Well, the journal website doesn't seem to be working very well tonight, so I'm having to add this little message via AIM. Maybe everything will be working properly tomorrow. I'll update as soon as I can, I promise!

Thanksgiving, a day late

Thanksgiving photos above. Spent it at Felicia & Jim's. The first photo is of their son, Michael, who didn't feel good, so he's not in any more of the pictures!

Ate waaaaaay too much, but that's the point, right? The only thing I missed was the stuffing--they do cornbread dressing here, which is yummy, but not as yummy as good ol' regular-bread stuffing!

Chitlins were present, in the down-home Arkansas tradition, but Jim had them banished to the room we weren't eating in, and the cover had to stay on the casserole dish. I think only two people ate them, but I couldn't even watch, because I knew it would make me gag. Luckily, I only caught a whiff of them once or twice. To be fair, neither Felicia nor Jim eat them, but Felicia's mom cooked some, and they somehow talked Jim into allowing them to enter the house.

Other than that bit of scariness, everythin was dee-licious. Finger-lickin' good. And whatever other thing you can think of to mean "mmm."

Then, while Jim took a nap on the couch (see photo above), some of us played cards. Then he woke up and joined in. Eventually, I had to leave since I was only one of two people who actually had to get up and work in the morning (as in, today.) Drats.

A gobble gobble here and a quack quack there, here a cluck there a cluck, everywhere a turduck...hen

I got up early this morning to take some pictures, but as you can see from the picture above, it was waaaay early, and too dark to get anything, unless I used a flash.

Now, on to the meat of the entry!

Arkansas is a big ol' meat-eatin' state. You should see the size of the meat sandwiches they eat. The restaurants brag about this-or-that kind of meat sandwich being "hubcap" size, and they're not lying! Who could eat that?

They even eat meat soup. But they call it chili. And don't put beans in it--a true Arkansas Chili Eater will not eat his meat soup if it so much as touches a bean.

Now that Thanksgiving is here, Arkansas falls into a frenzy over that special Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas gourmet delicacy, the turduckhen. It's a boneless hen stuffed in a boneless duck stuffed in a boneless turkey. I'm not making it up. Go ahead, click here, and you'll see.

Some people just can't get enough meat, I guess.

Hold the mayo

Sorry, no new pics, so you get an old one instead, of the Fishermen's Memorial in Gloucester. I woulda had some new ones, except for the brain problems lately. One day I got up really early and went out to get some fall photos...and forgot to put a diskette in the camera. And twice I rushed out the door to do something and just plain forgot the camera. Oops.

Now for today's Little Rock Story: For some reason, Arkansans just lo-o-o-ve mayonnaise. It ends up on everything. If you don't want mayo on something, you better say so, just in case. I've gotten mayo on a grilled cheese sandwich. Blech! Who would've thought you'd have to go to a lunch counter and say, "I'd like a grilled cheese, hold the mayo?" I think maybe it's in the apple pie, too, but I can't be certain.

I dont even LIKE mayo. And don't get me started on Miracle Whip--that's just a bad joke made worse.

I once ordered a BLT from Coupe De Grille, a greasy spoon that was located down the street form where I work. Now, I realize that BLTs have mayo. But anything that regularly comes with mayo in the normal world comes with EXTRA mayo in the Little Rock world. Knowing this, I thought I had better just go ahead and order it with NO MAYO. I called the order in, and said, very clearly, "NO MAYO."

I went to the diner, picked up my sandwich, came back to work, opened it up, and it was dripping with gobs and gobs of mayo. I looked at the ticket that was stapled to the bag, and on it was handwritten, "No mayo."

All I can think is, the short order cook saw the ticket, and his mind couldn't fathom that a person might actually want a BLT with no mayo, so he assumed the ticked instead read "Mo' mayo" and he just slathered it on good and thick.

Thankfully, I was able to wipe most of it off with napkins.

And the verdict is...

Went bowling today, with Felicia and her kids, as you can see above. No, no pictures of me. I stink at bowling, by the way. This is regular bowling, nobody does candlepin bowling here. My wrist is going to hurt tomorrow, from hurling that heavy ball around for a couple hours!

