Bad Wedding Photography: Beware the New Breed of “Professionals”

I have to admit, when I got married I had no idea what I was doing. Planning such a big event was all new to me, and I didn’t get a lot of help from experienced people. The best advice I received was from one of my Matrons of Honor: “Just enjoy yourself.” So that was exactly what I was determined to do, and that’s what I did. Of course, I read several bridal magazines and websites. I repeatedly read the advice: Don’t skimp on the photography. But really . . . I had no idea what that meant.

At the time we got engaged, I was working on a project with my brother, scanning old family photos to create a digital archive. I was spending a lot of time scanning, and then retouching old photos. So, when looking for a wedding photographer, I was easily seduced by one in particular. She did all digital photography. She was priced just below the average professional photographers (less than $2,000). And she came with the promise that she was not only able to take a multitude of nice sharp photographs, but the copyrights were included with the price.

This photographer’s site was full of photos, all very vivid and colorful. So we met with her. We only had a few particular requests. Reception photos were very important to us. It was very important to me to have photos of our guests enjoying themselves. I mentioned that I wanted to put disposable cameras on every table, and she discouraged that. “I have a digital camera,” she boasted. “I can take loads of photos. And it’s not a problem for me to photograph every table.” I trusted her word, and didn’t buy the disposable cameras. She was full of confidence and bravado, bragging about how she covered more weddings than some of the more established professionals that were still using film. This constant bragging, comparing herself to her competators and putting down of "amateurs" I now look as a big red flag. At our meeting she emphasized that she did not want competing "amateur" photographers taking photos during the wedding, because she said the flash could interfere with her work. Again, a red flag.

After looking at her photos, I realized that I didn’t like the look of her photos that had that romantic out of focus look. It didn’t really occur to me at the time why I didn’t like them. I just thought it was something that didn’t fit my personality. Now, after the fact, I realize that I do have an appreciation for nicely shot photos that are partially out of focus. The problem with her photos was that she doctored them after the fact. They were already bland digital photos to begin with. Doctoring the out of focus affect just made them look like cheap, unsophisticated imitations of real professional photographs. (And yes, we ended up with the doctored out of focus photos, despite our request, as you can see.)

When we met to shoot the engagement photos, I started to realize that I had made a mistake. She had a mental list of poses that she wanted us to do. The poses were silly, unsophisticated and had a cookie cutter quality. We tried to make it very clear to her that silly cutesy poses were not our style. We were already getting close to the wedding day. I thought of just losing the $500 deposit and trying to find someone else, but the lure of “copyrights included” was very strong.

This is a warning to all those who are considering a photographer like this. Chose carefully. Because getting the copyrights to a lot of crappy photographs is not worth it.

At the day of the wedding, this photographer seemed to have completely disregarded everything we talked about at our first meeting and during the engagement shoot. Despite the fact that we had been clear about not liking silly, cute poses during the engagement shoot, she came with a long list of her favorite cute poses ---none of which we felt comfortable with. (The photo of me wrapping the string of flowers around my head is the most painful to look at.) Also, she insisted on taking the majority of the formals against a yellowish wall, that had a flat statue covered by a fake ficus tree. I kept asking to move the shoot out on the grass, by a tree, or by the fence. I didn't like having photos up against a wall, and I really hate ficus trees. But she insisted that it was too sunny. Her pushiness about the location turned out to be just part of a larger problem. She boasted throughout the formal shoot about how great her $1000 camera was and how superior her work was to all the amateurs that surrounded us, and she became even more vocal after my cousin pointed out that she wasn't paying attention to our posture. The location she chose gave all the photos a dull yellowish color. And all but a couple of the photos have a flat mug shot look, because she shot only one perspective, straight on. There was no effort to capture something unique about her subjects. The "cutesy" cookie cutter poses were all she knew about creating something that stood out from the bland and flat.



