Category: randomness

Dear World –

An online idea suggester came up with the idea that I should write a letter to the world. At first I said “bah!” and clicked away to look at something mildly funny on YouTube. Or maybe I played a nonsensical flash game. Can’t remember.

Turns out this idea kind of stuck to one of the many folds of my wrinkly brain, and I’ve been thinking on it a lot lately.

Maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe it’s time we talked.

First of all, I should say, I’m a big fan of you, World. I mean…you’re so worldly. In a single moment you create life, bring death, facilitate anger, joy, sadness, depression, hunger and toothache. Inside your wide waistline, you encompass the tippy top of the Rocky Mountains, the endless blue bottom of the Mariana Trench. And cheeseburgers.

You’re a wonder. No doubt.

But it’s not just the continents and water; there are all of these people. ALL of these people. Whew. 6.7 billion of us little parasites are wandering around, riding this cosmic whirlygig hoping to have a good night’s sleep and enough money to feed our families and maybe a reason to smile once or twice day.

Lately it seems hard. Just the nature of living and standing with two feet on a planet spinning around 1,000 mph right at this very moment seems like it takes a whole lot of effort.

It feels better when it seems like we’re all in it together, but more and more I feel like we’re not all in it together. I mean, not that I’d expect we’d all get along famously and never squabble, but it seems like sometimes we’re a bit less interconnected and a bit more inconsiderate every day.

Take the news that my local area is all abuzz about: the rampant fights, brutal beatings and a shooting at a football stadium. A game! And people were shot fer crissakes! Which means people were packing heat to go to a goddamn football game to watch overly large men run around and bash into each other. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? (<-- to borrow a phrase from Penn Jillette)

My friends in the UK tell me that hooliganism is a part of their favorite sport as well, and laugh at my naïveté. I’m sure the people in Lybia would look at me like was a cross eyed dodo bird for even contemplating this. They’d probably be happy if their daily dose of violence was limited to a sports stadium.

So maybe it’s just that I’ve been spoiled. Maybe I need to toughen up? Maybe my mom is right when she says I’m too sensitive. I mean, hell, I whimper when I have blood drawn.

I just don’t like that it has to be this way. I’ve seen communities where no one locks their house or car because there’s no need. Where if someone gets hurt, it’s a reason for the community to pull together not get blown apart with finger pointing and more anger.

Perhaps I long for something that can no longer exist when 6.7 billion of us are crawling around on top of each other trying to find the best wifi signal so we can flame someone on Facebook and snipe the last bid on eBay.

Don’t know what’s got me so melancholy. I did go see “Breakfast at Tiffanys” on the big screen this weekend. Maybe seeing something set in a more refined time seems better by comparison. Then again, was it so good? Women were still disregarded and the Civil Rights movement was well underway, but by no means resolved.

That’s the thing about nostalgia. It’s rarely accurate.

So maybe 1961 wasn’t any better than 2011. Which depresses me more. 50 years later and the problems are all different and all the same. There’s more of us. We’re meaner to each other. And in some ways we’re better too.

As M. Scott Peck wrote in the first line of the book The Road Less Traveled, “Life is difficult.”

I’ve always bridled at that notion. Why? Why does life have to be difficult?

A wise mentor asked me to read that book and asked me to embrace the concept that life is difficult. It was suggested I learn to find a way to flow with it and not try so hard to swim against it. Maybe life would actually be easier if I just accepted that life is and always will be difficult.

But swim, I still do. Maybe my sense of values and honor compass has gone all screwy, like a dolphin swimming too close to a submarine. I think I’m going the right way while in reality I’m getting ever more lost.

I don’t think it’s that much to ask that we could all live a life that was peaceful and full of joy. That we didn’t all have to worry about the stock market and random acts of violence, and countries either falling or failing.

I had a boss for a brief amount of time who, when I would present her with some work related issue that was worrying me, she’d simply tell me to “rise above it,” which was never very helpful. She was a terrible boss.

But maybe there is some wisdom there.

I don’t know. Really. I just don’t know.

And sometimes that scares me.

Oh dear, my friend World, I think my letter has wandered off into the deep weeds. I hope I don’t encounter a rattle snake out here. Is that the road over there? I can’t recall. I think I have some lemonade in the Jeep. Want some?

