Rosehaven Cottage: humor

Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts

The results of a personality test I took made me laugh because of this observation based on the graphics they chose.

I guess my real name should be Captain Mary Amy Belle Emma Tinkerbell Grantham

Maybe you've seen the results of those online quizzes... or maybe you haven't and I'm the only one looking at people's Facebook feeds...

Anyway... there are a slew of quizzes at places like one named in the image above so you can find out things like "Which Celeb Should Be Your Roomate". You can also finally answer the question "Which Character From The Princess Bride Are You?"

I'm usually not one to click through on stuff like that because I know the risk involved. But every once in a while I'm tempted enough to go over to one of the legit sites and take one of the quizzes (okay, I've taken more than one). What's pretty funny is that they are often quite accurate in describing my personality. It's amusing to say the least.

After I get done taking one of the quizzes, I'll laugh out loud and Hubby will ask, "What's so funny?" and then I'll tell him I took a quiz and he'll never guess what my result was. So every time I've taken a quiz, Hubby has ended up privy to the result.

Last week, we were texting back and forth during the day and I sent him a link to an iPhone cover I had fallen in love with. He sweetly ordered it for me before replying and then texted me that he had. I admitted that I couldn't make myself order it on my own (it felt too self-indulgent even though it was just an iPhone case to replace my broken one). His response was, "I know... you freak-a-zoid" followed by "I love you".

My response?

Referencing all the quiz results I've had in the past few weeks I texted, "Anyone who is Tinkerbell AND Mary from Sherlock AND Amy Farrah Fowler AND Belle AND Lord Grantham is definitely a freak-a-zoid."*

He texted back that I made him laugh out loud (really). And the visual of all those characters mashed into one, makes me chuckle right now as I'm typing this.

And for the record... I forgot to include in that text a few other results. I'm most like the Avenger Captain America. And if I were a character from Once Upon a Time I'd be Emma.

* For those not familiar with the characters listed they are as follows:

Tinkerbell from the Disney movie Peter Pan
Mary Morstan from BBC's Sherlock
Amy Farrah Fowler from CBS's Big Bang Theory
Belle from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast
Lord Grantham from Downton Abbey

Even hummingbirds get itchy sometimes

photograph taken in the Rosehaven Cottage gardens
28 October 2013

My mind is focused on hue, saturation, restoration and recovery.

One photo at a time gets preserved from the family albums.

I rest my eyes and back while wandering the garden paths.

I check the water level in the pond.

It's low.

I turn on the tap to replenish it for all the critters that drink from it.

Meandering out to the front garden, a tuxedo kitty greets me with raspy meows.

I sit on the porch to pet her.

Together we wait.

For what, we don't know...

Any movement that catches our eyes.

The tiniest chirps approach from the distance.

I see her sip sweet snacks from the red Japanese honeysuckle.

Then she lights on a leafless buddleia branch

And scratches an itch.

Why it's best not to be heavy-handed when it comes to digitally cropping photos

In the last year or so, I've taken on several different projects involving the scanning and digital restoration of family photos for others. Lately, I've been spending my efforts on our own family photos that my mom brought to be in neatly organized albums.

As I've completed small batches of photos, I've been uploading them to a common viewing area ("photostream" in the world of Apple) and all family members have been able to look at them on their iPhones and iPads as well as make comments. I've spent a few evenings this past couple of weeks laughing so hard I couldn't breathe because of the comments flying back and forth over select photos.

The above photo seems innocuous enough right? It's me on my 12th birthday right after the candles have been blown out. I'm guessing the bouquet of zinnias and bachelor buttons were freshly cut from a garden that I remember was burgeoning that year. It seems like just a typical birthday shot right before the cake is cut.

Don't be deceived.

The uncropped version of the photo looks like this...

That "monster" on the right is my four year old brother, photobombing the shot before "photobombing" was even a word.

As everyone in the family exchanged comments back and forth, my brother's comment on this photo was the best by far:

"I look shockingly like Lou Ferrigno in the Incredible Hulk, except I'm not green, have no muscles, and am slightly shorter than him in this pic... but other than that... dead on."

Let's see...

You know... he's right!!!

