Elizamac

I haven't been around much over the past couple of weeks, life is hectic and sometimes just downright daft!

Yesterday - I was supposed to be shooting a literary function early in the day then doing some head shots for an actor friend in the afternoon. A civilized day being awfully nice and chatting with intellectuals and arty folk. It didn't happen...
My 9 year old son hurt his leg the day before, I cancelled my jobs to take him to the emergency room in the children's hospital. 8 am, hubby called me to haul ass out of bed, Callum was just ready to go to A&E... and oh yeah... one of the cats was trapped in a wall between us an next door, my problem as dear hubby was off to work

I called the Dublin S.P.C.A. and then called a taxi to take the wounded to hospital. The taxi and a girl from the Dog and Cats Home arrived at the same time, I left my daughter to deal with the moggy rescuer. We spent several hours in the hospital, discovered Callum had chipped his kneecap and a splinter of bone had come loose. He's in a large cast and on crutches... a perfect start to his school holiday!

I called my daughter from the hospital, the animal rescue girl hadn't been able to free the cat but someone would be back in the afternoon. When I got home I still couldn't see where the cat was but I could hear him howling. I could do nothing so I went to visit a neighbor to avoid phones, cats and kids for 30 minutes. Ten minutes out, my daughter was at the door telling me there was a guy with a camera outside our house and he wanted to see me. He was a one-man T.V. documentary crew, he told me that Tony (super hero, animal rescuer) was 30 minutes away and would it be okay if he recorded the rescue. The garden is a mess because the lawn mower died, the house is a mess because the builder SHOULD have died and I'd had another builder, a plumber and a handyman in the day before to tell me how bad it is... and this dude wants to broadcast it to the nation! I agreed to let him shoot from the front door, through the house and out to the gap between us and next door, where the cat was trapped. He decided he needed a fiber-optic camera, made some calls and told me Dyno-Rod were on the way... free of charge... then Tony arrived a little later than expected because he'd been rescuing a horse in the next county. I'd been doing a rapid clean up between the front and back door... kids toys, shoes, discarded clothing and dirty dishes were all tossed into the kitchen. The rescue mission moved next door as it was decided the cat must be trapped under rubble on their side of the wall. Meanwhile my kid on crutches is getting pissed off because he's not getting a look in. I came downstairs to find him climbing onto a chair to look for the cat! While I was telling him off he spotted the stupid creature, it wasn't under rubble, it was trapped upside down under next door's guttering. Tony climbed on the roof, the cat was barely visible so the fiber-optic camera was still needed. After much drama and the rescuer announcing that there was a 50/50 chance of this working, the cat dropped to the ground, scrambled over the wall and made for the food dish just inside my back door. No bones broken but skinned paws and a nasty graze on his hindquarters. More footage was needed of the cat and my daughter's reaction to the rescue. I had to keep jumping out of the way as I only agreed to it if I wasn't on camera Callum got to do his heartwarming piece... little boy with his leg in a cast, reunited with his scruffy, slightly the worse for wear, kitty. Callum answered the questions put to him, then said he wanted to join the S.P.C.A. when he was a grown up and to do the same job as Tony. "Because you get to rescue animals?" "Naw... because you get to climb on the roof!"
Our dramatic day will be broadcast on R.T.E. in about 2 months time

Today - I was supposed to be in Belfast shooting murals, my right hand man injured his foot so Belfast is off till next Wednesday... instead I acted as midwife to a semi-wild cat, she had one kitten. Mother and kitty are sleeping in a box beside the computer desk, and I need a drink or ten!

CSS Journal Coded by FleX177

That's how I'm feeling today! I have roughly 10,000 black and white negatives... possibly twice that amount if I check boxes in the attic. I have been promising myself a decent negative scanner for years but something else always comes up. I work in a Mac lab once a week, I don't get to do my own thing because I have students to take care of. Today I have the negative scanner for 3 whole hours and only one student to deal with. He will not have the luxury of my undivided attention, and he will have a folder of edited portraits by tomorrow! So many negatives, so little time... where do I start? I haven't felt this excited about anything for a very long time... so I thought I'd share it

CSS Journal Coded by FleX177