The Cheesecake Holiday

AI Cheesecake w/ Flowers and Blueberries

My daughter informed me that it is Shavuot, a Jewish holiday. It began at sunset on May 25 and will end at sunset on May 27. It falls on various dates on “regular” calendars, since it is celebrated seven weeks after the second Passover seder, and Passover dates vary too. Supposedly, Shavuot is when we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Since I am not observant, I won’t be staying up all night to study Jewish texts, but I am in favor of the traditional eating of dairy in the form of cheesecake. I will look for one at the grocery store early tomorrow morning for my game night. You didn’t think I was going to make one myself, did you? LOL!

Bing’s image creator took quite a while to generate a cheesecake picture that I liked. It’s definitely a process sometimes, and you have to be patient. The initial ones were very dark and boring, so I added flowers, as it is also traditional on Shavuot to decorate with a floral theme. The pics with entire cakes were often completely obscured with flowers, or the cake was oddly off-center. Many were at a weird angle as if we were seeing them from a ladder. I have no clue regarding the logic of AI, but I do know that you will eventually get a good result, if you are willing to keep trying different phrases. Even switching from “blueberry cheesecake” to “cheesecake with blueberries” helped a lot.

The reason I have been obsessed with using AI for images, besides it being so much fun, is because these images hardly take up any media storage space. A month ago, I had used up nine percent of my space; since then I’ve added about 45 AI photos, and I am still at nine percent! It’s a blast to create a new image for each post rather than make do with what I have to save space or monkey around with a smallifier (tech term).

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Written for Friday Faithfuls at MLMM, hosted by Jim, where he asks us to write something about May 26.

Color Therapy

Release my dark thoughts
Swirl them into deep blue sky
Focus on the now
Anxious orange jealous green
Let my brush paint stress away

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Tanka written for the Skeptic’s Kaddish W3 56, hosted by Suzette this week who suggests a haiku or tanka on the theme of our favorite way to relax / unwind.

5 Blogging Distractions

AI Magical Landscape

Dr. Tanya continues her #5Things series by asking what distracts us from blogging (apart from work, family, and housework). Here are my top five:

KITTY!

Reading Books and Writing Books

Online Shopping

And the last one? Number five? I leave that for you to guess. There’s a big hint in this post though!

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Two for Tuesday ~ Alfred Hitchcock

AI Vertigo Birds

Last weekend I watched two movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. My favorite AH movie is Rear Window, and the next bunch of faves are Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Strangers on a Train. But we didn’t see any of those; we saw Shadow of a Doubt and Saboteur. By the way, I don’t particularly care for The Birds, but when I told Bing’s AI to give me vertigo birds, I thought it did a perfect job. When I included window and/or train, the images weren’t as good as this one. AI is great at birds, cats (big and small), dragons, dogs, butterflies, and cake. It sucks at making people though. Their faces and hands are all distorted. Adding words (one at a time) like vibrant, colorful, rainbow, surreal, outer space, or magical can up the coolness factor on image creations. Does it seem like I’m spending a lot of time on these pictures? LOL

1. Shadow of a Doubt, 1943. I don’t understand why people think this is a good movie. Besides the fact that no character is likeable (not necessarily a reason to dislike a movie though), the story is completely senseless. Uncle Charlie is on the run, but at first we don’t know if he’s a criminal or what. He seems like a nice enough guy when he travels to visit his sister and her family in California. The teen daughter is also named Charlie (Charlotte), which is annoying. The dad has a low-level job in a bank, but can afford a big house full of other people who do nothing. The good old days, amirite? And zomg the LOUD DRAMA MUSIC to clue us in that SOMETHING IS HAPPENING.

There’s a weird almost sexual vibe between Uncle Charlie (UC) and Teen Charlie (TC), and it made me uncomfortable. But maybe that was intended. UC tears out a page of the newspaper that describes a wanted man, and TC’s little sister says she can get another copy at the library, so there’s this big drama of TC rushing to the library before it closes at 9PM. There’s more ridiculousness about two detectives inventing a bizarre story to get into the house in order to take UC’s picture so they can circulate it back East and figure out if he’s their guy. Seriously? That’s how the police operated?

