Monday, January 29, 2007

I think the interview went well. Thanks for all the mojo dancing or candle lighting or whatever you did to help! They said they would make a decision this week, so hopefully I'll hear soon.

The workshops went well this weekend and I was successful shopping - found a suit and some shoes. Even found an extra skirt and some extra shoes, just in case...

I watched The Illusionist this weekend. I enjoyed it. I think someone had mentioned to me that it had a twist at the end, so maybe I was expecting it and it wasn't such a surprise. But I thought it was well done.

Sam and I watched ET last night. He hadn't seen it. It's been a long time since I had seen it. I'd forgotten how adorably cute Drew Barrymore was (and how much she still looks the same). I'd also forgotten how scary that one part is, when the government guys surround the house. I love how, except for the mom, you don't see any of the adult's faces until the end. And I cried, of course. Sam laughed at me, as usual.

Oh, but he cried when we watched The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill a couple of weeks ago. There's one part where the guy that takes care of the parrots is moving and he takes his pet birds to a bird shelter and he has to say goodbye to them. Sam cried and cried. I'm not sure why it upset him so much. It's a really good movie - a documentary about a flock of wild parrots that live in San Francisco and the guy who takes care of them. The birds are most likely originally wild, brought to the US as pets, and then escape or are set free. Apparently there are similar flocks in many cities, including Dallas.

In my workshop on Saturday, my friend Trayc and I decided to collaborate on some encaustic work for a joint show. We brainstormed and decided on the theme Waxy Buildup: Cleaning House. And all that that entails. We started a blog to document the process. Stop by and check it out from time to time.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Amost every time I take a picture, Sam says, "Please don't put that on your blog."

Oops.

What else am I going to put on my blog?

OK, so at 11:00 on Monday, everybody has to give good vibes, say a prayer, light a candle, do a little dance (make a little love), or whatever - I have a job interview. This is a seriously great job and it's exactly what I've been waiting for. Oh, and I'm perfect for it. But I feel like I need a lot of help from the universe.

And if it doesn't work out, then you're all tasked with finding me a millionaire to marry.

Either way, it's all up to you. Don't let me down!

Tonight I went to the reception of the local art center's big national craft show, Materials Hard & Soft. It's a super cool fine craft show - metal, clay, fibers, etc. I always have to go back a few times to take it all in.

Tomorrow I'm teaching a workshop - first one in a while. Hope I remember everything!

Tomorrow night I need to shop for an interview outfit. I need to find something hip and cool and art gallery-ish.

Sunday I might be doing a sort of "part 2" type workshop for a couple of people who've done the workshop before. Oh, yeah, and finish up my resume. Busy busy.

So what sort of fun stuff have I found lately? Lots of videos:

This is a really amazing video created by an autistic woman.

Check out this awesome waterfall. How do they do that?

Here's a fun interpretation of Star Wars. These people really do have too much time on their hands! I know! I couldn't resist!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

We got a bonus snow day today! They were predicting this storm to hit way south of us, but it veered north and we got some of it, too.

Sam's school and my work both closed, so we got the day off. Sam spent most of it outside, playing in the little bit of snow that we got. It was actually really pretty this morning - big, fat flakes. It just didn't last very long.

He decided at some point that he wanted to sell snowballs, so he found a box and wrote on it and then set up outside next to the curb.

I didn't want to discourage him too much, but I tried to let him know that it was pretty unlikely that people would buy snowballs when they could very easily make their own, yadda yadda yadda...

Silly me. He made five bucks.

My faith in humanity (or at least Denton's humanity) has been restored.

You can see more of my snow pics here.

My yoga class was cancelled for tonight, so I think I might read and do a little organizing. Or maybe I'll just sit my fat butt on the couch and watch tv!

Hey, check out these updated lyrics to that god-awful, ironically(?) non-ironic Alanis Morissette song. They made it ironic for real.

And here's Donal Logue's take on the song...

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Cathy at the show in Temple... the show was actually titled "Hideaway..." not sure what happened there.

