Blossoms and a new camera

Roses at Turkenschanz

I've been playing with my birthday present, a Canon EOS Rebel T3i. It's a lot of fun. BUT, I'm feeling the learning curve. I've taken a lot of blurred photos!

A rose in the Volksgarten

Thankfully, it's summer and the parks in Vienna are full of blooming plants. I've been experimenting with flower shots. So much possibility; so much to learn...

In the Volksgarten - An orange iris?

Any thoughts on how best to learn about a new camera?

Musings at the Klinick

Wiener Privat Klinick

Sometimes you’ve got to catch what life throws your way. That’s me today… sitting in my bed at the Klinick. It’s hot here, but not intolerably so. It’s noisy too.

My roommate wants to keep the window open.

The asphalt trucks working on the street below spew fumes that float upward and into our room, and I feel that slight headache, the one that sits on the edge of your eyeballs and tells you not to make any quick movements.

Then there’s that gnat dancing around my head.

So far all that’s tolerable too. After all, I have Spotify on Classical, listening to a Mozart concerto.

Call me an idealist, or an optimist, or even a bit goofy, but I’m glad to be here. Glad to be alive to smell that exhaust and to hear that rumble of heavy equipment. So what I’m wearing silly white compression stockings? Maybe my meds are off…

For Odie

Odie loved playing frisbee. He was always patient with those - like me - who sucked at throwing the spinning saucer. After a dud throw, he would carefully pick up the plastic disk where it had so clumsily landed, give it a good chew, and then bring it back, ever hopeful that you would get it right the next time and he would be able to jump in the air to catch it with all the grace and joy that only dogs know.

Odie loved the hundezones, the dog parks in Vienna where canines romp together in earnest play. He somehow always found that one stick that the other dogs would covet. Round and round they ran in glorious chase.

We miss you, Odie.