365: Red; March 26, Velvet and Ice

Last year's leaves, this day's snow. 

365: Red; March 25, Red, White and Blue: a metaphore

Some years ago, my youngest met a very nice young man at a wedding. In Texas. Not many months later, she saw this young man again, and then again at a second wedding a year later, and then again on a stopover in his city during one of his rare visits there. Said young man is a pilot in the US Air force and was, at the time, stationed at the base in Del Rio, which is five miles north of the Mexican border, in Texas.

I found out said young man not only existed but was starting to look like a permanent fixture by round about means: my daughter told me she'd got her first credit card. I gave her the "pay it off in full every month," speech, at which point she said yes, she had $600 on the card but would pay it off in full. Several questions followed: "HOW did you get $600 on there already? "I bought a flight and rented a car."
"What? A flight to where?"
"San Antonio, and then I'm driving to Del Rio."
"WHY are you going there?"
"To see my boyfriend."
"WHAT boyfriend??"
"David. He's a pilot in training. He's stationed in Del Rio."
....

Anyway. I've recovered. David is lovely. They're engaged and wedding is in planning for next year.

The thing above: David sent this from Afghanistan, where he has been for six months, doing his second tour as a reconnaissance pilot. At the top, an officially-folded US flag and at bottom, a certificate attesting to the flag having been on board and flown in my and my spouse's honour on February 10 2014, and signed by David and three others.

It's the most extraordinary gift I am sure I will ever receive.

I am bemused to note the red part of this flag is hidden inside a locked case. I know it is contrary to think this way but it represents the spilled American, Canadian, Afghan, and British blood and how much of that reality I think we are not really aware of. It's ironic the red isn't showing, as it is a significant part of the whole.

This thing was made in and travelled from Afghanistan to New York and then to my city. The glass did not survive and the surface of the matting is scarred, all of which contributes to the overall irony.

365: Red; March 24, Leftovers

These are the leftovers, or perhaps more accurately, the survivors of the chaos and hell fires (ok, not hell; just a really hot oven filled with flames and smoke).

Everything's better with red wine.

365: Red; March 23, Not burning it down

Sometimes the best laid plans just totally go to hell. Such was the night of the Beef Wellington.

Every possible thing happened to slow down getting dinner on the table, starting with a dog suddenly developing a very weird pain, followed by fog filling the kitchen thanks to lovely fatty beef with a lovely buttery crust starting to smoke, followed by a delicious dinner, followed by said dog becoming really uncomfortable just as the real, shredded coconut topping for the real, from-the-nut, coconut pie caught fire in the oven while everyone poured over the dog.

This is the movement one makes whilst waiving the new, not-yet-burned oven mitts under the fire alarm in an effort to have it quit screaming. What you don't see is three other people extricating a flaming pile of burned coconut from the oven.

365: Red; March 22, Early Celebration

We did a very Canadian thing today... headed off to Canadian Tire for stuff we needed - or at least told ourselves we did - and did that other thing one does there; we wandered up and down the aisles of on-sale items.

March. Three and a half months early, Canadian Tire is getting it's Canada Day party on.

Stock up now, folks... these will be $1.00 each on July 2.

365: Red; March 20, Death, Vindication, Rebirth

These are the shoes worn by the presenter at a talk given by someone I consider a close and loved friend. Two years ago, never in a million years did I imagine I'd ever be in the same country, let alone the same room, getting a hug from this guy. Life is bizarre and unpredictable.

I met my friend at a talk by another person, Christine Shelska, who was speaking about the Discovery Institute in the US. This is the group that has repackaged the ridiculous idea of creationism and calls it "intelligent design" and is foisting it on the minds of young children and changing the textbooks to boot. Ok. I'm done editorialising. My friend was at this talk. I could not believe he was there, that I could get anywhere near him, let alone shake his hand, and I was beyond stunned when, after this talk everyone was heading out for beers and I was invited along.

You will have heard the patriarch of the Westboro Baptist Church - otherwise known as the most hated family in America, or the God Hates Fags people. If you don't know about this family, click that link and read Louis Theroux's article. Louis has done two documentarys on this family and knows them very well.

