Monday, April 30
Back from Jazz Fest. We had a great time, hope everyone else did, too. I am going to put an album with pictures up; I'll start working on it tonight, but I'm not sure how far I'll get.
I am exhausted. Not enough sleep!
Wednesday, April 25
Last night was the first in this round of Looking at Art. This series is different than the others offered throughout the year - instead of visiting a gallery and an artist's studio, it's a gallery and a collector's home.
The first night part 1 was at Robert Mclain & Co. gallery. The exhibit was Hunt Slonem. While the site doesn't do a good job of showing the show, I really liked it. It was portraits of celebrities, socialites, etc., in oil, most marked afterward with a mesh-type pattern directly in the paint. The gallery walls had been painted pink and purple, the paintings were in gilded old frames, and they weren't hung side by side on the wall, but rather "salon-style", in groupings more like they would be in a real setting.
The second part was at the home of the founders and hosts of Looking at Art. They live in a tin home near us, built specifically to display their art collection. The collection was very good, of course. They have a James Turrell work on paper, something that I'd never seen. I've only seen his light sculptures at the Mattress Factory and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. There was a great article about Turrell two weeks ago in the New York Times. In that article, we learned that a new Friends Meeting House (Quaker), also near us (not far from Home Depot, Dad) has a Turrell skyspace something like this one, best seen at sunset. Of course, he's best known for this.
Monday, April 23
Lightning is coming fast, so no time for a long post. And it was a boring day at work anyway.
Tomorrow we have Looking at Art, and Wednesday I have to work late, so I'm packing for New Orleans tonight. And watching the Penguins since if they win, they play Buffalo in the next playoff series....
Saturday, April 21
I did the Heights Home & Garden Tour today. My favorite houses were the first two described here (although I did the tour in reverse order, so those were the last two I saw). The Kolanowski home belongs to someone Ed plays darts against. He and his wife are photographers, so the whole downstairs is offices and a studio. Then the upstairs is where they live - kitchen and everything. The only problem with it is that it's too close to I-10 (you can actually see it from their front yard), so is quite noisy. The Parker home had a gorgeous front garden, with roses, delphiniums, hollyhocks, rudbeckias, and tropical plants.
It seems that every house tour here has at least two houses (out of six) that are owned by two gay men. That's partly because the Heights has a high gay population, and partly because, at least stereotypically, gay men have good taste when it comes to decorating houses. Anyway, every time I hear at least one elderly lady ask the docent "Are they brothers?". Usually the docent is a friend of the owners, and he's obviously gay too, at least stereotypically. I always find it amusing that that is the only explanation some people can think of for a house with two male owners, who often have pictures of themselves embracing on display in the house.
I may have mentioned this before, but at the last Height Association meeting we attended, Ed signed our house up for consideration for a future tour. Ack.
Friday, April 20
In the first week of reorganization of my company, there were layoffs. On the other hand, my boss was named a director. What does this mean for me? I have suggested that he buy us ponies. He didn't say no.
(By the way, there have been no layoffs in IT, and we are hiring!!! So don't worry! Also, my tomatoes have doubled in size since yesterday, so I don't technically need any income).
Thursday, April 19
I'm having the first pesto of the season for dinner tonight. It will be a little while until the first tomato of the season, but a few have started to form.
About a month ago I bought a Meyer Improved Lemon, mostly for it's pretty and very fragrant flowers. Now it's covered with inch-long baby lemons. It's supposed to do well in containers, so it's on the deck now.
And the beans have taken off and are scrambling up a series of trellises along the side of the garage.
I have a feeling vegetable gardening in Houston isn't that easy, but in April it seems like a breeze.
Wednesday, April 18
Here are a few pictures from Florida. I'll post more later (some are on good old-fashioned film).
Tuesday, April 17
I'm back! And since I didn't get to write while in Florida, I thought I'd at least wish you all a Happy Easter belatedly. I'll write about the trip tomorrow. I'm tired, and I have to go to work tomorrow.
Thursday, April 12
I will try to update this site while on vacation (no pictures, though, I wasn't able to install the software on my NT laptop). But, if we're having too much fun, I'll wait until I get back (technically late Tuesday night, but let's get serious - it will be Wednesday).
Wednesday, April 11
I stayed home today because I had no car and a sore throat. I planned on working, but was having trouble staying logged into the network at work so I gave up. Anyway, the car's back and running fine (I met Ed for dinner in Montrose as a test). Ed also came home and took me to lunch, which was nice. Anyway, I got somewhat caught up on the laundry, which is good because we need to pack tomorrow night for Easter in Florida.
