An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
In honor of my late father’s birthday today, I posted five new paintings to the One Word Art gallery.
And in honor of Gary’s participation in Nashville AIDS Walk, fifty percent of any One Word Art painting sold between now and September 30 will be donated to his team. You can do good and own art–or gift it to a friend!
Spotted cat getting sun in a second-floor window.
Was spotted back.
Cat showed utter disregard for camera and photographer.
Current Photo Friday theme: Eyes
Some of you may remember Sniper Kitty from a few months ago. I hadn’t realized he was part of Compound Security, protecting the property from the Tim Stalkers, until Tim explained it.
Tim and Rexford are spending a few days at Green Acres, and somebody’s treating their absence like a big vacation.
Trust me, that was no cat nap. He slept there for hours, leaving only when I finally had to let the dogs out. (Sorry to say, they aren’t cat fans.) I probably need to start paying Sniper Kitty in water, just to be on the safe side.
Occasionally when I’m getting into my car to leave The Compound, I can feel eyes watching me. I always automatically scan an upstairs window in Tim’s apartment, where he made a little spot for EZ, then Tyson, and sometimes Rex, to watch the world. Wednesday, when I got that eerie feeling of a steady gaze trained on me, there was no doggie in the window. Then my eyes shifted left, and I saw:
Which upon closer inspection, became:
Cats crack me up.
On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Several decades later, I would first “discover” him through The Sun Also Rises and develop a passion for every word he wrote, even those published posthumously, and for learning every thing I could about his life. Maybe I wouldn’t have been friends with him–I’m definitely not about big-game hunting in Africa, and his attitude toward women was often abysmal. But I fell in love with his language, his passion for the great outdoors, and the moral codes of his characters, and I’ll make no apologies for that.
In 1987, the year before Tom and I married, we took a vacation with friends to Florida that included a drive down to Key West. Since I was there, I opted out of some other group activity one morning so that I could spend time at Hemingway’s Key West home. It’s been too many years ago for me to remember details about where on the property I took some of these photos, but I offer them to anyone who’d like to enjoy them as a celebration of the birthday of one of our greatest American writers, Ernest Hemingway.
I do have a lot of New Orleans photos to post, but the one below is my favorite of all those I took. When I got to the Lost Apartment, Greg gave me a strand of beads he’d picked out from his massive Mardi Gras bead collection. He also gave me a throw from the Krewe of Muses. And Nicky, who I’ve heard called Satan’s Kitty and The Vicious Beast, took my beads away from me and then went after my throw of Muses shoes.
Bead thief notwithstanding, Nicky’s really more the sweet little Skittle Greg and Paul sometimes call him–you can tell by that adorable face.
This week’s Photo Friday theme: Unfinished.
A friend was cross-stitching something in Steve R’s hospital room during that last month before he died in 1992. It seemed to soothe her, so later, I began to learn how and thought I’d cross-stitch this simple piece for his parents. They had a white cat named George, and this reminded me of him and their farmhouse in Minnesota. I began it in 1996, intending to give it to them for Christmas. I could never finish it, and eventually I figured out why and wrote a poem about it. The poem and the unfinished cross-stitch are framed together and hang in my house.
Every week the Photo Friday site provides a theme and a list of links to photographers from around the world who’ve submitted a photo for that theme. I don’t count myself among the “real” photographers. I just enjoy coming up with something, either new or from my old photos, to match the theme.
For those of you who visit here via my link on the Photo Friday site, thank you for letting me see your world through your lenses.
There is something so wrong about cats listening to music.