My friend is a child of this madman. My friend suffered, as all his siblings have, harsh beatings and much abuse at the hands of their father, but worse, grew up in a highly skewed, weird, mind-bendy religious family. My friend literally ran from the house he grew up in at the stroke of midnight, the day he turned 18. He has struggled and been bitterly sad, and he has distrusted, self-medicated and struggled to be normal in a world that he was taught to loath and be terrified of.

In 2001, everything changed. The short story is this lovely, peaceful, soulful, sweet, honest and loving man - who is absolutely everything his father was not - has become one of the most influential and best known voices in the secular, humanist and atheist communities but also leads the charge against bigotry  and hate towards the LGBT community. I'll let you read up.

This is Nate's statement following the death of the man who was his father:
http://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/pages/PhelpsPR

I'm very happy to know him.

365: Red; March 18, International Supper

After having spent a week with my sister and her Mexican spouse in Vegas, I had a massive craving for the food we'd eaten a lot of. Mostly I was craving cilantro. That stuff is good!

On this table, pico de gallo, which is tomatoes, garlic, avocado, lots of cilantro, lime juice and salt; diez millios, which I've certainly misspelled, which is chuck steak sliced very thinly then marinated in orange juice, some Mexican spices and lime and then grilled on the BBQ; papaya, roasted butter nut and acorn squash, salad, which was full of Indian spices and coconut; beer from Montreal and Scotland, and wine from Australia. So the UK napkins were fitting.

This is my crew, which includes one I date, three I made and an orphan we love.

365: Red; March 17, BUSY.

Being in my middle years - ok, middle aged - keeping my girlish figure has become a lot more of a challenge.

I saw a film recently, which I think might have been partially funded by a company that manufactures blenders and juicers. The subject of the film, also a person in middle age, was 60 pounds over ideal weight and was obviously not healthy, so switched to a diet of juice - densely rich and very nutritious juice, however.

I figure this is a good practice, so I've shifted to juice with ground nuts and yoghurt for breakfast and sometimes dinner. It's fine for the most part but on busy days, it doesn't always fill the entire gap... enter the solution; vegetable juice - good - and chips... not so much. But after two weeks of mostly juice, they were DELICIOUS. Oh. And I haven't lost a pound. Probably the damn chips.

365: Red; March 16, Brief Thaw

I know some people are right fussy about the state of their cars and seeing this would horrify them. But see, I have this dog and she likes the park, a LOT.

We had a brief few days of thaw that turned the mounds of snow we had into six inches of slush with rivers running down the hills and pooling in great puddles in the low spots.

I suppose I could have walked the kilometre to the park to save the clean up. But I didn't.

Whatever. It's leather. It'll wash. Dog had a blast.

365: Red; March 15, Lunch Break

A couple times a year, I teach a day-long photography class. I enjoy it a lot and I'm always happy to see the work my students, who are usually new to digital cameras, produce by end of day.

I lunch alone though. My voice is shot by the end of the day, so I take the 45 minutes to my self. Hot water and lemon. Just like some old lady.

365: Red; March 14; Big, Smelly Bay

On this happy day, my work took me out of the city to an acreage. It is only 22 minutes from my door essentially down town.

I spent two hours inside the residence and then came out to shoot the exteriors and noticed horses way, way off down the field.

They saw me but weren't having anything to do with me for about 15 minutes, until I turned my back on them - on purpose; I read somewhere horses will turn their backs on other strange horses as a non-confrontational invitation to come have a sniff.

This tall fellow is some sort of draft horse - maybe Belgian, I don't know. probably 17 and a half at the withers though.  We made friends really fast and I really wanted to jump on. He was a bit skittish probably owing to the wind and my strange smell and my camera, which I let him sniff.

He and the other five have been left out in the pasture for ages, judging by their hooves - which haven't seen a hoof knife for many months, and his mane, which is matted to the point of needing cutting. But he smelled delicious. Why do horses smell so very, very nice.

365: Red; March 13, Wet, panting and happy

Thanks to my insane schedule, my poor doggie hasn't been outside except to pee for three days.

The weather has finally become warm and that means our local park, which was two feet deep in snow, is melting at a rapid pace. Not to be daunted, I popped on the gum boots I keep in my trunk and off we went.

She's soaked but not muddy because she doesn't mind the slush but avoids the mud if possible. Helps to aim the ball for the clean wet, too.

