Do you want to hear a story?

Literally, In French, "Look There!": A Photo Story

The Story:
If you are a long-time reader you already know I do not have much luck with more tech-savvy things like HTML or including photos in my blog.  However, I am going to make one more completely self-indulgent go of it to show off this picture of my tattoo that Keshet took at her Rosh HaShanah party last weekend.

To be completely vain, I must say that when the photo was taken I was sitting down crisscross-applesauce (the new "Indian Style") and bending forward onto the floor of Keshet's bedroom, vs. standing up or lying on my belly as I had always hoped to do during the tattoo photo session that never was with Li who always forgot her camera.  So, as a feminist who's all about accepting the many forms of female beauty that exist in this world and at the same time a woman who like all of us is exposed to society's mindfuck about what is and is not gorgeous, I will say I think this picture seems to make me appear to be a different, rounder shape than I like to think I am in real life. 

For purposes of clarification I want to explain that bending forward causes the image to become distorted as the skin stretches.  Several tattoo artists have mentioned to me that this is a unique feature of tattoos on this part of the body and definitely something to keep in mind while planning body art for the back.  As a result, this picture makes my tattoo seem longer from top to bottom than it is--really, the tree is not that tall in comparison to its width.

Lastly, that red dot above the tree just below my shirt is not part of the image but rather stitches from a recent experience too long and unimportant to recount here.

The Lesson:
Voila!  There you have it, all of you who've been so curious--photographic proof of a prim-and-proper Third Grade teacher and all-around nice Jewish girl with an expensive, painful, yet completely bad-ass tattoo.  What can I say?  I love it.

A Snapshot of the Midwest: A Family Story and A Photo Story

The Story:

When I was maybe ten, my family got our first VCR. VHS, baby! My parents could not figure out how to program it and I'm not sure they ever really figured it out. But not to worry, because it has recently been replaced by a VCR/DVD combo they purchased, I think at Best Buy.

What is the point of this? I promised myself, two decades ago, that as a grown-up I would never be far from the cutting edge of technology. And, I've mostly kept my promise. So in the spirit of techological advancement I am trying an experiment today--including photos in my blog posts. This does require a little creativity on my part since unlike most of the modern world (okay, promise not entirely kept) I still use 35mm film instead of a digital camera. So, I send my exposed film to the good people at snapfish.com and once my photos are online I can download them to my machine and then post them here.

A few weeks ago I finally sent in the rolls from my brother's wedding in May, and they are now available for all of our viewing pleasure. Let the experiment begin! So far I can only figure out how to include the image at the beginning of the post but hopefully with practice I can insert it in the middle of the text, or maybe even at the end. Also I know the image is very small and I do not yet know how to resize it but I'll work on that too.

Photo Exhibit #1: I kept myself busy on the five-hour drive from Chicago to Burlington by taking pictures out the window of my dad's Honda Accord while traveling at high rates of speed down I-80. Here, for example, is the Pioneer seed factory. Anything you eat made with corn, soybeans, and maybe even some grains like wheat started in a place like this as a seed that grew into a plant, was harvested, and processed into something like tortillas or tofu. Well, not STARTED in a place like this--to imply that seeds are made in factories would be incorrect. Seeds actually first grow as parts of plants. Next the seeds are harvested and processed at factories like this one, where they are then sold to farmers who plant them in the ground to grow into plants that we eventually eat as food.

The Lesson:

When was the last time you saw where not only your food came from but where the seeds that grew into the plants that became your food came from? Living as I do now in such a big city and teaching Third Grade it's amazing how few of my students know the source of their meals. Once during a Science unit on the life cycle of plants I asked my class where various vegetables come from. Among the responses I got were that carrots come from Safeway and that corn grows on trees.