Then when UC realizes TC is onto him, he tries to kill her instead of immediately running off. Because yeah that makes sense. Not. Finally, UC plans to leave, and TC inexplicably follows him onto his train, where they have a big drama scene that ends in an unbelievable way. Naturally, one of the detectives falls in love with TC, which is very cringe.

AI Penguin Waits for Train

2. Saboteur, 1942. This movie was infinitely better. First, there were no teenagers. Second, we knew right away who the hero was (Barry) and why he was on the run. Third, there was fabulous chemistry between Barry and an ADULT woman (Pat) he meets along the way to nabbing the bad guy. Fourth, there was a scene where Barry is given shelter in a house by a blind man (Pat’s uncle) and it reminded me so much of the scene in Young Frankenstein (if you know, you know). I just loved that scene so much! Fifth, It made sense that Barry had to keep chasing scraps of info to find the real saboteur, or else he’d be convicted of the crime (arson and murder). I didn’t ever get a sense of WTF and why is this character doing this stupid thing as I did in the first movie.

Anyway, Barry and Pat are captured by the saboteur’s people, they escape, yada yada, there’s a crazy scene on a train with un-PC circus peeps that’s hilarious, B&P find baddie again on a ferry, and the ending is super exciting at the Statue of Liberty, which was nicely symbolic. Really enjoyed this movie throughout. Supposedly, North by Northwest was a remake of this film, which explains why I liked them both so much.

And there you have it, Two for Tuesday once again. Thanks for reading.

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Writing I Enjoy

AI Surreal Landscape

Dr. Tanya continues her Blogging Insights series by asking what type of writing I enjoy the most. Well, you know… that all depends on my mood.

For many years, I wrote a ton of free verse poetry where I took the jagged pieces of my broken heart and flung them onto the page like bloody confetti. You can find a lot of that cathartic work in my poetry collections on KDP. Fortunately for my mental health, I no longer feel destroyed by love, so these days my poetry tends to be rhyming and silly. It’s not as good, imo, but it reflects my current state of happiness. It still shocks me to admit that I’m happy! Shouldn’t I be wrecked by the state of the world and my own effed-up romantic relationships?

Nah.

Besides silly rhymes, I enjoy writing flash fiction with a twist at the end. Sometimes it’s fun to dive into sci-fi or fantasy a bit; other times I’ll focus more on wordplay. Often, I include an animal in my fiction. For non-fic, I like to write about books, movies, music, family (including pets), games, and food. I still dig doing my Monday peeves and TGIF posts, which give readers a glimpse into my deranged mind life. Once in a while, I will blabber on about a current social or political issue, but that’s such a waste of time, so I try to avoid it.

In the distant past, I wrote erotica, but I’m just not motivated any longer. It’s annoying to have unfinished work in the cloud, so I keep saying I’m gonna get all those projects done, but meh. I do enjoy writing regular fiction, and I have been working on my book of long short stories again, and I should have it finished SOON. I hope.

For those interested in AI art, I downloaded the Bing app on my phone so I can create a new piece whenever the mood moves me. I have discovered that they keep adding new words to their bad list. Today it was fantasy (as in “fantasy landscape”) ~ I was warned that if I try using fantasy again I’ll be in Big Trouble. Last week it was gorilla. But before they decided gorilla was bad, I did this one.

AI Gorilla Pizza in Wildflowers

Like whatever dudes.

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

TGIF ~ Vertigo

This wasn’t a great week for me. After a normal dental cleaning Tuesday morning, I felt dizzy and sick the rest of the day. My BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) made an unwelcome reappearance for a few hours, and I couldn’t do anything but sit still and try not to barf. This hasn’t happened from a dental cleaning previously, so maybe it was just coincidence. Also, my neck has been bothering me a lot for several days ~ it’s very stiff and painful. Thursday I was treated to a migraine as soon as I woke up, ugh. I’m thinking that I probably slept crookedly Monday night, and that, plus lying back and keeping my head turned for the cleaning, triggered all this yuckiness.

