Best Picture

"Life is a great big canvas;

throw all the paint you can at it."

 -- Danny Kaye

Self portrait 8-31-13

"Make your lives a masterpiece,

you only get one canvas."

-- E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

Self portrait (2) 8-31-13

Prescription strength

"Everything struggles to live.

Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating.

It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. 

It's growing out of sour earth.

And it's strong because its hard struggle to live

is making it strong."

-- Betty Smith, A Tree Grown in Brooklyn

Self portrait 8-30-13

"Existence never was originally meant to be 

that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing 

it often becomes."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Shirley

"You'll be all right. You're strong. 

I know you'll be okay because I like you 

and you can't like someone who doesn't like themself. 

The people I fear for are the ones who I don't like 

because they hate themselves so much they won't let 

anyone else like them either. 

But I do like you. I'll miss you. 

And I know you'll be okay."  

-- Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis

Letters of intent

"The letters are mixed up.

U and I should be together."

-- Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls

"Face" in rubber stamp letters 8-29-13

"Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost."

-- Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Self portrait 8-29-13

"The prettiest little squiggles of black looked at in the right light

and yet consider the blow they can give you upon the heart."

-- H.G. Wells, The History of Mr. Polly

Self portrait (2) 8-29-13

"They could read it 

on each other, 

their faces 

wrinkled pages ...

She was made 

of letters then, 

as all of us 

are now."

-- Brian Francis Slattery, 

Lost Everything

Bird's eye view

"If you buy an egg thinking it's a goose's egg, 

and when it hatches it is actually a bird of paradise,

no manner of convincing and reproach will turn the bird of paradise into a goose.

Even if you make it go to goose church and goose school 

and eat goose feeds and only hang out with geese! 

In the end, it will still belong to paradise."

-- C. Joybell C.

Self portrait 8-28-13

"You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head,

but you can prevent their making a nest in your hair."

-- Chinese proverb

Self portrait (2) 8-28-13

Welcome to "Fun With Feathers!" at A Face A Day 2013!

I had this cheap little Mardi Gras mask in my costume stuff for a long time, but every time I tried to use it, I put it back in the box. It wasn't special enough or something.

I got it out again for this self portrait, but this time I painted myself red first, then plucked the mask of its feathers, rearranged them and glued them directly onto my face.

Somehow, the paper backing with its little elastic strap was the problem. It was the thing that stood between the mask looking fake and "put-on," and looking like I really had feathers on my face.

Plus, I have a whole bottle of spirit gum, so why not use it for more than just mustaches?

While I was shooting these portraits I had a strong urge to go someplace public with my paint and feathers still on. Like, maybe stroll into Starbucks and calmly order a triple decaf espresso, pay for it, sit there and drink it, then calmly stroll out.

It wouldn't hurt anybody.

If it was Halloween and I did that, nobody would think twice. They'd be all like, "Oh, cool, she's wearing her Halloween costume in Starbucks on Halloween." It would make sense. Or if I lived in L.A., nobody would think twice. They'd be all like, "Oh, cool, she's wearing her paint and feathers in Starbucks on a Tuesday." It might still make sense.

But I live in Small Town Ohio.
And it isn't Halloween.
It's the ass end of August.
The closest holiday is Labor Day.

So I shot the photos, removed the feathers (I also have a whole bottle of spirit gum remover), cold creamed the paint off, took a shower and watched the red remnants of my short life as a bird slosh around in the suds at my feet and then swirl down the drain.

Petrified

"Does not the stone rebuke me

for being more stone than it."

-- William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Self portrait 8-27-13

"I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention.

To not be like your parents.

To not be like your friends.

To be yourself.

To cut yourself out of stone."

-- Henry Rollins

petrify [pe-truh-fahy]

verb

1. To convert into stone or a stony substance.

2. To benumb or paralyze with astonishment, horror, or other strong emotion.

3. to make rigid or inert; harden; deaden: The tragedy in his life petrified his emotions.

I am petrified.