365: Red; March 12; Back at it with a vengence

I have not been back at home for more than eight hours and I'm already booked for the next three days! It's nice to be missed, particularly when those missing me also pay me.

365: Red; March 11; Leaving on a Jet Plane

I am a fantastic suitcase packer. I can't remember the last time I left something important at home. I think that comes from knowing it doesn't matter if I leave something behind; everything is get-able thanks to plastic money.

I bought that watch at the Container Park, an innovative and really cool little shopping complex up in North Vegas - AKA Old Vegas - just off Freemont Street. I like it a lot. It has the same markings on the face as one finds on the selection dial on a camera.

The strap, being a "slap strap" is made of rubber, so comfortable to wear, until water gets in under, so I took this off to wash my hands, just prior to leaving for the airport....

Speed forward two 1/2 hours, I found myself absently wondering if we would be landing shortly and realised at 37,000 feet where this little bauble still was.

365: Red; March 10; Awake Late

So late at night. I'm not sure why I'm still awake, although part of it is due to a really good TV series I have been watching on my trusty tablet. What did people do, before technology, when they couldn't sleep?

It's hot and quiet and I could get up but I'm just tired enough to not want to bother. That, and I'm leaving this place within 20 hours, which means leaving my little sister, my niece and the warm weather here. It's only two hours by air (not including the 3 hours getting to the airport and waiting around) but it's a world away.

365: Red; March 8, Things you can do in back alleys

I went to the arts district today. It was a ghost town. I saw three people in a 12 block radius, not counting the two wedding parties; same chapel, 15 minutes apart. I'm not sure where they keep the arts in this district, unless one counts graffiti, of which there is lots, and it's gorgeous, or bail bond shops, of which there are also lots or wedding chapels, which number approximately equal to the bail bond shops and are located within a block of those. Very convenient, as the bail bond shop is where one goes to have one's marriage annulled.

This particular wedding chapel is a drive through. Yes, you did read that and yes, that's what it means; you drive a bit down an alley way, enter the drive through, pick your wedding from the menu on the driver's side- please speak loudly and clearly into the receiver - and in fewer than 15 minutes, your newly hitched self can be on the way down the one way street towards the bail bond or south down to the strip, where you can drown your newly-wed sorrows.

What you won't find in the arts district - at least not easily - is art.

Just a note...

I know these are out of order. They're not really, because I started posting on the day in question, but finished posting today... this is the reality of the digiverse....

365: Red; March 2: Conventional

Conventioneering, that's what I'm doing this week, with 5000 other photographers from everywhere in the US, Canada, Spain and Mexico, and a few other places, probably, but I didn't get close enough to any of those accents to find out.

Pretty cool fun. Moments of being really intimidated by the quality of some people's work, and moments of euphoria realising I'm doing ok.

I managed not to spend a ton of money too, which is good. At least not on camera gear anyway.

365: Red; March 7, Dirty Food

It's probably because I'm out of my element, but business names down here - and particularly business names in Chinatown, are odd. And borderline dirty, which probably wasn't intentional but probably also shouldn't be a surprise, given this is Vegas. I probably have a dirtier mind than is appropriate for an old person.

365: Red; March 6; Metal Teeth

Vegas is a weird, weird place. Tourists probably don't see it and probably don't ever think about how this city works. "Laws" are fluid here. There is a huge, huge population of undocumented workers here, and because Vegas depends on those workers, as in could not function without them, Nevada is not on the forefront of the move to rid this country of those workers - although the next state over, Arizona, is hell-bent on getting rid of everyone it deems undesirable.

One of the weird legal convolutions is the issue of auto insurance. In my country, you will present registration and proof on insurance to get your driver's licence and you will produce said proof of insurance annually in order to register your vehicle. I am sure there are unregistered, uninsured vehicles on the roads in my country but due to the little, obvious sticker on one's license plate, unregistered drivers don't stay long on the roads.

Here, however, partially owing to that undocumented but critical population, it's a whole other ball game. But don't drive in the wrong direction into the parkade (parking garage, for people not from my province)... don't do that 'cause y'all gonna have your tires pierced. Uninsured? Unlicensed Unregistered? Driving a car on the "repossess list"? Fine. Wrong way into a parkade? No way in hell.

