An Interview!

Given by myself, to myself! Some people think that’s sad. . . . Others think it’s AWESOME!

Question numero UNO: Do you ever look at a picture and think “This seems like a different time; or, like, maybe a fairytale?”

Answer: Yes, sometimes I do. Like these ones of Goldie that I took just before the sun was totally gone on Sunday (and just before the two of us headed off to her “It’s Great to be Eight” fireside).

Those two kind of made me feel like I was minding my own business, taking a boring old picture of a few trees by a shed when, suddenly, a ghost appeared in the shots! A darling little girl ghost. Of course, my mind might have been set on that path by the fact that the first shot I took I accidentally blurred ridiculously, so Goldie really did look like a ghostly apparition.

And then there were these. Surely it is some sort of Goldie Locks/Snow White moment we have just chanced upon!

Of course, that means those old apples would have to be . . . POISONOUS, naturally.
(Oh come on, enough with the trendiness of leaving a little color in an otherwise black-and-white picture! I know. I know. I can’t help it sometimes. Trying trendiness. Especially when poisonous apples are involved. Especially then.)

Question numero DOS: Do you have any Valentine’s decorations?

Answer: Yes. Yes we do. We have exactly . . . one. This here wreathe.

Don’t let yourself believe though that I didn’t take full photographic advantage of getting that one small wreathe on our door!

Again, Nancy? With the color thing?

Yes. I know. Sorry. I don’t have a whole lot of tricks in my, rather lacking, editing bag. But here. Here we went a little craaazy with the one Valentine decoration and bright afternoon light.

Question numero TRES: So, sure, we see plenty of those daughters of yours in photos (though we understand Daisy mostly refused to put down her book to help hang the Valentine wreathe), and more than a fair amount of that baby son of yours (who, let’s face it, has no say in the matter), but don’t you have two other sons?

Answer: Yes. It’s true. But the middle son. The one we’ll just call Jesse (you know, because that’s his name), well, he won’t even consider ever pausing or looking at the camera or . . . any type of movement that doesn’t end up in the pictures I take of him mostly only showing the top of his head.

Or, if you are super SUPER lucky, a small glimpse of part of the side of his face, or a distorted view of him in a giant ornament (like Mike caught here).

But we can easily make up in words what we lack in photos when it comes to this kid. For example, it has come to his recent attention that we don’t call each other stupid. Nay, not only do we not call each other stupid, but we never SAY stupid at all – under any circumstances.

If someone had asked me, prior to this point, if I heard the word “stupid” often in my day to day life, I would have said no. However, I would have been mistaken. Apparently “stupid” is being said left and right. LEFT AND RIGHT! (I know because Jesse is given cause to condemn its use daily.)

In fact, recently, it was heard from the pulpit at church. TWICE. (If you can imagine.) The first time, when the speaker mentioned a “stupid” thing he’d done as a kid, Jesse perked right up. “We don’t say stupid!” he said, rather loudly, “We never NEVER say stupid!”

Luckily only a few of those nearest by heard his outburst of righteous fury. He was slightly less contained, however, upon the speaker using the word again at a later point. “UUUGGHHHH!” He practically yelled, “We don’t say stupid AGAIN!”

I can’t be certain whether the speaker heard or not, but I will say that he definitely did not say “stupid” again.

I can only wish Jesse felt as strongly about other things that we don’t do. For example, it would be music to my ears to hear him insisting that we “don’t take vacuums apart piece by piece”.

Question numero QUATRO: Alright. That explains why we don’t see as many pictures of him, but what about your treasured oldest son?

Answer: Hmm. Well. Yes, him. He is treasured, I assure you, and it only bothers Mike and I a little bit that at 11 he is besting us both in the smarts department. Well, perhaps it bothers Mike more than me. I only grumbled a little when Abe and I played a brain teaser game that would show bubbles with numbers in them for a second before the bubbles would go blank and you’d have to recall the numbers well enough to click on them in ascending order, and Abe beat me each and every time. But when he beat Mike at Chess the other night, Mike said that he was banning Abe from Chess for a year while he (Mike) went to Chess school.

But, on to pictures. Sure I might catch him doing his thing – like crashing on his sled the other morning.

But if I actually request his presence in a picture, it goes something like this:

”Mommm, I just don’t really get what you are asking me to do.”

“Mom, please can I just be done now.”

“Fine. Is this what you want?”

Me: “Well, no. Not exactly. Nice try. Go on then. Go back to clicking on bubbles in ascending order.”

Question numero SINCO: Have you ever particularly liked a sign?

Answer: Funny you should ask. Yes, I like stop signs. I kind of want to be a stop sign.

I didn’t realize this until I was looking at those bubble blowing pictures of my kids the other day and noticed that I especially liked the photos that inadvertently ended up with a stop sign in the background. But, to be honest, interviewer, that was a weird question to have asked.

Question numero SEIS: Well, wait a minute here. Do you or do you not like interviewing yourself?

Answer: Yes. Actually, I do. I take it back about that being a weird question. Well done, interviewer.

The end.