And that’s one more reason I shouldn’t have eaten those beans! (And other adventures from 1972)

Last summer, I spent five long, lonnnnnnnnngggggggg weeks loitering like a bum on my mom’s couch, 2000 miles away from home.  Sounds like fun?  Yeah, not so much.  It wasn’t my idea to be there.  At all.  I just got all tangled up in the spider webby, complicated, court-ordered crap involving Wednesday and my ex-in-laws—(or are they called out-laws now?  I dunno….)—because I’m Wednesday’s mama and I was ordered to be her rescuer-in-waiting, should things turn sour.   Which they did.  Duh.


(Yeah, it’s complicated, but don’t worry, I’m not going to delve any further into it.)


(You’re welcome.)


While I was stuck out there in Seattle, living out of a suitcase, with nothing to do for over a month but wait for Wednesday to need me, I decided to tackle a hefty task I’ve been meaning to do for roughly twenty years.  Remember how I was telling you about my parents’ pitiful photo-organizing skills which resulted in everyone in my entire family (but me!) completely forgetting about a trip we took to California in 1986?  (Need a refresher?  Click HERE.)  Well, I decided enough was enough.  Before any more memories could go *POOF!* and disappear like M&M’s near a chocoholic, I decided I would round up all the old family photos I could find, scan them all into my laptop, put them all in chronological order, and piece my childhood back together, picture by picture. 


People, this was not easy!  And, at times, it was most frightening!  Ever stumbled upon a full-on crotch shot of your mom giving birth to your little brother?  No?  Well, I have!  And, frankly, I have never been the same since!


(NEVER.)


(*vomit*)


(*twice*)


Most of the pictures (including the horrific beaver shot) (*shudder*) were found randomly crammed into cardboard boxes.  They weren’t labeled, dated, or in any sort of order whatsoever, just a messy hodgepodge of images spanning the 60’s through the 90’s.  Totally overwhelming.  And the pictures that did make it into the family photo albums were often even worse!  I don’t know what Mom was sniffing while she put the albums together, but absolutely nothing made sense.  I found pages mislabeled “Christmas” which featured an obvious Halloween party; and barren pages with no pictures at all; and entire albums that skipped back and forth here and there throughout the years, like Bill and Ted on a time-travelling acid trip.


Oy.


When I came back to Chicago, I brought the scanned clutter of my past with me on my computer with the intention of putting it all in a nice, pretty, labeled, sense-making order so I could preserve all the memories, say “HA!” to my slacker parents, and so Wednesday could laugh at my 80’s hairstyles and my 70’s pants.  *le sigh*  But….  It’s been seven months and I’m still trying to sort it all out!  It’s been taking some effing serious CSI work, my God.  I’ve been scrutinizing haircuts, coats, and shoes; counting candles on birthday cakes; matching up missing teeth in children’s smiles; looking for subtle changes in house décor; and Googling information on toys and books littered in the backgrounds of old photos, all to try to figure out when these hundreds of pictures were taken.  It’s been one massive, aggravating, puppy-kicking, pain in the ass—*snarl*—but, of course, I have loved every minute of it.


I guess I underestimated what a gigantic journey it was going to be.  When I started, I truly had no clue that I would learn so flipping much about my history and that I would spend so much time twirling around in dizzy circles inside old memories that I haven’t stopped to visit in a long, long time.  It sounds like a dumb cheesy cliché (and you know that clichés are the only time that I am NOT pro-cheese), but maybe you need to face where you’ve been to understand where you are going.  (I know.  Deep, huh?)  That’s part of the reason I haven’t been blogging or skipping through Facebook as much lately.  I’ve been busy in my past.  And I’d like to share some of it with you over the next several posts. 


We’ll be lingering in the 70’s around here for a little bit, talking about toys, TV, clothes, books, music, wigs  (yes, wigs) and just pretty much what life was like back then, sifting through scattered pictures and misty water-colored mem-ries of the way we were. 


Can you dig it?  Far out.


My parents grew up, met, and married in London.  In the late 1960’s, they moved to the US (first Atlanta, then Seattle) because my dad got a job with Boeing.  I was their first baby (and the first person in my family born in America).  I popped out into the world in the Summer of 1972.  Here’s a picture I found of my mom while she was pregnant with me.




