10-10-10

so today . . . was october 10, 2010. you know, 10-10-10.

numbers fascinate me. i think they feed my ocd tendencies. one plus one is always two. twelve inches is always a foot . if you have four cookies and you give one cookie away (yeah, like that is going to happen,) then you always have three cookies left. and check registers should always balance. to the penny.

(did i mention that i love math...)

so number patterns catch my imagination.

my fascination with number patterns collided with my need to take photographs at midnight on new year's eve, 2000. in my mind, that was a huge event. and as circumstances would have it, i was not where i wanted to be. we had just moved to the coast, leaving the friends we had spent the last twelve years making. and i knew those friends were having the new year's eve party to end all parties. and i wanted to be there. music was going to be played, and i wanted to be playing it. i wanted to ring in the new century with my peeps. (diandra is dying right about now. i didn't even know the word peeps then. but somehow, it just seems to fit...)

...but we had just moved to a new community, and there were expectations of rollie in his new job that made attending that party impossible. so i tried not to be too sad, and we tried to make the best of it. we didn't have new friends to party with, but we stayed up late anyway and watched the ball drop into times square. (and waited to see if everything with a clock would continue to work, or if everything would reset itself to 1900 and cease to function.) and we took a picture.the turn of the century gave me multiple number based photo ops--01-01-01, 02-02-02, 01-02-03, 03-03-03, 02-03-04...well, you get the idea. did i get pictures on any of those dates? of course not! i would think about it. i would tell myself not to forget. and then i would forget.

until 2007--in 2007 there was an event at the rose bowl sponsored by some of the churches in our area. diandra and i were assigned to go to lax to pick up one of the bands. yes, a real, live band whose cds people buy, and whose concerts people pay to go to.

i was pretty excited. (i admit it--i get a little star struck. i try to be cool, but inside i am going "oh my gosh!!! do you know who that is?!?!?! i have their cd in my car!! and they just talked to me like i was a normal person!!!") sadly for me, there were plane connection complications, and after sitting at the airport for a couple of hours and having several conversations with the band, it finally became clear that they were not going to be arriving at lax. ever. (well, at least not for this event.)

we went back to the rose bowl, bandless. and yet we still had a good day. we got to meet two other bands and heard a lot of great music. we got to stand right behind the stage. it was awesome! yeah, i was feeling pretty cool. and did i mention we were in the middle of the rose bowl?!?! on the grass?!?!?!?!?!

of course, i took a picture. with my phone. (which i can't seem to find. i really have to get my photos organized...)

which brings us to today. i wanted to take a picture at 10:10 a.m. on 10-10-10. this was going to be easy. since it fell on a sunday, i knew exactly where i would be--i would be in the gym at church just finishing up band rehearsal. so it would be easy to remember to take a picture.

and then i got sick.

i have had intestinal issues all week (which is why i haven't been blogging,) and yesterday i wasn't sure i would be well enough to go to church today. so we arranged to have a combined service. but i felt a bit better this morning and decided to go. i still thought i could get the picture. but circumstances conspired against me (stupid red lights!) and i didn't quite make it. this is the picture we took at 10:13 on 10-10-10.(i know! it is in front of the windows! the worst possible place for a picture!! why we didn't just turn and take it another direction, i don't know. i think diandra just wanted to get it over with--we were in the foyer. and there were people around.) rollie couldn't be in this one, because church starts at 10:15 so he was unavailable for photo ops. but i still wanted a picture with him. on 10-10-10. so at dinner tonight i had diandra snap a couple with my phone (because did i remember to bring my camera?? no, i did not!) she suggested we should hold up our 10 fingers, since it was 10-10. so we did.
but i also just wanted a nice, normal picture of us, so she took this one.i looked at it, and of course noticed the odd hair bump on the top of my head. i said we needed to take another one, and rollie made a face--and not a nice face! i am pretty sure eyes were rolling. and while i was telling him he had just better smile, because we were going to take another picture, diandra snapped this one.i finally got the nice picture i wanted, but since all these were taken with my camera phone, i noticed that when i looked at a larger version of the picture, it was blurry. oh, and did you happen to notice the shark sitting on my head??? yeah, our daughter (the photographer) thought that was funny. and my hand looks unnaturally large...i could be bummed. i did not get my nice, frame-able photo from 10-10-10. but sometimes it isn't so much about the actual photo. i just wanted to remember where i was, and what i was doing on this memorable day, and now i will. on 10-10-10 i was having fun with my family!

oh, and i took one of diandra too, just because she looked so beautiful. (again, shooting with windows behind her--i don't know why...)i had a whole series of her, because i never take just one picture. but since i love her, i am only posting the best one :)

and so, even though the pictures aren't great, at least i got them. now i can relax.

until november, 2011...