This is a direct scan from the album to show not only the photography skill, but the clever cropping. Our best man didn't need the top of his head anyway.


Here is another direct scan. This was the photographer's favorite spot at the ceremony, right behind us. Nice photos, but redundant.

Despite the fact that the sun was too bright for her to shoot formals on the grass, the ceremony photos came out very sharp and well exposed. Though, after the fact, in studying the photos more closely, I realized how redundant her work was. The whole ceremony was shot from only four angles. And the last position she chose, straight behind us, is where she stayed for almost half of the ceremony photos. So I can say that they look nice. But it's a lot of photos that look the same. She didn’t move around to find interesting compositions, or to even occasionally turn her camera on the guests. It gave us little to work with when assembling the album. For lack of better choices, we ended up with several pages with the same angle.

I didn’t spend any time during the ceremony thinking of the photography. During the formal shoot, I knew all the formal photos were going to be a waste. But I still hoped that she would come through for us with the reception photos and provide the multitude of reception photos she promised. Well, we didn’t get unlimited photos. And I have to admit that I didn’t even look closely at the story the photos told until recently, after she wrote an email threatening me with libel if I didn’t take down my criticism of her work from my old wedding website. BTW, she offered us no apology. She showed no concern that we were unhappy with the work she did. Instead, she accused me of being a difficult bride (which I was not), claimed our wedding was disorganized (which it was not). And stated that it was a shame I didn't appreciate professional photography. (To this last point, I just hold my head down in shame, since it is a testament to my knowledge of photography that I trusted this person to be my wedding photographer.)

So you may wonder, what story did the reception photos tell? There was only one photo of the head table, taken before the wedding, which was meaningless to us. “Why didn’t you take any photos of the head table while we were sitting there?” I asked when we reviewed the photos at her office. “Your mom was being such a social butterfly and you were never sitting down all at one time,” she claimed with her usual confidence. I didn’t believe her at the time, and it didn't answer why there were no photos of the dinner at all. And it was four years later, after getting her threatening email, that we finally looked at the extended video that didn’t make it to the final movie. There was, in fact, extensive video of all of us sitting down before and during the dinner. And extensive video of the photographer sitting down before and during the dinner! She only took a handful of photos of guests, starting with the women seated at her own table, and then a few surrounding tables. Then she took clusters of photos of the toast –again while standing at only one spot. No interesting close ups, no interesting angles. She took a few photos of the cake cutting, the first dance, and the bouquet and garter toss. And then she left. There was just a smattering of photos of the guests taken in between these events. We had guests that were working harder to take photos than she was! And ironically, there was even a photo of her sitting down ---from her own stock of photos! (Obviously taken by her assistant.)

Close up of cake cutting. I have no idea what that dark blotch on my forehead is.

If you’re getting married, do consider what you want out of your wedding photos. Pay attention to small details and the quality and thoughtfulness of the camera work. How well are people posed? Do the photos show warmth, joy, and the elegance you expect from wedding photography? Look at how the ceremony is covered. Do the photos show that the photographer is constantly moving, and looking for an interesting shot? Or do they show that the photographer stuck to just a couple locations during certain events? Do the reception photos show a broad range of what went on during the reception. If there are clusters of photos around the traditional reception events, or not a lot of different angles of those events, that could be a red flag. And study the portfolios of photographers very carefully. Don’t let yourself be seduced by vivid colors and included copyrights. Because the copyrights to bad photography is not worth the thousands of dollars it will cost you.

I want to finally point an important point about photographers that I did not understand until the day of the wedding. Our photographer was not only drastically substandard, but she was kind of bossy. I didn't really think of the wedding as being all about me, like I've seen in other brides. But my feeling was that the photographer imposed herself on our wedding far too much. First by not being flexible about the formal photos. Again by repeatedly trying to push rediculous poses on us. And at the reception she kept tried to tell us how to cut the cake, how to throw the bouquet, where to throw the bouquet. And she was impatient to get things moving along, to get the main events over with so that she could leave as soon as possible. I realize now after talking to other brides, that this is a common problem, even with photographers that have better skill. There are some brides who may not mind being pushed around by their photographer. But I didn't like it. And I realize that it would not have been enough to make this clear in my initial interview with her. She wanted the job, and would have said anything to get it. You need to look for the red flags --arrogance, inflexibilty, rules about keeping other competing photographers away, etc.