Yeah, you read that right:  WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT.  Mom looked fabulous, no?   I don’t know how she pulled that off, frankly.  I know I never managed to squeeze out even a mere millisecond of fabulousness while I was pregnant.  Instead, I just galumphed around in over-sized t-shirts, while oozing blubbery, nauseous, crankiness, and looking like Louie Anderson in drag the whole nine months.  How most unfair.


Being fabulous when you’re pregnant has a price though, I suppose.  After Mom sloshed down drinks at a party five weeks before my due date, I, clearly, took offense at her marinating me in alcohol and I kicked so hard that her water broke.  She went into early labor and then magically found herself the surprised mother of a five pound itty bitty preemie who failed the Apgar Test and had to be whisked away to an incubator immediately.  Oops. 


This was me the day I was born, looking exceptionally pissed off and already plotting my revenge. 




It’s a good thing they put me in mittens, so you can’t see the middle finger I’m brandishing there.  But anyway….


These days, everyone gasps in horror, of course, when they hear about Mom knocking ‘em back while she was pregnant, but she assures me that it was no big deal at the time because, hey, it was a party and that was the norm in 1972 and it’s what everybody did.  I guess life was like that bar scene in Hairspray back then.  (“Wow!  They’re so glamorous.”)  But I’m not complaining; I survived. 


Unlike these days when the hospital kicks you out the door 24 hours after giving birth, back then moms and babies got to live it up in the hospital for four whole days before going home.  (Again, so unfair.)  Once they got me home, Mom and Dad were eager to fatten me up, it seems, because here they are, shoveling baby food in my face while I was trying to sleep. 




I seem really perplexed by the whole thing—and rightfully so, I think, because, obviously, I was waaaayyyyyyyy too young to be eating solid food.  (Hell, I was a preemie, and I shouldn’t even have been born yet!)  But, again, it was the 70’s and there were no rules on… well… anything.  After eating?  Yep, they gave me a bath.  And I was most displeased.




This is me, after being force-fed and dunked in water, further planning out my forthcoming revenge.




(”Well, that settles it.  Now I am SO going to be a shit when I’m a teenager.  You have no-one to blame but yourselves.”)


But I guess I eventually got the hang of the whole eating thing, because I was as round as a beach ball just a couple of months later.




Mom thinks I’m laughing jovially with her in that shot up there.  But I’m pretty sure I’m really laughing at her sagging beehive wig.  My mom had a whole collection of bizarre wigs back then.  She even had a gray one!  (Seriously?  Who voluntarily gives themselves gray hair?!?!)  She seemed to have a different hair color and hairstyle each and every day of the week.  I wonder if I knew it was all the same woman or if I thought I had a whole battalion of mothers coming and going?….


Hmm….


Well, anyway….


There aren’t really any decent pictures of what my nursery looked like back then, but I know from the bits and pieces in the backgrounds of various pictures that there was a lot of yellow in it and that I had a cute hand-painted wooden Irmi Mother Goose mobile hanging over my crib.




I have vague memories of that mobile.  I Googled the heck out of it and found out that Irmi mobiles, lamps, and light switch covers were everywhere in the 70’s.  My one played Rock-a-Bye Baby and had cute wooden nursery rhyme characters hanging from it.  These days they sell on eBay for about $10 each.  Here are some close-up shots of the old, long-gone mobile that I borrowed from eBay and Etsy.










Ahh, the glorious 1970’s!  When people put wooden objects the size of grapes in their babies' beds and the term ‘choking hazard’ hadn’t been invented yet.  Fifty bucks says that was lead paint too.


I was about five months old when Christmas rolled around.  Here I am with my dad (who looked like a young Alan Alda) who gave me a teddy bear.




I still have that bear.  He’s a threadbare old man now.  Like, literally.  These days, he’s dressed like Dumbledore and sitting in my den.  See?




Here I am with my bear and the rest of my Christmas presents back in 1972.  Mom opted for a black wig that day, but I’m pretty sure that’s the same purple dress as before!




