I know about team rivalries. I went to Berkeley, where the Big Game each year pitted Stanford against Cal and tempers flared, pranks were played, gloating was done by the fans of the winning team toward the fans of the losing team.
This morning, following yesterday's stunning win by Brisbane in the footy finals, Peggy couldn't help herself. She had to gloat over her friend Sue, in Melbourne. Thus we spent the morning crafting a brilliant cartoon which was e-mailed around noon.
it wouldn't mean anything to anybody else anyway.)
It was great for me because Peggy was working in PhotoShop, the gold standard for graphics imaging and I got a good "how to" lesson as she worked on the various components of the cartoon...which ultimately included about 20 different layers that she was manipulating--doesn't look like that, but this little thing took about 4 hours to craft. I was very impressed as I watched it come together.
With the dig at Sue accomplished, it was time for us to go off and have our own day.
Two years ago, in the days when Peggy actually did something with the photos she takes and made slide shows, she sent me a show from Lake Joondalup and for two years I've been wanting to go to Lake Joondalup. So, with nice weather here, this seemed the perfect day.
We had a lunch here, packed up the cameras, got in the car and drove to Lake Joondalup.
We walked past the picnic area and onto the foot path. Once you get past the sounds of kids playing, you'd be hard pressed to realize that you are just a short distance away from a housing development--and all the city offices as well as Edith Cowan University. It was like being in another world.
It's spring, of course, and so wildflowers were everywhere. I loved the airy-ness of it...no masses of color, just very subtle, but everywhere around you were standing ankle deep in color. Well, until we saw the snake slither across the path and someone told us it was "one of the bad ones" and that there were lots of them around. After that we didn't stand ankle deep in anything and kept our feet firmly on the path as we walked. (Australia is home to an incredible number of the most deadly snakes on the planet, you know. Enjoy your walk!)
With the profusion of wildflowers there was also a profusion of butterflies everywhere we looked. We spent a lot of time trying to get good photos (this was not an "ooohhh...what a great photo!" day, as we sat at our computers at the end of it reviewing the day's efforts!)
I also spent a lot of time trying to catch those spiders in the center of spider webs. It was the damndest thing--I could see them, I could aim my camera in their direction and as soon as I got the camera aimed, they would disappear. Oh, they'd still be there, but I could not for the life of me find a web in my viewfinder. I snapped lots of pictures, hoping I'd see them on the computer screen, but no dice. This one, however, was a success.
We stood at the edge of a reflecting pool and watched 28s (parrots) flying about in the trees. I heard my first kookaburra. We also watched a bit of the survival of the fittest. When we walked out to a platform over the lake, we were either watching a duck gang-bang, or a mass execution, as a gang of ducks simply would not leave this one duck alone and kept holding its head under water. I don't know what finally happened, as we left. Guess this was the real Ugly Duckling! (Kind of reminded me of the California recall election!)
It was, all in all, a lovely afternoon and we both came home sated with fresh air. Peggy got some washing out on the line and I fixed a Chinese dinner (which she enjoyed enough she went back for seconds; I call that high praise).
Now if I can keep my eyes open long enough, I'll get this posted and I suspect I'm going to be asleep very early tonight.