365: Red; March 5, Carne de Mariana's

A ways down the road from my sister's is an authentic Mexican market. It's ubiquitous here but where I'm from, as far as I know (but I have never really checked) we don't have anything like this, and even if we did, it probably wouldn't come with the 99 percent hispanic shopper population.

Add to that, the music is very un-Safeway-esque; proper Spanish music, on the upbeat; the farthest thing from musak imaginable. And there's such a lot of cool stuff including cactus, which is delicous (toss it on the bbq, grill it up, a little salt and lime and delish) and this seasoned meat (toss on the grill, add a bit of lime and roll up in a soft taco shell with some avocado, seasoned mayo, cilantro and queso fresco, devour).

Fun diversion and way, way off the strip. Anything off the strip is good.

365: Red; March 4, Americana

We have to-the-door delivery in our community but literally to the door, not to the mail box. These boxes are unheard of in our city; they're a rural thing in my cultural vernacular. Really American, like something out of a movie.

365: Red; March 3, Loner

I raised my kids in a really safe city but I was totally phobic about them being out of my sight. They weren't out in the neighbourhood without me or some adult and they still joke about how I wouldn't let them cross the road alone until they were 13 - which is an exaggeration but not by much.

I'm visiting my sister for a couple weeks. She lives in what I would call not the safest city in the US. It's full of tourists and because of the weather - mostly always warm, people are always out and up at all hours.
I took my little niece for a walk around the neighbourhood and crossed paths with this lone kid. I'm sure he's all of three houses away from his own place but it stll weirds me out to see a kid alone.

365: Red; March 1: Travel Companion

Heading to Vegas, I had an aisle seat by this guy. I know two things about this guy: he's going to be quiet and not bug me, and, if any conversation happens, he'll have a vocabulary, because he reads in public and still reads hard copy books.

I was bumped out of my seat, however, as there was a family with three babies needing to sit closer together.

I did speak to him at the baggage carousel. Dan Brown, Inferno. He had the same analysis as I have of this book: light, a bit boring and not as intense as earlier novels by the author.

365: Red; February 26, Totally out of hand and dirty

This is my desk. It's dirty, sticky with leftover food because I've been eating three meals a day at this desk, and covered with coffee cup rings - same reason. My hips are killing me from sitting so many hours on a hard chair, and I haven't been outside in days, although the polar vortex is back and it's bloody cold, so I'm not that disappointed... Except for yoga (hot yoga... what a joy on a freezing day), this is my vista. Disaster. Busy, busy six weeks. #killingoffsomedebt

365: Red; February 25, Rebels and others

I grew up "knowing" (because certain adults in my life told me all the time) I was a rebel. I also grew up confused, because I knew lots of rebels - kids who smoked and drank and cut classes, kids who ran away, kids who set stuff on fire, kids who were gay in the mid 1970s, when that was next to a death sentence.

I was a rebel because I didn't necessarily toe the party line - meaning the narrow definition of right and wrong and politics held by those certain adults, and I was friends with those gay kids. I don't think I really knew what gay meant but I know I didn't care either.

I did so envy those real rebels, the kids who dared to pull the fire alarm and run like hell after. I wanted to be that kind of rebel. Instead, I just wrote essays about Lady MacBeth, who was caught up in events she had no control over but was maligned for it anyway.

365: Red; February 24, Chin Chin

I like to think I don't have a lot of bad habits, but I do, just maybe fewer than some people, but lots more than some others.

I like a good book and one stiff-ish drink at night, in bed. It's pretty much my favourite part of the day, when I can get under the sheets, nestle in, crack open my book and get away from the day. Cinzano. Good.

365: Red; February 23, Friend

This is Prija. She was at the party I shot last night. She weighs about two pounds. It wasn't my business but I was afraid she was going to be stepped on, being so small. She was fine though. Super cute. She's like a small cat, except for the bark.

365: Red; February 22, Desire

I'm shooting a party tonight for acquaintances. I've shot for them before and I know it will be a great time - and that these are the exact right choice of shoes for this party... for guests... who'll be able to sit down... not for the photographer. But how cute are these?
#shoefettish #justlikeallgirls

365: Red; February 21: Placeholder

I'm posting this shot, which I made last year, because this is on my mind, "this" being how to grow a strong and healthy family.