Onward! I have some fun plans for Saturday, and guess what I’m gonna do on Mother’s Day? No, not brunch, flowers, cupcakes, blah blah… I’m going to paint again. Yay! I have a whole bunch of cool tutorials bookmarked on YouTube, and I’m really looking forward to following along. I bought new canvases and am all set to create awesome art. Hey, if someone wants to send me flowers, that’s great too.

I’ve been working on my book Sidewalk Noodles this week, despite the yuck, and I plan to keep at it on a daily basis so I don’t lose momentum again. I finally got unstuck from the scene that was holding me back, so that’s good news. The book is a series of long short stories, but they’re interconnected, so I have to be careful not to screw them up.

If you feel like jabbering on about the dentist, Mother’s Day, noodles, or whatever else, use the handy-dandy logo below and link back to me.

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Art-ificially Yours

Van Gogh Dragon

Last night, when I should have been working on Sidewalk Noodles, I got sucked into the world of AI art on Bing. It’s so much fun to tell it to create these weird images, like the one above, which is a Van Gogh dragon. Isn’t it cool? Choose one of these pics, if you wish, and write a silly poem or story about it. Link back please.

Surreal casino cats

Elephant Tea Party (Seurat)

Tropical Bear

Picasso Piano Tiger

Mob Beach (Monet)

Golden Beach Watercolor

Moon Unicorn

Desert Sunset Raccoons and Cupcakes

Artificial art
Endless possibilities
Lost in a time sink

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Easter Share [syw]

We have a new set of questions today as Di continues her Share Your World series.

1. Do you celebrate the Easter holiday and if not, do you have an alternative?

I do not celebrate Easter. I used to observe Passover, but I lost interest in holidays post-divorce, especially after my daughters left the nest to create their own homes. I had a lovely weekend though. First, I met book club friends on Saturday morning for coffee and a delicious blueberry muffin. Then I went to the grocery store, after which I painted and watched movies in peaceful bliss. Sunday afternoon I roasted veggies and had a feast of nutritious yummies. No chocolate bunnies were harmed during this time.

2. Do you exchange gifts or have a traditional meal?

When I used to celebrate Passover, we had a complicated seder (ritual dinner in order) with a lot of wine. It was generally pretty stressful to try to get everything right, not to mention the rest of the week when you had to eat matzah daily and couldn’t have bread, pasta, cake, etc. I have freed myself of these obligations.

3. How many Easter Eggs (or alternative) did your receive/give?

Zero.

4. Was Easter a Bank Holiday in your country or did you have to work this weekend?

I worked Friday and I will be working today. I no longer have a side job for weekends, which is a good thing because it was giving me massive eye strain. I need to have time away from staring at the screen. Watching TV doesn’t affect my eyes in that way.

Gratitude: I am very thankful that my eye problem cleared itself last week and I didn’t have to go to the doctor. I don’t know what caused it in the first place, and it was very upsetting at the time.

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Impressions

Le Jardin de l’artiste à Giverny ~ Claude Monet

Blurry irises
Dance to impressions of love
Spring reawakens
Peruse this artist’s garden
Judge softly these reflections

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.

Ekphrastic tanka written for Colleen’s Word Craft Poetry Tanka Tuesday 312.

Picture Tape [socs]

So I’ve decided to keep my paintings, even if I hate them, at least for a while until I run out of space. Not a worry at this point. I’ve been putting them up in my bedroom to add some color and excitement to the place. But, you ask, how exactly are you putting them up?

Good question. I normally hang all artwork with nails in the wall, but I’m planing a lot of paintings, which would mean a zillion holes. I tried picture tape in the past, and it did not work well, but those pieces were heavier. A couple years ago I bought some Mixtile art, and those products came with tape. They’ve held up well, so I figured to give the tape another shot for my very lightweight new art.

It’s kinda weird though. Five canvases that are 8×11 are totally hanging on the wall, but I cheated with those because their bottoms are resting on my top window ledge. Down the side of the wall, next to the window, I put three little pieces, 8×8. Two are fine, but one keeps flopping down. I changed the tape, but nope, still floppy. Used double, nope. I put new tape in different spots, and still nope. Wtfff? I’ve wasted eight tapes on this thing!

So, today, it gets nailed.

The naughty painting is on the right.

~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.