Full train shot. And close up crop to show the detail. I believe I'm missing a section of my hairline in this photo.


Now, after loooking at the above photos, take a look at these photos, of my brother's wedding. Notice a difference? It's night and day. I also want to add that my brother's wedding photographer never sat down through the whole wedding. She was constantly moving through the ceremony and reception. And the photos show that.

Monkeys with typewriters finally strike

Hollywood writers have gone on strike. As an average television viewer, I feel the same apathy as when baseball players went on strike several years ago. I don't watch baseball. It's one of the most boring games to watch. So obviously I thought they were all getting paid way too much for their job.

Same goes for Hollywood writers. With all the cable channels, there are more shows competing for attention than we had when I was a kid (back in the 70s). And, really, the majority of them are pretty awful. Sure, television is visually more snazzy. And some of them get our attention by having more recognizable actors. But most try too hard to be clever, and have trite, forgettable themes that give us nothing with which to identify. In the last 7 years, the only shows that have caught my attention with thoughtful writing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood, and South Park. House got our attention for one season by giving us a refreshingly politically incorrect character. But lost our attention in season 2, as it became overshadowed by preachy, self-justified Atheism and cheap ploys to make Dr. House more sympathetic.

So, this writers strike could be a blessing in disguise. It could be time for Hollywood to let go of the current guild of writers and look for something new and fresh. Hey, I'm for hire. And I have a great new idea for a reality show. You randomly pick out a small group of people (from different backgrounds and each with decent writing skills) and have them come up with a new television comedy or drama. Can average Joes come up with a hit show?

Formula is Food, Too

I recently talked to a neighbor of mine who is pumping and supplementing for her 3 month old son. Like me, she had a difficult time with straight breastfeeding, so she is getting what she can from pumping on an irregular schedule. She's tired of the pumping, and is looking for some excuse to stop. And yet, she winces, "I feel so conflicted."

Oh, how I know that conflict!

I am just one of many new mothers out there who read the books, pamphlets, and heard all the other messages that said in short: BREAST IS BEST. I also clearly heard the subliminal message when you say those words backwards: "If you don't breastfeed, it will be YOUR FAULT when your child gets sick!"

And then, of course, the popular buzz word among baby experts today is "BONDING." It's like what the word "sustainability" is for Progressives. There is an almost unlimited number of ways the word can be used in a sentence. There seems to be no question that breast feeding is a bonding experience that can not be replaced by a silicone substitute. But what does that mean? If I bottle feed will my children grow up to be less attached to me than if I fed them straight from the breast? Or am I more likely to love them less, and be so unattached to them that I might suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to leave them at some stranger’s door step? And what does that mean for my mom’s generation, when women were guiltlessly advised by their doctors to start on formula soon after birth? Is it possible that my childhood could have been different –or somehow better—if I had been given breast milk? Could I have been smarter, more athletic, less anxious, or have better fashion sense?

When my first child was born, I never questioned that I would breastfeed. Only it was quite a bit harder than I could have imagined. I thought the reason with my first was because he spent the first week in the NICU with undeveloped lungs. I had to start up a rigorous pumping schedule. The first couple days I pumped a few drops. But my supply doubled daily for the first week. I expected my supply to outpace the demand, and even wondered if it were possible to make cheese with the excess milk. A few days after bringing him home, my husband came home from work and asked how my day was. I broke down crying. "I had to give Alex a bottle of formula today. I just couldn't keep up with his demand. I feel like such a failure!"

