Tavern's Member Picture Gallery.

Oh well nothing... you got your Dad's bone structure. That is nothing to sniff at.

 

IKR? Such high cheekbones and almost feline eyes. Any chance of Sami heritage, @KaTrian?

 

A very handsome guy, your dad @KaTrian, I can see the family resemblance as well

 

Nope, but I could've lived without his roundish nose

I think there is, hence the dark hair and dusky skin tones on his side. Some so-called "gypsy blood" too from his grandad's side. I'm a diluted version, while he and his siblings look more distinctively Sami/Romanian.

Thanks . It's uncanny how I can see traces even in my baby nephew. Faded, but still there.

 

@KaTrian It's cute as a button.

 

So, this is what I got today:

 

How adorable!

 

@chicagoliz : Is he (she?) a Pyrenees mountain dog? Beautiful

 

@chicagoliz don't you think you are a little too old for a Thomas the Train toy?

 

@chicagoliz, does your house have walls that are windows? That's a city thing, and I take it you live in the city, so... just asking if I'm seeing correctly.

 

On the subject of pets. I often describe cat No.2. Nezumi, as having 'absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.' I wanna take that back. Since my lodger finally got round to moving out, she has become the most adorable, affectionate beastie. I feel bad for thinking ill of her, when it is now patently obvious he was a huge contributing factor to her foul moods. (And having suffered him for nearly ten years, I can understand why.)

A friend stayed over the other night, and he must have taken this which he just sent me via email:

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That fuzzy grey lump in the background is Slater, cat No.1. He didn't like her much either, until now, but look! He's even letting her lie on my bed, an act that would have previously guaranteed the unsheathing of his claws and some none too subtle intimidation.

 

@chicagoliz Cute-alert! Cute-alert! Everybody take cover before your brains explode from sooo much cute.

@obsidian_cicatrix Double cute alert! So her behavior changed after your lodger left? She must be happy about that too.

 

@obsidian_cicatrix : Since I adopted a cat, I'm starting to realise how intuitive and energy-sensitive cats are, it's incredible. I'm so glad your cat is feeling better, she looks really content

 

Thanks, everyone! Yesterday was our first day with her. She was born in a shelter in SC, spayed, kept in the shelter, transported in a van up to Pennsylvania on Saturday, went to the house of the woman who runs the rescue organization, went overnight to a foster home, came back to the first woman's house (along with her sisters and some other dogs) for potential adopters to see, and then came home with us. So the poor girl had a really long weekend.

Thanks! Her mom is a border collie/corgi mix. Dad is unknown.

Don't spoil all the fun. You're never too old for trains.

Sadly, no. We don't live in the city. We live in the most suburban of suburbs. Our house has a 2-story family room, and the hallway upstairs looks over the family room. So what you're seeing in the photo is the railing upstairs. There is a kind of a "wall of windows" in the family room, going up to the second floor, but I don't think that's what you see. Right behind the cage right now is a whole bunch of kids crap -- plastic bins and drawers to try to contain some of the toys. We don't know right now where to put the dog crate -- we just happened to put it together upstairs in that hallway, and that's where we've left it for now. We'll probably keep it there for about 15 years.

 

Aw, poor girl indeed! But a very happy turn of events also When I hot my puppy, he cried all the way home and proceeded to overheat and hyperventilate throughout the night, he really had a bad time of it poor chap. I hope your girl had a settled night. xoxo

 

Osmosis reader. My 14 year old cat, Smudgie

 

My garden keeps going... Aubergine flowers and today's crop of peppers

 

@jazzabel, looking at that basket of peppers makes me want to sharpen my knives and start cooking something! I don't know what, because I'm not that good a cook, but chances are it'll be some kind of chili.

Looks delicious!

 

Thanks @minstrel! I'm going to make a vegetarian chilli with the peppers, onions, tomatoes and some butternut squash for tomorrow. And for a really yum snack with beer, (when you have reasonably thin and small peppers like the red ones in the picture, works with jalapeños too), mix cream cheese, 1-2 egg yolks and seasoning, and stuff the peppers (use piping bag). Then roll in flower, beaten egg and breadcrumbs, and fry. Yum!

 

I was watching a film earlier today on my 'puter that was annoyingly glitchy. I noticed that the glitchie spots sometimes resolved into unusual, colorful, almost impressionistic (I'm sure someone will correct me there) images, of which I took screen caps of a few. I hit this one with a 3 point gaussian blur to soften the hard edges off the pixelation and now it's my desktop.

 

That is actually quite nice @Wreybies, very artistic!

 

Today's vintage haul includes the Ace Double:

THOMAS M. DISCH "Mankind Under the Leash" (1966)
Cover art by Kelly Freas
URSULA K. LEGUIN "Planet of Exile" (1966)
Cover art by Jerome Podwil



And also the Ace Single:

Thea Von Harbou "Metropolis" (1963)
Cover art by Jack Gaughan

 

Nice! Gotta love vintage Science Fiction.

 

@Wreybies I really like the Metropolis cover. In fact, I think it's my favourite one so far.

 

Back from a week and a half's involuntary sojourn. There's not been much movement round here although it appears @Wreybies may have his little 'problem' under control. (It has been a week.)

I've been really busy so haven't had much time to play about with my camera or images, but I still managed to come up with two pics I'm happy with.

My friends attend a bi-annual dog walk that raises funds for the boarding kennels at Whinniehill, Co. Down. It's a total riot. The dogs and owners set out in groups of about thirty, at 2o minute intervals, and the local farmers let them free roam. I'm not sure what's funnier, the dogs reaction to all that space, or their city-dwelling owners' attempts to avoid getting plastered in cow dung. I fell behind, my brain working overtime trying to come up with a suitable vista to do justice to a pic I'd taken of a sunrise over Belfast Lough the week before.

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My second pic is a bit more personal. I'd been wanting to work up a portrait of my daughter, Jas, but she suffers the same affliction I do. When anybody snaps her, she invariably has her yapper hanging open or, worse still, is wearing a sullen scowl. Then on Friday she phoned me to tell me she was headed into town to get her thigh tattoo finished. Cue the light bulb above the head moment. When she was in labour with my grandson, she retreated into herself, only opening her eyes occasionally to let me know she was coping okay by giving me a wink. She had such a beautiful, almost serene expression on her face. Now, okay, getting tattooed is hardly excruciating, but it can be a tad nippy, so I wondered whether I might be able to get a pic of her wearing a similar expression. I took a stack of pics and eventually found exactly the expression I was after, and worked this up from it. She'll most likely find fault as she is the subject, but I love it to bits.

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