Tuesday, April 10
Today on the way to work, in fact almost to my parking garage, my radio station conked out. I was listening to a Pacifica station, so I figured it might be some sort of protest. But as I turned into the garage, I noticed that my turn signal didn't work, either. That's when I realized that my indicator lights were out. I opened my (electric) window to insert my parking pass into the machine, and it opened v e r y slowly. I drove up to the seventh level, decided I should back into my space just in case, and that is when my car died. I did get help pushing it into the space. Back at my office, my co-workers had many opinions as to what was wrong, including....I needed to put water into the battery! I'd never heard of this, but sure enough, the battery was low on water. The car started after putting water in it, but when I left for home, I only made it a few blocks. So I think it was more than a dehydrated battery (namely, the alternator), but hopefully will be fixed soon.
But I wish I had had my digital camera with me to take pictures of John and Ted pretending they were mechanics instead of computer geeks.
Monday, April 9
Thanks to Linda's link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, my co-workers and I became obsessed with the live, streaming video Penguin Cam. What does this look like on dial-up? We were impressed with the quality on higher speed connections. We watched as the workers cleaned the area, and as some penguins tried to pick fights with others. I'm not sure why this was so fascinating today, but it was. Coming soon...otter cam, tide pool cam and others. We'll never get any work done! (Note: I just noticed that the penguin area is getting dark, so they must be getting ready for bed. Check back tomorrow!)
Okay, now it's time to do my taxes. Bye.
Update: Taxes are done. I love computers!
Sunday, April 8
We had a nice dinner last night, and even though it was still fairly humid by the time we ate, we served it outside.
Ed left for Washington (again) today. I bought some peat moss and mulch for the beds, trying to get them ready for drought season. Also got some basil plants and a few other things. I just finished gardening in the dark.
On the way to the nursery, I noticed that there was an open house at the Cooley mansion replica, so I stopped and went in. What a huge house! The second floor has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The master bedroom has a closet bigger than the other three bedrooms, complete with built in shoe shelves. That part is probably not historically accurate! The cupula has a nice view of the boulevard and the park next door, which is the site of the original home.
Saturday, April 7
I'm waiting for dinner guests to arrive. Which means I spent the whole day cleaning, and Ed spent the whole day shopping. I thought he just went for groceries, but since we're having pasta, he went looking all over for pasta bowls.
Thursday, April 5
It's summer here, I guess. Eighties and humid. Blech. We really need to get some shades or something on the back windows, because it gets really hot in the family room in the afternoon (last summer we had paper on them).
Unfortunately, at the same time that the outside temperature shot up, the inside temperature at work plummeted. We have a new server room right near my desk. The super-duper air conditioner in there has made things pretty uncomfortable in the area. So I need to wear long sleeves and sweaters while working, but that makes things pretty sweaty enroute. Hopefully that will be fixed!
I've planted some vegetables - two tomato plants, an eggplant, and some beans. The beans have sprouted, so should grow pretty quickly.
Tuesday, April 3
I went to Looking at Art by myself tonight, since Ed is in Washington, D.C. for the week at the Ex-Im Bank conference.
The first stop was the Moody Gallery, featuring artist Earl Staley. He does mostly landscapes. What I liked about his talk was that he brought a whole bunch of paintings that weren't part of this show, showing different themes he's worked on over the years.
The second stop was the University of Houston, where we visited the studios of the graduate students in painting. I loved this part. Most of the students were there, so you could ask them about their work. And unlike the galleries, you could also see the little things they collected and taped to the wall, the notes they left for each other, the half-starts and experiments, the beginnings of ideas. This was the last night of this Looking at Art session, and the U of H visit was my favorite of the series.
I signed up for the next session of LAA, which is a bit different -- it still has gallery visits, but instead of studio visits you go to the home of an art collector to see their collection. That should be interesting, too. I registered both of us, but realized tonight that it would be funner if Ed and I went on different nights. I met some of the people in the group tonight. When Ed is there we usually sit together, which makes it harder to talk to the people who are there by themselves. Maybe we could just pretend we don't know each other!
I now work for Nextira. Um, okay.
Monday, April 2
We took a motorcycle ride yesterday. I am too tired tonight to post pictures about it, but Ed wrote about it, so check there.
Sunday, April 1
Last night we saw Memento at the Angelika Film Center downtown. We really liked it. If you see it, it might help to know ahead of time that it runs backward chronologically. And each subject overlaps the previous slightly. It makes sense that it's filmed this way, but at first you don't realize it.
After the movie we ate at Slainte, an Irish pub near Market Square. Shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and Murphy's stout. I do love shepherd's pie.
