The Union, Forever

This Sunday, (me) and the bee get married. 

We’re both incredibly excited and more than a little relieved, mainly because after Sunday we can finally take a deep breath and relax a bit before our celebratory marriage party, held 2 weeks after that. 

The other day we both confided in each other how we *kind of* couldn’t wait for it all to be over so things can go back to normal. I’ve never planned a wedding before and I’m sure it’s a different experience for everyone, but for me, aside from being a fun and exciting opportunity to flaunt my creative feathers, it has been EXHAUSTING. 

The last few months have been a blur of planning and scheduling and arranging and procuring. I can honestly say I will be very grateful when we can look back on this with a smile because all our hard work really paid off but even more so because I’ll be looking back. Hopefully from the comforts of my living room. With no future plans other than: What poor excuse for a meal will I be stuffing my face with this evening? 

I thought I’d share some photos we took back in April when we brought our lomo-cams out with us to the park we inevitably chose as our ceremony locale. We went back there this past weekend to scout out the perfect spot. Instead, we found MULTIPLE places we think we might want to use for such a momentous occasion. 

We figure it’ll all sort itself out that day. Plus, everything else about our wedding plans have been last-minute so why start doing things any differently now! 

a path through the park*

a view of the lake **

a lonely daffodil on the fence*

me, on a park bench overlooking a potential location for our vow exchange**

*taken by (me) with a Holga fitted w/ a fish eye lens 

**taken by the bee with a Diana F+ fitted w/ an instant back (comes out like a Polaroid, only smaller)

Look What *I* Found! Friday: Phallus in the Sand (but that’s not all folks! tell ’em what else they’ve won…) Edition

On Wednesday we went to the Atlantic City Airshow scheduled to take place over the beach and boardwalk that morning into afternoon. 

Here was our view of the show from the balcony of a penthouse condo because that, my friends, is how we do: 

A picture my shitty camera took of some of the plane action: 

oh my god. look. it's some planes. flying. in the air. it's blowing your mind isn't it?

I’m not sure how but I managed to fall asleep during a portion of the show even though every time a plane flew by it sounded like it was going to rip the roof off the building and cause the windows to spontaneously shatter and shoot flaming hot shards of glass in my face. 

I might be a Libra and that might be an air sign but apparently that matters little because my real interest that day was in seeing what kind of pictures I could get of the massive crowd roaming the boardwalk below: 

faces obscured to protect the not-so-innocent (and kind of make it look like they have giant clown noses)

 Wait. 

Is that? 

Nooooooooooooooo… 

GREENman? Pourquoi?! 

Ummmmmm… Greenman? 

You do know it’s August, right? And it’s like 90 degrees? And that I can kind of see your balls and now I can’t stop imagining just how hot and sweaty they HAVE to be in that skin-tight body suit baking under the mid-day sun. 

although no longer posing for pictures, his presence didn't make things any less awkward...

Now we can pass the stupidity and ignorance down through the generations. Start ’em young, I say! 

 

coincidence? i think not...

And if you started reading this post only because of the what the title promised, then here you go: 

as much as i would love to claim ownership of this masterpiece... alas, i just cannot. for the record? i would have made mine WAY girthy-er...

Look What *I* Found! Friday (except it’s not, because it’s really Wednesday, but i’m thinking you knew that already) Edition

So… 

I’m toying with the notion of introducing a new feature here since the bee, Ah-HEM!, has apparently far better things to do than to update his blog any longer therefore leaving me without any weekly rejected photo content that I can steal and put on my blog on Sunday night so it seems like I’ve got a lot more going on here than I actually do. 

The. NERVE. 

I know it’s not Friday. Since I am a sucker for alliteration (does it count as alliteration if it’s just two words that start with the same letter?) and can’t seem to get my act together in time to prepare the post I had intended for today, I am bumping up the first of: 

Look What I Found! Friday (insert something here) Edition 

to today so that I can probably still not finish the post I had planned to put in this spot by then but it always feels so good when you buy yourself some time even though it rarely works out the way you imagined it would. 

Anyway, for the past few weeks, upon leaving work for the day, I have noticed a peculiar hole in the mulch near the parking lot. The first time I saw it I did like a QUA-DRUPLE take because, to my surprise, there was something in there! 

NATURE!!! 

More specifically? 

A tiny little mulch living-loving frog. 

betcha can't find him!

 No. Really. You’ll never find him. 

You wanna know why? 

Well APPARENTLY that lil’ wart-y shithead who has been chillin’ in that hole for weeks now has moved onto bigger and better piles of dirt (kind of like someone ELSE mentioned earlier in this post *coughcough* YOUknowwhoyouare *cough*) now that I come prepared with camera readied to snap pictures of him.  

What a dick. Doesn’t he know this totally screws the “Looky, looky here!” nature of this post?  

Or… does it? 

This is supposed to be a Friday thing so maybe it’s fitting that by posting on Wednesday not only are my readers let down with my “discovery” but so am I. 

*sigh* 

it was only AFTER i had done this whole thing in paint that i realized the red was really hard to read over the photo. i was too lazy/disenchanted to actually fix it. so... yeah, this post has reached a whole new level of suck.