Cathy and I braved the weather and raced down to Temple for the reception for my show (We had to stop in West for some kolaches on the way, though). We had planned to go to Austin after the reception and spend the night with some of her friends there. Mother Nature had other ideas, though.

We started to get rain and it was also getting cold last night, but it didn't look like the ice was going to hit until later this afternoon, so we decided to just go to the reception and then head back after.

The reception was really nice. My show was one of four going on and I thought they were all good. The facility there is pretty big, with several gallery spaces and even an auditorium for performances. I'll post images of the other artwork soon...

They had a nice spread with champagne punch. They even had a piano player/singer.

I gave a gallery talk, which was a little nerve-wracking but fun in the end. Everybody seemed genuinely interested.

One woman introduced herself and said she was on the board of regents at TWU.

I talked to two of the other exhibiting artists and one is really good friends with an artist in Denton that I know and the other had taken some classes at TWU. Weird.

Anyway, it was a really good experience and I'm glad that I went.

I'm hoping that we don't get too much ice. I have Monday off anyway, so there's just no need for it, in my opinion. If it were to hit on Tuesday, that would be a different story.

Now I'm going to go bundle up and watch Little Miss Sunshine...
update: it was hilarious. Two thumbs up.

Check out this funny video series.

And I totally can't wait for the next 007!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

at Nuno's in Austin...

Went to Austin with Trish last weekend. We left early on Saturday morning and stopped at the art center in Temple to unload my artwork. It's a nice place - my show will be one of 4 going on at the time. The reception this coming Saturday morning will be a champagne brunch. Fancy.

We went on to Austin and hit Book People. Great independent book store. We saw someone being interviewed (with a TV camera and everything) and turns out it was Leslie, the Queen of Austin. Apparenly he ran for mayor recently. We saw him walk by later in his skirt and stockings.

So Austin's still weird.

After Trish spent way too much money on books (all gifts, she swears), we went to the hotel - also a cool place - the Habitat Suites. It's a green hotel. Very nice but not expensive.

We called our Austin friends and left messages with them, trying to hook up for dinner. We decided to get a snack a couple of hours before meeting them, so we headed back toward downtown. We were both starving so we went to the first place we saw - Chili's. We decided that everybody working there that day was stoned and didn't really care about customer service. We eventually got waited on by a really nice, mellow, smiley waiter. He made up for our initial bad impression.

Then we went to Waterloo Records, a cool independent record store. Well, CD and video store, I guess...

We never heard from our friends, so we headed down to the party area on Sixth Street. We walked around a bit and then ducked into the Driskill Hotel. Fancy. We hung out in the lobby bar and did some people watching. We sat right across from the men's room - great location!

The lounge singer music was getting to us, so we headed back down Sixth. We were looking for some live music and settled on a blues club called Nuno's (their website doesn't seem to be working...). The opening band was Jo Hell and the Red Roosters, followed by Sonny Wolf and the somethings... We also enjoyed the people watching in Nuno's. Two shows in one!

We left the bar at midnight and were amazed at the hundreds of people walking around on Sixth. They had the street blocked off and people were walking everywhere. Lots of different kinds of people, too.

The next day we went to the East Side Cafe for a yummy lunch and hooked up with our friends. Kate (aka snake) and Thomas and Brian.

Then we headed off toward home. We stopped in Waco to visit Trish's friend Dave. He used to go by "Crazy Dave," but he seemed pretty normal now. He's married and has a cute little girl.

One stop in West for kolaches and we were off!

You can see Trish's photos here.

Oh, and we had nothing to do with those birds. I swear.

I have to do it all over again this weekend. The reception in Temple is Saturday morning. I think I might drive down early on Saturday and head back after. The reception is a champagne brunch. Fancy!

My work made it to Houston OK and the opening there is this Thursday. I don't think I can swing 3 road trips in a week, so I'm going to have to skip that one.

Hopefully they'll both sell some stuff. That would be a huge bonus. Keep your toes crossed!