The moral of the story (there is one believe it or not)
In this world of easy digital editing...

Just in case you can't see the above photo... don’t be too quick to crop a photo. You could inadvertently be cropping out some of the best memories.

Pain, pain go away come again some other day

Notes to self:

When it is excruciatingly hot and humid outside, don't try to fill up the green waste cans just because collection is the next day.
When Hubby tells you it's time to come inside... listen to him.
When you are staggering from heat exhaustion, don't try to do just "one more thing" even if it's just bending over to pick up your pruners.
When you feel a tweak in your sciatic region, ice it immediately and don't let it get so aggravated that it goes into full spasm.
When you ignore all of the above advice (because you know you will): lay down; let your back heal; don't try to go out and photograph anything; go through your archives of thousands of photos to find one to post (like the one above); re-post-process the photo on your iPad while you're still laying down... and try not to be too wistful about how you could be escaping this blistering heat someplace else cooler not too far of a drive away if you would have followed "notes to self" 1 through 4.

By the way, I shot the above photo

while I was looking up

from the streets of San Francisco's historic Chinatown

on a visit a few summers ago.

Is someone missing their contraband chicken?

I was sitting in the living room late yesterday afternoon talking to my sister-in-law on the phone, when I saw a large dark object fly past the front window in a cackling blur. At first, I thought another wild turkey had shown up and had crash landed in the front garden.

With phone in hand, I went outside to investigate. I heard clucking from under the rosemary hedge where it is too small to fit a turkey. Then it dawned on me that the clucking was not a turkey... it was a chicken!

That was a surprise! It is against county zoning ordinance laws to keep chickens where we live (we've talked directly with the county about it hoping we could have our own backyard chicken. No dice.). So we've never seen a stray chicken wandering around before.

The chicken hung around until dusk--wandering between the back and front gardens clucking along the side yard that connects both. The living room windows that overlook the side yard were open so we could enjoy the cool May night air. We could hear her clucking as she repeatedly passed underneath. The cats were quite entertained. The clucking finally stopped right before sundown, so I figured she had wandered home to wherever she came from to roost.

I was wrong...

Today, I came downstairs to hear more clucking and ba-gawking out in the back garden. I didn't get a chance to get a photo of her yesterday, so I went and got my camera and headed out the back door to see if I could get a shot or two of her.

Well, just as I stepped out onto the deck and started to round the corner of the house, I witnessed one of the neighborhood cats lunging at the chicken at the base of the deck stairs. Said chicken promptly took flight and headed straight for my head! Luckily, she veered at the last minute and landed a few feet in front of me on the deck railing next to the hot tub.

Always striving to be the consummate photographer, I remained unruffled and started squeezing off shots of the chicken while I had the chance. She was in perfect view with great light. How could I not?

She continued to cluck and ba-gawk at me. It wasn't happy ba-gawking either. She was royally ticked off at the audacity of that cat (who is barely bigger than the chicken) and the nerve of this woman to take pictures of her with her feathers ruffled.

You know the old adage, "Madder than a wet hen"? Well, I think I caught the look that goes along with that saying...

Talk about giving someone the "skunk eye". Boy, if looks could kill!

Fortunately, our garden is a backyard wildlife habitat full of plenty of water and bugs for her to eat while she hangs around. Now if she could only poop in the dirt and fertilize it instead of pooping on the flagstones that don't need fertilizer. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Because of the county ordinances prohibiting the keeping of chickens, I can't really go up and down the the street with leaflets saying "FOUND: One lost chicken who's extremely ticked off right now"-- although I'm really tempted. Oh, you have no idea how tempted I am.

CHICKEN UPDATE (May 25th)
The chicken is still here. It wandered down the street for a while yesterday, but it came back again *sigh*. It disappears at a little before sundown somewhere in the bushes. I don't know how it's surviving every night since we have many predators here (raccoons, skunks, opossums and grey foxes).

I decided to try and figure out what kind of chicken it is. I found only one breed on www.BackYardChickens.com that evenly remotely looks like it--the Euskal Oiloa: Marraduna Basque. Apparently, this breed loves free ranging (ya' think?). It is considered a rare Spanish breed. Of course something like this would show up here instead of a regular run-of-the-mill chicken. If anyone knows more about this breed, please tell me if I'm off base in concluding this is what it is. I don't have any new photos of the chicken because it's camera shy. It does look more healthy just since these photos were taken. It must be finding some really good eats here.

