Get Your Game On

Welp! It's been a jam-packed, exhausting but restorative few days. It's hammer time. Bullet time, I mean.

• Before I get started, though, I feel I really must chime in on this. I have a lot of respect for this guy, and I'm glad he's in charge around here.
  
• Went birding early Friday morning and was rewarded with two juvenile Coopers hawks taking REALLY NOISY round trips away from their tree. Mama came with them a couple of times. I would have mis-identified these birds, but had a heads-up from another early morning naturalist. This reminded me, once again, that no field guide is a substitute for being out in nature, and also reminded me, once again, that lovers of nature are pure of heart.
• Returned home to push my daughter on her swing. It is hanging from a branch about 20 feet up in a box-elder tree in our back yard. This gives it a loooong, slow, summertime swing, and the time passes in strange, humming tranquility. I intended to return home long enough to pack, but found myself there for a couple of hours. Nice, and so worth it.
  
• Saw the Titanic exhibit- alone- on Friday. I think it is very well done. The interpretation is the best part. Although there is certainly poignancy in seeing letters, wallets, jewels and even bowler hats retrieved from the deep, all the "stuff" is really not that different than what we see in historical museums all the time. However, the placards, the placement, the displays that lead us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ship, and the final list of survivors and victims, are effective at reeling in the most objective visitor.
  
• Because your entrance ticket is a boarding pass, with the name, ticket class, and biography of a Titanic passenger, this final list literally has every museum guest's name on it. I was a young woman who traveled in first class; I survived.
  
• I was interested to see how emotional all of the visitors became by the end of the tour. Teenage sons joining their parents to report that "grandma didn't make it" and tall dads looking half-anxiously over the heads of their families to scan the names. Very manipulative, but very, very effective.
• Went to an opening at Core New Art Space on Friday night. Two of my art pals submitted pieces for a juried show and they both got all of their entries accepted!!! It was so exciting and so very inspiring for the rest of us.
• Headed up north, found a motel room, unloaded most of my art supplies and spread out for a weekend in my own studio. Watched insipid television and found myself slack-jawed from the siren's song of the dull-witted, voyeuristic subject matter.
• HOWEVER, I worked on art off and on all weekend.
• Birded some more and enjoyed orioles, goldfinches, a hairy woodpecker, swallows, kingbirds, hawks and all of the usual suspects.
• Shopped at the crack-dealer's in Fort Collins, and left with some very unlikely purchases.
• More art! More tv!
• Antique stores and flea markets!
• My delirious Italian bakery for cookies and a big ol' loaf of bread.
  
• And, a new grocery store in my very own neighborhood.
• Oh, and speaking of crack, I read a funny book about a woman who has a spring fever problem like mine, and therefore falls in love with literary characters. She becomes so addicted to the Colin Firth version of Austin's Pride and Prejudice that she hides them like drugs, in a potted plant.
• I, of course, immediately had to order the set from the library.
• And yea, crack.