Good ideas

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.

If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Howard Aiken

Bon week-end, toute le monde! I'll be photographing the Dragon Boat race on Sunday. Here's to the Lake Louisa Loonies pulling first place!

Portraits with my Nikkor 50mm

I got this new lens for Christmas and haven't used it much, relying as I do upon my 18-200 lens for almost everything. However, the last shots of the flowers were taken with the 50mm and now I think I love it.

I read somewhere that the 50mm is ideal for portraits, seeing as it lets in a ton of light. I decided to test it last night. Here is my husband yesterday as he rushed off to some black tie event. He looked so handsome in his tux that I persuaded him to stop and pose even though 1. he was late and 2. he hates having his picture taken. This is him, rushed and uncomfortable. The second one includes my son.


Stay tuned. Photos to come of the Dragon Boat race next Sunday which will raise money for the Missing Children's Network! My husband and son are racing along with the Lake Louisa Loonies in the hopes of bringing down Lac Marois. Me? I'm the unofficial photographer (hey, I get to participate and it gets me out of paddling.)

Spring is busting out all over

If this month was a woman, she'd be Dolly Parton in a red corset. We Canucks endure brutally long winters and our summers are all too brief, so when we get a bit of warm weather and a sprinkle of rain, it goes directly to our heads. Pardon me while I tiptoe through the tulips and do the Snoopy dance.

More from the garden

Well, truth be told it's not my garden (except for the second shot of the lily-of-the-valley) but my neighbour's garden where Eldest toils in the soil every summer.





I completely missed the tulips this year except for that last photo. However, I did wander over to the garden the other day and took a few shots. This is where my daughter works on bended knee, planting and weeding and coaxing the flowers into bloom with a little sweet talk and a lot of manure.
Kathy is the kind of boss everyone should have. She emailed me to say she wouldn't be there this morning to hand my daughter a coffee and homemade muffin, so could I please make sure she has a coffee in hand before she leaves the house. What a sweet deal. That's not to say Eldest doesn't work hard. She does, gardening every day for about six hours, and she has the achy breaky knees and lower back to prove it. Coffee and baked goods certainly ease the pain.Do you remember your first job? I used to babysit for 25 cents an hour, then I moved on to the local A&W for a huge pay raise of $1.35. For that I had to dress in dark brown and orange polyester, work a full shift until 1 a.m., then sweep out the parking lot, clean the toilets after the drunks got through with them, swab the floors and counters, clean the machines and balance my float. If I came up short, I didn't get paid because I had to make up the difference. Then I had to walk home around 3 or 4 a.m. depending on how much cleaning there was (i.e. how badly the drunks aim was off in the toilet.) No coffee and muffins, but we got all the root beer we could drink.

A few more portraits from the wedding

You may kindly disregard this post if you are not a member of the family. I won't be offended. Some garden shots will be up tomorrow morning if flowers are more your thang, but for the moment, a brief sampling.


Mother of the bride greeting one of the shorter guests. I can say this now because probably in a matter of months, I will be the shortest member of the entire clan.
And father of the bride.Son and nephew, looking fine in suits. I almost don't recognize them without sweats. I think they should dress this fine every day.
My husband with his sister, three brothers and parents. My brother-in-law and family. They abandoned Canada to live in the U.S. but we try not to hold that against them. He sells drugs for a living. (He says they're vitamins....whatever)
My nephew Mike. He abandoned Canada to live in Germany. At least he's coming back in six months. Right? Right?!
Danke. Unt vielen Dank für das Zurückkommen mit einem reizenden Geschenk für Ihre Tante. Ja Ja. Wienerschnitzel unt gesundheit.
This is where a portrait of John and Maureen and family should go, but Moe was always behind the camera.Proud dad with daughters. I had a hand in that gene pool, thank you very much.
How cute is my nephew? Here he is in a brief moment of introspection.

and a moment laterMy mother-in-law, looking beautiful as she always does. I think there's a smidgen of her gene pool in my daughters as well, lucky them.
My nieces, the bride and her sister, at the rehearsal dinner. They were getting fed up with all the photos and hoopla but bravely posed while muttering threats under their breath.

I have the video as proof.
My daughters and niece making a cousin sandwich. My daughter later complained about her "sore lobes" after those big red earrings pulled on her ears all day. Such is the price of beauty. It has become a catch phrase around the house. Say, how are the lobes today? Not bad, not bad. It's a good lobe day.wait just a doggone minute....
how did Medved sneak in here?

And what was I up to last week?

We had a birthday (Eldest Daughter), a dinner and slide show with the Canadian Chinese Cultural Society (awesome), a rehearsal dinner to meet my niece's new inlaws, my niece's birthday (same night), a wedding (Birthday Niece again) here in Montreal and then a graduation from university on the east coast (Eldest again) all in the same weekend. There was a lot of running around both to and from the airport, although the trip to the convocation in New Brunswick almost didn't happen.

A ride to the airport that normally takes 10 minutes turned into an hour due to accidents blocking every available road early Monday morning. Every alternate route we tried was clogged with cars and trucks and I had no choice but to breath deeply and try not to freak out while my husband tried every side road and service road to no avail and my daughter sat quietly in the back seat. We finally arrived and raced to the desk at the airport within minutes of the departure time only to be told the doors were closed, too bad so sad, you're out of luck.

After I did some serious begging, the rep called over a manager who confirmed it was not going to happen. We had been up until the wee hours the night before at the wedding reception and I basically poured myself out of bed and into the car that morning, so I had few reserves left and even fewer inhibitions. I did what any mom would do - I burst into tears. The manager shifted his walkie-talkie, hesitating, mentally calculating the problems he'd have holding the plane for a few minutes versus talking this hysterical mother off the ledge and having to deal with the aftermath. He wisely, nobly, unbelievably opted to hold the plane for us if we agreed to run. All I can say is thank goodness I chose comfortable shoes that morning, my feet having given out on the dance floor at the wedding. We did the Amazing Race style bolt down moving sidewalks and corridors, yelling "COMING THROUGH" at hapless passengers and threw ourselves onto that plane. The flight attendant took one look at my red face and heaving bosom and said, "I'm thinking you could use a bottle of water, am I right?" Bless his soul, I needed more than a water at that point, but it was gratefully accepted.

Long Live Air Canada!!

So....Eldest graduated from university with a degree in English Literature and minors in French studies and Political Science. Here she is with her buddy Curtis, pondering their futures.

There was a lot of hugging and kissing this weekend, both at the grad...

and at the wedding of my niece.

Hugging.
Kissing.
Hugging.
Kissing.
And here are the cousins. The cousins are really close. A holiday of any kind is always prefaced by "Are the cousins going to be there?!" It's a really special relationship they share. (Note the traditional Canadian bouquet the bride is holding.)

Ooh, a The Hills Are Alive moment.

And in the end, they all lived happily ever after....