I thought the word "petrified" simply meant being afraid, that it was just a synonym for being really really scared, really really frightened.

But the word has a finer, more complex meaning that that. 

While the word does have something to do with fear, it is also tied up intricately with the process of hardening, or turning to stone. It's about fear that paralyzes.

In fairy tales, characters who fail a quest may be turned into stone until they are rescued.

God knows my life is no fairy tale, but my "quest" right now is my battle against insomnia.

And I feel like I am failing miserably.

I am getting help, and I thought the help was helping. But lately I seem to be back at square one.

Some long sleepless nights are kicking my ass again. I am disappointed and discouraged.

And it scares the shit out of me.

It is a fear that paralyzes.

And I feel like the longer I wage this battle, the more hardened I am becoming. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to break, but other times I feel like I'm turning to stone. Like out of self-protection I am hardening emotionally, retreating into a stony, isolated little enclave deep inside myself.

I feel trapped inside the anxiety of "what if?" 

What if this is it?

What if I never get fixed? 

What if I never get rescued?

What if instead of getting easier, it just keeps getting harder?

Don't fence me in

"I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird 

through the close set bars of a cage: 

a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; 

were it but free, it would soar cloud high."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Self portrait 8-27-13

"Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. 

Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, 

but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely."

-- Dave McKean, Cages

"Fear is the highest fence."

-- Dudley Nichols

Faced food

"Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art."

-- Oscar Wilde

Impromptu desktop collage 8-25-13

"It's such a stupid question, in my opinion.

I mean, how do you know what you're doing to do till you do it?

The answer is, you don't.

I think I am, but how do I know?

I swear it's a stupid question."

-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' 

The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'"

-- Jay Leno

Sometimes I need a well-prepared gourmet meal.

And sometimes I crave drive-thru fast food.

I'm the same when it comes to faces.

Sometimes I spend a lot of time creating, planning and executing a particular portrait.

And sometimes I am more spontaneous and just sort of wing it -- I grab something quick without too much thought or preparation.

Today's face is "fast food", right down to the French fries.

OK. Now I want French fries.

Across the great divide

"Man is not truly one, but truly two."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Self portrait 8-24-13

"I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; 

I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, 

even if I could rightly be said to be either, 

it was only because I was radically both."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"The red man divided mind into two parts, 

the spiritual mind and the physical mind."

-- Charles Eastman

Love in the time of Cholera

"He was still too young to know 

that the heart's memory eliminates the bad 

and magnifies the good,

and that thanks to this artifice 

we manage to endure 

the burden of the past."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Cemetery statue 8-23-13

Cemetery statue (2) 8-23-13

One of my favorite places to look for faces is in cemeteries. Often, among the headstones, obelisks, monuments and memorials, there are statues standing sentinel over the lost lives beneath their feet.

This statue towers over the grave of the Wilber family in a cemetery near Vermilion, Ohio.

According to the engravings, the Wilber's lost four children in a span of  seven days, between January13th and 19th, 1893. Their names were Jess, May, Roy and Ruby. Jess was 11, May was 9, and the twins, Ruby and Roy, just three months shy of their 3rd birthday.

At the feet of the statue is a separate plot with the four children's individual headstones, under an arch that says "Our Darlings."

I don't know what claimed the lives of these children, but I'd guess they were victims of the Cholera pandemic of 1881-1896.

This face really got to me.
I love how the way time, the weather and the elements have eroded the lines through the surface so that it looks, even on a bright sunny day, as if this woman, this mother, is weeping eternally for her lost "darlings." The tear tracks are etching away at the stone, rivulets carving ever deeper, slowly, pooling over her heart before running away.

She is holding, barely, a little book that simply says "Memory." The letters aren't engraved, but raised. To me it looks as though this woman is intentionally tipping the book to let the letters tumble to the earth as if she might rid herself of the terrible memories. Of course, she can't, because the words are trapped forever in stone. That breaks my heart.

I see strength and serenity in this face, the face of grief holding on, barely, to a thin volume of what was, and what was lost.