See the little pink doll just beneath the bear?  That was my Baby Beans Doll.  Baby Beans was made by Mattel in the early 70’s.  She had a vinyl face and hands with a floppy, soft body that was stuffed with orange plastic “beans”. 


According to family legend, Baby Beans wasn’t with us for long because, one tragic morning, my mom found me sitting in my crib, eating the plastic “beans” that had poured out when I had ripped open Baby Beans’ seams.  Whoopsie!  Even forty years later, Dad still loves to tell the harrowing tale of the Battle of the Baby Beans.  (Apparently, the next several diaper changes were quite beany…. and orange…. and interesting to say the least.  Ugh!)  Here’s a better picture of Baby Beans that I borrowed from eBay.




These days Baby Beans goes anywhere from $5 to $50 on eBay.  $50!  Can you believe that?  And that’s ONE MORE reason I shouldn’t have eaten those beans!



In the next post, I’ll be telling you what I’ve discovered about 1973—that magical year when I rocked out to the Stylistics, rode a motorcycle, discovered the joy of birthday cake, and taught my grandpa a valuable lesson on when NOT to play horse-y with a baby.





© Coracabana

The Rainbow Connection

No.  Sorry.  This isn’t going to be a post about Kermit the Frog, but after typing that title, I just couldn’t resist slipping the song in.  So, anyway….


Remember that stop-motion/claymation video Wednesday made about bullying and self-esteem which won her the top prize and $2000 in the Expressions Contest?  (If not, click HERE.)  Well, we attended the award ceremony a couple of weeks ago; Wednesday was presented with her prize money (cha-ching!); and then we went home and it was over and done with.


Or so we thought.


Then we got a phone call from Expressions last week that the Rainbow PUSH Coalition was all excited about the contest and the kids involved in it, and that they wanted to honor Wednesday and the other winners at their headquarters in Chicago.  (Rumor even had it that Rev. Jesse Jackson might be there!  *mind spinning*)  So, of course, we agreed to go.


Saturday morning, we got up early and dolled ourselves up and headed out to the car.  We were given the address of their headquarters in two different emails the Expressions people had sent us, so we plugged that address into our GPS and off we went.  But….  Unfortunately, the address was wrong!  We ended up outside someone’s home, not the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.  D’oh!  Thankfully though, we had given ourselves plenty of extra time just in case and Scope had noticed a building we had passed a few streets back had the word PUSH on it, so we backtracked to that location, hoping that it was either the correct place or that they would at least be able to tell us where we should go if it wasn’t.


*fingers crossed*


When we got there, they buzzed us into the building and, after a little confusion at the receptionist’s desk, it was determined that, yep, we were in the right building, but we were too early, so we were asked to wait a few minutes before heading back.  As we sat in the waiting area, watching people quickly filling up the lobby, I was suddenly struck by two sharp revelations: 


1.  Everybody was SUPER dressed up.  Like, Sunday best kind of dressed up, with snazzy hats, jewelry, dress shoes, the works.


2.  Scope, Wednesday, and I were the only white people there.


I was suddenly EXTREMELY thankful that I had chosen to throw on my little black dress that morning!  I mean, I almost didn’t.  I almost went casual, thinking that only Wednesday needed to look spiffy since she was the one being honored and all.  But then Scope had put on a tie and, well, frankly, I’d rather eat spiders than be out-classed like that.  So, on a whim, I grabbed the LBD just to balance out the fanciness.


(Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, thank you, thank you, thank you, vanity!!!!  You day-saving, sexy beast, you!!!!)


As I sat there, boiling over in thankfulness that my chosen outfit was a nice dress and not a Harry Potter t-shirt—(hey, if I’m going to be the one representing my heritage, I wanna do it right!….  Or at least not disgrace myself)—it started to dawn on me that this event we had been invited to was a much bigger deal than we had realized.  There were a lot of people there; a lot of really excited people who had gone to much trouble to look their very best.  This couldn’t all be for the four Expressions contest winners, right?….


Just as worry started to whisper in my ear (seriously, what the hell was going on and where were all the other Expressions winners?!), the three of us were called back into a maze of corridors and offices, where, standing near a doorway, beckoning us into a conference room, was none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson himself! 