It took a few days for me to accept that supplementing with formula was going to be part of the regimen. But once I did, I had to admit it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. Through various regrettable circumstances I ended up losing my milk after just 6 weeks. I was probably the most relaxed mom I could have been. Alex was an easy baby, and with the use of formula my husband was able to take some middle of the night feedings throughout the week. I can't even begin to tell you what a difference it makes to be able to sleep 6 hours straight a few nights a week. You can't have that kind of relief when you exclusively breast feed.

When my daughter Zoe came along a year and a half later, I was expecting an all new experience. It was another C-Section, but she was strong strong and healthy. My brother and his wife had a great experience with a doula after my sister-in-law suffered from a bad case of postpartum depression. They offered us a good sum of money for a doula as a gift. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a 24 hour doula like they had. So I thought the next best thing would be to find a doula or lactation consultant who could come out to the house and help me with breast feeding part time. I had a nice local woman lined up to work for me, but she ended up getting a bad case of diarrhea and had to back out. My first night at home was horrible. I got little sleep. After staying up from 11 pm to 4:30 am to nurse, I gave my daughter a single ounce of formula and she finally fell asleep. Minutes after I lay my head back down on the pillow my father-in-law went to the bathroom, which is right across from Zoe's room, and slammed the door --waking Zoe up just minutes after she fell asleep! I started to cry. "Why would your father slam the door? Your parents have to leave tomorrow!” (Unfortunately, they didn’t leave so easily.)

When the sun rose the next morning, my nerves felt shattered. My daughter had another episode of nursing for several hours straight. I finally pumped, and got out two ounces. Zoe drank it and went back to sleep again. Two ounces was as much as I ever would have hoped to get from my breasts so soon after giving birth. I wondered if she was really getting as much as she needed. To make sure I was getting my milk up, I thought I would try both pumping and breast feeding. But Zoe sucked my nipples raw. I hurt so bad from the breast feeding. Pumping was so much easier.

That afternoon I got a hold of one of the doulas that I hoped would help. She was a grandmother named Barbara, and worked with a women's prison ministry. Despite the fact that she wasn’t available to help me, she was very opinionated and for some reason she thought she had a duty to push me around. She told me how she didn't like breast pumps, and back when she was lactating she always expressed milk by hand. She knew a hundred different things that I should and shouldn't do, and she rattled off stories and advice in no particular order. "Did they give your baby formula in the hospital" No. "Have you given your baby formula?" she asked. I admitted that I did give her an ounce so that she could sleep last night. I also told her that I started pumping. She became more hysterical and shrill. "Your just copping out! Every woman is capable of breastfeeding their baby. You're a cop out!" My exhaustion hit a peak. Then she asked if I had any friends nearby who could help.

"All my friends have babies of their own."

"If they were real friends, they would get babysitters for their kids so they could help you out." At this point it seemed useless to point out that the purpose of my calling her was to find someone that I could hire. And to add to the irony, all 3 of my friends had adopted and had no choice but raise their babies on formula. I was tempted to bring this up, but didn’t out of fear that she would berate my friends for not forcing their bodies to lactate. I know it’s possible, so I wasn’t about to put it past her.

I got off the phone as politely as I could, and then cried. I’m not sure that I can adequately describe how miserable that moment was. Trying to function with so little sleep is a close mental equivalent to being just a little bit drunk. I was constantly fuzzy headed. I’ve never been the sort who could take a nap just because I was tired. So I was in a state where I was too tired to do anything useful, but had too many things to think about to relax. And lets not forget that I was recovering from major surgery.

The lactation fanatics like Barbara rule the popular parenting wisdom of the age, and they don’t miss a chance to remind new moms that the path to good parenting is straight and narrow. Formula is the forbidden fruit that leads to sin and death. Barbara had dedicated her life to leading imprisoned women and their babies to salvation through proper lactation. And I had failed. I was a cop out. After pumping milk that night, I lay in bed wondering if I was weak and selfish because I wasn’t staying up a second night in a row to breast feed. Despite the fact that Zoe seemed more content after being given pumped milk, I couldn’t help wondering if I was just a weakling for not being like all the millions of mommies that make it work.