Where there's smoke

"Quoting, like smoking, is a dirty habit to which I am devoted."

-- Carolyn Heilbrun

Self portrait 8-2-13

Sticking to it

"Another behavior that responds well to a sticker chart is sleeping independently. 

If the child stays in his own bed all night he can earn a sticker in the morning."

--Amy Morin, 

"Sticker Charts: Motivate your Preschooler with a Reward System"

Self portrait 8-21-13

"Sometimes we take action, sometimes we take pills."

-- Fall Out Boy

"I don't need a life that's normal

That's way too far away

But something next to normal

would be okay

Yeah, something next to normal

That's the thing I'd like to try

Close enough to normal

To get by."

-- Alice Ripley, 

"Maybe/Next to Normal," Next to Normal

Hanging in there.

Doing what I have to do to get my F'd up sleep re-ordered.

Following the rules, mostly.

Taking the meds, daily.

Sleeping better, sometimes.

Keeping positive, for the most part.

Little victories, incremental progress, baby steps.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

"I'm not a damsel and there is no distress."

-- Carrie Jones, Need

Self portrait 8-20-13

"And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild,

so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful ...

or if the fall had changed the story completely."

-- Scott Westerfeld, Pretties

"A crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing."

-- Pearl Bailey

Gunslinger

"All outlaws are photogenic."

-- Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

Self portrait 8-19-13

 “Somehow, we'll find it. 

The balance between whom we wish to be 

and whom we need to be. 

But for now, we simply have to be satisfied 

with who we are.”

-- Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

When I was about 5 years old, I wanted cowboy guns, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat for Christmas.
I got the guns. Two silver, plasticized pearl-handled pistols with a belt and holsters.
I got the hat. Felt, with a little string under the chin.
I got the boots. Black. Shiny.
I even got a shirt with cowboy piping.
I also got a skirt.
A stiff, ugly black skirt with white plastic fringe along the hem.

There are Super-8 home movies of me in this girly get-up, waving my pistols, trying to be a bad-ass cowboy.
In a skirt.
I hated that skirt.
I didn't want a skirt.
I didn't ask for a skirt.
I knew that no self-respecting cowboy would be caught dead in a goddamn skirt.
And I didn't want to hear about girl outlaws.

I didn't want to be Annie Oakley.
I didn't want to be Belle Starr.
I wanted to be Jesse James.
Butch Cassidy.
Billy the Kid.
 
It wasn't the first time my mother forced me to wear a dress. That happened a lot. Usually for pictures or holidays. I always felt so uncomfortable in a dress. So unnatural. So self-conscious. Like an imposter. A fraud.

But, like all the other skirts and dresses of my childhood, I wore the cowgirl skirt to mollify my parents -- for the pictures.
I tried to look happy. Tried to appear grateful.
As soon as Christmas was over, I took that fucker off and I never wore it again.
I got good mileage out of the pistols and the boots, though.

I am all grown up now, and I still love to shoot. Real guns. I'm a pretty good shot, actually. I am proficient with a .22, a sexy as hell .38 revolver (now that's a cowboy gun), a Glock 9 mm, and a .380 semi-automatic.

I have two pistols of my very own and am a registered concealed carrier.
Yup. I can pack heat.

I have my own real Stetson hat. I have my own real cowboy boots. I even made myself a pair of rodeo chaps -- with cowboy fringe.

Not a skirt.
Chaps.
And just to make sure we're clear, I got myself a handlebar mustache and a beard -- for the pictures.

Oh, my goddess

"I knew that I looked at the reflection of Medusa,

the Gorgon,

fairest and foulest of living things,

the unclean creature, half woman, half eagle,

slain by the hero Perseus,

and one glimpse of whose tortured face

turned the luckless beholder into stone with the horror of it."

