were two eyes shining in the corner--over by the hot water heater (my second guess seemed nearer the truth). He aimed and shouted as he used his elbow to turn on the light. One very puny kitten, pale and petrified, trembled before potential impalement. Disappointed, the Lord of the manor lowered his mighty bow as the cat streaked between his legs and ran back out into the night.

"It was a cat," he said sheepishly as he returned to the bedroom, "a very small one."
"Good," I yawned, four-fifths asleep.
"Not very exciting, though," he complained.
"Could have been. It could have been a skunk."
"True. True. Why do you have to be so uninspiring."
"Cause I'm sleeping. It's two in the morning, and all sane people are sleeping."
"Sigh." He crawled back into bed. But he left the bow leaning against the wall...just in case.

Sunday Scribblings