Yes.


Really.


THE Jesse Jackson.


I could hardly believe it.  He shook our hands and greeted us warmly, and I told him it was wonderful to meet him, while a very star-struck Wednesday’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.  Yeah, we had been told that Jesse Jackson MIGHT be there, but as poor Hadiya Pendelton’s funeral was taking place that same day, I had assumed he would not be, because he, very clearly, had more pressing matters to attend to.


We entered the conference room and were directed to sit down at a big, oblong table, where another Reverend of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, who was practically pulsating with purpose and activity (let’s call her Busy Reverend), came in to meet us and kept talking to us about “the program”. 


Umm….  Program?….  What program?….


She looked at us in disbelief and then told us that Wednesday was supposed to be giving a speech ON LIVE WORLD-WIDE TV in just a few minutes from now.


Huh?!?!


A speech?  On TV?  WHAT?!  When Expressions had told us we were invited, no-one said anything about any of that.  In fact, I had specifically asked them on the phone if Wednesday needed to bring or prepare anything, and they told me no, that they would supply a poster for Wednesday to hold on a stage while she was congratulated, and that would be that.  But now they wanted a speech?….  ON LIVE TV???? 


Holy crap.


Busy Reverend didn’t seem at all amused by our confusion, our unpreparedness, and our ignorance of the weekly TV show Wednesday was about to be a part of.  She wanted to know where all the other Expressions winners and coordinators were and why Wednesday was the only Expressions representative there.  I stammered something to her about how the address they’d given out was incorrect, so, perhaps, everyone was lost and would be delayed because of it.  That didn’t sit well and I was, again, reminded that this was a LIVE WORLD-WIDE TELEVISION BROADCAST that would wait for no-one. 


Poor Wednesday must have felt like bolting for the door!  I know I would have.  But she held it all together and quietly whispered to me out of the side of her mouth, “Mom!  What should I do?”  And the two of us put our heads together at that table to quickly cook up a two-second thank-you speech for her to give, should no-one else show up before the broadcast began. 


A few other people were ushered into the room with us for a quick briefing before the show started, but they weren’t the Expressions people; they were with other organizations who were also slated to be part of the show as well, and they all seemed to know exactly why they were there and what they were supposed to be doing and they were practically doing cartwheels of excitement over the whole thing.  I felt a pang of annoyance that we hadn’t been adequately informed about what we were walking into like everyone else seemed to be, and a double pang of annoyance that my baby would be on Live TV but I hadn’t set up the DVR to record it or been able to tell anyone about it because this was the first we had heard of it!


Jesse Jackson came in and out of the room a couple of times while Wednesday and I were quietly hatching an impromptu speech plan on the sly.  Then he told us he wouldn’t be staying for the television broadcast because he would be attending Hadiya’s funeral, as I’d expected.  He asked us if we would like a picture with him before he left, so we ran out to the lobby with him for a quick photo session. 





(You can’t tell in the picture because she’s behind me, but Jesse Jackson had his arm wrapped around Wednesday’s shoulder in a really sweet half-bear hug!  She was all star-struck after he had left.  “Mom!  Did you see it?  He had his arm around me!  Squeeeeeeeee!”)


But anyway….


The Expressions coordinators and other winners (including the real girl who was picked to give the speech) ended up making it to the right building just in time for the broadcast after all, saving Wednesday a heaping helping of humiliation and stress!  (She practically melted into a puddle of relief when the speech girl showed up, I swear!) and then we were all led into the auditorium for the televised ceremony.


Oh.


My.


Goodness.


I don’t really know what I had expected.  I’d had so little time to concoct any sort of well-formed expectation of what a live TV show stage at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Headquarters might look like, I guess.  I just know I wasn’t expecting what we stepped into.  It was like a church and a telethon had had a baby!  There was a gospel choir, blinding lights, a stage, massive TV cameras swiveling in all directions, and a very (VERY) excited audience.


