again

December 2, 2001

Today was supposed to be as warm as yesterday but it's not. I insisted on acting as if it is though. We are the only people who sat outside in the bamboo grove to eat breakfast at Cafe Zog this morning. I'm figuring this is definitely the last day it will be anything like close to warm enough to eat outside so I want to take advantage of it. Hordes of starlings move in noisy clouds from tree to tree. House sparrows hop around looking for leftovers. I can't believe we're eating outdoors in December in Providence.

So the first show of The Gleaners and I today is at 1:00 PM. The guy at the Cable Car remembered us from yesterday. I tried to key in on the French more than the subtitles this time, and to pay more attention to details because every frame is so full. It was eminently worth seeing again. Yes, I saw a movie about homeless people picking garbage twice in one weekend and loved every minute of it. Yup, this is definitely the weird side of the table.

The weird side of the table. I haven't explained that yet. That would be later this evening at the birthday bash for Thomas turning 40. My youngest little baby brother is 40! No wonder I feel old. So anyway, at dinner Andrea decided to sit next to me, which is not the side of the table where she usually sits so:

Andrea: I'm going to sit on the weird side of the table.
AJ: Are you sure you're weird enough to sit here?

And yes, my family was amazed that I saw a movie about homeless people picking garbage twice in one weekend and loved every minute of it.

The reader will note there are no pictures of the Thomas birthday bash. That would be because the official photographer, uh, yours truly, has renounced photography in a fit of frustration. To wit: the battery in my formerly trusty Sony Mavica FD-73 (ancient and honorable digital camera) is dead despite having 62 minutes left on it yesterday when I took that picture of the Cable Car Cafe sign reflected in the window across the street. I did not use said camera today and it did sit in the trunk of the car while we ate omelets in the bamboo grove at Cafe Zog and while we watched The Gleaners and I for the second time, but that should not have affected the battery. Grrr.

So then I took out the famed Nikon N80, which I keep thinking I never should have bought because I am not a good enough photographer to deserve a Nikon even if it does have a grillion automatic settings that enable the user to pass for a photographer. Said N80 refuses to do anything in any of the preprogrammed modes so I set it on manual. I still can't budge the shutter. I feel around and locate a mysterious button that seems somehow related to the lens mount. I press it. Then I take the lens out and put it back in again. Voila! The camera somehow works in all modes but the only aperture it seems to like is 4.5. Oh well. So I decide to finish off the roll of film that's in there and reload to get a fresh start.

I click randomly (I don't think you're allowed to say "shoot" on the Internet) in the general direction of the other side of the table. One attendee complains that that's an awful picture of her. Hmm, she wasn't even in the frame. And furthermore, all pictures I have ever taken of her are awful. I try a few real shots - wait, what can I call them? is there a new photography lingo now? - but realize there is nowhere I can position myself in my mother's minuscule dining room and get good composition or an angle where the flash is not bouncing off the window. I finally announce I am renouncing photography forever and will sell my cameras.

Andrea asks: "Really?" "Can I have the digital one?"