My new iPod case. Lucky for me my stepdad is a tool guy. He cut the holes for me. Thanks for the tin, Trish!

I bought a sheet of craft foam and cut it to fit the inside. I cut a couple of pieces for each side of the iPod so it wouldn't slide around. I need to cut a piece of foam for the top to keep it from flipping around inside when it's closed.

Well, I guess a lot has happened since Pi Day. I had been thinking about it for a while but I finally gave my notice at work. I go through phases where I'm really excited about it and think it's the best thing I could have done and other times when I wonder what was I thinking?

You can see all my justifications and ruminations about it here.

Right now I'm in an excited phase.

Oddly enough, as soon as I gave my notice, I got really busy at work. Go figure. Next week will be my last week. I'm staying an extra week to help them make sure my position gets posted and to help out with an event - one of my bosses is coordinating a guest artist lecture next week with Lauren Greenfield, photographer and director of Thin, an HBO documentary about eating disorders. I brought a copy of the DVD home to watch this weekend. I'm afraid it's going to be hard to watch...

I was going to have a garage sale tomorrow but it's raining like cats and dogs right now and it's supposed to rain in the morning, too. Maybe next weekend...

I'm going to go with Trish to Fort Worth for her friend Bill's birthday party tomorrow. Then we're going to hit a few galleries for spring gallery night. Yay!

3.14

Happy Pi Day!

I've been spending way too much time playing in the ORG lately. Ze Frank's last show is this week. Kind of sad. Check out this episode - combines two great things - Ze and Jonathan Coulton. If you haven't been watching The Show for the past year, it might not make any sense... If you join the ORG, be sure to quack at me. I'm enchiladaplate, of course.

Jenna came over on Saturday night and I stir-fried some shrimp in my wok. It was edible! Jenna brought some of the new Ben and Jerry's flavor - Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. It was very yummy. The "sweet taste of liberty in your mouth." Indeed.

Speaking of which... it's almost time for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report...

Krispen (on the left) with an admirer.

I had a great art weekend! The reception on Friday night was good - got to see some people I hadn't seen in a while.

I worked in my studio for a few hours on Saturday, working on my new stuff. You can see it here.

Then I headed out for Lawton. It took about 2 and a half hours to get there from Sanger. It was a nice drive, though. It's weird how it goes from super flat around Gainesville to really pretty and hilly all of a sudden. When I was approaching Lawton I could even see what looked like small mountains (or big hills) in the distance.

The gallery there was super nice. I was surprised that the place was totally packed. Krispen sold 2 paintings right away and 4 more at the end of the night. Pretty good.

This is a piece by one of the other artists showing there at the same time, Steve Hilton. This is called Tea for 48.

I headed back and got home around midnight.

Then yesterday I headed to Fort Worth and met Susan and Kathy at the Modern. We had brunch - awesome food - I had the mediterranean frittata. Yum.

We totally lucked out because the first Sunday of every month is free, so we didn't have to pay to get in. Bonus. We saw a show called Pretty Baby. It was different artist's views and interpretations on childhood. Most of the work was really creepy and dark. Kathy asserted that if you do work about children and you want it in a museum these days, it has to be dark. Probably true.

We walked around in the permanent collection a little bit. I had to worship at the Rothko altar for a minute...

Then we went to Starbucks for a snack and to get a little fresh air since it was so nice outside.

Sam's at scouts right now. Since it was so nice tonight, I decided to walk around the neighborhood rather than go to the gym.

I'm looking forward to the time change so it'll stay light later. And also the clock in my car will be right again. I've managed to change it before, but this time I just couldn't remember how to change it. I'm surprised I'm not an hour early to everything...

A ceramic snail - by Sam.

It's art weekend for me. I went to a reception in Dallas last night - a couple of my friends and fellow former grad-students were in a group show.

Today I'm going to go to my studio and work on my new stuff. And then tonight I'm going to drive to Lawton, Oklahoma to see Krispen's show. I'm supposed to have a show at this gallery next year, so I'm also going to check it out.

Then tomorrow I'm going to meet some friends at the Modern in Fort Worth for brunch and art-looking. We might venture over to the Kimball, too.

Yay, art!

Sam's eye is much better. He complains about it hurting every now and then, but it's only when he doesn't want to do something. Weird how that happens. I took some pictures of it but I'll have to get his permission before I post them.

He said that he told his friends to call him, "Scarface."

