Your Monday Photo Shoot: Post a picture that focuses on the contrast between two opposing colors. What colors are opposites? Green and red are opposites, as are blue and yellow, and orange and purple. So a picture that has something purple in front of something orange would work, or a picture that features blue and yellow in alternating stripes. The subject of the pictures could be anything you like -- but there have to be opposing colors in there.
Seems to me that "opposite" colors should be complimentary - two colors that between them contain each of the three primary colors---red, yellow, and blue--exactly once. That means red and (yellow+blue=green), blue and (red+yellow=orange), and yellow and (red+blue=purple).
Then there are the RGB (red/green/blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color systems, but those confuse me, no matter how many times John explains them. So we'll stick with what I learned in school at age 8 or so.
The color combination I chose is blue and orange. Actually, I mostly ended up with turquoise and orange, because we have a lot of turquoise colored items around here. It's a midcentury modern kind of color. Close enough, right?
You probably can't tell, but the orange plastic tumbler here is a tiki cup. I got it for John at K-Mart a year or two ago. The Diet Orange Crush is something I drink a lot of in the evenings, especially in summer.
Here are the tiki tumblers in their native habitat, behind the Fiestaware butter dish in the sideboard.
This is a slightly bluer blue, and an oranger orange. Being an organic Valencia, though, this orange is less orange than many oranges.
And let's finish off with a different color combination: red and green. Aye, I be hoisting the colors of bonny Black Rose Katie Specks, in case the wench turns up for Talk Like a Pirate Day! Mind ye, I've no guarantee she'll sail into landlocked Tucson any time soon. Still, an ye have a question for her, and mayhap I see her, 'tis certain I'll be passing it on!
Karen
Black Rose Katie Specks
An 18th Century pirate looks at the modern world.
- On Halloween and Modern Life
- On Technology and Fictional Pirates
- On Love and Death...and Life
- The Clone and the House Guest
- A Pirate Incognito
- Kate Weighs In
- Absent Friends
Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Monday Photo Shoot, Pirates, Colors
I'm missing Kate tonight, and it occurs to me that I haven't yet told you what little I know about her abrupt departure. 
Karen - 
I saw a mouse again tonight, briefly, but wasn't able to get a picture (of course). Instead, here's a picture of the patch of scrub where we let brown mousie go. Can you spot brown mousie in the photo? Neither can I, but I think he's there somewhere!
Tomorrow I plan to take her up Mount Lemmon, so she can get the heck out of the house and into nature, and I can keep an eye on her. Kate agreed to leave her hat and pistol home, and go incognito, in more of my borrowed clothes. I would consider this is major concession if I didn't think she was doing it for her own purposes rather than mine. She's probably trying to blend in enough to learn what she can without arousing suspicion. As for the weapon issue, well, I strongly suspect that she's already gotten her hands on a knife at least, or possibly a handgun.
"Tell me again who John Scalzi is," Black Rose Kate orders.
"Am I a twin?"
"I find your keyboard difficult to operate, especially the keys with the letters missing. But even I can point and click with the mouse. What is your explanation, Karen?"
<---click here for the announcement
Black Rose Kate has several questions to answer tonight, so we'll get right to them:
Aye, I remember this question from yester eve, but I lack enough time to tell the whole tale tonight as I had planned. I shall instead give you my plain, honest answer, and write the story behind it tomorrow for Karen to transcribe at her leisure.
I was not prepared for my father's death, nor to be confined and ignored by his heir, my elder brother. Aye, that was a challenging interaction, true enow; and I failed the challenge. So I left, slipping down my knotted sheets like Juliet without a Romeo. That led to the next challenge: finding a ship that would take me. I was well known down at the docks in those days, but as my father's daughter, traveling short distances on business, not as a sailor in my own right. None of the captains wished to cross my brother, and none took seriously my desire to go to sea, and do the same work as any other crew member. In the end I had to disguise myself as a man, until we were well away from England and I had proved "Pete" to be a valuable part of Captain Bose's staff. Sometimes, the only way to survive a challenging interaction is to cheat! It was not until my third voyage that I was able to go to sea as Kate instead of Pete - and even then, I had to be good with gun and dagger and a closed fist to be sure of keeping the respect of randy crewmates! Aye, I proved myself, but it took a long time - years, in fact.
Hmm. Yes, I have been in love - and yes, it is difficult. But surely this is true of everyone, is it not?
Kate (laughs): Some of it was true to life, certainly more so than that Pirates of the Caribbean CD from Disneyland that you played for three hours on All Hallow's Eve. Those Disneyland pirates are almost entirely harmless. Even your movie pirates are less dangerous than most of the freebooters I know. I liked Jack Sparrow very much, but he was more wily and better looking than the captains I've met. That curse was very interesting, and in keeping with tales told around a fire. 'Twould never happen in real life, however.
Dear Black Rose Kate...
Marry, but 'tis certain that my hostess has more capacity than cause for complaint! As I understand it, this flat box, marked with letters and numbers, on which she is pounding away at this moment, is a means of communicating from one end of this old world to the other, very nearly at the speed of thought. Yes, I do know that though we often speak of "the ends of the earth," in truth there is no end to it, unless it is to go into the sky itself, and seek out the moon and stars. The rest is all connected - sea and shore, lake and river, mountains and sand. But in the life I know, charting blue-green courses from one bit of land to another may take weeks or months, sometimes even years. Posting a message across all that distance and more, to the interior of a country, and putting it in the hands of the intended recipient - this, too, is a lengthy and uncertain process, and often dangerous as well. I therefore have little sympathy for a woman who sits in a well-lit room, far from danger or any real discomfort, and sends my words spinning gaily through the world, mere moments after I utter them. I am convinced that Karen has never suffered any real hardship - troubles, yes, as do we all; but no true privation.
Portraits by Jolly John Blocher, Scourge o' the Missing Sea!
One more curiosity about our Katie. She be the only scurvy dog aboard who never takes a drop o' rum. Funny thing - last time we took on a cache o' Her Majesty's finest, I woke the next day with me purse a mite lighter than I thought it were afore. D'yer think maybe...nah!
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