-- Gertrude Bacon, "The Gorgon's Head"

Self portrait in Medusa mask 8-18-13

Medusa mask 8-18-1

"It was a human head, severed at the neck, but fresh and unfaded as if but newly dead. It bore the features of a woman -- of a woman of more perfect loveliness than was ever told of in tale, or sculpted in marble, or painted on canvas. Every feature, every line was of the truest beauty, cast in the noblest mould -- the face of a goddess. But upon that perfect countenance was the mark of eternal pain, of deathless agony and suffering past words. The forehead was lined and knit, the death-white lips were tightly pressed in speechless torment; in the wide eyes seemed yet to lurk the flame of an unquenchable fire; while around the fair brows, in place of hair, curled and coiled the stark bodies of venomous serpents, stiff in death, but their loathsome forms still erect, their evil heads yet thrust forward 

as if to strike."

-- Gertrude Bacon, "The Gorgon's Head"

The Gentlewomen of Evil: An Anthology 

of Rare Supernatural Stories 

from the Pens of Victorian Ladies

This Medusa mask has been an ongoing project since early last year when I made a plaster cast of my face. The white, hardened, gauzy mask has been laying around my workspace for months, waiting for its purpose to come along. I've photographed it a couple of times, and even used it July 23 on this blog, as a makeshift Medusa with wooden snakes for hair.

I finally decided to make it permanent and glued the snakes in place, and painted the mask to look (I hope) like weathered bronze, like a statue covered in verdigris (small inset photo above). I tweaked the color, for dramatic effect, in today's self portrait.

Medusa fascinates me. 

Her story, her mythology, her significance, is all centered around her face.

She was a ravishing beauty, the only mortal daughter of two marine deities, who was "caught" being raped by Poseidon, god of the sea, in Athena's temple.

Athena was so enraged that she punished Medusa.

You read that right. 

She punished Medusa. 

For being raped.

As if being raped wasn't punishment enough, Athena poured salt in the wound by transforming Medusa's beautiful hair in to serpents, and making her face so grisly and terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would instantly turn onlookers to stone.

And not only that, to add more insult to injury, Medusa died (while pregnant by Poseidon) when she was beheaded by Perseus, at the request of King Polydectes. Perseus then used Medusa's severed head against the king, turning him to stone so that he couldn't marry Perseus' mother.

Medusa's face is one of the most famous faces in history.

It's been written about, it's been the subject of art for ages, eons, centuries.

The polarity of who and what she represents makes her a heroine and a monster.

She embodies female beauty and ugliness.

She represents strength and victimization.

Because others couldn't handle her beauty, they took advantage of it, they abused it, and they ultimately destroyed it.

Some things never change.

Life's a blur

"Perpetual motion the image won't focus
A blur is all that's seen
But here in this moment like the eye of the storm
It all came clear to me."

-- Rise Against, "Ready to Fall" 

Self portrait 8-17-13

 “I toss and turn so much in my sleep 

that the very act of sleeping must be exhausting for me. 

Sleeping makes me want to sleep even more.
” 

-- Jarod Kintz, So many chairs, and no time to sit

“As long as I stared at the clock, at least the world remained in motion. 

Not a very consequential world, but in motion nonetheless. 

And as long as I knew the world was still in motion, I knew I existed. 

Not a very consequential existence, but an existence nonetheless. 

It struck me as wanting that someone should confirm his own existence 

only by the hands of an electric wall clock. 

There had to be a more cognitive means of confirmation. 

But try as I might, nothing less facile came to mind.”

-- Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

What have you done for me philately?

"What should I do? 

I think the best thing is to order a stamp with my face on it."

-- Charles, Emperor of Austria 

(1882-1922 on learning of his accession to the throne)

Face in a shop window 8-16-13

"Next time ask my barber to approve them 

before you issue stamps with my portrait." 

-- King Christian X of Denmark 

(In 1924 he was shown commemoratives of 300th anniversary of Danish Posts. The stamps showed his portrait facing the left and the right and his hair parted once to the left and next to the right)

Face in a shop window (2) 8-16-13

I was window shopping for faces again and found this one gazing aloofly through the front window of an art boutique downtown. 

It tickles me how this girl seems to be trying not to look at the postage-stamp-covered torso/trunk standing right behind her. It also tickles me that so many of the stamps on the torso/trunk are face stamps. 

