THE TOTAL PICTURE!
On occasion, after I’ve posted a photo to the Weekly Photo Challenge, I will occasionally supply a little background on the photo I’ve submitted or about the other photos I was considering submitting. Today I would like to submit the entire ESCAPE photo. You might want to click on it to see the larger size.
THE TOTAL PICTURE — GOOSE ON THE LOOSE!
ENJOY!
Weekly Photo Challenge: ESCAPE!
In a new post created specifically for this challenge, share a picture that means ESCAPE to you.
Ready, Set, Run … GEESE ON THE LOOSE!
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #137 – MAY 17, 2013
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – EIGHT POINT STAR
This fold was a little bit involved and it took me a while to figure it out. Quite impressive once it’s done!
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – WORD LADDER
Not to worry, what with my allergies and the threat of rain, I’ve got all day to figure this out.
While I was able to get a couple of words going down the ladder, and a couple of words going up the ladder … they never were matching words. And the sneezing and wheezing didn’t help one jot.
#3 THE PAGE-A-DAY PUZZLE CALENDAR -
I got the first two with no problem at all. The last one is rather tricky.
ANSWERS: Henry Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
COMING UP!
I guess 30 Days of Creativity is looming right around the corner on my many calendars. It runs from June 1 to June 30. Hopefully some of my origami calendar challenges will fit in with the 30 Days Calendar suggestions. You can check some of my daily creations from last year by checking the first category in the Categories List just to your right. If you think you’d like to partake in the creativity this year go to http://30daysofcreativity.com/ or check https://twitter.com/createstuff
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #136 – MAY 16, 2013
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – A MINI-BOOKLET
Shades of my very first job … as a trainee in the advertising traffic department. I learned all about the production end of advertising long before I got behind a typewriter and the creative end. So I not only was able to fold the little booklet, I was also able to print the cover on the paper before I started folding.
Yes, the cover is actually in the middle of the printed sheet before you begin the folding process.
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – CALL THIS PHRASE
Personally, I don’t like advertisers who give their telephone number as a word of phrase. It is actually faster to dial a number than to dial a name or phrase. But I will take to time to spell out their phrase number after I have a couple of cups of coffee.
THE PHONE WORD WAS dnab guj BACKWARDS
#3 THE PAGE-A-DAY PUZZLE CALENDAR – MATCH THE FROGGIES
I was able to get the perfect match even as I was typing this very line. And I didn’t make any mistakes in my typing. Did you know that when I went to high school, my typing teacher was the first person to teach typing in a Missouri school? Also in an all boys school. And the typewriter he always used was an antique L. C. Smith original. He was about 88, which was only a couple of years older than the typewriter.
THE PERFECT MATCH WAS 3 AND 6.
PHOTO/STORY CHALLENGE – YOU ARE YOUR MAILBOX
THE PHOTO/STORY CHALLENGE – Write a brief story and illustrate it with up to twelve related photographs.
Alas, the poor person who delivers your mail … stuck with a motto that isn’t even a motto of the US Postal Service. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” It sounds great, but it was just a whim of an architect who needed an inscription to decorate the New York City post office building that he had designed. The quote was actually a variation of a comment written by the Greek historian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus to describe the Persian mounted mail couriers of 500 B.C. So, unless the person who delivers your mail is of Greek or Persian decent and riding a horse, the motto really doesn’t apply.
All things considered, being a mail delivery person is not a happy lot. They really don’t even have a job title these days. Back when I was a kid they were known as a Mailman in the US or the British variation Postman. That title really didn’t work when women began delivering mail, and so the title of Letter Carrier started being used.
Actually I think the title of POSTAL COURIER would sound more romantic. Unfortunately the word POSTAL has a somewhat negative history.
Anyway, to get down to the PHOTO/STORY CHALLENGE at hand by introducing letter carrier Marvin Mailman makes a game of imagining what his postal patrons are like by the mailboxes they own.
SPECIAL DELIVERIES w/MARVIN MAILMAN
Mr. Hotrod is the eternal drive-in soda jerk who never really grew up. He also never tinkered or even owned a hot rod. He now leases an Acura Luxury Sedan with all the extra features.