365: Red; February 20, Televised Ranting

About three years ago, a friend of the family got a gig as the host of a TV show produced by the local cable channel. It's a civic affairs type program about issues that affect the city and it's residents. To spice it up, the producers added a segment called the Rant Pack.

Our famous friend then called me saying they needed someone with strong opinions to join the Rant Pack. Ok. I'm in. There are five of us; two women and four men. It gets pretty lively sometimes. Good fun. We've been at it for three seasons now. I think we have a viewership but, as the station's owner is a fundamentalist, we're not allowed to talk about anything too controversial, which is unfortunate because man, we sure could.

365: Red; February 19, Honey

This is mead. More specifically, this is spiced honey wine. My eldest daughter and I discovered this stuff about four years ago at an annual wine tasting thing that happens in our city. It is divine. With a roast chicken dinner, it is even diviner.

It's not for sale in our province, however, so when I heard two of our good friends were in Kelowna, where it is produced, I availed myself of social media of the Facebook variety and made a public plea for our friends to please bring us some back.

The fun part is our friends happened to arrive at this meadery, Meadow Vista Honey Wines the very day they opened the doors of their new location and our friends made the first purchase in that location. So that was a good deed done.

Mead is one of the most ancient produced liquids in the world, along with beer. Just on the basis of having been drunk for many, many centuries, it has to be good.

365: Red; February 18, Friends and trust

I occasionally have a day or two when things don't go as planed or work out as well as they could. This week, due to a late winter cold and being all stuffed up and not sleeping as well as usual, I was late for an appointment, which made a stranger upset and also possibly bothered my client, for whom I do a lot of work. I tend to let what was in the end a pretty minor issue that had zero long-term effect, bring me down and make me question my existence...

So, today while I was moping about feeling like so much a screw up, a close friend called. This friend is part of a couple who we've known for a very long time - our best friends. Today our friend rang me and said he needed to talk and that he didn't really have anyone else he could talk to.

The short story is there has been a tragic, unexpected death in his family and he was struggling and just needed to work it around a bit.

None of this is about me except that on a day I was feeling fairly sub-human, someone needed me for a bit and someone's actually serious issues made me put my stuff in perspective.

We talked and drank tea - tea being a great cure-all - for a couple hours and then went out for Mexican.

365: Red; February 17, Random Stuff in Trees

Finding stuff like this in trees - stuff that is random and really has no business being in a tree just makes me happy in a really stupid, puppy-happy way. I like it so much that some person decided to put a little piece of joy up in a tree that is currently without its natural decoration.

I also really like to find shoes that have been tied together by their laces and chucked up over the telephone wires; it's a visual representation of "screw you, conventionalism."

Suits me fine.

365: Red; February 16, Canadian Trees

Random Canadianism in trees... it just made me giggle. hangin' there like nobody's business, with the fermented crab apples.

365: Red; February 15, Saving the world is going to be really tough, 'cause yo mamma don't work here...

Seriously. If people can't manage to get their empty Timmy Ho's into a bin, how the heck are we going to clean up the planet? People talk and talk and talk, but really, I'm not sure if they really know what they're talking about or if they really give a damn.

365: Red; February 14, Being a groupie for once

Four years ago, I cancelled my cable. Partly because it was expensive and partly because I can't countenance paying to have advertising pushed at me, but mostly because I cannot tolerate the idea that any of my dollars go to towards properties like the exploitive Toddlers and Tiaras (which springs from the southern US bible belt and is based on the very, very early sexualisation of little girls) and Honey Boo Boo (also from the southern US and capitalises on that vast swath of uneducated, also-bible-belters).

But I really like good music. My spouse still has cable in the studio so he can watch real-time sports and the news. My one guilty pleasure where it comes to reality TV is the Voice (NBC), which is called a "blind" audition show. It's only blind at the very last stage - the televised portion; the competitors go though lots of auditions before they get to the program, but still. (If you want to have a listen, just click)

This gal, Cassadee Pope was a competitor a couple seasons ago. It was clear from the get-go she was a contender. She was in my city this week, on a tour for which she is opening for another musician. She's really good. I have never gone to a mall to see a musician before. It was worth it. If the second-runner-up, Terry McDermott, ever comes to town, I'll be going to wherever he is too.

