Spring Break!

Bob and I took a short but well deserved trip to the New York Botanical Garden today. We went to deliver more of Bob's fabulous metal work to the garden shop there, but they give us passes so we spend the day wandering around in a state of horticultural bliss. The weather cooperated handsomely and we got thoroughly oxygenated and made new friends. That's me with a new friend in the picture above. I have always had a soft spot for those tall narrow conifers...

Another fine fellow with a curious question mark of a top.

Look at that one! Bob spotted this charmer off in the distance. You have to laugh at some of these specimens. Here's another one:

Sort of a scrappy fellow! But it's surrounded- and honestly upstaged- by the lovely daffodils blooming behind it. There are daffodils everywhere. And entire hillside blanketed by what must really be a million blooming all at once. It smells intoxicating, too.

Here's a variety I particularly liked. It's apparently a very old type called "Seagull" (I guess you could have just read the tag...) that I'll be looking to add to my lilac/daffodil collection this fall. I did develop a real hankering for those white narcissus...
And look at this:

There are these amazing, magnificent blooming cherry trees all over the Botanical Garden. Huge old specimens with gnarly trunks and weeping over rocks; it's quite breath taking.
We had a fun and relaxing day and managed to get only minorly lost on our way home.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Periodically, it's good to lay low for a while or just hide out. The picture above is me- ostrich like- covering up and being invisible at work. I am still recovering from the hub bub that was my show in NYC and the constant commuting back and forth... I still need a vacation!
But at the same time, I have loads (and then some) of work to do as I have a show to install at a local college* and another show in Brooklyn in June. I love working towards shows but sometimes I experience a strange longing to have a day or two (or even three or four) where I have "nothing" to do. Gotta recharge the batteries sometime!
And this past week was especially hectic and action packed. It's been crazy busy at work (check out me disappearing above) and in the midst of setting up for another auction, I got called to jury duty. I was excused after a morning's expenditure, but I had to re-arrange my work week to accommodate the court appearance and later in the week, we went to NYC to attend a friend's opening but also just to wander around and consume art.

Look what we found in Chelsea! An expression of someone's First Amendment rights! One of the most refreshing things we saw all day. Bob and I got pretty tired of being handed stupid plastic three D glasses with built in flashlights to view photos and videos; they didn't seem to work too well and after a while it got very gimmicky. But we did see two videos that were engaging: one had wildly dancing artificial shrubbery and a loud repetitive soundtrack (sounds horrible but it was funny and quirky) and the other featured some nice line drawings morphing into other line drawings.
We stopped into Jim Kempner Fine Art- he's a stand up comic turned art dealer who skewers the art world in a show entitled, "The Madness of Art". Jim Kempner was seated right there behind the desk so I took the opportunity to tell him how much we enjoyed his videos. He seemed honestly appreciative and stated that many people don't even know he does a show about art, despite his having done five seasons. (Check it out on YouTube. I think you'll still find it funny even if you're not directly involved as an artist or consumer of art.)
 We also saw a tremendous amount of forgettable stuff but the day was lovely and we had a swell time. We capped it all off with a delightful meal at our favorite Indian restaurant, which has newly decorated itself in a "Happy Birthday" motif. The ceiling gets lower and lower with layer upon layer of strings of Xmas lights; even I had to duck! (Inexplicably,  despite knowing exactly where the restaurant is, we wandered around in a big circle and were almost about to give up and eat something else when we stumbled on it... we must have been very tired and hungry!)
I need to spend a few days in the garden, just cleaning up and getting a grip on what's growing and what's not but it keeps snowing. (Seriously!?!?) Maybe it's good that the weather has been cranky and uncooperative as it's compelled me to stay inside and finish up my work...

*A religious college no less! And I brought along a copy of my book, "God Hates Artists" to the initial meeting for the group organizing the show. I was informed that that particular piece probably wouldn't go over so well...

Do They Ever Listen?

Sometimes, despite not having children, I feel called upon to act as someone's mother. And believe me, this is not a role I feel comfortable with. I find myself saying things like, "It's for your own good!" or "Why are you doing this? You're making me very unhappy!" The "children" I am referring are the four-footed kind: Maggie and Robin. Mostly, my pleas for good behavior fall upon deaf ears.
  Occasionally, I am forced to reprimand Maggie the Mexican Pony. (It comes with having a 900 pound pet; you cannot allow her to bite, kick or otherwise attempt to intimidate you- especially when you're trying to do something good like pick out her hooves.)  I may growl at Maggie or sharply rebuke her. (No, I am not beating her about the ears with a stick, but I push her off firmly or snap her lead line). The punchline here is that Robin the Good finds this entertaining. She sits on the other side of the fence and laughs tauntingly. There is a bit of sibling rivalry between the two critters...

And as most of you know, I rarely get mad at Lil' Robin - like maybe three and a half times in the past two years. She is a very good dog. But the other day proved the exception to the rule.
The blacksmith came to trim Maggie's feet. Typically, he does this out by the barn but on Thursday I thought to bring Maggie up on the lawn so she could graze a bit and there are fewer gates for him to carry his tools through. Maggie stood fine, despite a strong wind and in short order her hooves looked nice and smooth and attended to. (Next time, maybe she'll opt for a pretty French tip!)

