Repeat, Repeat Performance

This past weekend, my husband Shawn and I went in on a couple of condos in South Padre Island with some of my Austin friends. We were pretty happy to be included, especially since we could not get our act together and figure out what we were doing until the night before everyone was leaving. This wouldn't have been that big of a deal except that it was 4th of July weekend. We got the room with the two single beds in the condo with the couple that had two kids. Call us Ward and June Cleaver.

Well, incredibly, it rained the ENTIRE weekend. This is not supposed to happen in Texas. I don't mean a few sprinkles here and there. I don't mean the bummer of an overcast sky. Oh no. I mean rain. Rain, rain, rain. So we drove four and a half hours to a beach in order to stay inside all weekend to eat, drink, eat, and drink some more. And some more. Good times. (You can ask my friend Michelle from New York, who I think tried to drunk dial me on that first night but got more than she bargained for - I'm sure I was probably twice as looped as she was, and she was the one who was eventually like, "Uh, yeah, I gotta go.").

So, take four couples and throw in some cabin fever, and what do you get? Let's call them "debates." There were a lot of doozy "debates" (thankfully none between Shawn and me), but my personal favorite involved the value of a story that one has already heard. Here's how it goes: the "day after," my friend Jenn and I kept bringing up a story from the night before. The story itself is not important. What is important is the fact that her boyfriend became very annoyed at having to hear it repeated several times. Fair enough - it wasn't the best story I've ever heard. But where he went too far was to proclaim that people should never repeat stories at all because (and I quote), "nobody cares."

Whoa! Excuse me?? I beg to differ. A good story is a good story. And each and every one of my friends has at least one of these gems. And you know what? Like a good movie or a book, I'm going to want to hear that story more than once. Heck, I just finished watching "Old School" for the umpteenth time, and it was even the crappy sanitized version on TBS. If I like a story, I'm going to get sucked in again, especially because, unlike the sanitized "Old School," there may be nuances in the second, third, twelfth time around that weren't in the first. New details = new laughs. And here's the other thing, perhaps the biggest thing of all: if there weren't any repeat stories, there wouldn't be any inside jokes.

And, where, my friends, is the fun in that???

Treasure Hunting

I am in the midst of *thinking* about how to redecorate some of the rooms in my house. Note the asterisks around thinking and not actually doing. That is because I have so many ideas swirling around my head that I don't know how I'm going to settle on one thing. And I know that a lot of my ideas will be long term. But paint and furniture are easy to find and purchase. The part that I always seem to have a hard time with is art.

I love art - I love paintings and sculptures - I love seeing what crafters can do with their talents....and if there's something that catches my eye, I usually like to make a purchase. This is how I feel about art. I would LOVE for an interior decorator to come in and help me redecorate my rooms - but the one part that I wouldn't feel comfortable with is having them choose my art. I feel like art should touch me in some way - there should be a story behind it.

For instance, when Amanda and I went to London over Thanksgiving, we were taking in the sites and happened to stop at the Covent Garden Market....where we found a stand that was selling wooden flowers. The crafter's son was manning the booth, showing us all the different "flower arrangements" you could do with the flowers. We immediately loved what we saw and we proceeded to purchase as many as we thought we needed, which (of course) was not enough. I managed to buy three arrangements (one for me, others for Xmas gifts) and after coming back to the States, Amanda and I were both thinking we should have purchased more. I have my tulip arrangement in my dressing room and I look at it every day...it's so simple yet puts a smile on my face. The picture on the right shows you some of the tulips that Martin Jones (that is the master crafter) creates. He also has daffodils that you can peek in the bottom corner. I was not only in love with the flowers itself but I was also in love with this picture - so much so that I blew it up and FINALLY found a great frame for it and now have to find a place for it in my home. I also managed to write to Martin Jones to let him know just how much I appreciate his product and how I can't wait to go back.

