Come Hell or High Water

I took my Mom to Austin for a birthday trip this week. I didn't tell her where we were going - only that it was to a concert, outdoors, and to pack appropriately. We headed out down 35 Thursday afternoon, ran into some pretty nasty traffic once we got to Round Rock, checked in, ate dinner, and proceeded to try to find our way to an outdoor amphitheater called The Backyard. Luckily, we gave ourselves plenty of time because we got lost twice, then got stuck in more traffic, and finally found our way there. By this time I had told Mom about where we were going, because I wanted her to be as excited as I was. We trudged through the mud (it had rained the day before - lots), through the parking lot and made our way to our seats. At approximately 8:05, the living legend of Carole King walked out on stage, by herself, sat down at a grand piano and proceeded to charm and entertain us beyond belief for the next two hours.

The venue itself was just perfect. It was an unusually cool Texas evening, and we were treated to a pretty sunset in the background, followed by a clear night sky full of stars. There's not a bad seat in the house, considering it only holds 3000 people. There are trees surrounding the stage, and you can hear crickets and katydids in between sets. The audience was mostly over-40, but there were alot of mother-daughter sets, and parent-kid sets. The stage was set up to look like a living room, this being her "In My Living Room Tour". Couches, big overstuffed chairs and houseplants surrounded the piano.

As for the show, two other male musicians joined her occaisionally - one guitarist that she's performed with for years, and another guitarist singer/songwriter from Nashville. But it was mostly Carole - explaining what each song meant to her, or where it came from before performing it. One of the first things she said was that she was 63 - and I can only hope I look HALF that good when I'm that age. She's petite, and in great shape, and looks like she's in her forties. She was so relaxed and engaging - and seemed to be having the time of her life.

She had a good mix of classics with new songs. But all of the songs were great. I don't think the woman has a bad song in her. I had forgotten about the song she wrote for A League of Their Own. I didn't realize she wrote the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday", one of my favorite songs of all times. A highlight was a medley of all of her sixties hits - ending with a very slow version of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" I called my husband during that one, and he couldn't believe how good and close she sounded.

But the greatest part of this evening was that I got to take my Mom. She's not really a concert-goer, but we had made a pact years ago that if Carole King ever toured, we would get there, come hell or high water. Can you imagine my luck that she picked the day before my Mom's birthday to come to one of her two stops in Texas? (The other being Houston). We sang along to every word of "It's Too Late". We stood up and danced ourselves silly to "I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet" and "The Locomotion". And we held onto each other and cried when she played "You've Got a Friend", both of us feeling so blessed to have each other and share such an unbelievably special moment.

We had trouble getting out of the parking lot (only one way in and out), almost got lost on the way home, and had to deal with a bunch of guys playing quarters in the hotel room next to us when we got back. But you could have thrown even more obstacles, boundaries or problems my way - and I would still have to say that every bit of it was worth the trip. It will always be one of the most special evenings of my life. Happy Birthday Mom!

Photography as Art

About 4 years ago, I wandered into the old FW Modern Art Museum. This alone was a big deal for me. I was trying to do more things by myself, having recovered slightly from my divorce. I had never been very brave about going places alone, but I figured that museums were a good place to start. I'll never forget that day or the experience I had. I initially went there to browse their permanent collection of paintings. I took a wrong turn and ended up in their photography exhibit. I had never really gotten into photography, except for the Ansel Adams nature prints. But the pictures grabbed me and didn't let go. Most were black and white, some were of structures, like water towers (a series by Bernd and Hilla Becher), some of people's faces, or places I'd never seen (Laura Gilpin, in her series on the Southwest and the people who live there.) But they seemed to all have energy. I stayed over two hours that day, wandering back to my favorites and jotting down names on a little spiral notebook I had in my purse. Ever since then, I've loved going to photography exhibits.

I went to a lecture at the Amon Carter Museum where speakers were discussing different aspects of the color nature photos of Eliot Porter. The first speaker was an expert on the Sierra Club, who had used some of Porter's works in their battles to save wild places. He was discussing whether or not this was exploitation of the art, or of the nature it depicted, or both. The second speaker, and my favorite that day, was a professor of art history who contrasted and compared Porter's work with the black and white works of Ansel Adams, and the pop culture history that led up to the dramatic switch in photography from black and white to color. She also discussed about the fifties being the first era that began to consider photography as art.

