The Noo Tattoo, 2

I accidentally deleted my tattoo post from earlier. Really, it was an accident.

I put version 2 of the tattoo (in color) on DeviantArt.

And since the comments were deleted with the post, I'll address them here:

Dad said:

The angel seems a little on the passive side. I'm not at all sure that angels (however good) wouldn't be just as active and aggressive as devils. And just as terrible, but in a different way - a way that might possibly be difficult to portray with the palette of colors available to tattoo artists. Tattoos seem far better suited to darkness than light. I'm not at all sure you can get white, for instance. Have you looked into what colors they have available?

That's a very good point! She is pretty passive. I was thinking, for a time, of drawing her along the lines of the battleangel than the singing/praying type, but I went for the the pacificist because: a) the angel and devil are taken from the two women in these drawings I did a long time ago, and the singer/prayer type seemed to match her better; b) The devil is actually more of a seductress than a hell-raiser, which, while not fitting the classical devil stereotype does correspond better to my experience with personal temptation - likewise, the ever-hopeful, positive, and woe-fully underly-righteously-indignant angel fit my experience with personal altruism. In that sense they represent the angel and devil on my shoulders.

I have, however, been mulling over the idea of several other tattoos, one of which is a back-piece of the apocalypse, including spiritually-terraforming angels descending on a cityscape. I think those angels will go more in the awesome, perhaps untattooable direction. I didn't draw this picture, and I'm only posting it because I don't believe it's available on the web anymore, but it's the basis of what I had in mind.

Oh, and all of the colors, including white, are now available, and it looks like their starting to make some real strides in color blending. The white can start to disappear into a pasty skin-tone like mine, but if it's bounded by black lines, I think it will stand out pretty well (based on what I've seen on the tattoo shows on TV).


Sarah said: "sounds like a kinda painful/sesitive place - the wings at least"

I think you're right - where the wings hit my collarbone, it will probably be pretty painful. But if other people can sit through it, I'm hoping I can, too! :)

Michelle's Visit

Just in case you wonder where I've been, Kim's niece Michelle flew in for an end-of-high-school visit over the last two weeks - it was her little summer adventure before starting college. (She got out just in time, too, since Katrina came in right behind her and started dumping buckets of rain.)

So, rather post while she was here, I thought I'd just drop this uberpost today.

The most eventful thing we did with Michelle is take her out to Savannah. We liked the places we'd seen well enough last time and didn't look up anything new, so I won't bore you with all of the same pictures. Here are a few different ones instead:

Someone managed to take this on the road there:


Kim and Michelle resting in a square:


A Demon-Squirrel. Look closely - his eyes are glowing!


My new computer wallpaper:


Two different Golden-Silk Orb Weavers, each with a sneaky little male waiting for the perfect time to dart in and mate.



Michelle caught this Marty McFly wannabe taking the bus to ... nowhere. After two or three minutes following behind the bus around the squares, he didn't end up more than 40 feet from where he started, and he was heading back that direction.



Michelle helped us break our eremetic streak, to the profit of AMC's concession stand. We saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Fantastic Four, and The Brother's Grimm.

The Smiths were my favorite of the bunch - a good summer action-comedy, somewhere between True Lies and Charlie's Angels. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had great chemistry, which apparently made it harder for Kim to watch, since she kept thinking of poor Jennifer Aniston. I was thinking more about Angelina Jolie.

The Fantastic Four were no X-Men. If they could have brought the movie out before Spiderman - when George Clooney's Batman and the odd Punisher or Darkman were the best Hollywood had to offer, this would have been a great comicbookmovie. But the TV-star cast had daytime performances, and the special effects were largely lacking when compared to its more recent competitors. It's a reasonable rental choice, but I think you would enjoy The Hulk more.

The Grimms had excellent scenes, ideas, and images, trapped in a labyrinth of a story with a much less complex plot and an almost oppressively tight-feeling and repetitive set. For a movie so much of which took place outdoors, this took a heavy toll on the movie. Monica Belucci was great in her brief scenes, but they were brief.


Yesterday we drove out to Amicola Falls - the tallest falls east of the Mississippi, and only a little more than an hour drive from our house!

This dragonfly was near the parking lot at the beginning of the trail up the falls. I think he might have been dying, because he let me get as close as I wanted with the camera.


When we started, we didn't really know what we were getting into. We didn't even really plan on hiking very much, just third-mile to the "Base of the Falls". What we didn't realize was that the base of the falls was not at the base of the mountain, which meant we went a long way up a path like this:


But the falls were beautiful:


As was the landscape along the trail:


There was another very long set of stairs going up to the top of the falls, but we were all tired by that time, so we took the car to the top. You couldn't see the falls from the top, really, but there was quite a view:

I had the best sandwich in the world*

I had the best sandwich in the world last night, and I made it myself. It was a Tuna Melt, which should be a surprise to no-one, as many of the better sandwiches in the world involve some kind of "melt". I had stopped off on the way home to buy some fresh Sourdough bread, which is somewhat hard to come by in Georgia. After thoroughly buttering each piece of bread, I let them sizzle for awhile on medium-heated flat pan. I started the melt pretty much right away with a slice of Pepperjack cheese on each bread.

Ah, Pepperjack! So cheesy, so spicy! Such a wonderful compliment for tuna!