We were ushered into the front row, right in front of the stage.  They made us switch seats up and down our row a few times in an attempt to make the audience look just right—and only then did I realize that Wednesday wouldn’t be the only one of the three of us on TV that day, and that the cameras would be on Scope and me too.  *gulp*  An energetic fellow got on the microphone at the front of the stage and told us all to put our “best TV faces” on, and then the show started and we were on live TV.


What happened over the next hour is a complete blur to me.  I don’t know, maybe my brain had just reached its limit of surprise-tolerance for the day and shut down or something, I’m not sure.  All I have left are fragments of it, including bright lights in my face; a preacher making me burst into tears (On!  Live!  T!  V!) when he started talking about Hadiya Pendleton’s murder; and that every now and then the gospel choir would erupt in song and everyone would leap out of their chairs and dance and clap along in that awesome, enthusiastic way that African American’s possess…. and which made me horrifically aware that I have all the rhythm of freaking Fozzie Bear.




(Yeah.  Muppets again.  I don’t know where this keeps coming from.  Sorry.  Oy.)


And, of course, I remember my baby being honored on stage.  She stood there, smiling and looking so brave, so composed, so alarmingly grown up.  *sniffle*





Despite all the confusion beforehand, the show went off without a single hitch.  And, looky, you can even see Scope and me armed with our cameras in the TV monitor over the kids’ heads as they left the stage.





And then suddenly it was finished and we were released back out into the world, dazed, blinking, and bewildered.





If I didn’t have pictures of it in my camera, I swear I would think it had all been just a very strange dream. 


Really.





© Coracabana

And that, I guess, is that.

Well, here we are.  This is the conclusion of my 2012 Project 365.  A whole year of taking a picture each and every day….  Or at least it was almost a year.  As you might have already realized, I picked a year with 366 days in it to do Project 365.  D’oh!  But whatever. 


Now that the project is complete, I feel nothing but relief.  Blessed, sigh-worthy, hot fudge covered relief!!!!  People keep asking me if I will do Project 365 again this year.  The answer to that is a big, fat, burly HELL NO.  Nah, I already have another photography project that I want—nay, need—to tackle this year, and that is putting my photo albums together….  because I’m four years behind on it! 


FOUR. 


YEARS. 


The last time I completed a photo album was in 2009, when Scope and I first met!  Yeah.  Wrap your mind around that fact for a minute.  You know all the stuff that has happened (and been photographed) since 2009, right?  Our wedding, our San Francisco honeymoon, our move to Chicago, our cross-country road trip, our week at the lake in Ohio, our trip to Disneyland, and a million other things. 


Oy. 


I can’t believe I’m four years behind on the albums.  Nope, just can’t.  I used to be so religious about it, so structured, so freakin’ awesome.  Anytime someone was like, “hey, how did your Halloween costumes turn out last year?”  I would be like, “well, here’s the photo album of it, containing 200 pictures of everything from all different angles and all in chronological order and wittily captioned and shit.  Enjoy!” 


But now?  Now I spend my days living in mortal terror that someone will come over one day and want to see photos from our wedding, and I’ll either have to admit I don’t have my act together or I’ll have to start talking about how knocked up Kim Kardashian looks in a desperate effort to change the subject.  And talking about Kim Kardashian gives me hives, so clearly, it will just be better for everyone if I spend more time managing the photos I’ve already amassed, and less time generating more photos to throw onto the pile of neglect.  So be it.


Are you ready for the very last pictures of Project 365?  Yeah, me too.  Here they are….


Day 354 (2012-12-19) ~  It was almost Christmas, but on the night of the 19th, the sky definitely looked like it was Halloween!





Day 355 (2012-12-20) ~  It looks kind of like a chalkboard, doesn't it?  But, nope.  It's snow.  This is what the first snowflakes of the season looked like swirling in the wind and trailing across the night sky.





Day 356 (2012-12-21) ~  This is Wednesday and the stop motion clay puppet she made for her "Alice In High School Land" anti-bullying video for Walgreen's Expressions contest.  We found out on the 21st that she won the top prize in her category!  We are SO EXCITED!  I am so proud of her!





Here is the full-length un-cut video Wednesday made for the contest with clay on our dining table. 




Isn’t that AWESOME??????


