Shuffle | Corrine Kenner's Tarot Blog

Stock Photography

I get most of my clip art from iStockphoto.com. I paw through their dollar bin as much as I can, but even their regular-priced images are usually less than $5 or $10. That's such a bargain! Unfortunately, their photos of tarot readers are just a little too goofy for actual use. In fact, one of them is called "funny fortune teller." What do you think when you see photos like these?

To be fair, iStockphoto does offer one tarot reader who looks normal. Maybe someday I'll be able to use this photo:

PS: Which decks do you think the three readers are holding? It's kind of a guessing game, but I'll leave my answer in the comments.

Test Post: Icy Shores Slideshow

Upscale

Nothing says "Upscale" like ceramic clowns in the window.

What I did over Christmas vacation

Here are some of the family photos I took over the last few weeks. Sadly, I forgot my camera at home when we went to my sister's house for Christmas itself. I bought a disposable camera for all of the obligatory gift exchange photos, but I gave it to my mom to process.

The flowering plant above could be the most clever gift I received: it's in a tarot-card wrapper, put together by my friends at Llewellyn Publishing. (Appropriately enough, they used cards from the new Llewellyn Tarot.)

This is my daughter Julia, sledding yesterday with her cousin Ian:

Here's Ian with his sister Sarah:

And here is the whole sled team, coached by my husband Dan:

The other night, we played a little Rummikub with my sister Cari and our friend Michael. My daughter Emily, who's rubbing her head in concentration, won handily:

And finally, here is a photo from a few weeks ago. It's Dan, ably assisted by his daughters Coyla and Julia, decorating our tree.

Enjoy it while you can. The tree is going out to the alley later today.

The Face is Familiar

I needed a new mugshot for an upcoming project, so I asked my daughter Katherine to take my picture. Here's what she came up with -- literally. She carried a ladder into our neighbor's front yard, climbed to the top, and then shot down at me. "Why aren't we in our own yard?" I asked. "The light's much better here," she said ... 40 feet closer to the setting sun, I guess.

We still call it Camp Snoopy

I just uploaded a new photo album: "A Cute Kid at Camp Snoopy." You'll find a link on the right-hand column of this page.

Last week Dan and I took our three-year-old, Julia, to Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America. Actually, I should say we took her to the former Camp Snoopy. A few months ago, the mall and the Camp Snoopy people parted ways, so the amusement park has been renamed: It's "The Park at Mall of America" now. Blech.

You can still see where Snoopy used to be: there are gaping holes everywhere. Apparently, someone sent the janitor out in the middle of the night to purge Snoopy's image from all of the signs and hurl his little plastic effigy into the dumpster. Snoopy's big red dish even sits at the entrance, but his name has been stripped off, so it's there for no apparent reason.

I don't know why they don't invent some sort of dog cartoon to take Snoopy's place. There. Problem solved. The Mall of America now owes me fifty-gazillion-thousand dollars in consulting fees.

In the meantime, the whole place feels vandalized. No, it feels haunted.

But Julia had a good time.

Say cheese

I'm starting to upload a few photo galleries to this website. The first gallery, which features several images from my trip to Mexico, is already up ... Just look for the link in the right-hand column.

More galleries will soon follow, including photos of several tarot workshops, a dolphin cruise, the Gladys Porter Zoo, and last year's Readers Studio in New York City.