Theme Day: The Future

Winter Solstice is to be on December 21st, after which the days begin to lengthen towards Spring. While I took this photo this past summer, I suppose these petals could be seen as showing the progress of time; as they fade and return to Earth, they will become the soil that feeds future roses. 

A Bit of A Painting

 Just a section of one of my little paintings.

Until now, I hadn't realized how thick the outlines are around the swimmers' bodies. I will correct that on future versions, paintings in which I hope to create interesting positive/negative shapes, as well as give the girls the illusion of movement. 

Into the Valley of the Little Flags

 Surveyors were out in droves this past summer, planting little markers to indicate the locations of telecommunication lines. These were at an intersection near downtown, a profusion of little orange flags on wires, looking less like markers for vital cable lines than some sort of haphazard planting of flowers.

And A Happy Friendsgiving to You All - Dew on the Alligator

A local landscaping company has contracts to supply and tend numerous planters all over the city. It always surprises me the combinations the designers put into the containers.

 One year, I saw huge pots filled with various shades of green, while on this morning the plants were of contrasting colors, as well as lumpy set against pretty. Their appearance was given the added glamor of being misted in sparkling dew.  

Let's See If I Can Make This Work

 

One morning last summer I was aboard the bus, on my way downtown. I happened to look across the aisle where my eye was caught by the unique reflection, the safety light from another passenger's electric wheelchair, reflected in the stainless steel baseboard of the bus interior. 

Of course, I took a picture.

Not long after I took this photo, the hard drive on my PC took a death dive. It was only eighteen months old. I was good to it, I don't spend time on weird websites, so I don't know why it went kaput. At about the same time, my house phone died and my cellphone was taken over by viruses, making it unusable. 

Slowly, I've been making my way back into my on-line world: I bought a new house phone so I could order a new cellphone. Its delivery was delayed a month due to the back-ups on the shipping docks. I imagined its slim black rectangle, swathed in pink bubblewrap inside a small brown box, inside a cardboard carton, stacked in a shipping crate shoved inside (possibly) a MAERSK container, which was stacked, among thousands of others on an immense container ship. 

Somehow, it all works. Until it doesn't. We've all gotten so used to having anything we want dropped into our hands, that we don't take the time to appreciate the work it takes for us to have it. Whether it be a lacy bra, a pair of sneakers, a new car - or a life-saving medicine, somehow or another it's come to us through a series of workers we'll never see, but who deserve our thanks.