This is all good, and very exciting. But I've stumbled across one of the consequences of waiting so long - having really good Internet and digital camera technology available, and having really clever, witty and intelligent friends who know how to use it. Well.
Everybody has a camera and favorite online photo album provider, it would appear: Ofoto, Shutterfly, Snapfish.
Now, in addition to the baby-in-the-lead-paint-dust-what-were-we-thinking angst that settles over me with every hammer's strike on the back wall of the house, I have an entirely new sort of fear: Will my photo captions be clever enough to impress my intelligentsia-humorist friends?
(Look out, Jer, if you can't comment on here, I'll do it for you)
Par example:
Jeremy says...
I hope you enjoy my photos! When you're done, you can order prints or add comments to the guest book.That's what Snapfish says. Me, I just say, come in and bask in the adorable.Jeremy
"Bask in the adorable." How great a turn of phrase is that? He and Sheila have lovely albums with clever self deprecating captions (a beautifully drowsing baby with a caption "No, do go on. I find your conversation FASCINATING." A sweetly sleeping girl with a caption
"Daddy gets her to sleep by telling her about how Kurosawa's films are both action-packed and humanistic. Again." I tend to agree, Jeremy and Sheila. But, when was the last time you had a chance to view a Kurosawa film, exactly? And did you see it in the original Japanese, dubbed or with subtitles?)
"Admittedly," the sleep-deprived-parent-of-Donna emails me after I lament presciently over my failings as a would-be Shutterfly comedianne, "it's the funny comments you regret the most. Stay away from funny. That's the life lesson I'll never learn," he warns.
But the temptation is sooooo great. I had a journalism prof who's advice on avoiding libel was something like this: take all the cheap shots you wish and freely put them in your articles, then by all means don't print them! Instead, cut them out and save them in a jar to go through and crack yourself up later when you're having a bad day.
[I don't know why, but this suddenly reminded me of my transplant surgeon's advice to me about what to do when I was a bit upset my hair was falling out because of a medication I was on. "Save it in a bag," he said gently with a sort of bluesy rhythm, "Saaave it in A BAG." The thought still cracks me up.]
Maybe this photo caption thing is like that. The libel thing, I mean. Not the bag-o-hair.
Or, maybe, like the thinning hair, I'm getting worked up over nothing. A company with a couple of big buildings and lots of employees actually pays me money in part to write photo captions for a living... I can see it now. I'll be Original Ofoto Journalist:
Molly Rainford-Dreibelbis, age 10 months, glares menacingly at her mother while operating the new, more fuel efficient, 275 hp John Deere 8530 Tractor.
While I'm at it, here's a caption for you, somnambulent, erudite Jeremy and Sheila. I ripped it off from a filmmaker I've heard one of you is fond of:
The bad parents sleep well.
If that's true, the two a youse and Pete and Kay, all the other yawning and frazzled new parents we know must be pretty ok. And all the beautiful babies are probably worth a few long nights.
Here's a holla
C
