Month: July 2008

Before I head off to the land of sleepysleepy time (known to our dog Suzie as beddyboo), I thought that I would share a little poem with you.  I’m just kidding.  I can’t write poetry.  Although, I did take a poetry class in high school that I really did enjoy, but I mostly enjoyed it for the attempts at poetry that were displayed every time it came for us to present what we had been working on.

In particular, there was a young man (he was the same age as me, but for the sake of the story he will be known as a young man) that wasn’t the most poetic dude that you could meet.  In all reality, I do believe he was in this class because he though that is was going to be an easy ride…not too much work.  What I don’t think he anticipated were the weekly readings we would have to give of what we had written.  The way this worked is that the day before, we would give a typed copy (and yes, we used typewriters – these were the early nineties, only millionaires had computers) to our instructor, they would be copied off and put together, and upon entrance to the class the next day we would be given this packet.

His poem, that week, was an earnest attempt at conveying the love he had for his lady.  It was titled, ‘My Sweatheart’…yes, you got that right…’Sweatheart.’  As in a sweaty heart.  As I said, this was pre-computer and pre spell-check.  What could have been a lovely poem instead became – in my mind at least – some sort of a torrid poem about sweaty hearts.  Just how does a heart sweat?  Would you every say to somebody, ‘My heart sweats for you’?  So many questions were raised that day, and have never really been fully answered.

I suppose you are asking, what does this have to do with Kelsey, aren’t you.  Well, nothing.  On second thought, if I thought for a second that I had the ability to compose a poem, I would do so for Kelsey, because that’s just how totally out of this world awesome she was to work with!  Truly, she was mad-good.  And I haven’t used that expression for at least ten years.  Unfortunately, after witnessing the Hindenberg that was ‘My Sweatheart’, I have made a vow to never even attempt poetry, unless it is a limerick.  But that’s another story.

This story, my good friends, has come to an end.  We need to sit back, relax, give MuchLove & ManyThanks to Kelsey for being so awesome, and – Enjoy!

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I really don’t know what we have done to get so lucky.  I mean, seriously, it just seems like yesterday that myself and my ever-wondrous partner James were just a couple of mall rats, running roll after roll of film through big machines with the only high point of the day being when a photo that was out of the ordinary come through (I’ll let all y’all use your imaginations, but it’s safe to say that both of us have seen a fair amount of people in our community in various states of being…and we have crystal clear memories.)

But oh, how those days have passed us by, and without even realizing that it was happening, we broke free from the shackles that were the world of Food Courts and non-stop questions about why the ATM that was outside of our place of employment was broken (of course, in its free time, the photo lab also runs the ATM.  I mean, it makes sense to get angry with us when it wasn’t working, because most independent photo labs also run small banks too, everyone knows that) and we found ourselves working with absolutely wonderful people such as the lovely Alyssa!

I could go on and throw a bunch more words at you, or ramble on even further about how much I would dread walking into the Food Court entrance at the mall, and how just being in that area now still gives me a sense of dread, but I’m just gonna end this post like this.

Do you want to know why Alyssa was (and is) so awesome?  Because she brought a cat to the FunCenter for sweetlykittysnaps!  And anybody that knows anything about me know that I love cats.  Seriously, I used to be a cat, and I still have remnants of my whiskers.  So that’s all that I have to say.  Anybody that wants some snaps with their cat is awesome in my book.  Straight up.

So, without any further delay, I offer MuchLove to Alyssa for giving us some of her precious time, and to all my good citizens of Blogville that work so hard to keep our community together – Enjoy!

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OK now, my dear good people of blogworld, all of whom I’m assuming are sitting on their lovely porches enjoying a beautiful summer evening in a perfect world of love and happiness (you may say I’m a dreamer, right?), I’m coming to you at this hour so fine with the wonderful news that we have some new snaps for you all you all you all y’all to see.  And these just aren’t any ol’ snaps.  Oh no, my friends, these are of the newest and littlest member of the Otis & James Family (once you get in, good luck getting out), none other than the lovely Stella!

So, this blog post is going to be about two things.  One of them – of course – is going to be about Stella, and the other is going to be about something else that is also near and dear to me, the Grateful Dead.  But we’ll get to that in a moment.

You see, Stella is the daughter of the Original Otis & James Employee, none other than the always lovely and talented Brittany, and her equally as lovely husband, Steve!  We have had the good golly wondrous pleasure of working with this couple all the way from engagement pics, to their wedding and fun pics, we have worked with their siblings & family.  We not only enjoy this couple, we truly love this couple, as they have been there for us through thick and thin (and trust me, my friends, when Brittany first started working with us, it was pretty thin!)  And now, well, now we have the honor of working with the newest addition to their family, the gorgeous Stella!

We couldn’t be any more proud, happy, and honored to be their friends, and to have them always be a part of our family.  It just seems like yesterday that Brittany came up to our office on a hot summer day, covered in paint and dirt from her summer job at Minot State as she made the plans for her wedding, and now look at them!

Now, when I found out that they had chosen the name Stella, my heart was immediately warmed, as I have always loved this name.  You see, good blog friends – and in no way do I consider this to be silly – one of my favorite favorite favorite songs by the band The Grateful Dead (GD) is a song called Stella Blue.  To those of you that are familiar with this band and this song, you’ll know why I love it so much.  To the rest of you, let me try and explain.

As is with any band or musician that is popular, there are the mainstream songs.  For the GD, those would be songs like ‘Touch of Grey‘, ‘Truckin”, maybe even ‘Ripple.’  But then there are the songs that you have to dig a little deeper for.  The songs that take on a life of their own as they are played on live.  The songs that speak to your heart and soul.  Stella Blue is one of these songs.  It’s has a chord progression that just breaks your heart, and a bridge that is straight up out of this world.  Maybe some of you out there know this, but the GD is a band that at one point, was just about all my world consisted of.  They are the music of my youth, and they bring nothing but smiles and wonderful memories and joy to me!  Some of you may write this music off as a dirty hippy thing, but I would beg to differ.  After the pics, I have included the song – this is the album version (when played live, things really went out of this world, as Garcia seemed to physically inhabit the song when he played it) give it a listen and you might see what I mean.

So, basically, Stella is kind of already one of the køølest kidz out there, in my book.  Enough words (Brittany, I’m sure you’re tired of spell-checking this thing already), so I’m just gonna say that we love you guys, and to all my good people out there in Land of Blog – Enjoy!

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