Contrasts

 So does anyone know how to handle these kind of color contrasts? All my cameras when left to their own devices seem to lose their little electronic minds trying to capture the red azaleas. This one for instance is intense but it doesn't actually hurt your eyes as it appears here. An excellent metaphor for my life (you could see that coming right?).
 Grandma is back after a little less than a month and she still wants her coffee really hot. And she still wants silverware with her food -which is more understadable but as often forgotten. And I know she is here as I sit down to start grading and I feel guilty for not being with her and a little annoyed for the comment about "having done my duty" as I leave her. Not mind you that I was going to go do my duty when I do my work but as if having had breakfast with her now I am free.
  When my daughter called the other day to tell me about some really weird thing a professor had done and how she now had an extra 20 points "towards her final" every "uh hunh" or "wow" or yeah" I said she was sure had some tone and she declared she would not tell me another story. I declare I had no tone - or at least if I  did it was more about what I had for dinner andbeing past my bedtime. I remind myself that as my mother sounds to me I sound to my daughter. It's not that I'm like my mother, or even that my daughter is like me -it's just that special filter between every mother and daughter. Whatever the mother says is criticism, and whatever the daughter says is rebellion. Or maybe it's not a filter. Maybe that's just the truth.
  So at least the 7 year old is very happy to have Grandma back because she listens to his stories no matter how long they are (and sometimes her eyes are even open). He has saved up a month's worth.