I used my birthday money to buy myself a huge splurgy present - an iPod Nano. It's so freakin' pretty. I want to lick it. In fact, Trish's job this weekend was to keep me from licking it. I still might...

My birthday money covered the iPod but I splurged on the car adapter thingie. I'm excited to be able to listen to post-1992 music in my car now (the radio doesn't work and I have to listen to cassette tapes, and the ones I have are mostly from 1989).

Check out these videos from about 1978. Some kids spent quite a lot of time and energy making these movies...
Shark
Elevator
Devil's Babe

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

I hope everybody had a safe and happy new year.

I had fun on my trip!

Thursday
The flight was pleasant and uneventful. Security at the airport wasn't too bad, except for a brief moment when I thought I was going to get wrestled to the ground and strip-searched - I approached the checkpoint line and had my boarding pass and ID ready. A nice lady checked it and let me go through (she even told me happy birthday), so when I got to the place where you put your stuff in the bins and take off your shoes, I stuck my boarding pass in my purse and sent everything through.

When I got ready to go through the metal detector, the security guard asked me for my boarding pass. I said I had put it in my purse. He said, "Oh. That's not good."

I started sweating.

He said I would have to have someone get it for me and he asked if I was with the people ahead of me. When I said no, he once again said, "That's not good."

But then he let me go through while another guard stood near my purse while I fished out the boarding pass. Schwew...

I was all worried about all my liquids (due to the war on moisture), but they didn't even ask to see my stupid zip-loc baggie...

Anyway, I arrived safely in Kansas City and hung out with Larry and his family that evening.

Friday
They had been having unseasonably warm weather there, so we were a little worried about there being enough snow to ski. Colleen picked me up on Friday and we headed up to Snow Creek to hopefully get some skiing in before it rained. We were laughing because the Snow Creek website said something about needing to wear sunglasses because the snow can be really bright at highter elevations. Is 300 feet high?

We suited up just in time for the lesson - Colleen was a newbie and I needed a refresher, so we did the ski school. Brad, our instructor was really nice. And he looked like Billy Bob Thornton. But in a good way.

Colleen fell a few times, but that's normal for the first time. I thought she acutally did really well - especially for such an old person - 40 next week!

We practiced a while on a small practice area and then headed up to the real hill. On my first or second pass down the hill, I was turning and out of the corner of my eye I could see a little boy on a snowboard coming up behind me. I had no choice but to turn to my left so I wouldn't hit the ski lift, and I guess I went right into his path, because he ran into me - almost completely under my legs. I proceeded to sit down on top of him. Lucky for him he had a helmet on.

I asked if he was OK (I was sure I had broken his skull) and he said, "I'm sorry. I'm not very good with this snowboard." I told him, "It's OK. I'm not very good with these skis."

Turns out it was Brad's son. Awkward!

He said that both of his boys were really good on skis but were just learning the snowboard and hadn't really learned to turn yet.

On our last ride up the hill on the ski lift, Colleen fell as we were getting off and she took me along with her. We then proceeded to take out several more skiiers as they came off the lift. Luckily everybody was OK.

We were amazed to realize that we had only been skiing for an hour. It seemed like much longer. Colleen was pretty tired and I didn't really want to ski by myself, so we headed off to find the hotel. It started raining not long after that, so it was good that we stopped, anyway.

The hotel was in the downtown area in Weston, Missouri, which is a cute little historic town. We dropped our stuff off and then headed out to a restaurant called The Vineyards. The food was really good - expensive, but we're worth it. How often do you turn 40?

We decided there that for our 50th birthdays, we're going to go to Paris.

