Where’s My Camera or Why I stopped Blogging

I had an idea for some posts that I thought needed pictures.  And I’m not really clear on the whole copyright/crediting thing for pictures found on the internet.  So I decided I would use photos.  Ah this would be great I could get exactly what I wanted..

First problem; where is my camera?  Okay I could use my mobile phone or someone else’s (we own 7 between us I think), but only one of them had a decent camera & that was Tabby’s.  Tabby is the closest person in our family to having an actual life; school, choir, school play practice 3 times a week, drama classes, a boyfriend, a support worker & Occupational Therapy every second week.  Whenever she is home for more than a few minutes she immediately scuttles off to the granny flat to annoy Grandma; or if Grandma is out she annoys Grandma’s dogs and calls it “babysitting”.  When was there time to use her phone as a camera?

So I searched; well I complained until everyone else searched which is the same thing with less walking, for my camera.  The trouble was any one or group of children including Gavin may have used my camera & then discarded it wherever they were when they bored of it, or were distracted by a passing dust particle, okay it could have been me too but guilt just makes me grumpier & more frustrated.  The other problem was we have given up on Alex and Tasha’s rooms temporarily, we are awaiting professional help.  Not cleaners, support workers to help us deal with being overwhelmed and to help me overcome my fear of even touching that… oh my God.  So if the camera had penetrated any distance into either of those morasses it had probably been pulled in and eaten by the creatures that dwell in the subterranean depths that light has not penetrated since they moved into the rooms.  I am of course understating the situation to avoid creating nausea & horror in my audience.  Tabby’s room is a little better, her father cleaned it completely just a couple of months ago.  Cat cleans her own room, I think she may have inherited my OCD her room meets my standards.  She even understood when I told her that her collectible (toy gun to the uninitiated) needed to move 1cm so it would look placed instead of left, fine it sounds crazy Gavin laughed but we could both see it.

At first this didn’t matter because I still had some stuff I wanted to write about that didn’t involve photos.  But I became more and more obsessed until my husband swapped phones with Tabby on her way to play rehearsal on Sunday.

So I take some photos and then I hit more problems.  Pets, and autistic people, don’t pose; the rats and the kitten(Orion) tried to steal the camera,  Charlie (spaniel) & Tasha (child like creature) move to try &see the result before the picture is taken, and both Echo (cat) & Cherise (Jack Chi) seemed terrified of being photographed; probably because Catherine (my boss) kept saying she refused to have her picture taken because if her photo was put on my website her soul would be stolen.  I told her her photo was already on my website, but she said because she hadn’t cooperated it didn’t count, I wonder if this is why she never cooperates with anyone she fears the loss of her soul, but as I told her she didn’t have a soul so she could shut up.

Then these strange red lines ran through some of the photos, mainly the 3 decent shots of Echo and the “goth” picture of Tash, a response to evil perhaps but then why not Catherine’s.

Finally all was well or was it?  Actually then the hard part started.  In order to try and get photos of uncooperative pets/offspring with a camera with too much delay I had taken hundreds of pictures.  I had taken many pictures in groups while it’s subject moved about, so most of them were blurred, back of the head or a the empty space where an animal or child had been.  In any small view the blurred pictures looked like the good pictures, so finding the good ones and isolating them was very laborious, and the computer light made my head hurt (more than usual).

There were some highlights, clicking though some of the pictures quickly meant the animals seemed to be moving like a flickery old movie; the fish were swimming, the birds seemed to talk to each other and you could see the rats try to steal the camera.  And there was a hilarious sequence  where the kitten attacked my computer, Charlie, Smokie (male cat), the camera & then Cherise.

So I finally decided on a few photos that were near enough&  went to upload them, I hate technology!  I am resigning from the Geek club!  I am joining the troglodytes!  I hate computers!  Look do not tell me ‘Did you try turning it on & off’.  If something is wrong and it is fixed by turning it on & off, I am still left with the original question  what caused the original problem and when will it happen again?  Why do glitches happen?  There must be reasons.  What are we missing by this temporary Band-Aid of turning it on & off?  Things should make sense!

I’ve had a nice cup of tea now.  So I’m going to make a nice list of the photos I want & calmly upload, noting which ones make it and which ones come up with an inexplicable stupid error message.   I am going to keep myself occupied doing other things while the stupid computer takes an interminably long time to move the stupid photos.  I am not going to obsess.  I am getting another cup of tea.

By the way Natasha, youngest of my monsters had discarded a bag with my camera in it.  It was found in the laundry, before it made it to the washing machine.