Troll Cave

One of the age-old complaints of woman against man has been that man leaves the toilet seat up.

I have never, ever, ever understood that complaint.

Yes, I am female. And yes, I have been the victim of toilet seats left up. In fact, I probably lowered more toilet seats in my first year of potty training than most women do in their lifetimes.

But you know what? For every toilet seat I’ve lowered, someone had to raise it.

And if men are obliged to raise the darn toilet seat every time they want to go pee, there is nothing unfair whatsoever about women having to lower the seat every time they want to go pee. In fact, making man have to do all the raising and lowering himself is discriminating against him. If both have equal rights to the toilet, both have equal responsibility to the position of the toilet seat.

Guess what, ladies? Equality ain’t all peaches and cream.

hope in the dark

waiting

light pours in

drink it up

radiant

* * * *

Yes, I know I broke the mold. I couldn’t bear to post them any smaller, and I’ve been meaning to adjust this template wider. Maybe this will actually get me to do that.

A new camera has entered the household, and it makes it very easy to experiment with f-stops and shutter speeds. I always thought that “stuff” was too complicated for me, but I don’t think I’d have ever been able to get these shots without it. Naturally, I’m pleased out of my poor little mind that they came out exactly how I’d wanted them to. My one complaint is that I still sometimes have a hard time getting it to focus on what I want to focus.

None of these photos have been touched up in the least; they’ve just been reduced and compressed for the web. I didn’t think they needed any improvement, apart from sometimes being in better focus. And after the picture has been taken, it’s a little late for that. The one photographer’s trick that I did employ was taking lots and lots and lots of pictures. Like, 60 of them. Those were just my 10 favorite.

And yes, I did take a bit of poetic license calling this post “In the Bleak Midwinter” when, for goodness sake, it’s in the middle of April. But, also for goodness sake, we’re supposedly supposed to have 10 to 16 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. I don’t believe it, in case you’re wondering. But I did think that the flowers looked like they were bravely facing up to the bleak midwinter. They’re surrounded by darkness, but basking in a light all their own, the light of Spring on it’s way.

Here’s three more, for a bonus. They almost made the cut, but didn’t quite fit.

I took this one after I had figured out how to focus better, but by then the lighting had changed, and it lost some of it’s magic. Sharper, but not so radiant.

I liked the angle of this shot. I love seeing the inside of the snowdrops, so often overlooked by the towering human perspective, but really quite captivating. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the breath-taking sunlight catching in it’s petals. I’m pretty sure I could have adjusted the lightness in a photo-editing program, but you know what? There’s no good substitute for the real thing. I could have made the picture lighter, but I couldn’t have shot it through with beams of sunlight. Better luck next time, I guess.

It’s the stems of the snowdrops! The same light as before, but the shutter speed and f-stops have been monkeyed with. I love how it looks like I’m taking a picture underwater, but really it’s just the texture of the glass vase they were in.

And what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with cooking? Nothing. I’m branching out. My life has to do with a lot more than just cook, and it’s giving me mind cramps trying to stay on topic. The barbarians may need their stew, but I’m filling up just fine on these.

Or rather, a complimentary list:

*They don’t melt.

*When you leave them in a pot, they don’t get hot and burn your fingers when you come back.

*If you drop them in the gravy by accident, they float.

*They don’t get bent out of shape when you apply stern pressure.

*When you lick the chocolate pudding off of them, it reminds you of eating a fudgsicle.

They are nice in every way. So why, why, why are they so hard to find? I especially like the “paddles”. The closest I’ve been able to find are bamboo utensils, but those are usually meant for “stir-frys” and are huge and unweildly.

Bah, humbug.