E. J. McBucks still has the first dollar he ever inherited. It’s probably entombed in the brickwork of his mailbox.
Marty McFly has never eaten a fish that hasn’t come out of a can. He does like drowning worms.
Sigrid Agentmam is not to be messed with … her ultra secure mail depository even has a secret electronic pass code that is changed on a weekly basis.
Auntie Macassar still drapes all her plastic covered overstuffed furniture with little crocheted doilies to keep them from being soiled.
Mr. Mauler does not get mail deliveries, he has a dog that eats letter carriers for lunch.
Mr and Mrs Avian have a P.O. Box, their rustic mailbox is now the home of a family of Eurasian Tree Sparrows.
Mr. M. Bibber replaces his generic mailbox on a semi-weekly basis following his semi-weekly poker parties.
Mr. S. Bagel still has the same mailbox that his father put up 55-years ago. Either he’s a tightwad who never dusts his mailbox, or he is totally inept as a household handyman.
What’s your mail delivered to …
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #135 – MAY 15, 2013
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – PHEASANT
I don’t know, but this pheasant sort of looks like a pigeon to me. But the object of origami is to fold, not to question. So fold I did!
And then the dumb pigeon tried to fly away!
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – TRIOS OF SYNONYMS
I managed to get 1, 2, and 3 in a half blink. Still working on 4.
SO, WHAT WAS ON MY TUESDAY TO DO LIST?
It should have been a note reminding me to stay in bed. But instead it was a note reminding me to go to the eye-guy for my annual check-up. Actually, my eye-guy is a very nice young lady who treats me so respectfully, you’d think I was a crotchety old man … which is a state I am fast approaching. Anyway to make matters worse, the minute I walked out the door I was bombarded with a blitzkrieg of assorted pollens, spoors, and allergens that turned me into an eye-watering, sneezing, wheezing fool. In other words by the time I got to the doctor’s office I was a puffy-eyed dolt with a runny nose. Which was really not the best impression you want to make when visiting anyone of the medical professions. Well, after an hour of eye-dilation, eye photography, flashing lights, looking up, down, side ways and doing eye rolls that would have out eye rolled Eddie Cantor … does anyone even remember Eddie Cantor much less his eye rolls … my doctor announced: “Your eyes are in great shape, and your prescription remains the same.” Which means I didn’t have to spend the income tax return money I had stashed aside to buy a new computer on new glasses. Ok, if my eyes were in such great shape, why did I walk out of the office wearing dark sunglasses like one of the three blind mice and had to grope my way across the street in the glaring 93 degree sunlight? Also, why is there never a boy scout around to guide you across the street when you need one?
Yes, you heard me right, the thermometer reached a high of 93F this afternoon. This was the highest temperature we’ve seen in the past eight months. But it won’t last long, the rains are returning sometime around sunset today.
Also, when I got home this is what I found on my back lawn …
Yep, a lawn filled with maple tree twirlers!
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #134 – MAY 14, 2013
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – THE INSIDE OUT BOAT
I really thought this was going to be a hard fold — they usually are when to have to turn the finished piece inside out to produce the desire end result.
But this one wasn’t bad. Of course, the finished product isn’t very impressive from the bottom view. 
But the inside is really posh!
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – I BEFORE E EXCEPT WITH THIS PUZZLE
Trust me, #5 is not Mount Rushmore.
MOST IMPRESSIVE SIGHT OF THE DAY
Mother Nature - Sculptress
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #133 – MAY 13, 2013
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – THIRSTY BIRD
Is it just me, or are the pages of my calendars flying away in the manner of the old movie technique that used to signify the passage of time. Well, today’s challenge was to fold a thirsty bird drinking out of a bowl that resembles my dog’s outside water bowl.
Which brings up today weary query: Renee and I don’t mind the birds dropping in to wet their whistles, the thing that bother us is the fact that after getting their drink the always poop in the water. Is that what avian etiquette is all about. Now Renee never drinks out of the toilet in the house, so why should she have to drink out of the birdie latrine? Just asking … anyway, here’s my origami.