 

I decided to go in the house to wash my hands and eat lunch before cleaning up the lawn. Big mistake! As I opened the door Robin bolted out (offense #1), shoving me out of the way as she hurtled straight to where the horse's feet had been trimmed and (offense #2) immediately scarfed down a luscious selection of hoof parings.
This is beyond gross. Hoof parings are like big nasty old dirty toenails. And they're sharp! No matter how clean you keep your horse's pasture, they stand around on poop and mud and all kinds of bacteria and they stink. Needless to say, is truly delicious to dogs.
I was frantically crawling around on hands and knees, fishing for bits and chunks and thought I had gotten them all. And I kept ordering Robin to go play some place else. I threw the balls, I waved attractive sticks in the air... and she still kept returning to the hoof trimmings. It got ridiculous; I had told her seventy three times to "Get away from there!!!" in my sternest voice. She earned a new nickname: "Sneakus" because every time I turned around she had snuck back over to snorfle around. I finally took a tarp and some rocks and covered the area. One of the funnier moments was when I glanced back to see Maggie at the fence line, visibly laughing at Robin (for a change) as if to say, "Nyah, nyah, nyah! Rita NEVER yells at you!! How's it feel now?!?!?"

The morning after, I can't find Robin and I go downstairs and she's seated at that door and I detect that familiar shoulder hunch and gak gak gak sound like she's starting to throw up... so out the door she goes, barely clears the terrace before  ejecting a foamy mess. And sure enough! It's got a ripe chunk of hoof in it, which I snatched up in my (gloved) hand and threw far over the fence. (Gloves are in the laundry.) Do they ever listen to me? I told her she'd get sick!

Another WTF Morning

I know, I know... I shouldn't be redundant. We are all cognizant that it snowed again! Bob thought it was some kind of cruel April Fool's joke that snow was predicted. But when I woke up this morning and let Robin out, there was a good three or four inches. (Yes, that's Robin bounding towards me with her ears flying. She LIKES the snow. Go figure!)

It kept snowing. And yes, I had just put that chair on the terrace yesterday- after raking and cleaning more garden areas- with the idea that it would be nice to bask in the sun and have a cup of coffee. Hahahahaha.

Or how about a nice picnic? Is this really the winter that will never stop?
By this afternoon, most of the snow had melted down so that the ground was still white, but there was no where near the accumulation here this morning. (There was probably six inches by the time it stopped.) I went to work late and stayed a bit later but when I drove home, the sun was out and it was almost possible to imagine all of this sullen white stuff gone! It is supposed to be 60 degrees on Wednesday...

Combination Holiday

We celebrated a truly combined holiday yesterday. As not all family celebrants were able to attend on actual Easter, we celebrated a day earlier; which made for a combination Passover/Easter/April Fool's Day and Beatrice's Birthday. Such modern, multi-tasking holiday types are we.
There were many eggs presented, all lovely. Beatrice and John contributed the above selection of glamorous pastel saturated hues. Cathy made a basket of dyed eggs, too- some alluringly dark and mysterious; I believe she alluded to one as being a hundred year old egg. I ate that one at lunch.

As  this was the first Easter/Multiplex holiday that we were observing since Mommy passed away, I had thought to honor her memory with setting an elegant table with the good silverware and formal dishes. But when I opened the silver box, it smelled moldy, and even worse was the fact that the actual silver smelled and no amount of washing seemed to remove it. So we resorted to everyday forks, knives and spoons. The food tasted just fine.
And food! There was food aplenty! Scalloped potatoes and asparagus with confetti and pork cooked in the crock pot and Key Lime Pie and wine and beer. One of my favorite moments of the day came when we left the great outdoors, where we had been enjoying the sun and spring-like weather and everyone was hungry and the house was heavy with the scent of heavenly roasting pork and John exclaimed, "PORK!" I think he summed up what we all were anticipating.

I had decorated for the multiple holiday festivities and it did turn out to be a colorful event, what with all the eggs and the centerpiece, which featured a strange bird sculpture that had once been at Mommy's house. (Mommy was present in a few ways at Easter; I guess you can't help but miss someone who hosted holidays for so many years.)

My other favorite moment was when we were all still outside, prior to eating, and Beatrice was spontaneously playing soccer with Robin. I really encourage Beatrice and John to get a dog; well, not just any dog. They should put in for one of Robin's puppies which we are now planning for next year, as this year is already too hectic. (I'll need to arrange "maternity leave" from work to help handle the delivery and nursery duties!)
And speaking of Robin, she had quite a morning. I got up early and made coffee and was on the computer checking emails when I realized that Lil Robin was not laying under the computer table (and on my left foot) and it seemed awfully quiet. I went looking for her down stairs and found her contemplating two piles of her own vomit. (Fortunately, she's not like some dogs who eat their own puke...) She seemed just fine soon after but I think she overdid the cleaning of plates and consuming of odd bits at Easter dinner. Too much excitement!

More egg shots! These were the leftovers, three of which made a delicious egg salad sandwich for our lunch today. I especially liked that two tone pastel purplish and blue on in the center. I didn't want to crack that shell as it was so pretty!