Clear and Present Irritation

My poor sweet little website was hacked sometime last month, a fact I didn’t discover until this evening. I’ve spent the last two hours trying to rebuild things, changing passwords and wondering why it was worth their time to infiltrate this little ol’ thing.

I think most everything is as it should be again (with the exception of the header, which has reverted to generic). Please let me know if you find something missing or notice something that looks out of place. In the meantime, my good friend President Ryan will be watching over things. Infiltrators beware.

My camera and I embark upon a new project

I saw things hither and thither on the internet last month about a January Photo-a-Day challenge, being hosted by someone writing under the name “Fat Mum Slim.” I didn’t notice it until midway through the month, though, so I didn’t join in even though I love challenges and I love taking pictures — mostly pictures of my cats, because they are so very photogenic — and especially I love things that go on the internet.

So I was pleased as Punch to see that there’s a February Photo-a-Day challenge afoot!

I don’t see a day designated Very Photogenic Cats on Fat Mum Slim’s list of photography prompts, but I thought it might be fun to participate anyway. I’m planning to post the week’s worth of photos on Saturdays, so as not to deluge you with amateur-hour photography. Let’s see how many of these prompts I can twist into a cat challenge, shall we?

Here’s the first wave:

Day One: Your view today

It was no longer daylight when I first discovered that the Photo-a-Day thing was happening again, and so I present to you something that looks like an unfinished Lite-Brite creation. It was either this or a pair of sleeping cats.

February 1. Your View Today.

Day Two: Words

Poppy is in some areas a bit of a perfectionist. (She does not get this from me.) I would like it if she applied this particular personality quirk to areas such as Having a Clean Room, Obeying or Eating All the Vegetables. Of course it doesn’t apply to any of those. It usually manifests itself in her schoolwork, particularly those subjects with a definite right-or-wrong answer, like spelling. She so very much wants to be entirely correct. (Which OK maybe she does get from me.)

She aced her spelling test on Thursday.

“I have been waiting to get them all right for so long!”

February 2. Words.

Yesterday was our 11th anniversary. I’d planned to take a picture of us holding hands, and this would’ve said something sappy about how we’ve been holding hands for the last 15 years or so. But then we were out and about all day, and I forgot to do it. Today I was going to take a picture of Rockford’s hands, but he asked me not to do it so I didn’t. His were the only other hands on hands today, unless you count paws. Which I find that I must:

Day Three: Hands

February 4. Hands.

The traditional 11th anniversary gift is steel

Dear Rockford,

someecards.com - I can't believe how much I'm not sick of you

[love is more thicker than forget]
by ee cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is more mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

E.E. Cummings, “[love is more thicker than forget]” from Complete Poems 1904-1962, edited by George J. Firmage. Copyright 1926, 1954, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1985 by George James Firmage. Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Source: Poetry (January 1939).

Love,
Nichole