Day 357 (2012-12-22) ~  For Scope's birthday, we had dinner at Bob Chinn's Crab House. 





Day 358 (2012-12-23) ~  Every year since we got married, Scope sneaks a new ornament onto my Christmas tree without telling me.  I’m wise to his shenanigans now though and, this year, I could tell that he had done it just by the look on his face.  One look at his guilty expression and I blurted out, “did you sneak an ornament onto my tree?!”  He could hardly believe it!  Ha ha!  But anyway….  This year he got me Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc (my favorite Pixar movie).  Awww.  I love it!





Day 359 (2012-12-24) ~  Wednesday and I made gingerbread—okay, fine, graham cracker—houses on Christmas Eve.  This is my gingerbread dog house.  I just couldn't resist when I saw those cute Scottie dog shortbread cookies in the store!





Day 360 (2012-12-25) ~  For Christmas "Santa" got me a remote control for my Sony DSLR.  Ooooooh, what a fun toy!!  This was the first shot I tried with it.





Day 361 (2012-12-26) ~  Cool!  So, it turns out that Guy Fieri and his show Diners, Drive-In's and Dives did a show at one of our favorite local restaurants, Chicago Brahaus.  We haven't seen the episode on Food Network yet, but I can't wait!





Day 362 (2012-12-27) ~  Grrr.  Our internet went out the morning of the 26th and AT&T repeatedly dropped the customer service ball and wouldn't come by to fix it.  (Long story, but we were without internet for five days.)  (Stupid AT&T.)  On the 27th, Wednesday and I went to the bakery next door to siphon off their wi-fi and eat yummy cookies.  As far as I see it, cookies are a fair price to pay for an internet connection.





Day 363 (2012-12-28) ~  Driving in the snow the night of the 28th, on our way to Indiana for a wedding, the snow was zooming past the car in the dark and it looked just like we were going into warp speed.





Day 364 (2012-12-29) ~  At a gorgeous Christmas-themed wedding reception on the 29th, the tables were decorated with red glass balls and ribbons.  The whole thing was lovely!





Day 365 (2012-12-30) ~  So.  I guess this is how Project 365 ended.  This was picture number 365.  I thought I had one more day at the time, but I forgot there were 366 days this year, not 365, so my project ended a day earlier than I was expecting.  I had thought I would end the project in a fitting way—maybe I would take a bow or something, I dunno, but I guess instead it ends with a brick wall and vicious-looking icicles.  And that is that.  Oh well. 





Thanks to everyone who followed along.  I hope you enjoyed the journey!  Up next for the blog, I think I might finally whip out some of those 1970’s pictures I dug up at my mom’s house over the summer which I promised I’d share with you.  Wanna see me as a three year old with a red mini ‘fro?!  You know you do.  It’s coming soon….






© Coracabana

Wait! What? Is…. Is that…. Is that the finish line?

Okay, so I’m still trying to burn through 2012’s Project 365 picture updates so that the dang thing will finally be out of my hair.  I think there will just be one post to go after this one.  Ready?  Me too.  Let’s do it….


Day 336 (2012-12-01) ~  Scope’s mom had a Florida-themed tree set up for Christmas.  This is a shot of one of the sand dollars she has hanging on it.  I love, love, LOVE how to looks in black and white.





Day 337 (2012-12-02) ~  Just a partial shot of a beautiful light-up house Scope’s mom had set up in the guest room we stayed in when we visited for the weekend.   (Sorry, this pic was really taken on the 1st, not the 2nd.)





Day 338 (2012-12-03) ~  A shot of Christmas lights on a fence that I snapped while running to the train station in the dark.  (Eh.  I know, I really felt like I started to lose my motivation on the whole project right about here.)  I wasn't happy with the quality of light in the shot, so I tinted the whole shot green, which I definitely prefer.





Day 339 (2012-12-04) ~  This is a similar shot to the one the night before—lights on a fence, which I dyed green.  However, I was playing around with effects on Picmonkey and kind of liked how this one came out with the red bow immune to the green tint.  It's kind of striking in a way, I think.  (Pic really taken on the 3rd, not the 4th.  Another boo-boo, I know.)





