Valentine's Day Approaches

 We don't ordinarily do much for Valentines day. I'll get dw some flowers, a card and a small selection of good chocolate (which I get a share of), and occasionally we'll go out for dinner. And that's about it. But this year, the Christmas Tree skeleton was still in place, so dw took advantage of it and did a Valentines Day decorative installation. -- A first for this house (as best as I can recall) and there's a good chance it'll be the last -- for the present though, it's a festive bit of color in the living room.

   When the piece returns to the studio it will have been setting in the house for over two months -- it has worked out very nicely -- I've been looking at daily for all that time and I've figured out what I don't like about it and how I can fix it. When I get it finished, I'll post a photo of it.

  

Last week dw had another of her regular classes/tests for a particular job certification (she's a CCRN)* 

She spent the week studying, fretting about studying, worrying about failure, worrying about being embarrassed with failure and etc. I pointed out that this test seemed similar to all of the previous tests and that so far disaster had not struck and wasn't likely to this time.  "But it might. It could." she said -- mostly joking. I'm glad I don't have to do that, either the studying or the tests.

Lately I've had a mild case of the punies so I've done little and accomplished less.

Books: Tangled Webs (James B Stewart) A book about perjury (Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, Barry Bonds and Bernard Madoff) There were no great surprises -- all four lied repeatedly and under oath. Although R. Armitage, and K Rove were the ones who actually outed a covert C.I.A. agent (in fact treason, although too difficult to prove and prosecute "I didn't know she was a secret agent.") Libby was the only convicted because he was the only who repeatedly lied -- Probably to protect V.P. Cheney -- As I said, no real surprises. -- And Memoirs (Kinsley Amis) it's as much a "Famous people I have known" book as it is a book about Amis himself. He's sometimes a bit smug for my taste and I don't always agree with his literary criticisms but in all it's consistently entertaining and (of course) well written.   DA

   *dw tells me she's not actually a CCRN -- which is a specific designation -- "You can write out: 'She's a Critical Care RN', or just put in: 'She's a Hot Nurse!' "  -- works for me. DA

P.S. When I put a photo in the blog, the program starts doing odd things to the spacing and margins. If I ever figure out how to fix it, the weird sentence and paragraph breaks should improve. DA

Duck!

  A couple of days ago, during a walk, I saw three bald eagles in a tree by the river below the University of Portland bluff. I think they were dad, mom, and teen aged kid, and I was surprised to see them in such an urban setting. -- Very impressive birds. The sight of them reminded me of how the U.S. came to have the bald eagle as our national bird:

   (At this point I  launched into a story about Ben Franklin -- in honor of his birthday -- an eagle, a turkey and a duck. After dw read it, I asked: "Is that as sophomoric as I think it is?" dw took a delicate pause and said: "Yes." -- So I saved myself some embarrassment and erased the  story.) 

   I haven't thought of anything to replace the story, so I'll just leave in the ink and crayon sketches of the eagle and the duck. (Sorry, no turkey)
   



  

  

Books: Grants Final Victory (Charles B. Flood) About the last two years of U.S. Grants life when he was dieing of cancer and struggling to finish writing his memoirs. It's an excellent book and it reminded me of the memoirs themselves -- One of the best memoirs ever written by anyone, I'd strongly recommend them;  Dickens (Peter Ackroyd) This book has a modest word count and few biographical surprises but it's heavily illustrated and well written. I always enjoy seeing pictures of people and places mentioned in a non-fiction book and this one delivers;   Rats (Robert Sullivan) a natural history of rats with no great surprises but well written and consistently interesting;  and Pushkin's Button (Serena Vitale) Which is about the duel that killed Alexander Pushkin -- not as interesting as I'd hoped -- I'm half done with it and I just might be all done with it.  DA
  

Home Again

   "There's nothing half so pleasant as returning home again." (M. E. Sangster) -- except starting out in the first place. In any case, we're back in Portland after our family visit to Wisconsin. It was a nice visit, and was the first time in over twenty years all of dw's immediate family has been together for a holiday. The weather was unusually benevolent: a couple of nights the temperature fell to 5 degrees F, but except for a couple of days in the twenty's, daytime temperatures were usually above freezing and one day saw a record high of 51 degrees. Some fog, two days of light snow (less than an inch) and mostly sunny days were a welcome change from Portland's grey drizzle. 

   We went to Milwaukee twice, once with John and Jan (dw's bro and his wife) to see the zoo -- It was nice enough -- a good monkey/ape exhibit and an exceptional aviary -- but we didn't have enough time to shiver through dw's bete noire, the snake and reptile house.

   The second Milwaukee visit was to MAM -- Milwaukee Art Museum -- which I briefly wrote of on 9/21/2010. This time I have pictures: The pedestrian suspension bridge crosses five lanes of traffic, a fountain area and a wide two lane driveway. Rather than being anchored in the ground, the mast's base is a three foot trunnion, and while it doesn't, it probably could waggle back and forth like a car's windshield wiper.

The wings or sails open and close in the morning at noon and at night (depending on the weather).  After viewing an exhibit of works on paper (by a bunch of artists not commonly associated with drawing -- even the sketches showed the differences between great artists and the rest of us) -- After viewing the exhibit we were wandering around in the atrium when we noticed everyone was staring at the ceiling. -- We were oblivious so we didn't see the sails opening. 

dw teasing a Chihuly (the Liberace of glass blowers -- in my opinion -- as much showman as substance --) that's near the entrance. and dw not taking art too seriously (and isn't the building amazing? -- this hallway is part of what is essentially the entrance to the museum). And the collection itself is well worth a visit. Part of the collection is examples of Outsider Art -- pieces of art done by artists without formal training. Included is a series showing the Garden of Eden, The Temptation, and the fall -- carved by Edgar Tolson. This carving is Aden and Eve getting it on -- aka -- The Fall (dw denies any responsibility for this picture)

After the museum, we returned to Oconomowoc for one day before going on to Madison for the flight home.  At Madison we again stayed at Kay and Steve's (SO and brother) house.  Their house is a large normal 1951 ranch with hardwood floors and varnished maple woodwork. The interior is low-key moderne atomic style. It's a quietly beautiful house, with what might be a unique room in the basement: an honest to god chained and locked dungeon. Steve and Kay haven't told us what they use the dungeon for, but the possibilities are vast and Steve is a retired Postal Worker. He also has read Edgar Allen Poe.

Our last night there, Steve and Kay hosted an evening three mile run for a running group they belong to. dw and I waited at the finish line.  We didn't run because we didn't have our running shoes -- or it was too dark -- or it was too cold -- or it was several other good reasons, but we didn't run. While we waited dw decided to sprint across the finish line so I could practice taking pictures, but the sprint ended in a tumble.  (I assure everyone, dw was quite sober). Her injuries were minor but a large goose-egg on her knee was painful. But the photo is amusing -- I can use it for many occasions:  dw sleeping it off -- dw, street person napping -- dw 0, gravity 1 -- dw, listening for approaching buffalo herds -- dw, listening for an approaching train, but missing the actual track. And so it goes DA