Now, I know you were all waiting with bated breath to know what happened to Wayne Dumond. Well, he was convicted Wednesday of first degree murder. Hopefully, Missouri will be a little better at keeping him in prison than Arkansas was.

No Fluffernutters?

The first photo above is what the photo from the last entry looked like before I made a paper negative of it. This one was selenium-toned. The second photo is from the same cemetery. B/W print, plus blue toner. That's a little of what I did in class last night. Just toned a bunch of stuff--selenium, sepia, and blue. Didn't print anything new--my eyes were too tired and blurry from staring at the computer at work all day.

For the first time since I moved to Arkansas, I saw a jar of Marshmallow Fluff for sale in the store. Oh, all along they've had a poor imitation, known as "marshmallow crème," but that stuff's just kinda flat-looking (and probably -tasting) compared to Fluff. Not that I'm condoning the indiscriminate eating of Fluff. I looked it up, though, and there are no preservatives, artificial flavors, artifical colors, or anything else fake, but a Fluffernutter is, after all, like eating a peanut butter and sugar sandwich.

Anyway. I guess even Marshmallow Fluff is a regional thing.

Brr...Finally!

Well, it finally cooled down. It was 84 one day, 54 the next. I know that's not cold to some people, but it's a 30 degree change!

Haven't updated in a while because I wasn't been home any night last week--mostly working, ho-hum. Went to the darkroom today and came out with the photo above, taken from a cemetery in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. We couldn't get in the cemetery, even though we went back a couple times. The gate was always locked. So I had to get photos by walking around the top of the wall (and hoping I didn't fall in, which, obviously, I didn't).

Saw Santa and an elf riding a motorcycle on Old Cantrell Road today. No photo, since I haven't mastered taking pictures while driving a car, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Road Trip

Ahh, autumn in Arkansas. It's brown. See above.

Went on a roadtrip with Felicia today to Mountain Home, which is in the northern part of the state, near Missouri. Nothing much to see between here and there, although I saw one disturbing thing:

In Yellville, a little antique/second-hand store called Needfull Things. I'm not kidding. Don't these people read books? Or watch movies?? You couldn't pay me to go in that place. Nosir. Nuh-uh. No telling what I'd find. Probably something I couldn't live without.

Yeah, they spelled "needful" wrong, but that's just to trick ya into thinking it's ok to come inside.

Nope. Not me.

November 1st, and still in the 80s

Spent more than three hours this afternoon in the darkroom, and came out with nothing. Nothing!

Nothing ... except that "lovely" photo above, of part of the collection of things that sits above the revolving door from Studio 6 into the darkroom.

Happy Halloween

Nobody wore any costumes today! Last year at work, lots of people dressed up, so I brought my camera to work this year and ... nothing. All I can give you is the above, which is probably bad of me.

I have to go back to work in a little bit for Friday night high school football scores, so maybe something interesting will be going on then.

 

Almost the end of October

Did some sepia toning Monday night, which is what you're looking at above. The first one is an almost-gone-by daffodil (in Mount Holly cemetery, where I take a lot of photos!), and the second one is an eagle on one side of the gate at the Old State House in downtown Little Rock.

Warm today--80s. And it's almost November!  Last week we broke the record for the latest in the year it's been 90 degrees or above. And to think, some of you have had snow already!

It's not normally this warm here this late in the year. And summer wasn't even as hot as usual, so it's not like we had much to cool down.

Talking about the weather. Nope, not much going on here today!

Well, nuts to you

Today, in the fun world of office work, Felicia threw an early birthday party for her husband, Jim. The first photo is of Jim getting his piece o' birthday cake, and looking none too thrilled at having his picture taken. The second photo is of Jim & Felicia, the last time she'll see him for two weeks.

Why? Because this afternoon he drove to Kansas City to cover the next in the exciting court adventures of Wayne DuMond, a character that only Arkansas could create. Well, actually, Maine is pretty good at creating characters like him, too.

