Tag. I'm It!

It's official. I have been tagged by my first neighborhood blogger. Since there is not a whole lot of rules to this tagging thing (at least that I'm aware of), I'll do my best to abide by them.

My quest: answer this question:

 If you could live with any piece of famous art, which would you choose and why?
(provided by didyouhavejuice, joint teacher's pet for Mrs. Fisher's tenth grade English class)

After thinking long and hard on my daily lunch walk, I went through a couple of different ideas.

Option one: Choose a piece of music I love
I started thinking immediately outside of the box, and started thinking of music that I would love to have interact with me. Something that really describes a lot of my moods and whims. The problem I ran into was that I have too many moods, from mischievous to melancholy. content to contentious. One musical work (or song cycle, for that matter) just didn't cover all the options. Needless to say, Option one quickly became Option two.

Option two: Choose an historic or famous concert venue
I started really liking this idea. I mean, who wouldn't want their own concert hall that they could go hop into? On nights that had concerts, I could just hop in to my assigned seat (and yes, I have had dreams that the Morrison Center is attached to my parent's garage) and listen to whoever might be playing. On days where there weren't concerts, I could go pull out the 7 foot concert Steinway and play to my heart's content.

It had to be somewhere where you could get full musical productions, orchestras, choirs, and rock concerts. I considered the castle where the Savonlinna Opera Festival is held (meaning Finland would be a bit closer), the Sydney Opera House, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, or even the Kennedy Center.

I started thinking a bit more about this, and realized that such great big places bring great big crowds. I don't care for people encroaching on my personal space, so Option two begrudgingly became Option three.

Option three: Choose a place where I feel at peace
There are few places that can just wash everything away. One of my favorite places is at the base of Schoolroom Glacier in the tops of the Tetons. It is quite the hike to get there, as it is at the base of the Grand Teton on the Wyoming side of the border, but when I was there for an evening, I felt like I could sit and stare into the milky, turquoise water forever. As much as I liked the idea of having this be my backyard, I felt like I would be defiling the area with my human touch.

The second place I thought of is near a well known Pacific Northwestern town next to a bustling zoo and one of the US's oldest rose gardens. Wifey and I happened to go there on our honeymoon, and I have been wanting to go back ever since. You might have guessed by now that it is the Japanese Gardens in Portland. You can take a little tour below.



For those of you who are thinking this is totally cheating, consider this: many artists manipulate stone, paint, tones, and other media to evoke an emotional reaction. Just because some of the elements that the artist still uses are alive doesn't make it any less of an art form. There is careful planning involved, and having tried my hand (quite unsuccessfully) at growing bonsai trees, I realize just how hard this can be.

I would choose these pieces of artwork because they have the ability to transport me away from the city. I enjoy the bustle of the city, but I like having a sanctuary where I can hide. I'm fine with the company of my own thoughts. I don't need entertaining distractions to keep me occupied. I have enough distractions in my day to pull me away from the things that are most important to me. 

There are enough kinetic elements (like the koi pond, the waterfalls, and the blowing leaves) to keep me engaged in the mainly static forms of the garden. If I feel mentally stuck, I could hop to another bench or take a stroll. And when I need to do some physical labor to help with my mental processes, there would always be plenty to do. I would leave a majority of the work up to the gardeners, but would enjoy being apprenticed by them. It sounds like a good option for retirement to me.

So next time someone is planning on transporting their Japanese garden to a different location, please let them know that I would be happy to take it.

Monday? Already?

I came to a bleak realization today—my weekend is already gone. I understand that the time-space continuum has not yet jumped to Monday, but I also realized that my thoughts of having a restful weekend are out the window.

You see, tonight I have plans to go people watching at Art in the Park. Boise City gathers a bunch of local (and not so local) vendors who come and sell their artistic wares in the park right next to the Boise State campus. It is a great people-watching event where all sorts of people come out. You get the bohemians who wear their sun dresses and Rastafarian hats haphazardly hiding their dreadlocks who stare at the same yard sculptures as the well-to-do businesswoman in her a-line skirt who is quickly trying to pay the vendor so she can get back to her 1:00 conference call. Munchkin will love being out among the people, as she always does. Such a social creature. She must take after her mother.

Tomorrow is going to be a marathon. We have a service project starting around 10:00 in commemoration of September 11^th. It is kind of a hole in my American memory, as I wasn’t in the country when it happened. That is a post for another day though. Needless to say, we are going there until about 1:00, followed by a church meeting for me at 4:00 that will last two hours, followed by another church meeting for Wifey and I at 7:00. We will go home, slide into pajamas, peek on (hopefully) sleeping Munchkin, and slide into bed ourselves. The next morning, we have our normal church meeting at 10:00 – 12:00, and then we can rest. And by rest, I mean we will probably visit family.

As you can see, my weekend is almost over, and it is only Friday. I am glad that Munchkin is well behaved, and doesn’t mind having family babysit her. She suspects that we are planning something this weekend though, because she has been waking us up at all hours of the night to punish us for not keeping her in the loop. I understand that children are prone to doing that, but not our Munchkin. She slept through the night starting around two months. 

Yes, I know we are lucky.

The past three nights, Munchkin has decided that she needs to wake up at crazy times. Last night, it was about midnight. She went back to bed after about an hour of drifting in and out of sleep. Then she decided to wake up at 6:00. And she stayed up.

I could tell Munchkin was pretty sleepy when I was leaving for work about 20 minutes to 8:00. She crawled up to me making that noise where she wants me to pick her up. Generally it is accompanied by upstretched arms, but the arms stayed down this morning, and her eyes locked on my shoes instead of my chest (which is about as tall as she can see from a crawling position). I picked her up as her eyes came level with the television. And she just stared; no little hands trying to pry my lips apart to see my teeth or tongue, no cheek pats, and no attempts to grab the glasses. As Wifey came back with a bottle, Munchkin yawned, then immediately started to jump out of my arms so she could get at the bottle. 

The funniest part about the whole situation is that Munchkin starts whining as soon as she sees the bottle. It is almost as if she thinks that we aren’t going to give it to her. The frantic moans and squirms come until the bottle is through her lips. As soon as she can taste it, she stops making noise and squirming, but she doesn’t exactly relax. One arm generally stays up in the air as if she had a question. She doesn’t reach for anything. Her eyes often close. Her arm just hangs out in the air. After a while, her tiny fingers start to explore the side of the bottle, or sometimes pat your arm or chest (but only if you are lucky).

The fact of the matter is, Munchkin was yawning then, headed for a nice cozy nap in her fuzzy, footed pajamas. Now I am yawning, wishing for a snooze, but I realize that it is almost Monday again—no nap for me.