And I must admit that if I found myself eye-level with someone's Homer Simpson-stamped mons pubis, I'd probably act cool and look the other way and pretend I didn't notice it too. Maybe.

But since this torso/trunk is not human, I felt free to gawp.

I couldn't identify all of the faces, but here are the ones I could:

Plastic Man
Spider Woman

Homer Simpson

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch right there on the left inner thigh.

Gerald Ford

Many iterations of the Madonna and Child

Yoda 

Selena

Mickey Mouse

Lisa Simpson

Roy Rogers

Jimmy Stewart, right in the groin

A few nutcrackers

A reindeer

A bear

Frank Sinatra 
Frosty the Snowman
A gingerbread man
A Naval officer named Doris Miller
A baseball player
Ronald Reagan 
Rube Foster, of the Negro League
Gary Cooper

... the list goes on.

I'm not sure what the artist is trying to say with his/her body covered in faces. But I was pretty intrigued by the juxtaposition of faces stamped on a body standing next to a face.

I'm easily entertained.

Di dreaded alpaca-lypse, Mon.

"Trust the universe and respect your hair."

-- Bob Marley

Alpaca face 8-15-13

"I couldn't imagine those black ropes on their heads were hair ... 

natural hair to which nothing was added, not even brushing ... 

I wondered what such hair felt like, smelled like. 

What a person dreamed about at night, 

with hair like that spreading across the pillow."

-- Alice Walker, "Dreads," 

(from Dreads, by Francesco Mastalia and Alfonse Pagano)

Alpaca face (2) 8-15-13

Alpaca face (3) 8-15-13

"I can just imagine 

what the humidity 

has done to my hair.

I'm going to meet 

your family 

looking like a poodle 

with a live wire 

shoved up its butt."

-- Kelley Armstrong, Industrial Magic

These alpacas live on a little farm that I drive past pretty regularly.
I have been meaning to stop and photograph them, but I keep forgetting to toss the camera in the car.

These animals are pretty unusual looking, especially when they're freshly sheared.
With their body hair shaved to the nub, and the hair on their heads left long and shaggy -- like dreadlocks -- their look is kind of "rastafarian ridiculous."

I just adore their faces.

Pucker up butter-cup

"I don't have to KISS her, do I?

Is that what Valentines do??!

Oh, gross!"

-- Bill Watterson, The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

Self portrait 8-14-13

“A kiss may ruin a human life.”

-- Oscar Wilde

Self portrait (2) 8-14-13

"Although it is rare, the fear of touch can have devastating consequences for those who suffer from it. If you are struggling with a fear of touch, kissing may feel like a violation instead of a pleasurable experience.

In some cases, the fear of kissing stems from a deeper concern over intimacy or vulnerability. Some people are actually more comfortable with having sex, which they view as impersonal, than with kissing, which they see as intimate. These issues are complex, and are best faced with the help of a competent, understanding therapist."

-- Lisa  Fritscher, 

"Philemaphobia: Understanding the 

Fear of Kissing"

Premium blend

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

-- Dr. Seuss

Self portrait 8-13-13

"Want a reliable road to emotional and spiritual suicide?

Spend your life trying to fit in."

-- Brandon Mull

"The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go.

Life is too short to blend in."

-- Paris Hilton

Landmind

"My mind runs

I can never catch it

even if I got a head start."

-- Kid Cudi

Self portrait 8-12-13

"Don't think.

Thinking is the enemy of creativity.

It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy.

You can't try to do things.

You simply must do things."

-- Ray Bradbury

"Nothing at last is sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

Big bangs theory

"My hair is a wild, untamable beast! 

I like letting it grow; 

my bangs grow whatever way they want and I kind of follow their rule. 

So side bangs, poof bangs -- 

it's kind of unpredictable."

-- Victoria Legrand

Bull face 8-11-13

"#1487: Hug a cow."