Sorry guys. The next edition will be better. 

Probably… 

not.

Weekend Bee-ject’s #25

All images were captured by the bee between July 11th – 17th with a Digital Harinezumi V.2:

Click here for things including, but not limited to, sink-cat and an infuriatingly bizarre phone conversation.

Stinky’s mama needs your help!!!

this is Christine...

She is my Stinky‘s cat-mama and she desperately needs a home!

Are you or someone you know in the market for adopting a cat? She came from an abusive home originally and is a little shy at first but once she gets to know you she will warm up to fill your heart with explosive joy and shooting pangs of happiness! those are good things, people…

Seriously, even if you can’t, please pass on this link to anyone who you may know in the Central New Jersey area who might be willing to take in a sweet natured and loving kitty cat!

I would snatch her up in a heartbeat but it was hard enough convincing the bee to allow me to have ONE cat and I’m not looking to push my luck anymore than I already have.

If you or someone you know might be interested in adopting Christine, please contact Jaime Kirzner-Roberts @ 609.356.9328 or email jaime@princeton.edu.

THANK YOU!!!

Garden State of Mind

Ah, yes.

NEW JERSEY!

If only you could smell it now… 

It’s like a marriage between fresh cut grass and decomposing fecal matter from the veritable Noah’s Ark of animal sphincters that inhabit this good state.

We really do have it all: sprawling highways, multi-nationalities & ethnicities, WAWA, the birthplace of both Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon-Jovi, full-service ONLY gas stations, and, last but not least, NATURE. 

New Jersey has more nature than you can shake a stick at people. We’ve got beaches and lakes, rivers and trees and birds and bugs. Swamp lands, pine barrens and bogs filled with cranberries.

Did you even know that’s where cranberries come from? BOGS?! I swear it. They do. Look it up.  

For today’s lesson, I’d like to focus on the subject of trees. Big-ass ones. Big-ass ones that fall from your neighbor’s yard onto and across your driveway stopping all vehicles from either getting in or out so that this is the scene you are greeted with on your way to work Monday morning:

Lucky for me, I had off from work anyway. It was a different story for the bee. Not only did he have work but he had to dismember and dispose of the tree all on his lonesome (no help from yours truly because HELLOOOOO? Who was gonna take the pictures? Tscha!) until the neighbor whose yard the tree fell from came to help him towards the end.

I’m not sure if the photos accurately depict the severity of the situation but let’s just say had someone or something been in that woody monster’s way when it fell that one/thing would be DEAD.

Probably.

It should also be noted that we wouldn’t even have a house or a driveway as lovely as the one pictured above at all if it weren’t for the bee’s parents who rent the cottage on their property to us.

The reason for this?

It is UNGODLY expensive to own/rent a home in this state. I honestly don’t know how anyone does it. At this rate, by the time we’re 45 we’ll finally be able to afford a home of our own.

In 1986.

Between some train tracks and a nightclub.

Which means I’ll need a time machine to get there and a giant bag of blow if I plan on fitting in, neither of which I had accounted for in my original estimate so let’s face it. It’s never gonna happen…

This got me thinking about New Jersey and how I love/hate it. There’s a lot to love actually (see glowing description of NATUREs gifts above) but there’s also a lot of crap you’ve got to deal with if you wanna live here.

With that, I present to you, dun dun da DUUUUUUUUUUUN…

My bid for New Jersey state slogans that are infinitely better than the current: “Come See For Yourself”

 

Weekend Bee-ject’s #18

Though not typical, this week’s batch of rejects all happened to take place down the shore or on our way there. Here’s to the unofficial start of Summer!

Thank Jebus…

All images were captured by the bee between May 23rd – 29th with a Digital Harinezumi V.2:

Go to bee3six5 for more tiny camera majestification.

***

To maintain the subtle, yet consistent this is MY blog now, bitch feline theme of the past few weeks, a bonus picture:

silent film star: Scott McKitten

Secret’s In The Sauce

Before we start, there’s just something I need to get off my chest. 

(me) and the bee.  

That is just teeming with grammatical incorrectitude. 

I don’t care. 

As much as I’ve always loved reading and writing and the like I have never enjoyed the nitty gritty of appropriate grammar and usage. I just wing it and hope for the best. 

That being said… 

Yesterday, (me) and the bee attended an annual chili cook-off at a local restaurant to support Adele (bee’s ma) who had entered the contest. We brought the Nikon, along with the Zumi, in order to better capture the hullabaloo surrounding this event. Also, the Zumi can’t really be trusted as of late, which really is a whole ‘nother story and a sore subject at that so just forget I said anything… 

I really had no IDEA how worked up people could get over free food. There must have been at least 200 people who waited throughout the day in an enormous line just to sample from 17 different crock pots. 

chili love train

 And what an assortment it was… 

 

Folks cooked up all sorts of stuff to use as the main component in their recipe. From buffalo and venison to veal and (one of my favorites) sweet potatoes. The man who made it was even nice enough to give me a container full to take home! 

