Trying to pass on the good fortune...unsuccesfully

The Art Crawl went surprisingly well! I made enough money this weekend to pay my rent for the whole month!

This morning I was walking to work and I passed a homeless old man asking for money at the freeway exit. The weather was cold and windy and I thought that since I'd made such a good income over the weekend, I could show some gratitude by buying the man a hot sandwich. I walked a block and a half down to a fast food sub shop and bought a philly cheese steak.

The sandwich took forever to make. By the time I walked back out the door and looked up the street, a cop car had arrived with it's lights on and looked to be giving the old man a hard time. I didn't want to get mixed up in that so I ended up taking the sandwich with me to work. Kinda disappointing. I ate the sandwich and it was pretty bad quality in the end, so maybe it wouldn't have helped nourish the old man much anyway.

Art Crawl again

I'm typing in my studio right now. It's sunday. This weekend is the art crawl, so I've been here for three days with the door open while people wander in and look at my work.

I wasn't prepared for the art crawl at all, since I've been working on other projects. But I just put out mostly old unsold works (sun catchers, necklaces) and I've already made $300! Yay! I even sold a mirror that I think is ugly and would never sell. I had made it in a rush for my Gallery 360 Christmas show last winter. There's a buyer for everything I guess.

My mom is in the art crawl this year too, two floors down. Cool! She is showing some photography with the group of ladies with whom she shares a co-op studio. Normally she paints. Painting has been her new hobby in the past year, now that she's fully retired.

Fascinations from Childhood

This is the kind of thing I love to see!

When I was a kid, I had a dream once that spectacular hot air balloons in all sorts of shapes and colors flew over my house. It was so vivid that I even have wondered if it really happened but I don't think so. Anyway, that memory has always left me with a sense of mystery and fascination when I see odd hot air balloons.

These pictures were on the National Public Radio website this morning, taken in London.

A marathon and a stupid woman

This morning Marco and I walked out to Summit Avenue, four blocks from our home, to check out the Twin Cities Marathon.

The Twin Cities Marathon is dubbed "the most beautiful urban marathon in America". I have no idea if that's true, but I can say that today was absolutely gorgeous. The race actually finishes in our neighborhood, and the last stretch goes down Summit Avenue. It's a wide boulevard with historic Victorian homes and large trees and flowering gardens.

The sun was bright, the sky was blue and some maple trees were turning bright red and yellow. It was 80 degrees out (27 celsius) so everyone was in t-shirts and summer dresses. Crazy weather for October! There were people cheering for the runners all along the road and everyone was in a great mood. The winner was a Russian man named Mykola Antonenko.

Here's a video of the leaders running down Summit Ave:



Last night Marco and I were also out to enjoy the gorgeous warm weather and we encountered a jaw-droppingly stupid woman.

We went to the outdoor patio at W.A. Frost, a restaurant by our house. We were walking down the sidewalk when an unexpected barrage of fireworks began just a block or two away (probably for the marathon). The bangs were really loud and unexpected and made everyone around us jump. But one woman walking her dog turned to us gasping saying "oh my gosh, I just nearly died of shock. I thought someone was attacking us. I thought it was the Iranians. They're all crazy, you know."

Marco and I were just so surprised at this idiotic statement we just kind of gawked in stunned silence as she walked off. But in retrospect we both regret not telling her off. We couldn't believe how much she sounded like someone totally duped by propaganda, the sort you find on FOX news and other Bush lapdogs. I mean, how could Iran possibly attack us here in Minnesota, and WHY? Does she really believe Iranians are on the verge of bombing us? With what bombs? How? How many people are duped like her?

It irritates me so much to hear people live in this kind of stupid artificial fear. Their all like docile, feeble cows, driven around by propaganda.