Artsy Saturday....

My favorite daughter, CareBear, is an art history major at a local college. I am not quite sure where she got her love of art since the rest of us are closer to being computer geeks....(Actually, now that I think about it, maybe her dad was trying to tell me he liked art that time he said he was going in to work on a Sunday, but what he really did was escort a hot female co-worker to a Picasso showing - but I digress.)

CareBear and I took a day trip today to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh...Carrie likes Andy's art, especially the coke bottles, flowers, and animals. I like his quotes. I came away from the museum with gift ideas for CareBear and a desire to read Andy's books.

All in all the day was pretty fun...with a couple minor exceptions...

• My ex, Carebear's dad, had very recently moved out of the country for a 10 month contract job. While we were enjoying Andy, he calls CareBear to tell her that the job did not work out - he will be home in a few hours. No problem, except that CareBear and her boyfriend are living in his house and - since he was gone - pretty much took over the whole house. A few hours is not much time to get it looking the way it was before he left, especially when you are 2 hours from home and your boyfriend just got home a couple hours ago after a night with the guys. So now we need to decide if we should cut the day short or ...
  
  
• Visit the Carnegie Museum of Art since we are in Pittsburgh anyway and it is supposedly pretty close. Supposedly being the key word....
  
  So we asked the Andy Museum clerk for directions to the Art Gallery. She handed us a piece of paper with directions to several area places of interest. However, she failed to mention that the directions were not from the Warhol museum (we still have no idea exactly where the starting point was) or that most of the roads between the two museums were under construction.
  
  We ended up sitting in traffic between two exits on a freeway for no less than two hours...I kid you not - it took two hours to travel 2 miles... Quality Mom/Daughter time...CareBear was taking pictures of the houses on the hill, the road signs, and the looong staircase on the side of the hill leading to houses near the top.
  
  When we finally got to the exit, we had no clue which way to go - it was not a simple on/off exit. Somehow , within a few short minutes, we found ourselves at the top of the staircase that we had just taken a picture of....and on a narrow windy road that we were not even sure was a road, praying that noone was attempting to come up while we were coasting down at a pretty fast pace...
  
  Somehow we manged to find our way back to the highway and decided to skip the Art Museum for today, and maybe forever....Pittsburgh is not our kind of town...
  
  
• In addition to the Andy knowledge I gained, we did accomplish a couple of other things...
  
  Carebear realized she had really never seen a beaver in its natural habitat - so we made a point of looking for one....Success came in the guise of roadkill - but a beaver none-the-less....
  
  We have both never really liked Pennsylvania - partially because it is home to the Steelers and partially because many of our mutual acquaintances from PA are rather snobby. Well our attitude has not changed for the better after this trip. From the turnpike toll booth attendant, to the parking garage attendant, to the drivers stuck in construction with us, to the museum personnel - not a friendly face among them....

I can honestly say that it is good to be back home, in Ohio, on my couch, with my techy gadgets, looking for a museum to visit that is closer to home and in a friendlier neighborhood.

God bless you... or Go to hell

So my office hero (hero because he helps the office damsels in distress at the drop of a tear - but that's another story) asked me to be the minute taker (a.k.a secretary) for one of his project meetings.

Being the ungrateful damsel that I am, I intuitively planned to be out of the office during said meeting. I was his second choice - he got a taker the third time around - and what a taker she is (note-taker, that is).

A few minutes later, a sneeze to end all sneezes reverberated from office hero's cubicle. Being the polite damsel that I am, I voiced the usual blessing hoping to make up for my previous ungrateful behavior.

Well, that was a mistake.

Office hero asked why I would bless him for a sneeze and I went into my spiel about how sneezing halts your bodily functions for a microsecond (approximately) and the blessing was a prayer that you survived it ok....

"So...are you a priest or somehow empowered to bless people as such? Why not just say Go to hell"?

So I did and now...well let's just say there are a lot more people being wished to hell rather than blessed around the office...and a lot more people holding in their sneezes....

Random meanderings for the day...

• There was an incident at my son's school today that included gunfire. Naturally, this scared the hell out of all of us who have kids or friends at the school. Thankfully the incident ended before anyone was physically hurt...
  
  Thanks to all who emailed or called asking about my son and his friends...
  
  Thanks to the students, teachers, admin, and local law enforcement who got the situation under control...
  
  My thoughts and prayers go out to all involved as they deal with the impact of this situation on their lives...please be smart, be strong, be understanding, try to be non-judgmental...


• On a different more positive note...my son ran for his first TD since returning from ACL rehab last Friday night. And, being in the right place at the right time, he got some television coverage. And, being the proud Mom that I am, I sent a link to the video clip to family and friends. I received quite a few replies:
  
  ...my favorite from my best friend: God is so good. How amazing is that kid he has blessed us with?
  
  ...and from a co-worker Mom who totally understands: I'm smiling for him...he looks very good...go 25 blue.
  
  ...and from a co-worker Dad with 2 girls: Confucius says, 'Mom of high school football star will soon be bouncing baby on knee.'
  
  ...and from a former co-worker/HS football star: He looks like a pro and to think he is only a Junior...Nice.
  
• And finally, words I try to live by...
  
  ...Everything you do most likely affects someone, somehow. So before you act or speak, think how you would feel if someone else did this to you.
  
  ...Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason.
  
  ...If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it.
  
  ...Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.
  
  

Yes, I too am spoiled...