Along with the check, they gave us little recipe cards with the recipe to the yummy soup we had ordered. Here's the recipe (this is for Jenna):
--------------
Cream of Red Potato and Rosemary Soup
ingredients:
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 quart heavy cream
1.5 pounds baby red potatoes, boiled and diced
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup chopped scallions or chives
1 T finely chopped fresh rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

garnish:
shavings of parmesan or romano
creme fraiche or sour cream
additional diced peppers and onions
fresh sprigs of rosemary

method
Over low heat, melt the butter in a deep saucepan and whisk in the flour. Add cream and whisk to insure flour misture is dissolved in cream. Add potatoes, red peppers, red onions, scallions and rosemary. Increase heat to medium and stir occasionally until thick and creamy. Salt and pepper to taste.

Divide into serving bowls. Garnish with shavings of cheese, creme fraiche, diced peppers and onions and a fresh sprig of rosemary. Serve with an assortment of lahvosh crackers and hot crusty breads.

Serves 4 to 6.
--------------

After dinner we headed to O'Malley's Irish Pub. I think it had been a brewery at one time. When you walk in, you walk down a bunch of stairs and the whole place has stone walls and a vaulted stone ceiling. It was really cool.

There was a band called The Lucky Charms playing. They played a lot of Irish music but also some other stuff. I told Colleen I'd pay her to yell, "Free Bird," but she wouldn't do it. She joked about yelling Pink Floyd but someone else did. And the band actually obliged.

One of the singers announced that a friend of theirs worked for a liquor distributor and had arranged for everyone to get free shots of Evil Monk. Note to self: if it has the word "evil" in the name, stay away.

...or I suppose it could have been the wine, the irish cream drink, and the shots of Skyy...

At any rate, I was moving pretty slowly the next day.

We had been sitting in the balcony area, watching the band for quite a while, when suddenly, a couple of the singers started acknowledging us. Winking at us. Mentioning that we had been singing along with them the night before. Wha? And when we left, they waved at us. Weird...

Saturday
We had a little breakfast and then walked around the cute little downtown shopping area, checking out all the antique stores. Snow Creek was closed because of the rain (it can be pretty brutal at those high elevations!), so we had to change our plans...

After lunch, we headed off to Colleen's. We checked in with her crew and then went to the Plaza. We raced to the Nelson-Atkins Museum to see a little art before it closed. They're adding a new wing, so most of the more contemporary stuff wasn't on view. A guard told us about the Kemper Museum, which was open later, so we went there. Such a great place! You can see more photos in my flickr set here.

We attempted to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, but the line was horribly long. So we found a nice place down the street called the Classic Cup. Back to the Cheesecake Factory after that to get cheesecake to go. Yum.

We got to see a cool magic show at Colleen's that night - Daniel got a magic set for Christmas. He even made Xander disappear!

Sunday
I made Colleen take me to Winstead's the next day for lunch - it would be a crime to go to Kansas without having a burger at Winstead's.

I hung out the rest of the time with Larry and his family again. New Year's Eve was fairly mellow - Lauren went out with her friends and Larry had to go to work. Ellen, Ryan, and I watched a few special episodes of Cops (Ryan's favorite, apparently). I have to admit that Naked Cops was pretty good. Then for some reason we watched New Year's Rockin' Eve. I don't know why. It always sucks. Will I ever learn? After the ball dropped, we switched it to PBS and some Garrison Keillor special. The best part about it was that Carson Daly wasn't on it.

I called Sam at midnight to wish him a Happy New Year. I asked him if he was tired and he said, "No. I drank two cups of Sprite!" I said, "Don't you know that Sprite doesn't have caffeine?" He said, "But it makes me hyper."

When I got home I asked him when he had gone to bed and he said, "About 12:10." That sounds about right.

I was supposed to go back to work today but the university was closed for mourning for Gerald Ford. So I stayed home and cried all day. Oh, and I also slept late, put away the Christmas stuff, and went to my studio and to SuperTarget. So it's back to work tomorrow. Sam goes back to school on Thursday.

I'm waiting to hear back about the timing for me dropping off my work in Temple this weekend. Trish and I are going to drive the stuff down there and then spend a night or two in Austin. I also have to pack up my other work to send to Houston. I had to go buy bubble wrap tonight. So tomorrow night I need to finish packing. Busy busy!