But all of this was followed by a fascinating question and answer session at the end of the lecture regarding this issue of photography as art. Several members of the audience starting asking some great questions. Can it still be considered art if the photographer in any way "sets up" the picture beforehand? And what about the prints that are sold as "originals"? How do we know that a print came from the original negative? And what about the emergence of digital photography? There's so much editing you can do - will museums one day have exhibits of digital photos? Obviously, this was just on the beginning cusp of digital camera mania.

I don't have the answers to all of these questions, I just know that I love to look at the pictures taken through other people's lenses, and experience their vision. I like to wonder about the person in the picture-was he or she having a bad day? What had happened to them in life to cause them to have that particular expression on his or her face? Or with buildings - had it been abandoned long? What happened in history to cause it to look run down? For my birthday in a few weeks, we'll be going to an exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. It's called "Gordon Parks: Half Past Autumn". I've never heard of him, but I can't wait to see what he has to show me.

Impulsive (Venus) versus contemplative (Mars)

We have been looking for a house for 2 months or so now. The first month was spent driving around neighborhoods, just getting a feel for where we might want to delve deeper. We have seen a total of 7 houses within the last three weeks or so. I have noticed a distinct difference in the way my husband and I approach looking at houses.

I can move through a house pretty quickly and immediately sum up whether or not I think it will aesthetically work for us, as far as how many bedrooms, living areas, and just the general flow of the house. I also can scan the shape of carpeting and flooring, kitchen applicances, size of rooms, and shape of the yard pretty quickly. My husband is much more deliberate, pausing to check for cracks in the walls or rips in the carpeting. Outside he goes all around the house checking the foundation. I know this is just as important, and because I know he will do it, I don't pay as much attention to this part. I'm too busy seeing the potential of what we COULD do with the house and/or yard. By the time we get back in our car to go to the next house, I've got my mind made up. Here's a typical conversation for us once we're in the car away from the realtor:

Me: "I absolutely LOVE this house."
Jav: "Yes, it seems pretty promising."
Me: "What do you mean 'promising'. This is our perfect house."
Jav: "How do you know that? We've only just seen it."
Me: "I don't care, I just know. WOMEN just know. I think we should make an offer."
Jav: "Are you crazy? We'll need to see it at least one more time before we can even consider buying."
Me: "But what if someone else gets our dream home? I'm not going to speak to you for a really long time if you let that happen."

And so on... It usually takes me the second look before I start seeing little (or possibly big) flaws, and realize that he was right. I've promised him that I will try not to do this anymore, that I will keep my wits about me, with my mouth shut and my eyes open. But how can I help it, if he just lacks vision? Why should I stay quiet while he moves slow as a tortoise, when some quick-as-a-hare couple could move in, while he's still pondering window seals and brick morter?

This is the first challenging thing we've been through in our marriage, and it doesn't help that this will be our first and possibly last house that we buy. The pressure's on!!

Short little span of attention

My husband's in the other room watching Lost. We kept missing it during the regular season, so vowed to try to watch the reruns since we had so many people telling us how good it was. I lasted one episode. I've noticed as I've gotten older that I just can't sit down and watch TV like I used to. Part of this can be blamed on shoddy television shows. And another part of my problem is that I can't sit still for long. But I think I've discovered another problem.

I've become so used to multi-tasking that I can't focus on any one thing longer than about 10 minutes. I truly worry that one day, when we hopefully have children, that I will lose track of what they are saying to me after awhile while my mind drifts onto what we should have for dinner that night, or whether or not I'll have to do laundry before we run out of underwear. Part of my problem is hereditary - my mother's the same way, and does housework flitting from room to room partially finishing task after task. But I think the biggest culprit is the barrage of media that is forced down our throats these days. We have one main newscast going on, while a ticker of headlines runs underneath, along with the stock quotes along top, and now some news outlets have added moving media along the side too. This is ridiculous. One person cannot possibly read all of that stuff at the same time, unless you are between 11 and 19 years old. And now we have to check email all day long, check our cell phones for messages, voice and text. The distractions are neverending!!

