The Pretty Image

   Here lately, I cannot sleep past 4am.  Most of the time, it is more like 3am but occasionally that extra hour slips in and feels grand.  Not being one that likes to lie in bed if I am awake, I rise, make coffee and wander the Small Gardens by whatever light there is.  Often, this light is nothing more than that provided by buildings across the way.  At least now that it is cooler, I have little worry of stepping on a moccasin.  Still, other critters are out and about at the same time so I have to be wary.  The positive side of rising so early is I have the opportunity to witness lovely sunrises.

  Although I am not a fan of the encroaching buildings of the city, the skyline is amazingly beautiful before dawn. The buildings add just enough interest between the trees to break the monotony.  Sadly, sometimes those buildings across the way seem far too near and I begin to feel trapped.  Trapped in a pretty image but trapped nonetheless.  

The "Staff of Green" On My Table

   When going back to the idea of finding weird things in photographs, I suppose it is all in how you look at things.  I have often said that a lot of people look but just do not see.  Sometimes, I am just the opposite.  I see even when I do not look.  Make sense?  Nah, if you are not a person with a weird sense of understanding, that will be just a garbled bunch of words without much meaning.  To me, however, in my feeble brain, it is all perfectly clear.  There are things that can be seen from a different perspective...so, it is all in how you look at things. I choose to be delighted in the simple mystery behind a lot of this thing we call life.  

  As I stumbled into the kitchen this morning to make that pot of "wakeup" called coffee, one of those pondering moments hit me.  I had flipped on the light and immediately saw an unusual sort of "staff".  There it was in bright lime green on the kitchen table.  It reminded me of a misshapen trident.  It had four prongs so could not be an actual trident.  Poseidon would have freaked had his trident been portrayed as such!  Funny thing...I never noticed it before.  It was there unmistakably clear and bright green. The stove light had passed through a bottle of cleanser that I had left on the table the night before.  Somehow, the angle of the light made a most unique image to be cast upon the table.  

  My pondering moment was not why the "staff" was there but rather why I suddenly saw it.  Why did I not see it last night?  How could I miss seeing something so vividly produced?  The image kept me enthralled through my entire first mug of coffee.  I looked at it from different angles thinking perhaps I needed to be in a certain spot to view it.  Nope...it was there from all angles.  I figure I need to just start noticing more things.  Pop would have claimed "Had it been a snake, you would have already been bitten."  It is a good thing he taught me to smell snakes far before I could see them!  Maybe the image just became viewable so I could have a good "thinking" early this morning.  All things happen for a reason.

Not Sand

  Google lied!  Or, at least it was far from being accurate.  Just kidding.  The reverse image search that I did had no way of knowing what the photograph was, where it was taken nor how large the image was so it would have surprised me if I had gotten an answer that was correct.  The image is not even something that was likely to have ever appeared before so a reverse image search was a futile effort.  The fact is I already know what the image is and what caused it but the cool design in the middle looks so familiar that I thought perhaps I had seen something, somewhere like it.

  I am in the midst of doing a good cleaning in the craft room.  In fact, EVERYTHING has to be moved from the room so it can be gutted and redone.  Nothing has been changed in there since it was Darling Daughter's bedroom so it is time for a update!  I need shelves for the crafty items, a sewing area for costumes and a bit of storage for the costumes.  Son has promised to create whatever I deem necessary to get this whim of mine to fruition.  All of this clearing has produced some mighty strange items that were somehow tucked away with good intentions.  One piece is nothing but a sizely chunk of Styrofoam.  This was set aside when we needed to line a box for a clue hunt several years ago.  Son built what was basically an ice chest (he dubbed it the "box of colder") to keep some items chilled.  A regular cooler would not have kept with the theme set in medieval times.  The foam pieces were kept in case we needed a quick repair.  Since then, several items were placed on top of the foam and were smashed into it.  When I went to toss the foam, the design created by the indentations caught my eye.  It was fascinating!  

  The design shared a close resemblance to a few of the crop circle images that I have seen but, also, made me think of perhaps a logo of some sort.  My idea with the reverse image search was to reassure myself that this was not just some hodgepodge of crinkles and dents and that it really did appear to be something...anything.   Google had no idea...it said "sand".  I guess?  But I do think Google missed the mark on this one.  Sand!  At least give me some weird choice and keep the wheels in my brain whirring about how this design can be twisted into an art piece or a clue for the clue hunt.  Not just sand!