We initially decided that we would supplement the night feedings. But I began to produce more milk than Zoe was drinking, so after a week she was drinking 100% breast milk. She wasn’t a big eater, but she grew to be a roly-poly baby. Eventually I had more success putting her to the breast. But it wasn’t the great bonding experience I expected it to be. And at four months she got her first teeth. I had read that hungry babies don’t bite, but that wasn’t the case for Zoe. She was hungry, and she bit hard. I finally gave up pumping at 6 months, and Zoe switched to formula very easily. But like my neighbor, giving up pumping caused a lot of conflict. Even though I was through with the lactation Nazis, it’s difficult not to feel a little bit like a failure for giving up breast feeding. As silly as it may sound, I suppose I wasn’t so much worried about the nutritional quality of formula. Because after all formula is food. Instead I worried about the off chance that we might be hit with some apocalyptic disaster. What happens if a huge disaster strikes, society is in a panic, and formula is hard to come by?

Okay, so I’m a cop out . . . AND I worry about the weirdest things.

Writing a Journal

I started writing a journal in 1989. It was extra credit for an English class in junior college. I wrote in a small wire notebook. I was writing for an audience (my teacher) so I was careful about what I wrote. I dutifully turned it in a the end of the semester, and I believe I was the only one to submit a journal that year. But I was glad I did, since it raised me a full grade: C+ to a B+! You might not guess it from my original C average but by the time I transferred to a UC I was an “A” student.

I kept a journal from 1989 until about 2002, the year before I got married. There were many times when I almost abandoned the journal, for a seeming lack of interesting things to write about. But I was in the habit of writing down all of my most vivid and symbolic dreams. And after long periods of not writing, I frequently started back up because of some interesting dream that I had to write down.

So I started reading my journals a few months ago. And based on my experiences, I have a few suggestions for anyone considering starting a journal:

1) Don’t be bound to dating every entry. Each journal I wrote was dated in such a way: May 1990 – August 1990. That gave me the freedom to write about things that happened a week prior and to not feel bound by the particular day I was writing. Each journal represented an era of my life.
2) Include dreams. Not everyone has a lot of vivid dreams. But writing down dreams was what made me return to journaling after months of not writing. Also, ten years later, when you read your dreams in context to that particular era of your life, those dreams will most likely make more sense.
3) Include news events. I wish I had written or saved clippings of more news events.. But it was funny to read so many years later about how my friends were all watching OJ Simpson trying to run away in his white Bronco, and what sort of comments my friends were making. Don’t take for granted that this is history in the making. Sure, you were glued to the TV when Anna Nicole Smith died. Fifteen years from now, though, you might find it interesting to read and to recall what a huge media blitz it was.
4) Note new technology. The day we got our first TV with a remote control. The first time I got a job working on a computer. The first time I got a cell phone –and felt so pretentious using it in public! The first time I used dial up to get on the internet, and there were so few images because they took so dang long to load! Ten or fifteen years later, you’ll read over those moments and realize “Oh my Gosh! I forgot that we didn’t have that before!”
5) Make an effort to capture dialogue and the essence of what other people believe. I don’t think anyone can capture dialogue with exact precision, unless you use a recorder. But make some effort. If anything try to capture the essence of what other people believe. Trust me, those are things that are so fascinating to read years later. Every decade individual philosophies are shaped by events and popular books. In the mid ‘90s I came across quite a few people influenced by The Celestine Prophecy. Ten years later, a terrorist attack, a war, and people are consumed with different ideas now.
6) Don’t skimp of descriptions of what people look like or how they dress. Again, it’s easy to take for granted that you’ll never forget how someone looks or the fashions of the day. But you forget, and fashions change so quickly.

