I let one co-worker get so far as typing “Female Urination” into his work laptop’s Google search before we pointed out that pressing Enter would cause every security person in the building to come bursting through the door. I pulled up search on my iPhone – the single greatest reason to own a smartphone on the planet is to be able to do searches without invoking the “red corporate security screen of death”.

We found the product in question – the “Go Girl“. At the time, Amazon had it for $4. How could I NOT buy one for $4? Plus Amazon Prime’s $3.99 overnight shipping meant I’d have it today. Oh, yes. Yes indeed.

UPS dropped off the package before I was even out of bed this morning. My room is over the back door, and I heard my friendly UPS driver yell out “UPS!” and I knew it was my lucky day. Sent the boy to fetch the package and ripped into it.

That looks vaguely, um.

And here is the booty: a plastic storage bag (for after you use it), two squares of toilet paper (obviously, not enough) and taa-daa, the Go Girl.

I don’t have photos of me using it, but I did use it, right before I took a shower. It was weird. It worked fine; no, uh, spillage. It would be awkward to have to do something with it immediately after use (“excuse me while I put this urine-covered silicone funnel in my purse.”) The real test will be trying to use it while I’m dressed. I’m tempted to go out in the woods with it, to simulate a real-world scenario. It would probably be good to have friends giving me beer and encouraging me – you can’t get more real-world than that.

I’ve seen real flamingos, and they seem like they’d be kind of a pain to keep in the yard, what with their need to constantly feed on shrimp and stuff. Sure, my back yard is a bit swampy every time it rains, but I’m pretty sure I’ve only got mosquitoes and ticks out there. No shrimp. So the flamingos would just be really ticked off at me. I think it would be much easier to own this kind. I might have to help them stand after a windstorm, but other than that, they’d be pretty self-sufficient. I like that in a lawn decoration.

Ah, yes, you’ll have so suffer, my children. This one will be fun, though. I picked up an infrared filter for my camera for $25 on Amazon, because it seems like a very cool toy. It’s not the easiest thing to play with, so these first attempts are me, attempting to learn how to take an IR photo. For one thing, you can’t see anything when then filter is in place, so you have to focus and THEN put the filter on. This means if you move the camera later, you have to remove the filter and refocus, etc. And even then, it might not be quite right. Also, you have to do a lot of post production on these photos because they come out violently red/magenta. It’s the nature of the filter. Lastly, if it’s windy like it was today, and your tripod is not very sturdy, your camera is going to move during the 5-30 second exposures you need to take to get the photos. Next time I’m going to try with a higher ISO so that I can use a shorter exposure time. We’ll see if that makes them a bit crisper.

Okay, so now that I’ve set your expectations into the cellar…

I stopped by Evergreen Cemetery in Leominster to take a few shots. The first shot is clear – no filter, to set white balance and focus. The shot after that is the IR photo, post-processing with some of the red left in for artistic purposes.

CLICK TO VIEW LARGER VERSION

Now, shot using the IR filter, 15 seconds at f/8, 35mm lens

The movement in the trees is due to the wind.
This next photo is a straight, no filter, no processing photo.

Here’s that photo converted to black and white. Looks pretty good, but lots of shadows.

This is the one with the filter – it shows a lot more of the details from the shadows, and I think it would look a lot better if the tripod wasn’t all blowy-aroundy.

There is nothing good about this winter’s weather. We’re due for 3-6 more inches Saturday. It’s gotten to the point where my reaction is “oh, only 3-6 inches,” said with the same tone I’d use if someone who regularly shot me with a nail gun was only going to hit me with a board. We are all destroyed. I have reached the “I don’t want to ever leave the house again” stage of winter.

This picture was taken on Friday, January 29th. See the flowers? There were flowers. I want flowers!

I like to take pictures of him, I think because it is tied to my fear of loss and my hatred of growing older and my tendency to hoard things, including memories. Every snapshot captures a moment, and when I look at it later, I remember the circumstances under which I took the photo. Someone was angry and only pretended to smile for the camera and then later we had ice cream and that fixed everything. Or the last time we all went on an outing somewhere before the place closed and was torn down.

I may or may not have an irrational fear of losing things. Places, people, products. They discontinued my soap recently. It’s just one in a long line of products that have been taken away; my favorite flavor of Kool-Aid, my favorite jarred spaghetti sauce. A true hoarder would have had a case of the soap the hallway, so the loss might not be felt for a year or more. Me, I had one bar left when I found out. I’ll find something else that I like – maybe not as much, but it’s just soap. I will adjust to the loss of my soap.

I have two specific photos I’ve taken in my life that I would call morbid. One of was of my grandfather, in his casket. It didn’t occur to me that people didn’t take photos at funerals, but I was just a little kid, I owned a camera, and my parents said it was okay. All the flowers were so pretty; why wouldn’t you take a picture? But looking back, it is an odd photo. I remember taking it. I remember my grandmother looking at me, and me thinking she was checking to see if I was crying. My cousin was crying. I felt guilty because I wasn’t. All that comes back to me when I even think about that snapshot. The other morbid photo was one I took of my son when he was 15 months old. We were taking him in for surgery that morning, to get ear tubes to prevent the constant infections he’d had since he was born. Horribly common surgery for babies, but you have to sign all those papers that say you understand the risk, and any parent who doesn’t break out in a cold sweat signing those may need some kind of intervention. I took the photo the morning we were going in for the surgery. I couldn’t not take one. He was happy, in his red PJs and had bed-head. That’s how I would want to remember him; that this was how he looked, right up until the moment of whatever fate had in store for him (and us.)

Luckily, the surgery went fine, changed our lives for the better, and he just turned 13 last week. I still take his picture all the time. Some part of me just wants to capture all the memories so that I won’t forget, won’t ever forget. Places and people and products get taken away from me all the time, and I guess the only way I can fight back is to take pictures and store them on hard drives, DVDs, shoe boxes and in photo albums. I hoard memories, and if I take a picture of you, don’t get annoyed with me; I’m trying to hold on to you tightly the only way I know how.

On the other hand, I went to Andre Sculpture Park up in Brookline NH and you get to see cool things like the first ice forming on the trail they call the quarry. Cool, right?

Actually, cold.

I am still trying to readjust to daylight. Went to my nephew’s football game to try out the lens I rented: the Canon 70-200mmf/4L (not the IS version). Got some good photos. Right now this one is my favorite, because it really does illustrate the mopping up of the field the opposing team did to us. Number 24 is my nephew. I’m hoping he can still give my sister grandchildren some day.