And, in case you’re interested, you can make the bird drink out of the water bowl. There’s just no way I can make the bird take a drink and photograph it at the same time. Well, there is a way, but I’d have to have a video crew on hand.
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – THE NUMBER VALUES OF LETTERS
It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s just that I want to give you chance to solve it. (I don’t believe it! After I finished writing the previous sentence, I started solving the equations and in a minute and a half I had values for all the numbers.) All you have to do is decide which letter has the highest value. Give it a try.
Mlle. Renee would like to invite any of her four-paw fans who might be passing by to drop in and have one of her all-natural oatmeal/carob chip/peanut butter cookie treats that have no bad things like sugar and salt. She says I’ll share my recipe with your humans, if you can’t drop by.
MLLE. RENEE CELEBRATES HER FIFTH!
By everyone’s guesstimate, Mlle. Renee was probably born in early May of 2008. So, Renee and I decided that we would celebrate her birthday each year on Mother’s Day. And even though neither Renee or I know who or what her mother is/was, all things considered, that is a rather cool day on which to be born. And Renee really did love her mom. Anyway, today we celebrated! But I’ll let her tell you about that.
I was so excited about my birthday today I just couldn’t sleep. Would you believe it, I’m actually five today, and you know what that means in human years? That’s right, the big three five, which means from now on numbers don’t count for birthdays. The first thing I did was to go in and wake Rob up. He grumbled something about sleeping in, but after I shook the bed a dozen or more times he got up and opened the door so I could go out and run around and check the grounds for intruders like rabbits … and snakes. I hate snakes even more than Rob does. But I’m not afraid to pick them up like he is! I pick them up with my teeth and shake them silly … or until they stop wiggling around. There were no intruders, so I went back in the house and jumped into bed with him. He won’t say anything, but I think he likes when I snuggle next to his legs and warm his legs on chilly mornings like today. After a while the radio started playing music and it was time for Rob to get up and make breakfast. He gave me dry IAMS, and made flaky layer biscuits for himself. I gave him the mean on man stare, and he finally gave in and removed a couple of layers of his biscuit … spread a little butter on them … and put them on top of the IAMS. I really didn’t want the layers of the biscuit, but how else was I going to get the butter. I licked the butter of the biscuit layers, and when I saw him watching me I ate the layers, too. The IAMS can wait until I get hungry later.
After breakfast it was PRESENT TIME. I don’t know why he wraps things up … he knows I’ll only rip the paper up and he’ll bitch about cleaning up the mess on the floor. But the present was too cool to rule! It was a snazzy new, and totally fashionable nylon necklace of red, pink and purple. I ❤ it totally! It goes so well with my hair.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t cover the dent in my neck all the time. That happened when I was just a little pup before I was rescued by HSMO. They picked me up on the street and discovered a tight rope collar had embedded itself into my neck. I was kind of skinny, too. So after the nice ladies gave me something to eat, the doctors waited until I dozed off and while I was sleeping they surgically removed the old rope that was growing into my neck. They wrapped it up with medicine I didn’t like, but when I got well and healthy after a few months they let Rob take me home with him.
You can still see where my neck was hurt, but my new necklace will cover that up most times. So I’ll never take it off!. It has three cool charms on it that jingle-jangle when Rob takes me for walks. One charm is a golden bone engraved with my name. Another says I’ve had all my shots and vaccinations. And the last I’m a natural-born doggie of West Walnut Manor.
And that’s not all! Rob also made me some special treats!
They’re carob chip, peanut butter and oatmeal cookies. Carob is sort of like chocolate, but isn’t. Rob says chocolate is bad for me, but he eats it all the time. So that’s why he made me these special cookies.
Smells good!
Tastes even better!
Even the crumbs are good.
Don’t know why Rob won’t eat any of them.
Oh, well, just more for me!
This has been my best birthday yet!
... a somewhat unknown or perhaps imaginary actor, writer, director, producer, photographer, friend, brother, uncle and all round good fellow that you really should get to know because he lives with that most glamorous fourpaw Mademoiselle Renee. (Mlle. Renee for short)
