Making Up for Lost Internet...

John is currently working on potty training. He was recently presented with his first package of underwear...boxer briefs to be exact. He immediately donned the red pair, and ran out of the house with the joy that only comes from knowing that diaper rash is soon to be a thing of the past. He jumped up and down in circles, so proud of reaching this next stage of life. Then climbed up on the wooden bench, the closest thing to a mountaintop, to declare to the world that he was wearing "big boy" underwear. He's arrived.

I can't get over how cute he looks in them. Especially the red ones. And I know that I'm biased because I'm his aunt...but come on...he's really, really, really, ridiculously good looking. Zoolander in the making. Girls, lookout! He may have soiled that pair within the first hour, but he's got more where that came from, and any awareness of unpleasant odors will be trumped by his good looks. Plus, Christmas brought more styles and varieties...mostly influenced by the surrounding Latin culture, ergo, less coverage. Walt may not have approved of his beloved mouse being depicted on such risque undergarments, but then again, it pales in comparision to the perversion of the Disney cartoonists who altered scenes in "The Little Mermaid" and other timeless classics.

My dad and Mike have never been all that interested in photography, whether that's taking pictures or just viewing them. But in the words of Dylan, "times they are a changing." I have a Canon Rebel XSi with a zoom lens. After they saw the first set of surf shots I took, they were impressed with the closeness and clarity of the photos and were constantly soliciting me to come take more pictures. Pictures of Mike and the other surfers. But, what started as compliments quickly became criticism. It was no longer good enough. Apparently, I didn't know how to obtain the optimum surf shots and needed to hone my skill. What they didn't understand was that the shots were directly related to the skills of the subject and magnitude of the waves.

After becoming annoyed with the resident photographer title I'd been given and their critique, I let them take my camera for a spin. And although their surf shots look eerily similar to mine (and continue to fill up memory card after memory card with the same stuff) they have now become obsessed with my camera and think they are professional photographers. I think their delusion lies in the click sound the camera makes when you are shooting. With that one sound you become transformed. You are whisked away to a whole new reality where your artistic perspective is in high demand by National Geographic and the like. You travel all over the world to capture rare species and aboriginals, despite their view that photographs take a part of a person's soul. "How many abidiginals do you see modeling?"

Half the time I don't even know the whereabouts of my camera. It's a race to see who can wake up earlier to snag said equipment. Similar to our childhood race to secure the ideal cartoon viewing spot in the cozy chair at Grandma Lou's house. And speaking of childhood...they've become like spoiled children...initially excited by a new toy, but all too quickly find reasons to be dissatisfied with its limits. Now the zoom lens is not quite up to par. Why didn't I have a superior one? Price evidently didn't spring to mind as an acceptable deterrent. I predict that upon return to the states, they both go out and buy their own, the top of the line model with a better zoom lens, of course...and that the camera, in Dad's case, sits on the shelf and never gets used and in Mike's case, is lost before it's removed from the box.

But for now, in this reality, they have been commissioned by Surf magazine, and in order to maintain their reputation in the art world, they'll just have to make due with what they have.