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Saturday, July 29, 2006
duty update. Also, Jenn is thirty.
I know I should update this even though I am feeling really dry, and not in a good way, when it comes to writing. So here's a just-the-facts-ma'am post to keep the empty page away.
We're back from a few days' vacation in Morro Bay, where T rested his back a lot and we all had a pretty good time, and where it was 70 balmy degrees when it was a hundred and six at home, and where THE NIKON took its nine-thousandth picture. Did I mention that THE NIKON took its first picture on I think January 8th? Nine thousand pictures in approximately two hundred days, that's very nearly two rolls of film a day -- about $7 worth of developing in the old-fashioned film economy. Which means that THE NIKON paid for itself somewhere around the middle of June, give or take. If you add that to the over eight thousand that I took with The Nikon, that makes a total of over 17,000 pictures since last March. If I were to estimate the average shutter speed of those pictures at, ack, 1/60th of a second? that would translate to about four minutes and forty seconds of sensor exposure in both cameras, not counting cleaning times for THE NIKON. If I think of it in terms of Sanity Units Per Second, that is an EXTREMELY good deal. Not so good if I think of it in terms of dollars per second, however, so I won't. Better to think of it in dollars per sanity unit.
Um, what else. T is having his back operated on on Monday. I can't believe I forgot to tell you all that. He's having the less-invasive kind of surgery where they go in laparoscopically and remove the portion of his disc that bulged out into his spinal column. This means that his recovery time, instead of being measured in months (and quite a lot of them) as it would have been for the fusion we were originally talking about, will be measured in weeks, and not so terribly many of those. And the fusion is still an option if it's needed.
I hear you yawning. You could at least try to cover it. This is my husband's spine we're talking about here. Scintillating stuff.
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In other news, Jenn turned thirty this week. I was going to do this maudlin did-we-ever-think-we'd-make-it-this-far post with pictures, kind of a Beaches montage trailer without the dying or the Bette Midler song (unless I could find a really cheezy MIDI file of it for effect) but I was away from my home PC when her numbers rolled over and it didn't seem as good to do it after the fact. But here, I can still put up a few pictures:
I'm 17 here, just starting my senior year, and Jenn at 16 was a year behind me.
I: Do you see my chin that digs a hole to China? Also, for some inexplicable reason, I am wearing teal eyeshadow.
Jenn: Dude, WHY are we looking at the sun? Whose idea was this? (uh, that'd be miss Chin-to-China there.)
Similar ages, I think this was about two months before the previous shot. We'd been hiking. I THOUGHT I WAS FAT. Just had to get that out of the way. [kicks 17-yo self].
Fun times.
It was the early 90's; it was so cool to act like hippies. Plus it really annoyed my brother and T who were also on this trip and at that stage of our lives we dearly loved to annoy my brother and T.
I: I am turning 18 tomorrow and I have a new and very squiggly perm and I want to show it off. Thank you for taking my picture.
Jenn: I am holding... a balloon? (probably my idea again).
I wasn't going to post this one (because I am NOT doing what it looks like I am doing, and because it's a bad scan of a blurry picture) but it was the only one I had on my computer of the two of us from junior high, which was when we met. Here I was around 14, maybe 13, and Jenn would have been 12. We used so much hairspray on our hair on a daily basis at this point in time that my dad still calls us "The Crispy Twins" eighteen years later.
And now both of those girls are on the plus-side of thirty, which at the time was a hazy number far away beyond anything we could really picture, I think. And if you can believe it I don't have a single picture of us together past the summer of 1993. MUST REMEDY THIS SOON JENN. Happy belated birthday, friend. I love you bunches.
Comments
I should just leave this alone but I can't. It's way more than four minutes, because I've taken some exposures that were at least five minutes long in one shot. In the middle of the night it seemed reasonable that the few long exposures would be balanced out by the many very very short ones, but apparently not. Also, I am fully aware that I am a dork; you don't need to tell me.
Posted by: Rachel at July 29, 2006 09:07 AM
Good luck to T -- that's good news about the shorter recovery time (and less invasive surgery). Let us know how it goes; I'll be thinking about him.
Thanks for the montage with you and Jenn. Happy birthday to you, Jenn!
Posted by: mary at July 29, 2006 11:08 AM
OMG RACHEL!
First, I am really glad T is finally getting his back taken care of. Yay! :-)
Second, you are hysterical. Just thought you should know.
Third, OMG RACHEL! I can't believe you posted these pictures. I totally forgot about that photo booth picture set. Fun times, indeed. That first pic of us looking into the sun, I look so MAD. LOL. As for the last one, you may look like you're picking your butt but I look like I lost a hand.
And why are we holding a balloon? Precious.
Thank you so much for this montage. You are so sweet. This will; by far, be my best 30th birthday memory. I love you so much.
And thank you Mary!
Posted by: jenn at July 29, 2006 12:37 PM
Rachel, LOVE the pics! They look like my 80s glamour shots.... thanks for showing us.
Val
Posted by: Valerie at July 30, 2006 06:36 PM
I am really glad to hear about T's surgery...please let us know how he's doing.
Those pictures of you and Jenn are priceless! :)
Posted by: Kristen at July 31, 2006 09:19 AM
Rachel, you are a very cute and wonderful friend. How awesome! Happy birthday, Jenn!
Posted by: thicket dweller at August 1, 2006 08:03 PM
