Like Fireworks

I was talking to one of the guests at the Super Bowl party we went to on Sunday, and missed the halftime show with JLo and Shakira because he was standing in front of the small   television in the kitchen. By the time we got back to the big screen in another room, the 49ers were getting their clocks cleaned....I just got around to watching the halftime show on youtube (since it has been quite controversial) and, although it was certainly suggestive and had overt S/M undertones, I certainly admired the talent of two exceptionally pretty women. Shakira turned 47 and JLo is 50. It is an homage to their athleticism that the first thing John mentioned was how impressed he was that they were so , er, limber....
(rather than the pole dancing, the hip swinging and the er, rest). 

I was offered a manicure by a woman in my Pilates reformer class because she has just moved her salon not far from me. Since the time she offered me was the same time as I was supposed to have the stitches taken out of my ankle,  I decided to do that myself, saving the drive clear across town and rewarding myself with a manicure. It's not often, I realized, that stitches are in a place easily reached by two hands. 

I played around with different camera settings to produce the high key shot of the grevillea under the kitchen window that not only never fails to have interesting bloom, but  attracts daily visits from Oliver, the Anna's hummingbird. Today he zoomed up to me as I stood with camera in hand and hovered directly in front of me as he studied my face. Although the camera was raised, it was on the wrong setting. and after a few seconds, he turned on a dime and zoomed off again. I've spent hours out there trying to capture him with little to no success. This was just another version of why not to devote your life to photographing hummingbirds....