Earth Day, 2009

This is the composter we saw at the Queens Botanical Gardens on our visit a while back, and it is just right for Earth Day. We also compost here at home, and it is a good thing to do. We save an estimated "1/2 ton" or so per year from going into the garbage--even though the occasional cat, raccoon, or possum knocks off the lid of the compost bin and then...? Water reclamation is next. Anyway, think globally, act locally--and live healthily if just a little.

Oklahoma? OK.

My OKC trip was a bust for me for the most part, as it was just work, work, work thanks to having our original flight canceled due to the snow storm. Instead of arriving on Monday late afternoon, I didn't arrive until 10am Wednesday morning, freaking out about having to get to the hotel and then set up the booth by 1pm when the exhibit hall officially opened. Poor Kevin didn't even make it to OKC until the middle of the afternoon because I got the last seat for the morning flight.

But one thing I did get to do was to see the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, since on Thursdays it stays open until 9pm. So after the exhibit hall closed at 6pm, I changed out of my cute, pointy-toed kitten-heel shoes into my walking shoes, and off we went.

My main goal was to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit, and it did not disappoint. The first Chihuly piece you see is right at the front entrance; you don't even have to be inside to see it. It extends up to the top floor (there are three floors) and you can see it from each floor.















The third floor held the contemporary art, including all their Chihuly pieces, a large collection worth millions. Generously, photos with flash are allowed in the glassware. It opens without much fanfare, nothing too exciting, maybe if I knew the technique to make the lumps attach to the smooth vase pieces I would be more impressed. The next room is more interesting, with vases that have cherub figurines attached to them. Then some colorful flat shell-like pieces. Okay. It's getting there. More colorful. More interesting shapes.



Then suddenly after a few rooms, you step into a hallway, and above one's head is fabulousness! Hundreds of colorful shapes, as if it is a storage room, lit from above. I looked and looked and looked (and had to go back a second time around).




I was as pleased as could be. But THEN I stepped into the next room, and I'm pretty sure I gasped in delight multiple times. Two 10- or 12-ft boats, filled with gorgeous glass creations. It looked to me as if the exotic sea creatures of some tropical coral reef had gotten into a boat all together so they could go take their vacation on land.

We looked through the rest of the museum in the next hour or so (it's not a very large museum) and ate at the museum café, which was nice enough and definitely convenient for our evening plans, but overpriced. Here are some other photos for your enjoyment.

Neighborhood Update: Five Guys

We eat in order to stuff our feelings. So say the therapists. We felt like stuffing our feelings last night after having our flight out of LaGuardia cancelled yesterday morning, and having to settle for a flight out Tuesday evening (with an overnight sleep in the Atlanta airport!). One of us will be on an early flight and the other on a later flight to Oklahoma City. Time is tight, and the clock is running. Krap!

So we decided we could not cook and we should try the newly opened Five Guys which is near Home Depot, in that new strip that has the mattress store, a martial arts academy, GNC, and Panera. There is clearly a business plan at work here: keep it simple, with a limited menu of burgers and fries. The decor is basically white bathroom tile. Budget. The plan also calls for two teenage girls at the front taking orders--very suburbia--and several young preppy white guys (and one preppy black guy) at the grill--very Long Island. The secret is to always start with a good cut of meat, and I will say that their hamburger meat looked nice and fresh and pink. There was a door open to a side room where the meat was rolled into balls and put on trays, and all I could think of was that Chris Rock movie with the drug lab, I cannot recall the name. Piled high in the front were bags of potatoes marked Special: Five Guys. That is a neat touch. I have to say the burger was just a little more than OK; the (Cajun-style) fries were almost a hit with me. But mostly it was blah-shrug. (I was reminded of a burger place that used to be on E91 St and Madison that used to put a cup over the burgers...what was that place?) Maybe Five Guys will do well with afterschool crowd once the new school on Metropolitan opens up, but we will probably let this one go by. For burgers, everyone has a recomendation or two. Mine is this place on Spring St.







Speaking of stuffing one's feelings, one of our local squirrels made a big catch a few weeks ago--a giant piece of bread almost a big as he is! Here is a pic of the happy critter.

Lincoln Logs

Happy Birthday, Abe Lincoln, 200 years old! I've been thinking how to honor him and we watched a show on PBS last night with ol' Skip Gates talking about 16, and now I am thinking about Lincoln Logs which is stupid but related. Today I learned that the toy was invented by one of the children of the great architect of the previous century Frank Lloyd Wright! My mind wanders and wonders and I think if we cleared our land, could we put up a new house made of Lincoln logs--a real one? Here is something I got off their site, and I think it might be tight, but it is nice and maybe we could scale it down just a scosh. Queens needs more variety in housing styles--barns, silos, castles, half-built-into-the-earth homes, geodesic domes, all kinds of alternative housing ideas....And people going by might appreciate a Ponderosa style for a change. Ah, just one of my thoughtexperiments. I could just go to Home Depot and buy a log cabin-type shed and put it out back. I love our purple house too much to change, even if there is a possum living in our basement! But that's another story! Happy 200th, Abe.

Kirby Flurby

Just for fun, here's a picture I took of Kevin when he was walking our neighbor's dog, Kirby, on New Year's Day. We like Kirby, he's a good dog except when he's pulling too hard on his leash (can you remember the Marmaduke cartoons, when he was being walked?...that's what it's like with Kirby).

I call him Kirby Flurby. I guess because I must always create baby names for pets.

At least I'm not as bad as the kids of the woman my father dated for a while when I was kid. They had a cute little black dog, some kind of terrier I guess it was, and his name was "Alvin Baby Puppy Wuppy Locomotive Choo-Choo Train".

The Shocking Story of Two Brains Revealed!

The hubby and I don't always get along. Well, what couple doesn't fight? But he and I are really opposite in a lot of ways, and sometimes, well, it causes friction between us. More than I'd like, and sometimes I'm needlessly ferocious with him. Sometimes the things he does and says just drive. me. INSANE.

Well, the other day the source of it all was brought home for me (so to speak).

A bunch of months ago we bought some wood frames at Michael's, the craft store next to Trader Joe's--it was pre-Nora, for sure, because one of the frames is a collage with six spaces, clearly meant to display pictures of six cats--the kind you're meant to decorate yourself. I had painted one shortly after purchase, but the other two languished in the plastic bag we toted them home in, often treated roughly by the cats who enjoyed anything from sitting on them to scratching at the contents.

So over the new year's weekend, I picked them up one afternoon when we didn't have anything else planned, and suggested we paint one each. So we spent a few hours with little paint brushes in hand, glass of water turning ever darker gray, politely sharing the little tubs of water-based paint that children use, decorating the frames. I restrained myself from irritatedly telling him multiple times that he was leaving blobs of paint on the frame, he was wasting paint that way, and they would run before they dried and so probably would be altered from what he intended to paint...aka "he was doing it wrong." (Just another example of potential friction.)

When we were both done to our satisfaction, we prepared and ate dinner, and afterwards the frames had dried enough to put the glass back in and prop them up. I placed them side by side, and suddenly in front of me was clear proof our brains are COMPLETELY different. I knew beforehand that there were some basic differences between us, but it didn't ever sink in the way it did then. I felt like the heavens had opened up and sunlight had poured into an area that had previously been darkly shadowed. See for yourself. I bet you won't have any trouble picking out which one is mine, and which is his. 'Nuff said.