365: Red; February 13, Found; Vivian Maier

From the plus-15 spanning 1st St SW, looking south. YYC

Went to an extraordinary film tonight.

In 2007, John Maloof, a realtor and garage sale/auction aficionado, bid on a large box of negatives. He was looking for historical photographs to illustrate a project. He bought the lot for some $350.

He didn't find what he was looking for in those negatives. What he did discover was the work of north America's most significant street photographer. Ever. Except this photographer, Vivian Maier, was utterly undiscovered.

Maloof went looking for anything else he could lay hands on and found many, many boxes of negatives. And then he found many boxes of undeveloped colour film and then boxes of undeveloped black and white film. The sum of it all is the greatest archive of American photographic history that exists.

He also found the dark side of this woman in the boxes and boxes of newspaper articles she kept.

At present, Maloof has a lab in New York City scanning the negatives, eight hours a day, five days a week, and this has been going on for more than two years. Maloof is developing some of the film himself and having much of it done, also full-time, at another NYC lab. The estimates are in the area of 72,000 photographs, not including 8mm films, recordings, cassettes....

Maier's work spans more than four decades, and more than 10 countries. Maier died only weeks prior to Maloof stumbling on her work.

I don't remember exactly when I came upon Vivian Maier, but that meeting was significant. Her style is so compelling and perfect. There are wonderful street photographers in the world, whose works I love, but Maier ...

John Maloof's film, Finding Vivian Maier, was screened tonight as part of the Exposure Festival. It is surprising, compelling, disturbing, brilliant and sad. It is a must-see.

365: Red; February 12, A village of photographers, perhaps...

This city is now 12 days into the 10th year of Exposure Photography Festival, which takes place here and in the two towns west of us in the mountains. As such, the likes of me could be out mingling every night and to several events. My colleague, who I share an exhibition with every year, knows everything going and often calls at the last second - or with an hours notice, like tonight. I had been stuck in traffic for three hours - really! - so was ready for a serious change of pace and possibly something that would sooth my rapidly-becoming-savage breast.

Despite this being a huge city, exhibition space is at a premium, so anywhere with walls (preferably white) and willingness becomes gallery space. The Village Brewery is no exception, and it's a lovely place to hang art. And it comes with beer. So a two-fer!

What's nice about these gatherings of regular folks is there is the not-occasional important-to-artists person mingling. I found out tonight there's a real and lovely man behind the Webster Gallery, and this lovely man said lovely things about my work, which he saw on a drying table at the printers. Is it too late to be discovered for reals?

365: Red; February 11, Repurpose

Tonight, whist folding laundry, I realised, in addition to not enjoying the task, I was folding items I have way, way too many of. Like really, how many towels does a kinda single person need (my adult children have, wash and fold their own stuff)? How many towels that are more than 20 years old does any person need?

I also realised I have loads and loads of sheets for beds we no longer own, some tops and bottoms that don't match and some sets that are brown. Yuck. I don't know where those even came from.

In our city, there is a drop-in centre, which, from the outside looks palatial. I know, for some of the residents and people who use the facility, it is palatial - much more so than a bed under the bridge when it's -20. I know they have a really great industrial laundry there, and these towels, which I don't need and which are in good shape and will benefit greatly from said industrial washing, will be appreciated, as will the sheets. matched or not.

I spend a day, once a year at the Drop-In Centre - the DI, as it's called - volunteering my time shooting for a really brilliant event called Help Portrait - the YYC version of it. This year, I volunteered my time, and. inadvertently, my winter boots.  I'm sure whoever has them needed them badly and I'm pretty sure same goes for my towels and sheets.

365: Red; February 10, Olympic Flame

Super crappy resolution, I know...

The Olympics are on in Russia. To commemorate, the Calgary Tower or the Husky Tower (if you're an older GenXer like I am), is lit up every night. Yes, folks, there is fire on top of that tower thanks to a huge cauldron-like structure and whatever fuel they use - which I assume must be safe enough; the tower is lit up a few times a year for various things, sometimes when someone important dies. I'm enough of a sentimentalist to like it when it happens. It's one of those unifying things that happens in cities. City hall has decided to fly the rainbow flag rather than the Olympic flag, which the city has the right to fly, as this city has also hosted the Winter Olympics. I get the reason for the choice - Russia is backward where it concerns people who happen, in addition to being humans, to also be gay - but I wish both flags could have flown. Might have been a stronger message. But our mayor is awesome anyway.

