Chroma Key Me

"Can you see me now?"

The things people do to make movies.

Lens Envy, Gone

Green & Red

So, here's the scene that went down yesterday afternoon:

I'm sitting in an elementary school chair that's four sizes too small for my butt, talking up at Zach's teacher, Miss O'Brien. She and Zach had just gone over his report card and performance with me for this past grading period. He did very well, much improved in the behavior department over last time.

Except...

We started talking about St Patty's day and since Miss O'Brien is obviously Irish she said she did not forget to wear green on Tuesday. At which point Zach thought it would be really clever to say:

"My dad wore green...green leather underpants!"

There was an awkward moment of silence as Miss O'Brien looked at me and tried hard not to picture in her mind whether or not this rather embarrassing act of Irish solidarity might actually be true.

Then we all laughed nervously and I silently resolved to strangle Zach later in the day, slowly and at my leisure.

Hue Today, Green Tomorrow?

Ok, let's vote. This is an unretouched photo taken at just over two months of age. Will Brooke's eyes go brown, stay blue, or veer off in another direction?

I vote blue.

Pressing Matters

I use olive oil in almost everything I make, so I go through a rather large amount of it. The best stuff I have found that I can get in large amounts that won't make us broke is at New Yazmeen Bakery. It's from Lebanon, and it's fantastic. Way better than the tasteless generic Costco stuff, this "oil of the gods" is brimming with green fruitiness and just the right amount of "bite".

They sell it in several sizes, but I get the 1.5L size because it perfectly spaces out my trips to New Yaz. You see, whenever I go there to get my olive oil fix, I also get dinner for the family.

And that's always a happy day, filled with excitement and salivating.

Colors

We met with our painter yesterday. Quite a character. He was expecting us to give him two or three shades of "White or Almost White" from his thin pamphlet and he would be done with us.

Man was he was wrong.

We were his worst nightmare. We showed up with a list of colors that would make a rainbow turn green (or purple) with envy. Every room and hallway is a different color.

Or two.

He's going to start painting today, and it will take him a week and a half of taping and rolling before he gets to leave. I can't wait to see what the whole thing looks like when the dust settles. We took some dramatic chances...

We were pretty surprised that he agreed to do all this painting, he was clearly not expecting such picky and demanding customers bearing paint chips.

On the down side though, we were looking forward to Ingrid flying in to town to help us paint. Now we'll have to think of another excuse to get her here.

The Old Green & Yellow

Say hello to the newest member of our family.

My family has a long history with John Deere. Many of my uncles and cousins are farmers on the western side of the state, and they almost always had a half-dozen or so big John Deere tractors sprinkled across the landscape when we visited them.

Brian and I used to sneak into the shed next to the big barn at my grandma's farm and sit on the tractors. They were big and old, dirty and banged up from many years of hard use. These were the old two-front-wheels-together kind, with seats made of unpadded metal, sitting atop big springs. We would press the pedals and try to turn the big squeaky iron steering wheel.

Sometimes my uncles would take us for rides and let us steer. What a cool vehicle for young boys to ride on. Big. Scary. Dirty. Powerful. Loud. The odd-firing 2-cylinder "Johnny Popper" engine was very distinctive-sounding, that uneven chugging echoes in my head to this day. What a glorious machine. Almost alive.

So when it came time to get a lawn tractor for our new big lawn, there was only one brand I would consider.

The green and yellow one.

Bursts Of Color, On Cotton

Maddie made a tie-dyed shirt at daycare today. She is very proud of it. She even demanded to do her own modeling.