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When you enter Ronnie's Sushi house in Anchorage, there is a tank full of live fish close to the door.
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The girl on the left - Lisa - she is the reason we gathered here. It was her 24th birthday party. H'mmm? Did I just call her a girl? Twenty-four. That must mean she is a woman - a full-fledged, beautiful, talented, woman. But she is my little girl. She will always be my little girl. My little baby girl.
Behind her, you can barely see the forehead of her boyfriend, Bryce. Bryce's parents, Brian and Lorena, came, too, as did his little nephew, Logan.
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Lisa, as photographed through my glass of water.
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Margie, as photographed through my glass of water.
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You will remember Ryan from Rex's birthday party. This is he and his girlfriend, Jessica, as seen through my water glass. I photographed everybody this way, including myself, and I was going to post them all, but this is enough. You get the idea.
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Lisa's boyfriend, Bryce, bought this sushi boat. Margie tried to pay for it, but he got to the counter first. So Margie was going to pay for everything else - and there was quite a bit else - but Charlie beat her to it.
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Well, if Charlie is going to pay for a huge portion of the dinner, then surely he should be seen through my water glass, too. Here he is. This is Charlie. It's not Dan, it's not Robert, it's not Michelle.
It's Charlie.
He is a mighty generous and thoughtful man and he lives with a great black cat named Pizzles that Melanie rescued a few years back.
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Kalib told a funny joke and everyone at that end of the table laughed. I would share the joke with you, but it was rather ribald, so I had better not.
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Bryce's parents gave Lisa this Chicago Cubs hat as a birthday present.
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I think that it was Jacob and Lavina who gave her this pair of shoes. I could be wrong. She got a variety of gifts and I cannot remember who gave her each one. I do know that Melanie gave her a table with a yellow top and Lisa was very pleased with it.
She and Bryce have been eating off the floor and were in need of a table.
I might exaggerate the circumstance just a little bit.
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We then moved to Melanie's house for the cake and ice cream. Here is Diamond. Margie and I gave Lisa the mix-master, plus a spatula to go with it.
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Jacob and Cassie.
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Jessica, Kalib and Ryan.
Rex carries Lisa's birthday cake to her. Margie made the cake.
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Lisa blows the candles out.
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After she blows them out, the candles light right back up again. They are trick candles, that is why. Kalib is very amused by this unexpected turn of events.
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It takes a great deal of blowing by multiple lungs, but, after a couple of hours, the candles had all been blown out.
And there was a lot of spit on the frosting.
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Kalib, who enjoyed his cake.
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Melanie, Kalib and Rex dance.
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I have a couple of friends in the hospital and I wanted to stop in and see them before we drove back to Wasilla, so Margie and I left a bit early. Kalib waves to his Grandma.
Let me note that there is a new pocket camera out now, called the G11. It is much better suited for low-light photography than is this G1O that I am using, and I have been tempted to buy it. I probably will. But right now, I hate to spend the $500.
My pro-cameras would produce much finer image quality, but I do not want to carry them to such a function. I want to carry only a pocket camera.
So I come knowing that the images will be noisy, grainy, with much motion blur, because I am shooting mostly at 1/30 and even 1/15 of a second. But I don't care. I know a lot of people do, but not me. As long as I can catch a bit of the feeling and emotion, then I am fine with the noise, the grain, and the blur.
Still, one day, in time for this year's tax returns, I will get that G11.