Lucy and her Carmex

I usually don't post videos (opting for photos instead), but I really wanted to share this one.

Our weird kitty Lucy LOVES Carmex lip balm. Every night before we go to bed she jumps up next to me and wants me to get out a completely spent tube of Carmex I keep in my nightstand. All she wants to do is sniff it and rub on it like it's catnip.

The other night she got a bit vigorous with her rubbing... and ended up regretting it.

Enjoy!

Instead of "breading" the cat, we prefer "Abe-ing" the cat. It's far more dignified.

Don't know what "breading" the cat is?

Click here to find out

DISCLAIMER: We think breading isn't a very nice thing to do to a cat. However, "Abe-ing" Dee Dee for this photo was something she thoroughly enjoyed. She sat and watched me make the hat while Hubby narrated to her what I was doing. She was quite excited to get all the attention. I cut out spaces in the brim of the hat for her ears, so she was unfazed once we set the hat on her head for a quick photo shoot with the iPhone. She's such a diva that she loved being cooed over.

Yeah, this is how geeky we really are... we sit around thinking up stuff like this

illustration by Cindy Garber Iverson

All is right with the world... until it isn't

The above photograph is a perfect metaphor for my life right now. I took this photograph last week because the garden was finally trimmed and coifed and looking like I want it to look. When I sit down not far from the spot pictured above and relax in my chaise lounge, I finally don't feel the compulsion to go over my to-do list because of all the things I see that need doing.

After I took this photograph and was post-processing it on my computer, I took a closer look...

That's poop. Probably grey fox poop (otherwise called "scat"). Or maybe it's raccoon poop. But it's still poop.

Even when I thought I had everything tidied up and "just so", I discovered later that there's poop in the scene.

Why is this a metaphor for my life?

In my last post, I wrote about the wonderful experience Hubby and I had enjoying the summer solstice in our back garden and the miraculous sighting I had of a grey fox. To quote A Christmas Story, "All was right with the world."

Little did I know that 24 hours later I would be laying on a gurney in the ER waiting for the results to come back from a chest x-ray, ultrasound and blood tests to determine why I had pain in my upper right abdomen and chest.

I had already determined that I could thank the heavy cream in the Coldstone Creamery ice cream I had the evening before (just before enjoying the summer solstice). Before heading to the ER on Friday evening (in rush hour traffic), my general practitioner had seen me in his office right before closing for the weekend. He concurred that my suspicion was probably correct about the ice cream (since I usually don't indulge in heavy creams and fats). He thought I might have a clogged bile duct in my gallbladder and strongly (STRONGLY) suggested I go to the ER to have further tests done. What I wanted to do was just go home. I asked if I just couldn't do that. He said no. The possibility of an infection was a risk I shouldn't take, in his opinion.

So I went to the ER. Such a "fun" and "romantic" way to spend a Friday night with your Hubby, don't you think?

By 10:30 pm, I was being sent home (the place where I'd wanted to go in the first place). My heart was fine (I knew that). The ultrasound showed I didn't have any gallstones (that was good). But... BUT... the ultrasound showed that my liver is enlarged.

Great.

So just like the metaphorical photograph above, I thought after my surgery a year and a half ago that I had everything cleaned and tidied up inside me, and I was ready to get on with my life. But then along comes an enlarged liver (my proverbial pile of poop) to besmirch the tranquility of my path forward.

There are many things that can cause an enlarged liver. I have my suspicions what has caused mine, because I've had some definite warning signs. I still have to consult with my general practitioner after more blood tests to try and determine the true root cause. The past few days have been uncomfortable and achey as all the muscles on the right side of my torso try to recover from the muscles spasms I had for about 36 hours straight. I'm eating foods that are high in antioxidants to give my body the tools to reduce the swelling, and I'm paying close attention to what foods make me feel worse and what foods don't.