There is a painting that I have had my eye on. It is a Thomas Kincaid. In case that name sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, he is the artist that sets up stores in the mall. Some of his paintings are fantastical....there is just that something that he puts in his paintings that warms your heart and brings it to life. He can really take a house on a street and paint it into this magical portrait of serene and beauty. He recently released a painting of the Biltmore Estate, down in North Carolina. The estate itself is beautiful but to see it the way Thomas Kincaid painted it really transports me back (personally) into another time.



(the real Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC)






I'm hoping to add the painting to my home one day *soon* because this is one that moves me. You can tell a really great story behind the painting and I think that is what art is meant to do.

(the Thomas Kincaid rendition of Biltmore)

So instead of going to Prints Plus or wherever in the mall, I've decided to make a conscious effort to look for art to fill my home when I go on travel now...not only will it be a good reminder of the trip I took but it will also, hopefully, have a good story behind it.

Living in a Tourist Trap

Happy Belated 4th of July! I hope everyone, in the US, had a nice, relaxing long weekend. It's always nice when holidays fall next to a weekend to extend that weekend to a nice, LONG weekend.

I have learned long ago, through lots of personal experience, that I no longer wish to drive anywhere during a holiday weekend - doesn't matter the time of year....despite the rising gas prices, loads of people travel and they're all traveling by car. If I MUST travel during holidays, it will be days before and days after to avoid the heavy people traffic....but if I'm able to control my schedule (which I usually am), then I will avoid travel altogether and enjoy the comforts of home.

It's hard, however, when you live in a tourist trap. For me, it's our nation's capitol - Washington DC. I don't work in DC but I'm in the district a few times a month, either to play sports, meet up with friends or just enjoy the monuments. Unfortunately, it's the 'enjoying the monuments' that doesn't seem to happen as often as probably any local would like to admit. I think a big part of it is because we live here and we take it for granted. Throughout the spring and summer, I'm playing softball on the grounds of the Washington Monument and sometimes outside of the White House. At first it was cool to think that I use to come to visit these places as a child and just look at the monuments and buildings in awe. Now, I take it for granted that millions of people come to DC specifically to see these things. Same with the museums. I would love to explore more of what the Smithsonian Museums have to offer but the thought of crowds and tourists usually turn me away.

This past weekend, my sister and her kids visited. For weeks leading up to the visit, I was thinking of things to do with them since they've been here multiple times. And since the kids are 4 and 7, you need to find them something to keep them well occupied. I toyed with the idea of day trips to Richmond or Annapolis but the chicken in me shied away from it because I just didn't want to deal with traffic. So we settled for a day in DC at the Air and Space Museum. I haven't been to the one in DC for years! It had been so long that I thought the museum was on the opposite side of the Washington Mall....I still think I was right but I actually had to reference a map to find where the actual museum was. I hate looking like a tourist in my own backyard!

I think the kids had fun. The weather definitely cooperated, even if it was extremely humid....and there were LOADS and LOADS of people standing in line just to get into each of the museums. It was my worst nightmare come to life. But it wasn't all that bad - we walked around the Air and Space museum and was even able to enjoy some of the Folk Life Festival going on downtown.

I am not trying to deter people from coming out to our nation's capitol. It is beautiful, especially in the Fall and Cherry Blossom Season. Just some useful suggestions if you're planning on it - try to use public transportation (ie - the Metro) - it's clean, it's easy and it's semi-fast. And when you're going into a museum, if you can, try to avoid bringing strollers - some of those places, with their crowds of people, just are not stroller-friendly. AND with so many foreigners roaming around in every direction, manners and etiquette kind of gets thrown out the window.

I thought it was fitting that this morning, Yahoo! had a story about the world's worst tourists:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080707/wl_time/mostobnoxioustouriststhefrench
It's an interesting article. In case you're wondering, the worst tourists are the French...followed by Indians (saw a lot of those this weekend) and Chinese (I'm so not surprised - since I also seem to look down upon them when I'm traveling) as the world's worst tourists.