 

We also got yelled at. 

The owner of the place came by and started yelling because we moved a power strip to underneath the table. You know, so it wouldn’t look tacky. 

Like it did. 

Adele's "Dear Chili," aka "The Chili That SHOULD Have Won"

Obviously that wasn’t his concern because that move blew the circuit for a whole row of tables and guess whose fault it was? 

So I took some pictures. 

Here is Mr. Owner Man having a conniption fit. Note the frantic speed at which his hand is moving. 

you can't see it, but the shit is hitting the fan...

 Super fast hands = HELLA pissed. 

I was getting kind of nervous with all this pre-official start of the contest controversy. Luckily, The Bee made it out from behind the table unscathed. 

 

With that fiasco averted, the judges proceeded to eat their way through the competition: 

getting down to business

At this time The Bee snuck back into the judging area to take these behind the scenes pictures. That’s around the time he took my favorite picture of the day. When he showed me, I was lol-ing all over the place. 

Presenting: 

 

This might be the world’s most blatant photo bomb. I couldn’t tell you who this guy is, except that The Bee mentioned that mere moments before he clicked the shutter, dude stepped into frame and gave the camera this big smarmy smile. 

Some nerve. 

You should also note the cans of Sterno located below the table. Now, I’m preeeeeeetty sure the use of Sterno was prohibited in the competition but obviously that didn’t stop them from winning. Because they did. 

I call shenanigans.

***

All awesome photography by The Bee.

All other junk, I’ll take responsibility for.

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh…

I’m tired. and lazy. and I complain a lot.

WELCOME!

I’m sick of the snow. I’m sick of my car getting stuck in it, and walking through it so my pants get wet up to the knees, and needing to carry the shoes I’m wearing that day in a bag because I have to wear boots outside but I can’t wear them in the office, and just the way snow looks all cold and white and how it mocks me with its refusal to melt even a little and just go away already so we can just get Spring started because seriously?

(me) and Winter are done.

FIN-ISHED

That, and my mind has decided to take a last-minute, unscheduled vacation.

So…

Here are some pictures involving, you guessed it, SNOW!!!

Funny story: Last night I was uploading these pics to the blog and I was pretty punchy because it was almost midnight and I had wanted to post before today but I ate a giant bowl of taco salad instead followed by a Klondike bar (White House Cherry, no less) and then I started to feel kind of sick so that plan went right to hell.

AN-Y-WAY I was looking at the picture below and the first thing that pops into my head is “Hey, look at that. The hat I’m wearing matches that bulldozer in the background!”

Okay, that wasn’t very funny. What IS funny is that I referred to the thing in the background as a bulldozer, which The Bee was quick to correct me on, because that big yellow, clearly dozer-ish, object actually has a very specific name and that name, my friends, is “backhoe”.

I swear. Look it up.

Back. HOE.

Guess what?

I’m 12 and that thing will always be a bull-dozer to me.

NATURE!

ICE!

Lots and lots of ice.

gah.

I’m not sure why this skull wears an eyepatch other than it wants to establish itself as a pirate through and through, even in death, but it’s quite probably the coolest prize found in a cereal box EVER. It strobes red when you tap it and I like to think it gives people a scare who are driving ahead of me, like the 5-0 is after them.

Told ya.

Coolest. Prize. EVER.

Worst Post Ever*

If the music from Tetris and The Legend of Zelda had a baby (stay with me) and then that baby grew up only to meet Gogol Bordello in college somewhere around 2002 and THEY had a baby it would sound EXACTLY like this band we saw last night. Actually, I have no idea what I’m talking about so you can just listen to this cool song and choose your own adventure from there:

Badass violinist in the mix? Bonus points.

The Bee had me rolling when he said that the male portion of audience appeared to be comprised of the NJ sector of the vampire mafia. Here are some words I would use to describe the crowd: aloof, sullen, mega-hold spray gel, brooding, IRONIC (the girl at the door was wearing a Goo Goo Dolls t-shirt), jaded, feigned disinterest, guyliner, possibly malnourished.

I tell ya. This economy…

So yeah, Kiss Kiss. I really dug their Castlevania sound even though the acoustics in the VFW we saw them at were less than stellar. Oh, and Kiss Kiss? Love the CD and all but next time could I get one that someone (read: band follower/desperate, hungry member of the undead) hasn’t already gnawed on?

You guys SO owe me a new jewel case.

Also, I’m gonna go with us being the oldest ones there, save for somebody’s dad who was standing in front of us.

Somewhat off topic:

Why is it when I do a quick mental check of how old I am the first number that pops into my head is 28? I’m not. Yet. In a few months, yes, but I have never repeatedly aged myself in my own mind before this year. It’s like my brain is refusing to accept 27 as a reasonable age to be and is instead skipping ahead one. The Bee says it’s because 28 is an even number and my brain is just rounding up. I told him that’s hogwash because my brain, like the rest of me, prefers the odd.

Obviously.

And this is what happens when I attempt to post something from off the top of my head on a Monday.

*has nothing to do with the topic of said post but with the delivery. That being said: I fear this too may become a recurring theme.