Needless to say, I can't garden like I want to, and the Cecile Brunner roses that were ready to go into the ground last week are still in pots waiting. Fortunately, I got a lot of cleanup done over the past month so I can go out and sit in my chaise lounge under the wisteria and just relax instead of compulsively seeing things that need to be added to my to-do list. That's the good thing.

Now if the washing machine hadn't decided to freak out and start making a horrendous racket today, I'd be set. *wink*

Profusion of pink jasmine and not-so-profound ponderings

Like the hedge of pink jasmine that almost knocks me over with its heady scent when I get into its proximity, my thoughts lately are overpowering, full and somewhat tangled. I hope I'm not the only one that gets this way sometimes.

I would have thought by this time in my life I would not succumb to insecurity. But I do.

Is it just a "chick thing" to constantly battle with ridiculously superficial insecurities like...

"Do I photograph flowers too much? It seems that 'serious photographers' I run into in the world of social networking always apologize when they feature a flower shot. Am I showing my amateur underbelly by constantly taking and posting photos of flowers?"

And thoughts like...

"Am I following proper blog etiquette? Should I respond to every comment in the line of comments? Should I respond privately via email? Does it suffice to simply visit a commenter's blog and enjoy their space? Where is Emily Post when you need her?" [Yes, I realize there's a pun there... and I find it rather amusing that in this day and age we don't have an Emily Post for posting.]

Then...

"Maybe I should turn off commenting all together and save myself these mental gymnastics."

Or this is a "favorite"...

"If my blogging friends ever met me in person they would run the other way wishing they never had. I would be a huge disappointment to them if they ever met me and I'd be exposed as a big fat charlatan. And, heaven forbid, if they saw my house or my garden! Their ideal vision would be shattered because it's just a house in need of more repairs and a garden in need of constant weeding."

My poor Hubby (and sometimes family members) get to actually hear me as I try to work through these thoughts out loud. I feel so sorry for them. Like the profusion of pungent jasmine along the garden fence, I must be a tangle of overwhelming nonsense far too often.

I wish I could say that I was also like the annual-blooming jasmine and my own "insecurity bloom" happened only once a year.

Alas, I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Great! Another thing I can feel insecure about.

Send me no flowers... bring me garden gloves

Yes, I am invoking the title of one of my favorite Doris Day and Rock Hudson flicks, but for good reason.

I was sitting working in the studio this evening, when Hubby came home. He had stopped at the store on the way home from work (he does the shopping and wanted to pick up a few things--yes, I'm married to Superman).

He stopped in the studio doorway to share some of the things from the bags and pulled forth lovely pink garden gloves.

I've said it before... he knows me so well.

I suppose we all have our rebellious streaks... here are a few of mine

In general, I have a very "straight arrow" personality. My whole life I've done things by the book, abided the law and I don't even try to sneak a peek at Christmas presents (didn't even try when I was a kid).

But in the garden, it seems I have a rebellious streak.

I know that tulips aren't supposed to do well here and if you do plant them in the garden they'll only bloom one year and then be gone the next. I planted them anyway about 5 years ago. And I left the bulbs in the ground after they were done blooming. Inevitably, every year since at least one or more come back. I'm always surprised when the first one blooms, and it thrills me that I beat the odds again another year. Maybe that's really the thrill of living on the edge that I'm feeling.

I know oxalis (commonly known as shamrocks) are essentially weeds. And I know that letting anything grow around the base of a citrus tree isn't good for the tree because it needs all the nitrogen it can get. But as March draws near I can't help but let the glorious green oxalis flourish in the various beds around the garden until it blooms in splashes of yellow buttercup blossoms. It puts me in a mood to go leprechaun hunting like we did when I was young, and until St. Patrick's Day comes and go I feel compelled to let the weeds stay. Aren't Scots-Irish known for being rebellious by nature?

Spring flowers at the base of the olive tree

I also know that photographing in direct sunlight is against the rules of photography because of the severe shadows that bright light casts. One should either photograph on an overcast day, photograph in the early morning (not going to happen with this night owl), or later in the day as the sun casts a golden glow before it sets. But I often throw that rule out the window when I see a beautifully backlit tulip just begging to be photographed. I can't help it.

I'm such a rebel.