Monthly Archives: July 2008

In addition to cooking, I include arts and travel in my list of interests. I have also enjoyed many years of volunteering on behalf of shelter pets and feral cats, and the four animals I’ve adopted are all rescues.

Travel is something I can regale you with a few photos at a time, especially when I learn to access anything older than last year when I made the switch from PC to Mac. Consider me technically challenged. Luckily Jim is technically gifted, which makes us a perfect match. I cook and he packs up the electronics. But he’s not always around.

So I love art. Took an art history course in college and fell in love. That’s partly because I had a great teacher. I took the next course then took Fr. John’s history course on Renaissance and Reformation because he made me want to learn. I had another mentor in college we’ll get to later.

This list is of my favorite art museums. This isn’t the best in the world, only ones I’ve attended and enjoyed.

In the USA: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cloisters in New York City; Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Guggenheim in New York City; the Timken in San Diego; the Menil Collection and Museum of Fine Arts Houston TX; National Gallery Washington D.C.; and Indianapolis Museum of Art in IN.

European: The Louvre in Paris; National Gallery London; New Acropolis Museum Athens; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; Sistine Chapel and Vatican, Rome; Uffizi and Bargello, Florence.

I’m mixing in a church or two and will add Santa Croce and San Marco and San Lorenzo and Santa Maria Novello in Florence because their art, be it sculptures or paintings or frescoes, is incredible. Also San Miniato al Monte.

When I was a child my parents drove us to NY City for the World’s Fair. They brought in Michelangelo’s exquisite Pieta from the Vatican. One took an escalator down to a black room with a light shining upon the Madonna and her dead son, then an immediate escalator back upstairs. Security was tight even then.

I was six years old and knew that was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I remember it today, after getting my first application for an AARP card, as if it were yesterday. OK, I’m getting old but remember what I had for breakfast, too! A domani. Ciao.

The other day I poured Jim a bowl of raisin bran cereal, sliced strawberries on top, placed a spoon in it and left it to him to pour the milk and get to it before invisible ants found the fruit and bran.

He poured the milk and tasted it. First he thought the milk was bad (our old frig was being fussy) but that was not the case. His diagnosis is that the cows were eating onions.

As a boy, he grew up on a dairy and they’d get their milk directly from the milk barn. Jim knows nothing about cooking but when he tells me the cows have been eating onions, I believe him.

about Texas storms consider these two photos taken in the same moment. Also the crazy Texas birds are flying around like the lunatics they are. Is this like seagulls on the east coast? They know something’s up.

cloudiness

sunny

Now it’s five minutes later and it’s pouring rain and the dog wants to go out. It’s 7 a.m. Go figure. She’ll have to wait as she loves to swim but hates rain.

Kevin LaRue’s blog to the right. He has a new BMW motorcycle en route from Germany to France to the US and is chomping at the bit to get it….

Northward Dolly

Where I grew up when it rained like this a hot temperature would go down by at least ten degrees. Not in Texas. Luckily we missed the bulk of the storm but I awakened during this latest episode.

Downtown Dolly

This was taken through a window with raindrops. I read that a smuggler tried to use the hurricane’s “diversion” to try to take 5 tons of pot from Mexico to the US. It didn’t go well with Border Patrol.

Must get the frig fixed asap. The ice baggies near the top melted in 6 hours and I just refilled them, otherwise not opening the frig or freezer. It’s near 5 a.m. now and I’m going to try to get back to sleep.

More storms later on but we’ll probably get a lot of rain and not noise. Listen to me, the meteorologist (amateur).

Just when we thought we’d escape unscathed, Hurricane Dolly has hit Texas and is on its way inland and northward.

We had two major rainstorms yesterday and another two around 5:00 a.m. Rain was coming down in sheets from our east-facing windows and I kept checking for leaks and luckily there were none.

It’s getting darker outside and the wind has picked up. I’ve run errands and parked the car as safely as possible. So now all we need to do is wait. Dog just went out before the deluge so she can wait until dinnertime.

Jim is going bonkers playing “hurry up and wait” with potential jobs and new recruiters. Frankly he’s driving me nuts being underfoot 24/7 for so long! He’s sick of being at home and wants to go out and do something. I suggested playing “reporter,” driving to the thick of the storm and taking a photo of each other standing on a windy and rain-soaked street while hanging on to an inside-out umbrella and clutching a post for dear life. Luckily he turned me down!

Take care. Will be in touch, perhaps with good photos. Dee