The short version:

In the early 1970s, DuMond recieved immunity for admitting his part in a crime in Oklahoma--he and two other dudes used a 17-year-old girl to lure this guy into a park. DuMond beat the guy up, but said it was the other guys who ended up killing him. He got five years' probation.

A little bit later he accosted a teenage girl in Washington. Five years' probation again.

In 1985, Wayne DuMond was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 17-year-old girl, who happened to be a distant cousin of future President Bill Clinton. His sentence was life-plus-20-years. Whatever that means.

Here's the good part--In 1985, before DuMond went to prison, two masked men supposedly beat him up and castrated him. The sheriff of St. Francis County had DuMond's testicles displayed in a jar in his office, for which DuMond sued him and won.

Anyway, he was released from prison in 1999, and while on parole in Missouri, less than a year later, allegedly killed another woman. That's the trial Jim gets to cover. Think this guy's got a problem maybe?

Tapwater, anyone?

Today's photos are of Sydney. The first one shows how she eats--with her hands. She eats everything this way--cat food, oatmeal, soup, whatever. I wish I could get her to use silverware instead.

The second photo shows her current annoying habit--she must, must drink water out of the bathroom tap. I give her nice, fresh, filtered water in a bowl everyday, which she shuns for icky bathroom tapwater. She's been doing this since I visited Mom in August.

See, Mom has a nice bathroom sink with a big counter around it, easily accessed from the toilet nearby. That's when Sydney discovered she could jump to the toilet, to the sink, and then play in the water.

At my home, I have a free-standing sink with no counter around it, and not within jumping distance of the toilet. So, having been spoiled during our brief visit to Tapwater Wonderland (a.k.a. Mom's house), she now goes into the bathroom and cries until I come in and lift her up, placing her carefully on the edge of the sink so she can lean over and get to the tapwater.

I've tried ignoring her, hoping she'd just go drink the water in her water bowl, but all she does is jump up on the toilet (the lid's closed) and sit there in the bathroom, in the dark, waiting. Everytime I walk by, I catch a glint of light reflecting off her eyes as she watches me, hoping I'll come in and pick her up to the sink. She never leaves. Eventually I have to pick her up, so I can actually use the toilet. Then she'll start crying again until she gets bathroom tapwater. It's just easier to do what she wants.

Will wonders never cease?

Well, I just found out that I can add an entry from work, even without having AOL here. Surprise, surprise. I don't have any photos with me, though, so I've added, for your viewing pleasure, a "funkified" photo I had loaded to AOL a year or so ago. It's of a former co-worker who would pull her hair out strand by strand, which is what she's doing here. I would try to stop her, but she'd only stop for about 30 seconds, then start up again. Trichotillomania.
Look it up.

I think now she's terrorizing reporters in Pittsburgh.

Another day in the dark

Spent the day in the darkroom at the Arkansas Arts Center, so a print is what you get today.

This one is a copy transfer: a print is copied on an old copy machine (the kind that has lots of toner), then the copy is transfered to 140# hot-pressed watercolor paper by putting it face-down on the watercolor paper and rubbing lacquer thinner over the back of the copy until it's transferred. The final effect is cool, if you don't pass out from the thinner fumes. And don't forget the rubber gloves!

The original photo is of a statue from Mount Holly Cemetery, on Broadway in downtown Little Rock. You can see some more photos (not mine) of this historic cemetery here.

There will be NO entry tomorrow--class right after work, and I won't get back until really late. I don't want to hear any whining. (This means you, Mom!)

 

What it's all about

I've started this journal really just to motivate myself to actaully bring my camera with me everyday, and take at least ONE picture. I tend to spend more time in the darkroom working on older stuff, and less time using my cameras. This will mostly show digital photos, though.

The other reason for this journal is to assure my friends and family back home that Arkansas is not the poorest, saddest state in the Union. That's what Mississippi's for. :) We do have electricity, and television (yes, even cable) art museums, theater, and shoes. There are some, um, characteristics though, that are truly Arkansan in nature, so the stereotypes are not all wrong. Just exaggerated. But know this: Arkansas usually comes in 48th or 49th in the rankings, so there are one or two states out there that are worse.