ZOMBIE LASAGNA
My dog “Page” and I started our Daughter Visit Weekend, this past Thursday at the dog park. Though I enjoy capturing Page, socializing with all the other dogs, I’m trying to view the world with a bit more of an emotional lens. That’s when I caught this couple, walking their dog, way on the other side of the park. In an effort to evoke some emotion and a sense of place, or even a story behind the picture, I snapped this. It got me thinking about how anyone’s missing body parts or facial imperfections could be corrected with a little Photoshop cloning and Lightroom smoothing; no actual plastic surgery needed! I was going to come home and experiment with giving this woman back her leg with the help of a little image editing, but I had to get ready for my daughter’s arrival with her fiance’. Shortly after that, we were to zoom over to my sister’s condo for a little Lasagna Party.
Lasagna is not known as a power food because when you pull on it, it pulls back. It’s a great dish to serve when you’re having a lot of people over, but its cheese stretches in a treacherous way, putting those around the server at great risk. Meanwhile on the other side of the room, my mom and my daughter were catching up a bit.
It’s so funny how my mom kept complimenting me on how wonderful my daughter is, only to hear me explain to her that my mom is the example my daughter follows, when it comes to being candid, strong and speaking her mind. I was just lucky to catch a great couple of daughters and a few great pictures.
People get so funny when you post pictures of them. “Oh Dad, I know you have a better one than that…” But to me, each photograph is one blessed gift after another. They, my daughter and my new son, came down to get a few things squared away for their wedding coming up in a few months, and of course it gave me a major dose of Father of the Bride.
Meantime the meal ended and it was time for the cake. Three birthday’s were celebrated that night, Dad’s, my new son’s and my sister’s. I wonder if in order to send out the emotional vibe in a picture, I gotta show a disabled person? Or can people feel some kind of happy too from the usual candle blow out? And while we’re on this topic, where the heck did this candle blowing custom get started? Did the cave men have birthday cakes on their birthday?
The next day we had other wedding planning errands to run. One of those events was to decide where the bride and groom should have their rehearsal dinner, the night before the wedding. Since it’s a beach wedding, they wanted something casual, like a big deck that overlooks the water, behind an unassuming marina. While we checked this one place out and ate some burgers, I got lucky and snapped one of the bride to be, while she sipped on some very expensive Daiquiri drink.
It was all kind of surreal as most of my chauffeur duties through out her’s and her sister’s life, usually consisted of trips to the mall, over to a friends houses, party pick-ups and of course when they were real little, drives to the playground. Now it’s driving to the various locations contributing to the ultimate destination, where she will be married. Over the course of the weekend, I also had a chance to meet the Priest who would marry them. He was such a wonderful soul and all he could talk about was how he could see all this beauty inside my daughter and how it just shined through from deep inside her. How the hell am I supposed to walk her down the aisle and hand her off without getting emotional? No disabled shot necessary! I’m sure on that night, anyone viewing me will feel the emotional sense of place from that photo. I wonder if all that love and pride could ever get caught in a picture.
Anyway, they, my daughter and new son, turned me on to a new show called The Walking Dead. It was a fun last night with them before they had to head home. We sat around the TV, as they explained to me the characters and the story behind this new crop of zombies that are covering the planet. While watching all the bloody people with the flesh hanging off their disintegrating bone, we consumed the delicious skin colored, stretchy hot mozzarella, covering the leftover lasagna with all that red tomato sauce, hemorrhaging on the plate. We sat and screamed while we watched all kinds of people missing all kinds of extremities, while those nasty zombies ate each other and everything in sight.
Ya know, after seeing a show like that, a one-legged lady, in a field of running dogs, just doesn’t seem that emotional after all.
Barry Stein's Blog 