The Oppressive Mean: when your baby stays a baby longer than average

My two year old son, Alex, doesn't talk. Or to be more specific, he doesn't say anything that we can distinguish as an English word. I was concerned about it for a while. But then again, for the first year I was concerned about every developmental milestone. For that first year, I dutifully checked my "What to Expect the First Year" every time my son turned a month older. I also signed up for babycenter.com's weekly emails, which gives developmental markers by the week.

Smile, talk, and sing to your child. Tell him what you're doing. Point out things and tell him what they are. Babies respond to the sing-songy inflection of baby talk. Give your child a massage or skin-on-skin contact to promote bonding. Give him at least 10 minutes of tummy time a day. Etc. Etc. Etc.

A lot of the advice created an inner battle. What if I didn't talk to him enough? What if my voice isn't stimulating enough? Maybe I’m not giving him enough physical affection. What if I'm not providing enough visual stimulation? Are his toys colorful enough? Does he have enough toys, or the right toys? I felt ridiculous and uncomfortable doing skin-on-skin contact --especially in the middle of the hot California summer. I didn't want to worry about any of it, and when I really thought of it all it sounded silly. And yet . . . what if the advice is right, what if by not following all the professional advice my son ended up developmentally behind all the other children? It would be MY FAULT! I was caught between the professional books that made me feel like I was completely responsible for my child’s physical and mental development, and a more common sense knowledge that my son was going to be just who God wants him to be –no matter what.

Parenting has changed a bit since the days my parents were children. I'm pretty sure that my grandparents didn't waste a single moment worrying about bonding, providing adequate stimulation, or developmental milestones. They had children without over-thinking the job, like people have been doing for generations, and they probably weren’t concerned about much more than discipline and obedience. And from what my mom tells me the standards for disciple were different. My sweet old Grandmother would have CPS knocking on her door if she practiced her style of parenting in these modern times. But civilization and child development specialists have come a long way since then. My parents survived numerous spankings, a war, struggled to make it in a new country, worked and saved, invested well and started up their own successful business --but imagine how much more they could have accomplished if their parents had Baby Einstein DVDs and all the right developmental toys!

So, to get to the point, the other day I took Alex in for an evaluation so that a team of specialists could determine if he's a candidate for speech therapy. They have their tests. "Here is a collection of pictures: Where is the dog? Where is the cat? Who is brushing their teeth? Which boy is eating?" They watched him play. They watched him stack blocks and string beads. I was actually surprised that he did as well as he did. There were some things I had never quizzed him on, and wasn't even sure if I had exposed him to, that he understood.

"Alex, you are a very interesting child," said one woman. She pointed out that Alex tended to space out every so often. "How often does he do that?" I was asked.

"I didn't know he was doing anything unusual," I said. I thought about it. "Sometimes when I ask him to point out body parts or animals, he knows what everything is and performs very well. But then I ask him again, and he points everything wrong, or he gets fixated on one part." He did this while being tested, too. He performed well, and then suddenly got fixated on a favorite object like a phone or picture of a car. But he loves phones and cars.

"I see so many children, and spacing out like that is very unusual," said another woman. "The only other time I've seen a child do that it turned out the boy was having seizures."

"How often does that happen?" another woman asked.

"I don't know. I didn't even know he was doing anything unusual?"

The woman persisted: "How often do you think he does that in a day or week?" She had a pen held above a piece of paper, ready to mark my answer.

I paused. I was getting impatient, but didn't want to show it. How did they expect me to answer the question. Alex may be delayed in some ways, but to me he's perfectly normal. In some way I felt it wasn't just my son's development that was being judged, but my parenting. And my own mental and physical abilities. I probably spaced out more than a few times during that whole meeting. I couldn't even remember what the names of these five women were. I considered my childhood, and I don’t think I was that different from Alex, even though I did start talking early. But I was shy, calm, nonathletic, and probably more self-conscious than the average child. Perhaps I’m not normal.

