Category: Theme Thursday

$2 and a Moment

Yeah, ok. I caved to the masses.

I’m quite suggestible you know.

I come from a family that enjoys trips to Vegas and the occasional Indian casino. My family loves to gamble (responsibly) and I do too.

So today I threw two one dollar bills into the toilet and bought Mega Millions tickets.

Every news outlet, radio talk show, and coworker is talking about the half billion potential payoff.

Yesterday on All Things Considered, they had some whiz bang mathematician guy who chastised all of us in describing the impossible odds.

I think that’s when I decided to throw my hard won dollars in the ring.

I know the odds are ridiculous. I know it’s a waste of money. I know, I know.

But for a moment, a little moment, it’s fun to think about what if?

I think the concept of what if is a powerful one.

There are those in the ranks of woo-woo and esoteric who would say that what if is a good thing. It’s an order placed to the universe.

I think what if gives you a chance to see what you can accomplish.

When you pull out a road map, you look at where you are today. You look at where you want to go (what if) and then you map the highways, byways and dirt roads that it will take to get there.

Do you get lost sometimes? Sure.

Take a wrong road because it looks interesting? Of course.

Run out of gas? Absolutely.

And then, sometimes, with a little luck and a little diligence, you arrive at your destination.

So for me, the what if daydreaming is simply me being the cartographer of my life.

What if’ing about half a billion dollars might be ridiculous to some. To me, it’s a nice way to end a crazy busy day at work. My mind is too tired to parse this spreadsheet in front of me. Instead I’ll gaze out the window and daydream. For just a few moments.

And then, because it’s the last work day of the month, I’ll collect my regular paycheck, pay my rent and then go home to The Good Man (my odds of finding him were pretty sparse too, but I must have drawn that map pretty gosh darn well).

So ok. That’s worth at least $2





This week’s Theme Thursday is: moment.



I Don’t See a Forest? Those Trees Are In My Way!

Sheesh, sometimes I worry about my brain. I can usually rely on it to make the connections I need and I’m off to the races. But sometimes…sometimes I just can’t seem to rattle all the pieces into place.

This week the Theme Thursday theme of fixture was really baffling me.

When I don’t get an idea right away for the weekly theme I usually start by looking the word up in the dictionary. Then I’ll do a Google images search. Then I’ll look at my own trove of photos, both on my phone and on my computer, to try for ideas.

And, well, fixture wasn’t speaking to me this week.

Last night, as I lay in bed getting ready to sleep, I was thinking on this dilemma. Sometimes when I’m really sleepy the best ideas come around. My brain works more smoothly after throwing off the bounds of the day.

So I tried to rev up the old brain motor. I was like “come ON. I know I can do something with fixture. Don’t I have a photo or an idea? I have to make it work. Come on brain.”

Then I closed my eyes. I gave up, thinking, “whatever. I’ll skip participation this week.”

That’s when my clever ol’ brain got in gear.

Suddenly my eyes shot open, because I remembered I had this photo, taken on my phone, just this week:




I have looked at this photo a thousand times trying to get ideas and somehow the phrase “light fixture” never crossed my brain. What. The. Heck?

And then, one might ask, why do I have a photo of a light fixture?

Because among my many weird obsessions is looking at and often snapping a photo of the ceilings in San Francisco’s oldest buildings. I dig the old tin ceilings and miss how builders used to really pay attention to detail when a new place went up. I miss that workmanship and that style.

This photo was taken at a fave restaurant on Union Square called Sears Find Food. Established in 1938, this place embodies the essence of old San Francisco. I *adore* this restaurant. The food is awesome. The service is impeccable. The location on the heart of Union Square rocks.

Speaking of location, the day I ate at Sears I spent some time wandering around Union Square and felt gutted to see all the old places closing and the shiny new moving in. I wasn’t able to capture a photo, but there was this really old school tailor storefront that now has a huge “coming soon” false front around the door. A Jimmy Choo shop is moving in. *sigh*

I did manage to snap a quick shot of this longtime fixture on Union Square, The Gold Dust Lounge, established 1933.

According to our local paper, it’s soon to shut its doors as well. The building owner wants to convert it to retail space and has a clothing store all lined up.



From an article in the SFGate (I couldn’t have said it better):

The issue is particularly touchy downtown, where the sultry saloons, strip joints and savory and not so savory amusements that once lined Powell Street have steadily disappeared over the years. True or not, there is a perception in some city circles that corporate stooges are busily wiping out San Francisco’s colorful bacchanal traditions and turning everything retail vanilla.


So, I guess my tired brain is actually doing ok. A little slower to make the neurons snap into line, but I got there.

Turns out I really did have something to say on the topic of fixture.



The Moist Season

Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come. — Thomas Carlyle


*sigh* I hope he’s right. I really, really hope he’s right.

Rain, rain, go away…and leave daffodils in your wake.



The view today



And yet, there’s still something valuable about all this rain.



Cherry blossoms, the promise of Spring.




Today’s Theme Thursday is: Season

Quote found at BrainyQuote.


Reaction

From Wikipedia: “Rust is a general term for describing iron oxides….the term is applied to red oxides, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture. There are also other forms of rust, such as the result of the reaction of iron and chloride in an environment deprived of oxygen…”

Yup. A little metal. A little salt air.

Reaction.

Photographic magic.



Copyright 2010, Karen Fayeth



Today’s Theme Thursday is: Reaction.

Photo subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page.



On The Double

So I’m entirely too late to do a Theme Thursday, but I don’t care. I’m doing it because here, on Sunday, I finally came up with a good idea.

This week’s Theme Thursday word is: Double.

Here we go, a short short story with an ode to the word double.


—————-

So I was feeling kind of hungry and there was nothing good to eat in the house. Trying to calm down the beast of hunger, I chomped through a pack of DoubleMint, but that didn’t help. Exasperated, I put on my doublet and filled my pockets with dubloons and left the house on the double.

I did a double step down the boulevard, looking for a nosh.

Spotting my destination, I fell in to the In-n-Out burger where I satisfied my urge, doing double duty with a Double-Double and a large side of fries.

Well that was pretty darn good, but I was not quite full, and I left that burger joint looking for a little something more.

Right across the street was a Double Rainbow ice cream store where I doubled down on a double scoop of ice creamy goodness and ate it all down.

With all that burger and ice cream in my belly, I was truly in double jeopardy and had to undo the top button on my double knit polyester pants.

Now I wasn’t just full, I was double full, so I decided to keep walking so I could work off a couple calories.

As luck would have it, I rounded a corner and saw a bunch of kids doing double dutch. I hopped right in, jumping to the double rhythm long enough so I got double indemnity from the calories by having both fun and exercise.

To reward my hard work and to finish the day, I popped in a piece of Double Bubble and chewed it hard. I tried to blow good bubbles, but it didn’t work. The gum was stale. I took that pack back to the store and demanded a double my money back guarantee on my purchase.

With my refund, I bought a disposable camera to document my day. But I must have used it wrong, because all the prints came back as double exposures. And I ordered double prints!

Ugh. I don’t got no digital camera (<- double negative) so I guess I'm out of luck. Maybe I oughta go to Vegas where I can drop double nickels and try to hit double diamonds and win the double jackpot. Then I can buy a double lens camera and capture my double good days. Instead, I went home and got into my double bed and had beautiful dreams of riding a double decker bus and drinking double espresso. And that's all I have to say about that.






Image from Harvey Park District.