Back to TV, though, I used to have all kinds of TV shows I watched regularly, but the only show I watch on a regular basis now is TLC's What Not To Wear. Sad, isn't it? For some reason it relaxes me to see people humiliated on TV for choosing paisley. I'll be interested in The Sopranos when they start up again, but we decided to cancel HBO in between seasons. Neither one of us was too interested in Six Feet Under this year (I think it's depressing - all that death). As far as comedies go, I started getting into Everybody Loves Raymond just before they decided to end the show. Nothing's been as good as Seinfeld, and probably nothing ever will be.

All of this TV wasteland has lead me back to my love of reading, which I had drifted away from for years. Luckily, a good book can still hold my attention longer than 10 minutes.

Drool factor, today vs. yesterday

I love watching old movies. And I think we are hard-pressed to find leading men these days that have the same charisma and sex appeal that the stars of yesterday had. Here are some favorites of mine from days gone by:

Robert Mitchum - a manly man if there ever was one. Don't really like his movies much, but like watching him.

Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music - I still want to marry him, in a huge church in Austria, followed by the longest train you've ever seen on a dress, with all the nuns watching and smiling.

Yul Brynner - who needs hair when you are shooting off charisma like this man could? The King and I, The Magnificent Seven.

Paul Newman - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hud, etc... etc... And he STILL looks good.

Rossano Brazzi - younger in Summertime, with Katherine Hepburn...older in South Pacific. Just about the best looking man I've ever seen, and he's Italian!

I think there are a few of today's hotties that can carry the leading man tradition.

George Clooney - He has the smokey, manly quality, but he seems the same in every role he plays. Maybe that's not a bad thing?

Russell Crowe - ok, so maybe he's TOO manly sometimes. He seems pretty lovable in Cinderella Man. But it's his real-life persona that gets him in trouble.

Johnny Depp - Definitely off the scale on drool factor. Although I don't think his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory look is going to do anything for me.

And this is my strange one, but I add Toby McGuire to this list. He may be a bit diminutive, and his voice hasn't quite dropped yet, but his eyes are the kind you could lost in.

Any thoughts out there?

Buried treasure

The house we live in was built in 1928. During the first spring I lived here, I made a wonderful discovery. After a strong rain, little bits and pieces of glassware and dishes would be washed up to the surface of the yard.

At first this baffled me. I wondered if someone had an argument and threw all their wife's dishes out the window to be spiteful. Or if someone had been collecting different colored bottles, and one day tired of them and hedonistically shattered them in the yard. But I didn't just find the pieces in one particular place, it was all over the yard, mostly towards the back of the house. This was quite a mystery to me for a couple of years, until I read in a book that back before towns had organized trash pickups, people would bury their trash in the backyard.

I started keeping the more distinctively colorful pieces of glass, and the pieces that had been parts of a set of dishes. There's a recurring pink floral pattern that I find comes up pretty frequently. And just this week, I found what looks like a chuck of Fiestaware, in a beautiful aqua color.

Anita Shreve wrote a book called Sea Glass, named for a character who starts collecting bits of glass from the sand as she walked along the beach. (I haven't read it). But wouldn't it be great to take these little pieces of history and create some stories around them? Who did the floral dishes belong to? Did they move away, or just replace them with a prettier pattern? What was the world like for them at that time? Was a war going on? The stories would piece together, bit by bit, the lives of the people who lived here.

Maybe I should pick out something colorful, break it and bury it for the next residents. And they can wonder what I was like.

My Fourth of July Wish

I wish that other Americans would try to understand that even though I am against war, I pray for our troops to make it home safely, and am grateful of all veterans, past and present, for the freedoms they have made possible.

I wish that other Americans who have complaints about what is going on in our goverment would stop the finger-pointing and name-calling and instead start to write letters to local councils, state legislators, or the US Congress, or get involved somehow. This seems a much more positive way to bring about change for the better.

I wish that every eligible citizen would vote.

I wish that our representatives in Congress could stop tyring to prove that their party is better, or that the other party is worse, and find common ground more often in order to get things accomplished.

I wish that local governments could rally against developers who clear cut trees, especially old growth trees.

I wish that the Federal Government would get really serious about research of alternative energy sources.

I wish that the traditional American spirit of conquering every single inch of wilderness to use for human consumption would fade, and a new appreciation for what made this country beautiful centuries ago would flourish.

I wish that all Americans could find respect for the environment.

Have a happy and safe Fourth!