Tiger and Giraffe just checking in on how your week is going:

Eh, you know its one of those days when you appreciate the friends you have in your life.  Sixteen years ago, I went for a job interview at a company in Falls Church, Virginia.  One of the people who interviewed me was wearing basketball shorts and seemed to be a bit tired to be sitting there at 11am.  This guy became my first boss at my first job.  His name is Herman.

We worked the night shift in this job and he’d drive me back to my apartment, which was in a rather interest location at the time.  Not until years later did he tell me that he would not have let me return there at late hours.  At the time, he played it off as if it was a favor.

Needless to say, Herman and I are pretty much best friends.  I hope he reads this and disagrees with me, but I’m going to say best friend.

Herman is also the king of saying all kinds of funny things.  He referred to a character on Star Trek as “36 of DD,” in an obvious reference to her intellectual assets.  He referred to his two dachshunds as “Romeo and Hamlet.”  There are so many of his little sayings I have incorporated into my daily speech that I’ve lost track.

On one faithful journey through New Jersey, Herman’s home state, we drove through a spot with two huge cemeteries at each side of the road.  Herman goes “there’s the valley of death.”  Yesterday on a quick sojourn to New York, I saw another valley of death and thought of Mr. Herman:

I bet no one has ever seen the skyline looking quite like this.

Sunset as only Boston can do them:

Talking about politics is fraught with controversy.  I try to keep this place free of any kind of political banter or whatnot.  I prefer to use to profess my love to our departed patron saints Bill Cunningham, Rufus the Colored Bull Terrier and Pepi Leistyna, cat lover and all around lovable weirdo.  I haven’t mentioned our last patron saint, Arvydas Sabonis for a while, but I’m sure he reads this thing extensively.

Not talking about politics is a kind of a strange turn of events around these parts, considering that at one point, I was the most political person on the planet.  I’d debate anyone about any political point until I had proven them utterly wrong.  I even had one friendship that came near to collapse several times over political disagreements.

I’m not going to really get on some kind of political soap box up here now, but I am going to post a political photo down here in a few paragraphs.  In years past, I have kept up with what was going on during the election cycle.  I became an American citizen to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 (oh no, I revealed my political leanings!!!!) and voted for him again in 2012.

Now in 2016, I can’t even pay attention to what’s going on.  I supported Bernie Sanders because he’s a hippie from Vermont and I love hippies and Vermont.  And I agree with all of his ideas.  I followed him on Facebook and I’d read all of what he’d post about education and fair pay and it was all so sensible, so I knew there was no way this man could win.

As for Hillary, I offer a photo that explains how I feel about her:

Prince William has been made to shake hands with people he doesn’t necessary know or like his entire life.  His wife is a “commoner” (how antiquated?) but has no doubt been through extensive media training to be perfectly poised in all public situations, but let’s be honest here.  Check out their body language around Hillary.  I’ll just say it.  She looks like an aunt at a wedding reception who accidentally got to use the mike.  Prince William and his lovely wife look like the bride and groom who happen to be present at this mortifying scene.  She provokes this same uncomfortable reaction that really cannot be hidden well.

As for Donald J. Trump of the Jamaica Estates Trumps, he of the bankruptcies, multiple divorces, questionable hairdo and myriad other let’s kindly call them idiosyncrasies I offer this graphic as explanation of my thoughts on him:

So there you have it.  Now lastly, I will offer up a photo I took on the streets of downtown Boston to show how the average Bostonian is handling this whole thing.  I’d say rather well:

I offered him a dollar and he took it.  A few people walked by and offered middle fingers.  The guy said he’d made enough last month for his rent and I wished him well.  He choose well for his location — the front of the Old State House, site of the Boston Massacre, of course a spark that lit the American Revolution that gave MEN (only men) the right to choose their political leaders.  Eventually that right was extended out to us all of course and that’s what I’ll close with.  Stand up and your vote will be counted, whether its for Mrs. (emails) Clinton or the very hoooge Mr. Trump.  Don’t vote and you have to live with whoever the populace chooses.  Never hand over rights that are endowed to you by your country to someone else.

FEEL THE BERN, 2020!!!!!!!

Oh kayaking.  What joys it all brings.  Cool breezes on the Charles River that is preceded by the most ridiculous rigmarole ever.

Well, this kayaking trip involved some modified rigmarole of my own.  Yes.  My very own dip into the Charles River.  My one person kayak capsized and I got to swim around in some very pleasant Charles River water, while kinda sorta panicking and kinda sorta being grateful that I hadn’t brought all of my expensive stuff along with me.

Pictures you ask?

Yes of course we have those.  That is never a rigmarole too far:

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Micro fashion edition.

Well, some musings first and then some really cute micro fashion photos.

It takes transformation to really start thinking about things.  In my case, about a year ago I lost some weight.  Not a ton of weight but enough to be noticeable.  I also changed the way I dressed.  For years, I hid myself behind layers of boring clothes in the hopes of not being noticed.  My life was easier that way.

I thought that by not dressing up, I was making not making a choice, but in reality, I was making a choice.  My choice was to hide myself with my fashion choices.  Now I’ve changed the way I dress and I’m making other choices.  I’m choosing to wear dressier things.

I’ve noticed that people talk to me differently, look at me differently.  I wish this weren’t the case, but it is.  After all, it all does come down to choices.

Anyway, enough musing.  Well, I got photos of these two adorable kids.

Now this first one made me declare that a dinosaur should be absolutely required as a fashion accessory:

And this second one, this outfit it just spectacular:

Only real fashion experts can accessorize tule with such an adorable hat.

It is all about choices at the end of the day, I guess.

Forget your Hollywood industrial light and magic and smoke and mirrors.  The New England summer sunset stuns in a way that no Hollywood effect ever could: