Stop, Diego, Stop

So Ella's new program is that we have four standard posts a month at least. One on each family member's birth day number. I was supposed to write one last month. I choked. If you're familiar with my birth day number (18) you'll know I'm late this month. If you're not familiar with my birth day number, you'll still know I'm late this month, because I just told you I was late. I even parenthetically mentioned the number. So we should all be up to speed. This month, the day coinciding with birth day number happens to be my actual birthday. So what should we talk about this month? The fact that I'm feeling my age at every turn. Why don't I just quote from one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets, A.E. Housman, who often wrote of missed opportunities and the melancholy passage of time. In this poem he speaks of future summers:

They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.

That sums up my feelings on this birthday. But I don't want to talk about aging. It's depressing. Maybe we should talk about photography. I could take this chance to show you some of Ella's rejects. I supply her with photos for the blog and she decides which ones to use and which to trash. Sometimes she trashes my favorites. But like George Costanza rescuing the eclair with only one bite from the top of the trash, so I rescue these rejected photos.

Ella isn't too partial for pictures of Jack with wide angle lenses. I like this anyway:Look at that cute distorted boy.

She also doesn't like pictures where Jack looks like an idiot. I do:Have you ever seen such a cute boy look so stupid--or such a stupid boy look so cute?

I thought this picture of Jack was so good, I put it in black and white (very pretentious). Ella didn't like it at all. She said Jack's right eye looked evil:
I thought: you think he looks evil in that picture? I've got a photo that makes him look like evil incarnate:Too evil for color even. Look at him. He could be a stunt double for Chucky.

This picture was supposed to be a continuation of the photo where Jack is standing up. This is the part where he falls:Check out the look he's giving me. "Put down the camera, you churl. I just fell."

This next photo never had the chance to be rejected by Ella. I knew it would be rejected before I even submitted it:Ella mid-blink, Jane with her best attempt to beat out Jack for the stupidest expression award. (I actually do love my kids and think of them as smart and cute. But a picture's a picture. Besides, Jack did call me a churl.)

This one was rejected:Come on! Look at the foot, caught just before the moment of impact, symbolizing the power of a photograph to freeze but a fraction of life to be remembered forever. Not unlike this famous photograph by the great Henri Cartier-Bresson:To hear me go on (so pretentiously), you're probably wondering why I didn't make it black and white.

On that note, here's a pretentious black and white that Ella shot down out of the sky:Nothing exciting in it for her. It only happens to be one of my favorite pictures of Jane. The expression. The movement. But how can you blame her. I mean these are the kinds of photographers I love, or rather the kinds of photos I love from photographers I love. (I'm like Mormon, no eraser) (Bruce Gilden, Garry Winogrand, Larry Fink, Elliott Erwitt):So I can understand the rejection.

And here's a couple that Ella didn't reject, but wanted to shelve for a post that will never be. So here they are:What a cute pair. Jack sure loves his Mommy.

But I really don't want to talk about photography. No, I want to talk about Diego. As in Go, Diego, Go. What's with this little guy. Jane would watch him all day if she could. He's basically the boy version of Dora, but a little hipper, with his tousled hair and retro styled animal rescuer vest:I don't trust him. Sure all the animals do, but something about him rings false. And I don't see Jane learning a lot from him. Sid the Science Kid has lots of lessons for Jane. Signing Time is brilliant, if not embarrassing for the hostess at times. Super Why at least teaches a few words now and again, even if half the episode is taken up by their repeated theme song and transformation sequences. But this Diego guy is a fraud. I saw an episode where he rode on the back of a manatee sometimes above the surface, sometimes underwater (for way too long, and he jabbered away the whole time in perfectly audible English, and he had a scuba tank and eye mask, but no breathing tube). Then some crocodiles were going to get Diego, so he roused the manatee to ramp up his pace. He even invoked us to call out to the manatee to go. The manatee was successful in outpacing the crocodiles with Diego on his back. I've seen a lot of manatees while we were in Florida. I've never seen one move that fast, ever (not even the one Steve swore on his life was a shark, causing us to splash wildly to the beach, fear-stricken, and followed by all other swimmers, equally fear-stricken, only to have a man on the beach casually remark that it was just a manatee). Diego explained the science behind it, the shape of the tail, etc. But he lost all credibility in the next scene. He and the manatee went on a mission to save a village of mermaids that somehow got stuck on a pillar poking out of the water (the whole village was stuck on the pillar). Why didn't the mermaids just jump into the water? Probably because they don't exist. Well Diego didn't know how he was going to get them down. Luckily his sister, Alicia, showed up on a waverunner, they lassoed the village with one hell of a rope, and together--Alicia on her waverunner and Diego on his manatee--they pulled them down. The village of mermaids fell puzzlingly slowly down to the water and remained upright throughout. I don't think he teaches Jane anything. So that's what this post was really about: Diego.