One fish, two fish

Addiction is a funny beast. If it involves alcohol, drugs, gambling, or some noxious combination of same, it's generally perceived as a bad thing. But get hooked on Glee, orange juice or the grandaddy of them all, phonics, and you'd be forgiven for not making it past the third of the 12 steps.

Which is my way of admitting I'm addicted to the arcane subset of photography that involves walking into a grocery store and taking pictures of whatever's on sale. I have no idea how this little vice of mine took root or why it's evolved as it has. I do know that it's almost gotten me escorted out of the Wal-Mart once, and it's resulted in my being left alone by my annoyed wife on more than one occasion. Yet I still persist.

It's not as if the resulting photos are especially unique. They're pictures of everyday foods, after all, shot hastily under bad lighting, often with my BlackBerry's camera because to haul out the DSLR might actually result in my being forcibly ejected or, gasp, hauled in for questioning by mall cop wannabes. I won't be blowing these up to poster size or submitting them for gallery displays.

Then why?

Because I view grocery shopping as one of those necessities of modern life that, depending on our attitude can either be a chore or an opportunity for enjoyment. I choose enjoyment. When I tag along with my wife, it's a date. It isn't champagne and candles at some swanky restaurant, but that's precisely the point. It doesn't have to be. It's simply a time for us to be together, and I've never believed in limiting those opportunities to nights out or special occasions.

Indeed, special occasions can happen anytime if we let them. Even in the fish section.

Your turn: How do you make the ordinary seem special?

One more thing: These fish are far from home, though I strongly suspect they're patently unaware of that fact. Our own Thematic far-from-home journey continues...here.

Thumbs up

Forgive the picture. It's the best my BlackBerry could do with the available fluorescent light, and after the day that Noah had just had, I wasn't about to get hung up on the finer points of photography.

Long story short, little man jammed his thumb while playing basketball at school. I fetched him and, after a false start at a closed-early-by-budget-cuts urgent care centre, we ended up across town at the ER.

Noah was his usual stoic, balanced little self, taking in the sights - a deathly ill-looking, wheelchair-bound woman smoking in a deepening snowdrift, a little girl around his age using a walker to get around - with the eye and demeanor of someone much older. He answered every question from the doctors and nurses with the kind of politeness that reminded me of my wife.

As we waited and waited, he hung out on the examining room bed, listening to kids who whined too much and parents who should have needed a license to procreate, smiling quietly at the circus but refusing to let it bother him. At one point, his lip quivered and tears began to fall: he was hungry. In the rush to get here, he hadn't had a chance to eat anything and it was now past suppertime. A promise to pick something up afterward stemmed the tears.

Eventually, the doc with a kind heart I wish we could both bottle and clone appeared and quickly diagnosed strained ligaments. Nothing broken, thank goodness. A splint for 5 days and pain reliever and ice. Back into the snowy night we went, picking our way to the open house at his school that he so very much didn't want to miss.

And his empty tummy? A Mars bar from the vending machine was all he wanted. And he got to eat it in my car, the one I always said would be a meal-free zone. It was a very special day, I said with a wink, so we could easily make an exception for him.

About halfway there, he sighed happily from the back seat and said this had been a great adventure for us. Despite the pain he still felt and the tough day he'd just experienced, our wise little guy somehow managed to see the big picture from inside our darkened car. I blinked back the tears and continued driving through the blinding snow.

Your turn: How do you find the good in something that isn't?

Camelmania

We all have our favorite animal species. Mine? Depends on the day. Or my mood at any given moment. Or the current contents of my uber-cool Windows Phone 7-powered smartphone. Whichever way I'm leaning on any given day, I guess I've got a soft spot for anything that isn't human. Maybe I've got animal DNA mixed in with mine.

Wherever it comes from, it means I find scenes like this to be strangely amusing. And I don't necessarily need to know the full backstory to appreciate the moment.

Your turn: What should this little guy's name be?

Bakerv or Bakery?

I see weird things all the time, like this descender-less sign at the local grocery store. And unlike the automatons around me who were mindlessly tossing apple crumb pie they seriously didn't need into their overstuffed megacarts, I looked up and pondered its significance for a moment before I, too, joined them in a quiet, shared celebration of all things apple crumb.

I don't know why the folks who designed and built this sign couldn't figure out a way to turn the bakerv into a bakery. But a small voice in my head - what, you don't hear voices? - said a silent thank you for this unexpected little surprise. And a silent thank you to the Research In Motion engineers just up the road who so kindly baked a camera into my BlackBerry. And a silent thank you to my wife who, even though she walked away as I composed and shot, didn't outright ban me from having this tiny moment of photographic joy.

Life's short. We've got to find joy wherever we can. I'm surrounded by it wherever I go, and whomever I'm with.

Your turn: Where do YOU find joy?

About this photo: We're savouring this week. What the heck am I talking about? Click here and all things heck - and Thematic - shall be explained.

Before the red light goes on

You can experience a so-called "still life" moment even when you're in the middle of a very busy sequence of events. I'd like to share this scene from a studio as Exhibit A.



I was a bit early for my interview earlier this week, so I had a couple of minutes to spend in this very special place. It's special because it's been around since long before I came on the scene, and if its muted, hanging-equipment-to-the-rafters walls could talk, they'd tell stories of a community's broadcast history, and of shows and personalities who imprinted themselves on generations of viewers. It's the kind of behind-the-scenes scene that few of them were ever privileged to see, but that doesn't even come close to eroding its impact.



So whenever I get the chance to drink in the peacefulness of this shrine to broadcast history, I grab it. I know it's a small thing, but I'm learning, slowly, that life is well lived when you take the time to appreciate the small things.



Your turn: Ever take time to smell the proverbial roses? Care to share?

Lesson from a four-legged friend

I've decided I rather like having a dog to come home to. Although my wife and kids are usually pretty consistent about hellos and goodbyes - my wife believes in making these moments special - there are times when the only greeter at the door has four legs and a soggy Schnauzer beard. When everyone in the house is too busy to get to the door, I can always count on our silver-furred hellion to attack the door until I can get it open. In the truest guard dog tradition, he'll bark and howl until he realizes it's me. Then he'll bore in, nubbin-of-a-tail wagging madly as he buries his head in my chest and snorts repeatedly.

I'm not quite sure what he hopes to accomplish in the process. I can hear all manner of sniffing going on, and all I can come up with is he's following his instinctive hunting dog's DNA as he tries to figure out where I've been, what I've done and who I've done it with.

Before long, I'll have to get on the floor because that just seems to make it so much easier to enjoy this wiggling ball of fur. It's always the same, and it never gets old. I think it's the unconditional nature of it all that makes moments like this worth holding on to. He'll be there, drooling and happy, no matter what kind of day he or I had. He doesn't temper his excitement for anything - the world revolves around the two of us for those few first moments on reconnectedness. He's happy simply because we're together.

I keep thinking there's a lesson here, and all I need to do is listen to him a little more closely. I think I need to be a little more like him - unconditional, in the moment, simply happy to be together, and to simply be - whoever I'm with.

Good dog, isn't he?