365: Red; February 9, Family Dinner

We have managed to install a family tradition of dinner most Sunday nights and to invite whichever "orphans" might be about.

Licking the bowl and sharing that little joy is encouraged.

Much wine is had, many stories are told, and in this case a love affair commenced, at our table.

One of this evening's participants is a second-round pick for the Mars One project.  It's 10 years off but the prospect of a loved friend literally departing earth for another planet is a little beyond comprehension. I have mixed feelings but as a life-long Ray Bradbury fan, and someone who thinks The Martian Chronicles (read it here) is a prophetic book, the idea someone we know might actually be one of the first to populate Mars (again...?) is pretty romantic.

365: Red; February 8, Appropriate Footwear

I have a gallery exhibition on at the moment. As I recently learned, red shoes are de rigeur for such things, so, as I have this pair, which I bought in the shop above the gallery where I'm exhibiting. They were the exact right choice.

Our grand opening was a huge success. We couldn't count, because the gallery was packed but we know we had at least 150 people, which I"m sure is WAY over the fire code capacity for the space, but who cares!? It was awesome.

We're part of The Banff Calgary Photography Festival, which is in its 10th year this year. This is our second year of five. Last year we exhibited our work from London. This year is New York. No clue where the show for next year will be shot but New Orleans, Nashville, Geneva and Barcelona are on the list.

We is me and Chris Tait (www.christait.ca).  More here: Click

365: Red; February 6, Stargate Hallway

My spouse has a studio in a condo complex down the road from the house. We often head down there to watch movies on the big-screen TV there and take advantage of a space we always have to ourselves - given the adult kids with jobs and school and their need for some quiet time and space also. This hallway fascinates me for it's uniformity, which is to say what should be uniformity: straight walls, uniform placement of lights, square aspect... except the hallway has a "wow" in it. It's so weird. 

365: Red; February 5, Missing Zombie

My adult kids who still live at home have become beer connoisseurs, so it isn't rare I'll find a bottle of some weird brew nestled in with the variety of sauces and condiments in the fridge. The other night, as I was making pot stickers, and grabbed the necessary thing - Sriracha - I also discovered a bottle of Zombie something-or-other beer. Owing to my phone camera crashing three times in a row, and the owner of said bottle of beer coming home from work very late, very tired and having said beer in her sights, the bottle disappeared from this very spot, just as my phone camera decided to function. Sometimes, technology blows. 

For the record, Sriracha has become a cultural phenomenon in the last few years. Recently, in the California town where it is produced, there was a fight, of sorts, between the townsfolk and the factory due to the production methods making for a VERY stinky six months. There were rumours the factory would be permanently shut down, which caused a massive run on the sauce, which made it impossible to find. Horrors! My spouse bought two of the large size bottles, hoping this would hold us over for a few months until this issue is resolved. 

365: Red; February 4, Busy Food...

I often feel a little panicky over the winter holiday, when work slows down. I'm good at my job, but I don't take it for granted that people change up their service providers from time to time. One has to be really excellent at the work, and also be dependable and reliable.

So when things slow to a halt over the holiday, yeah...

But then things take off again and before I'm really prepared - and in the middle of a really cold couple weeks - I'm scrambling to keep up.

This is my version of meals on wheels: chocolate and a bowl of yoghurt and nuts, which I ate at stoplights on the way to two back to back jobs.

365: Red; February 2, Abstract

Sometimes, you have to pull it off auto - let go a bit of control, zoom out a bit and see what things look like from another perspective. Same with life: sometimes, one must release the reins, pull the camera back in order to see a larger picture, and then re-analyse the scene.

Things usually look a whole lot different when you're not swirling about in the vortex with them.

365: Red; February 1; Old, New, Show

We just installed our gallery exhibition, in the basement of this brick building.

Year two of our five-year project, Tripping the Streets Fantastic.

Installing the show was much less stressful this time around; we know the space and the people who manage it - they're so supportive and are as glad to have us back as we are to be in their space.

The "running around naked in public" aspect of exhibiting one's work never disappears, however.