I forgot to mention the freakin' weird dust storm we got on Saturday. I looked out of my studio and noticed that the sky was kind of pinkish orange. It was very strange. Apparently it was dust from west Texas. It was super windy, too.

I kept hearing Prince singing, "When I woke up this morning could have sworn it was judgement day. The sky was all purple, there were people running everywhere."

OK, so it wasn't purple... but still. Weirdness. And then I partied like it was 1999.

I had sort of a traumatic day on Saturday. I was teaching my workshop - very casual this time since I only had one student - and Dennis called to say that they were fine, but that he and Sam had been in a car accident.

They were leaving the gym where Sam has karate class and were still in the parking lot, stopped right before turning onto the street, when someone ran into them on the passenger side. Dennis drives an extended cab Nissan pickup and the car that hit them was a full-size pickup.

Some glass must have hit Sam. He had a bad cut on his eyelid and a few smaller ones on his face. Dennis was just sore from the seat belt. The paramedics checked them over and recommended that they go to the minor emergency clinic. Dennis' wife, Melody, took them. They looked at Sam and said that he needed stitches and needed to go to the emergency room, so Melody took him there.

In the meantime, I was trying not to freak out. Dennis assured me that Sam was fine, just a little shook up. I wanted to be with him but then I also wanted to trust Dennis to take care of him. I don't know if that makes any sense or not.

Anyway, when Dennis told me that Melody was taking him to the emergency room, I decided to end the workshop early and go be with him.

I think he was mostly scared. And he freaks out when he knows he's bleeding even a tiny bit, so I'm sure he was really freaked out after the accident. The doctor said that he had two options for stitches - the dissolvable kind (with risk of leaving a scar) and the regular kind (that have to be taken out in 5 days). Sam opted for the dissolvable ones, which I would have chosen, too, I think.

The cut is on his right upper eyelid. He also has a small cut on his nose and a few little cuts on his forehead. They said he'd have a black eye, but it's not too bad right now.

I was trying not to look at his eye while the doctor was messing with it, but before he started stitching, he said, "Hey, look at this - this is really interesting..." Dennis wisely just sat there where he couldn't see (he's very squeamish), but like an idiot, I looked. I have no idea what the doctor said after that point. Something about it being amazing that something didn't do something... I don't know.

But Sam was really brave during the stitches. The shot to numb him might have been worse than the stitches, actually. I think he ended up with six stitches.

Before he went to sleep that night, he said, "I'm really tired. I had a rough day." I agreed. He said, "This is the worst day of my life." Poor baby.

Oh, and on the way home from the hospital, he said, "Life comes at you fast." Indeed.

Last night he said, "My dad used the f-word at that other driver." I told him that was understandable.

So we're very thankful that everybody's OK.

Sam's a little self-conscious about his eye, so I told him to tell everybody that he got attacked by a shark or a tiger or something. I got the usual response, "Ha ha. Very funny."

Oh, Dennis called yesterday to check on Sam and he told me that 10 minutes earlier someone had rear-ended Melody's car. He said there wasn't much damage. I told him to stay home for a few days. It's amazing that with all the commuting he does, driving to Dallas every day for 9 years or so, that he gets into 2 accidents in town, in one weekend...

The Found Art Tuesday theme this week is inspiration. I've been getting inspiration from reading recently, so I thought I'd include words as well as visuals.

This is an empty Whitman's sampler box collaged with odd images.


The inside of the top lid has a piece of paper with, "what inspires you?" over and over. I glued a little glass bead in the center.


Inside the box are 6 cards with inspirational quotes. Well, one of them is from Jack Handy. I think no collection of quotes is complete without a Deep Thought...

Oh, in my quote quest today, I discovered that Oscar Wilde said this, "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars." Chrissie Hynde just sang it. And then I had that song in my head the rest of the day.

I created a little slip sheet thingie for the title. In small letters underneath it says "(i made this and left it here for you to find)". Last time I actually put my email address on the piece (haven't heard from anyone), but this time I think I want it to be more mysterious.

I don't know where I'm going to leave this one...

This is the start of Sam's Bioniclicious room. I'm not sure how far we're going to go with it...

We're going to go to IKEA tomorrow to get his new loft bed. Exciting!

We went to Temple last night and spent the night there. This morning we got up and went to the Railroad Heritage Museum. Sam had a lot of fun. You can see all the pictures in this flickr set. I went a little crazy with the macro setting. Sam wouldn't let me take any pictures of him, so I was getting excited about numbers and rust and gears and valves...