Well, anyhow. I guess I’m grateful that you’ve given me all these years of riding on your back and you’ve given me enough matter in my brain bucket to have the luxury of thinking about such things.

There are some things I’d change if I was in charge. But mostly, I guess we do ok.

I am going to keep shaking my fists at people who steal parking spots and continue lamenting the jacked up state of healthcare. Some things are just too ingrained to pass up.

Thanks for listening. Let’s do this again soon, yeah?

Your pal,

K






Image from PlayPennies.



I know, right?





“Please hold and the next available representative will take your call.”

Then that music starts up again, and it’s always gotta be some earworm song that won’t get out of your brain and you find yourself humming it in the produce section of your grocery store.

Sometimes it’s not the whole song, just a portion of it. Or some evil Muzak version of a good song (I have literally heard a Muzak version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”).

It’s just wrong. For a nice girl like me who spends A LOT of time each day on the phone, it’s crazy making.

Not that I need any help.



Image from Shoebox Blog.


When In Rome…

I’ve spent the past several days at another location of my company. It’s a smaller location, but the offices are very nice and the people are incredible.

It’s weird being in my own company yet still being the outsider. People have to show the way to both the restrooms and the break rooms so that I can make it through these crazy busy days.

Since this is a different location, all their stuff is different. I mean, it’s deceptive. That looks like the same coffee machine, but really, it’s not. It makes different coffee in a different way (pods vs filters here) and though the desk phones are the same make and model, how you dial out is different.

Ok, fine. I’m adaptable. I’m learning.

But there is one area where I’m a little concerned. It seems such a small thing…and yet.

Let me explain.

As any hardworking gal should, I try to drink a lot of water during my day. Keeps the old brain sponge hydrated and running clean.

I carry my own metal water bottle so I can have water on hand at all times. When empty, I simply fill up this bottle from the company’s water dispenser and keep sipping away.

They use a different kind of water dispenser here at this facility. It connects to the water supply out of the wall instead of using an upside down bottle. It looks a little something like this:



Ok, fine. Your common everyday water filter and dispenser. Great.

Only.

This one has three taps you must choose from to get your H2O.

Here’s what I mean:



Now, I realize I’m not the sharpest knife in the company drawer, but I think I can mostly work this out.

The one on the left with the red droplets; that must mean hot water, right? For tea and instant coffee.

The one on the right featuring the blue droplets must be cold water. Fine. Good.

But what about that one in the middle?

With the, uh, grey water droplets?

Isn’t gray water a sort of bad thing? As in, don’t drink it?

Are they really piping water from the bathroom sinks and laundry room through this dispenser?

And if so….ew.

Ok, I know, I know. The middle nozzle is intended to be warmish water or room temperature. At least I think so, anyway.

But I have to say, I avoid that middle nozzle

You never can tell. Maybe these people are all so chipper because they’re all just really sedated by all the contaminants in their water.

I go back to the Bay Area tonight and my simple two nozzle water system. These new fangled things are just too complicated for a simple minded gal like me.


Pardon Me, Waiter. What Is this?

Over the past few days The Good Man and I had some things to celebrate, so we got out of town for a few days.

We headed up north and checked into a really fancy schmancy hotel. The Good Man had planned the weekend to be a surprise for me, and it was amazingly good stuff.

I’d been advised to bring one nice outfit for a night out, and so I did. Friday night I put ‘er on and off we went to dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant.

(In case all Michelin means to you is tires, a starred restaurant is a really big deal.)

So being the New Mexico hayseed that I am, I made sure I worked very hard to mind my manners, use the right fork and not laugh too loud inside this very expensive and fairly quiet restaurant.

Of course, that only lasted through my first Sidecar martini drink.

Once the sugary brandy took hold, all bets were off.

Which just happened to coincide with the end of appetizers, when our fantastic server began setting up our table for entrees.

Ok, so a nice sold fork was laid down. Good. Then kind of a funky scroll sided knife, but a knife nonetheless.

And then another utensil was put next to the knife.

It looked like this:



Shaped like a spoon, but flat like a knife. I was perplexed. I had NO idea what in the sam hell it was.

Then I watched the waiter lay out a similar place setting for The Good Man.