-- H. Jackson Brown Jr., 

The Complete Life's Little Instruction Book

I'm feeling a little bit badass because I got chased off some property getting this face.

Not by the bull, but by the owner, or whoever shouted "Hey! You wanna git off the proppity!" at me from the widowless, seemingly abandoned house looming on the corner near the bull pen.

I wasn't doing anything wrong. Although, I guess I was technically trespassing.

Anyway. I left quietly. I'm no rabble-rouser.

Besides, I already had the images I needed. 

No need to make a fuss.

I drive past this guy pretty regularly on my motorcycle rides. I always look to see if he's out. His was the first face I thought of when I needed to test fire my new camera. So I took a little field trip.

Even though this beast could easily gore me with his giant horns, and even though we were mere inches away from each other with just a weathered, rickety split-rail fence between us, he seemed pretty un-riled by my presence. He just munched his hay and looked gently at me through his adorable curly bangs.

I wish I could say the same for his owner.

Let's pretend

"Let's pretend for just one moment that could actually happen.

You close your eyes and I'll close mine

and let's dream the same dream ..."

-- Annabel Pitcher, Ketchup Clouds

Self portrait 8-10-13

"Pretending to feel something you don't

can often lead you to the real thing, 

in some form."

-- Stacey Kade, The Rules

"Not like this. 

He wanted it to be real."

-- Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

The pretty one

"It's not a pretty world, Papa."
"I've noticed," my father said softly.

-- Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev

Plastic skulls 8-9-13

"Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.

"It must be. The sensation's completely new.

How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.

-- Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

"What's the use of looking nice, 

when no one sees me but those cross midgets, 

and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?"

-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"They're brainless girls, otherwise they wouldn't be seen dead here."

-- Markus Zusak, Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Vintage visages

"I look at a little hat like this, 

I lift up the veil, 

and I try to imagine the face beneath it.”

-- Isabel Wolff, A Vintage Affair

 

 

Vintage hat forms 8-8-13

 “Every face, 

every shop, 

bedroom window, 

public-house, 

and dark square 

 is a picture feverishly turned ...”

-- Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

 

Vintage hat form 8-8-13

"She had not realized how wonderful glass was,

how it protect you and kept you inside."

-- Caroline B. Cooney, Evil Returns

 

Vintage hat form (2) 8-8-13

Every week I drive past this antique shop, and every week I see these two vintage hat forms staring out at me.

These two faces are like captives.
Hostages.
Stuck in time.
Fixed in place.
Gathering dust.
Trapped behind panes of dirty window glass.

I have never seen the shop open.
The stuff seems to stay in the same places, week after week, month after month.

All year I've been telling myself to stop sometime and take pictures, but I keep forgetting to throw the camera in the car.

I finally remembered the camera, and I finally stopped.

Of course, the shop was closed, so I had to shoot the pictures from the sidewalk, with my camera pressed against the dirty glass.

I like to think that by putting their picture on the blog, I have given these two ladies a little exposure, gotten them out of their limited little world and into the bigger, wider one beyond the shop windows.

Rest less night

"I could not help it:

the restlessness was in my nature;

it agitated me to pain sometimes."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Sticky gumball machine eyes 8-7-13

"I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist."

-- Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 

Sticky gumball machine eyes (2) 8-7-13

"I've been put down, pushed around, apprehended and led downtown.
An' I can't help it if I'm out of sight,
'Cause I'm restless tonight."

-- Alison Krauss, "Restless"

Don't get fresh with me

"Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world.

Except for a nice MLT: a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich,

where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.

They're so perky, I love that."

-- Miracle Max, The Princess Bride

Homegrown tomato faces with jiggle eyes 8-6-13

"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."

-- Miles Kington

"You like potato and I like potahto,

You like tomato and I like tomahto;

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!

Let's call the whole thing off!

But oh! If we call the whole thing off,

Then we must part.

And oh! If we ever part,

Then that might break my heart!"

-- George and Ira Gershwin, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"

 

 

Gotta love it when Mother Nature gives me a fresh face.

 

And when she plants one right under my nose ...

 

of course I pick it.