"I know that in quite a few ways my son has been a few months behind the average. But how am I supposed to know that he's spacing out? If he is, it isn't that obvious to me." Now I wondered what they were thinking of me. Perhaps the young woman was writing in her notes: "Mother shows little awareness that her son is abnormal."

I was advised to keep an eye on him, keep a log to mark how often he spaces out in a day. And then I should talk to his pediatrician. His pediatrician is a no-nonsense Indian doctor, who I already know is going to think this is all nonsense and a waste of time.

I talked to the evaluators about Alex’s development in his first year. How he didn’t crawl until he was able to cruise, which was at about 11 months. Up until about 8 months, he could sit still in one place and play contently.

“He didn’t crawl at that age? But how did he get around?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did he get from one side of the room to the other, if he didn’t crawl? Did he scootch on his butt or roll?” I didn’t know how to answer her. Apparently this woman could not comprehend the idea of a baby that sat in one place for any period of time. Or else she couldn’t believe that an 8 month old baby existed that didn’t have a desire to go places.

The woman recommended I try to get Alex to crawl more. “I’m a big believer that crawling works both sides of the brain in a unique way.”

By the time my husband got home that night, I was tired. I told him about all that had happened. We watched Alex and played with him, and still couldn’t see any unusual spacing out. We played a game where I asked him what certain animals do. “What does a gorilla do?” He beat on his chest. “What does a snake do?” He made a hissing sound. “What does a lion do?” He made a roaring sound and came at me with his hands. I paused, put my finger to my chin, and tried to think of another animal. Then Alex did something I had never seen him do before. He put his index finger up to his chin, rolled his eyes up, and said “Ummm.” He bust up laughing. He kept repeating this gesture and then laughing.

I looked at my husband. “What is he doing?” And then I realized what it was. My son may not be imitating English words that me and my husband say, but he was imitating odd gestures and sounds –and he thought they were very funny. Both me and my husband frequently say “umm” between thoughts. And I had to have been doing it several times while thinking of animals for him to imitate. He probably doesn’t think like most kids, but he’s incredibly funny.

After playing our game, Alex started jumping around . . . and then he started crawling. “Look honey,” I said to my husband. “Alex is working both sides of his brain!” It was just another child development activity that I instantly put away in my mental file marked “Ridiculous and Over-Rated.”

Explaining the Title

Blogger pressed me to come up with a title for my blog. So after thinking about it for a minute, I decided on the fuel and pastry line. I recently read through my old journals, and it's from a dream I had about ten years ago. It went like this:

I was walking through some store. I went outside and looking southward saw a huge tidal wave looming in the distance. I pointed this out to people, and no one was alarmed. They all just went about their business, even though they were about to be swallowed up by a huge mass of water. I got in my car and drove north, to my parents farm. While I neared their home, the tidal wave was getting so close I could feel the mists of water. My parents were sitting watching TV, and like everyone else didn't seem very concerned that a tidal wave was coming. They were just going about their usual business right up to the end. I considered staying with them, but after some time said, "If you don't mind I'm going to take the car and try to out-run the tidal wave." They gave me their blessings, and off I went. I drove a little ways, and realized I needed some gas (actually diesel, it was a wonderful white '78 Mercedes). I stopped at a little rural gas station. I had $7. I went in to pay for the fuel, and saw that they had some delicious chocolate pastries (not cheap donuts, but fresh buttery croissants). So I bought $5 worth of fuel and a chocolate pastry. (This was about 10 years ago, so $5 did buy a bit more fuel than it does these days.) As I drove off again, I was perfectly happy. I didn't know how long I'd be able to outrun the tidal wave, but I was happy to be driving and to have however much extra time that gave me. And the chocolate pastry was an unexpected pleasure that I was thankful for.