Before the server could get away I blurted out “Excuse me, sir? But what is this?” and held up the alien utensil.

He took a step backward. I reconsidered my manners.

“My apologies,” I said. “It’s just that my mother taught me all the forks, but I have no idea how to use this.”

He laughed, “It’s a sauce spoon, your entrée comes with a wonderful sauce and this will help you get all of it.” Then he showed me how to use it.

And, well, by god that flat spoon did work pretty darn good on that tasty sauce.

I mean, where I come from we sop up all the good sauce with a biscuit, but whatever. I guess if they want me to use a fancy spoon, I will.

Didn’t stop me from licking it when I was done.
.
.
.
.
.
(ok, no, just kidding about that last part)



Image from Connox Living Design Shop.


Am I? Is it? Could It Really Be? Oh. Nope.

As I learn more and more about the art of photography, I’ve become enamored by the retro look photography made popular by the people at Lomography, Hipstamatic and Instagram.

I own several plastic cameras and I actively use the Hipstamatic app on my phone. I’m not as in love with Instagram, but I see a lot of fun photos posted on Flickr and Twitter, so why not?

While perusing the Photojojo online store (I’m a little bitch for Photojojo), I stumbled across the Diana+ lens and adaptor for a DSLR camera.

I was stoked! I don’t own a Diana, though I do own a Holga, and the thought of having the look of a Diana lens on my digital camera made me happy. So I ordered it.

Today I went out in the yard to take the new lens for a spin. I’m not going to lie to you, this is a tough lens to work with. It has zero electronics inside so shooting is all manual. This fact is actually good for me as I need to keep practicing my exposure triangle (ISO, aperture and shutter speed).

When I came inside and took at look at my photos, I felt only sort of “meh” about all of them.

Here’s the best of the lot.



Copyright 2011 by Karen Fayeth

After fiddling with these photos and playing with contrast, I went online to take a look at what others were saying about the lens and maybe pick up a few tricks.

I stumbled across this review from a user named Blunty3000 titled “Stupid Hipster Lens Review – the ‘Dreamy Diana'”.

Blunty’s main gripe seems to be that he had to pay “Sixty sodding dollars” for his lens. From what I can discern, Blunty is from Australia. I only paid thirty sodding US dollars for my kit of lens plus adapter.

Blunty seems to use this product review as a platform to eviscerate hipsters everywhere. Ok, fine. I get that. As for me, I like the retro look photos. I own and enjoy quite a bit of the hipster gear.

But wait. Does that make me a hipster?

Nooo. I mean…I’m over 40. I refuse to wear skinny jeans. I think retro photography is awfully mainstream to be hipster anymore.

Then Blunty makes a point that these hipster photographers are “…pining to feel nostalgia for days they are too young to feel actual nostalgia for…”

Ah. Yes. And there’s the difference. I was actually alive in the 1970’s.

I feel nostalgia for years I actually remember. I’m not a hipster, I’m old.

Back then my sister and I shared a suitably uncomplicated (and now very hip) Kodak FlipFlash camera. Ok, it was really hers but when she tired of it, I got it as a hand-me-down.

It looked like this.



Kodak FlipFlash Camera, photo attribution unknown.


Here’s some of the dreamy, out of focus, widely vignetted photos that made me one of the mainstream back then and an almost hipster today.

This is our family’s cat as a kitten. And yes, that is a poster of The Muppets in the background. Note the “soft glow” the vignetting, the all around retro feel. This photo is circa 1981. Very hip in 2011.




This is me posed at the chicken coop behind our place at Ute Lake. I think my mom took this photo. Maybe my sister. I don’t remember. It has that certain je ne sais quoi with the dry grass, the cloudy sky and the rundown gray stucco chicken coop. How very Grapes of Wrath. I place the year to be around 1977.




So after this dark journey of the soul to determine if I’d become a hipster and should then begin my self-loathing, I’ve come out the other side. I shall go back to shooting my retro cameras with reckless abandon knowing I can make all the old timey photos I want. I lived it baby!



Today when I Googled a photo of an old Kodak FlipFlash camera, I found the *perfect* photo. And where did I find this photo? On my own blog. I’d already posted it a couple years ago. I’m becoming self-referential!


Unless otherwise noted, photos are from my personal family albums and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the far right column of this and every page of this blog.