On the way down and on the way back, we found ourselves in West. I ate some kolaches for you, Jenna. I should have just eaten the ones for you but I also had some for myself.

I'm worn out, so I think I'm going to hit the sack.

Found Art Project

corazon, originally uploaded by enchiladaplate.

I've been carrying this little painting around in my purse, constantly forgetting to leave it somewhere.

The subject for this week is love, of course. The idea is to create a piece of art with that theme and then leave it somewhere for someone to find. Rosa Murillo introduced me to the idea. I've been following her blog for a while and finally got my act together and made something. Now if I could just remember to leave it somewhere...

I also got tagged by Nancy with the 6 Weird Things meme.

So here goes -

Six weird things about me:
1. I hate things between my toes - flip flops, toe socks, or toe rings. No thank you.
2. I love the smell of sawdust. And freshly cut grass. And dirt.
3. I don't like normal things that everybody else likes, like coffee and beer.
4. I like weird combinations of food - like butter on bologna sandwiches or macaroni, chili, and fritos (not that I indulge in those things much any more)
5. My closet is arranged by color
6. I can't stand wet socks - if any part of my sock gets wet, I must change them.

I'm supposed to tag 6 people - I think Colleen's done this one (but if you haven't...), so I'll tag Jenna, Trish, Jessica, and those are the only people I know that read this particular blog...

Now I need to go take my cat to the vet - she has a hurt foot. Poor kitty.

update:

The cat's fine - just has a sore on her foot (most likely from a fight). She got a shot and has to take medicine for a week. Fun for me!

I left my little painting in the art section of the library.

Didn't get the job.

It's OK.

Now I can just concentrate on the art.

And you can find me a millionaire.

The snow that didn't last long...

OK, still haven't heard anything on the job. I'm thinking it's a bad sign.

I still feel bad today but not too bad. I was able to muster some energy to paint half of Sam's room yesterday. I would probably feel better had I just stayed in bed, but I'm glad we got started. For a while I thought we were going to need to do 2 coats. You can't imagine my despair. But luckily it dried OK.

Oh, and Sam helped, too, so he was excited about that.

Last night I watched Thank You for Smoking. I really liked it. Aaron Eckhart is great at playing a jerk.

I think I forgot to mention that I watched The Last Kiss the other night. It was OK. I do like Zach Braff, but the movie was just OK. It reminded me a tad of High Fidelity, which did it much better.

Fun stuff:

Here's something fun to do next time you're on a plane.

I find this jewelry to be alluringly creepy. Of creepily alluring...

I made this piece for Marlys. Late Christmas present...

I think I might have gotten Sam's flu. Thanks, Sam! I started to feel a little icky yesterday and I feel really tired today - I slept most of the day. I had wanted to start painting Sam's room this weekend, but just couldn't muster the energy today. Maybe tomorrow we can start on it.

Cathy and I saw The Queen last night. I really liked it. I thought Helen Mirren was great - she really became her. Sometimes they were portrayed as unfeeling but sometimes as slaves to tradition.

Fun stuff:
You have to check out the Caveman's Crib. Be sure the help him get dressed... Don't use the microwave, though.

I'm so excited to have found out that Michael J. Nelson and the boys have been hard at work, making fun of lots of new movies! I've missed them so much... That reminds me - I think I have one episode of MST3K on tape - The Mole People. I'll have to dig that out and watch it.

I love remixes. Here's a great one, transforming When Harry Met Sally into a horror movie.

Snow!

I didn't have time to upload pictures this morning, but I took a couple... It snowed for a while yesterday but none of it stuck. It snowed again over night and it stuck this time. It looks really pretty. It's really just a light dusting - there's still some grass showing, but it looks pretty on the trees. It's snowing again right now.

No ice or bad roads, though, so we had to go to work and school. Sam was sad. He was out playing in it this morning, of course.

He stayed home from school the last 3 days with the flu. Poor guy. He felt a lot better this morning, though.

I'm starting to feel a little icky, though. I just drank some Emergen-C. Hopefully that will help.

Still haven't heard anything on the job yet.

Here's something fun to waste a few hours:
http://www.bandnamemaker.com/

My new band will be Deanna Smash and the Enchiladaplate Worshipers.

What's your band name?

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.

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!

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...

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!

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

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!