I mixed the tuna with just enough mayonnaise to hold it together - you don't want too much, or the tuna will drip out the side. After the Pepperjack was starting to get melty, I covered both pieces of bread with tuna and let it melt a little longer. Finally, I topped off each side with a center-cut slice of tomato, and assembled the whole sandwich just as each piece of bread was a delicious yellowy-brown, buttery, crispity masterpiece.

I ate it with a plum to cleanse my palette, so I could enjoy each bite of the sandwich thoroughly. It was so good, I almost didn't feel like dessert afterward.

* At that very moment, I don't think there was a better sandwich anywhere in the world.

Birthday Present

This is going to be my (late) birthday present for Kim's niece, Lizzie. I think I'm going to take my high-res file down to Kinko's and have it printed up, and then maybe frame and matte it. yeah...



Shhh! Nobody tell her! It's a surprise!

Tagged!

Tagged

I was willingly tagged by my sister Jill for this meme game.

1) What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?

There was a time when each of us kids had to cook a dinner every week, and we usually each cooked the same thing every week. I cooked "Pizza Casserole". I think that was the first thing I cooked on my own.

2) Who had the most influence on your cooking?

Certainly Mom, who taught me to cook Pizza Casserole, but after that, probably Jill, who gave me the The Joy of Cooking, which has recipes for everything (including roadkill, though I didn't expand my coooking horizons that far).

3) Do you have an old photo as "evidence" of an early exposure to the culinary world, and would you like to share it?

Can't say that I do.

4) Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?

I don't have any phobias, but I don't like working with heat (which is not really conducive to cooking). That's a pretty low hurdle, though. I also don't like it when hot grease splashes (I think I'm more average than phobiac in that regard), so no more cooking bacon in shorts for me!

5) What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?

They're not gadgets, but Kim has bought me several pans that have made cooking much better for me. The biggest letdown was that conforming tong/gripper dealy they advertise on TV by picking up boiled eggs. It fell apart within a couple of weeks.

6) Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!

Wow... there have got to be dozens of those. But I can't seem to sell anyone on grilled ham and peanut butter sandwiches. (It's funny that all of our answers in this category involve peanut butter).

7) What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don't want to live without?

Ice cream.
Granola.
Cheese.

8) Your favorite ice cream...

That's a very close race between Vanilla and Black Cherry.

9) You will probably never eat...

Foods that I'm not exposed to. Anything else is fair game!

10) Your own signature dish...

I believe "Mashed Potatoes with Cheese and Golden Raisins" is now considered my signature dish.

11) You were tagged by...

Jill

12) Three people you'd like to pass this meme on to...

I'm running out of untagged people with blogs! That, and I feel like a host passing on a virus (albeit a benevolent virus) when I replicate it three times, so, I choose KIM!

An "E" for Effort

Tonight Kim and I went up to Mom and Wood's Hilltop Lodge and had some of Wood's famous hamburgers (one of the perks of living in Georgia!) We had a great time just talking, looking at bugs (well, I don't think Kim had much fun then) and enjoying each other's company.

On our way back home, just as we were pulling into our neighborhood, I saw a car pulled over to the side with its hazards flashing. It looked like the driver was trying to push and steer it into the Bank of America parking lot at the same time, so I pulled over and asked him if he wanted help pushing it into the parking lot. He said what he really needed was a jump, so I suggested we push the car off the road into the parking lot, and we could jump it there. It was easy enough pushing the car along the road to the driveway, but just before it angled in, the road inclined gently. The driver (Tony), was having trouble with the power steering, so I encouraged him to sit inside, and I could push it into the parking lot myself.

Ha, ha! No, I couldn't.

With a little bit of a head start, I got the front wheels onto the incline, but once the back wheels hit, the car came to a sticky-tired stop. I could keep it from rolling backward, but that car refused to budge another inch up the hill. Fortunately, we'd already made it through the bend, so Tony got back out and with some heaving, we made it over the incline and into the flat of the parking lot.

Kim pulled in behind, and we hooked up the jumper cables. It was hard to see which side was positive and negative in the dark, but I remembered that the positive side of the battery is usually toward the center of the car, so that went alright. The negative sparked a bit when I put it on, but, lucky for me, the handles of the clamps are rubberized paint. Of course, during all of this, I was trying to catch my breath, calm my heart down to under 200 BPM, and steady my hummingbird hands, courtesy of the uphill push.

Tony turned the key, and ... nothing. The fan was turning, the lights came on (dimly), but the motor was dead. He tried a few more times, but there was just more of the same.

While I was wrapping up the jumper cables and calling AAA-South, he mentioned that he had had it in Neutral, and maybe we should try again. I told him I didn't think that should make a difference (clever guy that I am), but he explained that his car wouldn't start in Neutral, so we pulled the cars back into place and hooked up the cables again. This time, the Negative sparked scarily, like it was arc welding, and I had to try several times before I could clamp it on and get my hand away in time.

Tony turned his key again, and still nothing.

Then I realized I was even more clever than previously demonstrated! I had my sides reversed, with the Negative toward the inside - I'd crosswired, even after I had just thought about it earlier. I was lucky I hadn't killed myself (well, sort of).

Once we corrected the wiring, Tony's car cranked up, and he had it revving, and was off into the night, toward what he assured us was his very near home.

At least now I'll pay more attention next time.

Kim gave me the "E" for effort, probably so I'd stop calling myself a dummy.