Day 340 (2012-12-05) ~  So, the neighbors started decorating for the holidays and this was the first guy to go all out.  *snicker*





Day 341 (2012-12-06) ~  Oops.  A ball buster.  While decorating my tree, I accidentally dropped a ball which smashed into a million tiny red splinters of glass all over the hardwood floor.  *sigh*  What a pain!  But at least it made good picture-of-the-day material.





Day 342 (2012-12-07) ~  Ummm….  yeah. So, it was, clearly, a very, VERY hot day at one of the local high schools!  *snicker*





Day 343 (2012-12-08) ~  Wednesday had a weekend school assignment which took us to the Art Institute of Chicago.  This was the first wall of paintings she studied.





Day 344 (2012-12-09) ~  Another shot from inside the Art Institute of Chicago.  (Actually taken on the 8th, not the 9th).  I liked the lines and festivity of the staircases there.





Day 345 (2012-12-10) ~  Okay, so this was a shot Wednesday needed for a computer class she’s taking at school.  She needed me to take her picture, then she would use Photoshop in class to transform herself into a superhero.  I haven't seen her Photoshop transformation yet, but I really, REALLY love this photo of her.  My goodness!  When did she grow up????





Day 346 (2012-12-11) ~  Another one of my 80's Strawberry Shortcake dolls.  This is Lime Chiffon. 





Day 347 (2012-12-12) ~  When I went for my morning walk around the park on 12/12/12, there were police cars everywhere and the buses were being re-routed off their usual street.  Very strange.  As I rounded the corner, I found out why.... a motorcyclist had crashed into the back of a parked car so hard that he caved the back of the car in, shattered the car's back window, and actually moved the car off to the side!  It was an unbelievable sight.  No, the motorcyclist did not survive.  And, no, I didn't see the body; I arrived on the scene after he had been taken away.  What I saw though was a demolished car, a fallen bike, a broken helmet and gloves on the ground in all different directions near the front of the car (as if the motorcyclist's helmet and clothes had come flying off at impact and kept moving forward without the body), and a street that sparkled with tiny vehicle fragments as if it were covered in glitter.  I can't fathom how fast the motorcyclist was travelling to make an impact as catastrophic as that, but it must have been an astonishing speed.  Ugh.  Slow down out there, people.  The hurry just isn’t worth it.





Day 348 (2012-12-13) ~  Another 80's Strawberry Shortcake doll that sits in the glass cabinet in our den.  Crepe Suzette.





Day 349 (2012-12-14) ~  Cute, isn't he?  This is one of this year's new ornaments on my Christmas tree.  It's Mickey Mouse dressed up like the cast members in the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland!  I love him!!!!  (Oh, if only they made a Tower of Terror one like this.... Maybe next year.)  (My days were still off a bit, so this pic was actually taken on the 17th, not the 14th.)





Day 350 (2012-12-15) ~  My kiddo told me (for the millionth time) how much she hates mushrooms and will never, never, NEVER eat one.  Then she opened her advent calendar.... and it was a chocolate mushroom.  (Ha ha!)  And, yes, she ate it.  Never say never.





Day 351 (2012-12-16) ~  Another filler picture of an ornament on my tree.  It's a limited edition Harry Potter Golden Snitch from Hallmark.  When they came out, Chicago sold out of them instantly and I couldn't find one anywhere. Scope and I went from store to store, but they were all gone.  *sniffle*  Luckily, I whined about it enough to my mom that she found one back in Seattle and gave it to me for my birthday that year.  Yay! : -)  My favorite part of it is on the front where it says "I open at the close" just like in Deathly Hallows.





Day 352 (2012-12-17) ~  The flag at the local high school was at half staff due to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  At first I was standing there wishing the wind would whip up into a frenzy so I could get a picture of the flag billowing, but then I realized I actually like it better this way some how.  The air was still in the Windy City.  Completely still.  Somehow that just seemed fitting in a way.





Day 353 (2012-12-18) ~  Sometimes Christmas feels JUST.  LIKE.  THIS.





Okidoki, just one more Project 365 post to go and then we’ll be done with them. 






© Coracabana