Charlotte is spending the Fourth inside where it's cool .Since her last kittenish appearance here 11/20/07, she has grown into a pleasingly plump stubby shape with a grumpy personality. She can be happily purring one second, and then turn around and bite you the next. I've never known a cat like that. The receptionist at the vet said that that psycho personality is common in tortoiseshell cats. After six weeks, she is barely tolerating Max. He can get close to her if he's slow about it, but it's usually growling, hissing, and swatting on her part. Max doesn't care a bit. It's been funny to watch a little kitten chase the big fatmomma cat around the house. Maybe the household will calm down with time and Max losing his kitten energy.
We went to the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth to see the Ron Mueck exhibit. Although you marvel at his technical ability to get the figure so lifelike, you also have a great emotional reaction at the intimate nature of the figures presented as well as being disturbed by the unnatural sizes - either very large or too small. Here is a link to a slide show of many of the works in this show. It seems like you have to enter "Ron Mueck" in the search box on the right to get all the images.
We also saw the exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum of the development of portraiture in the last century, "The Age of Picasso." It's always fun to see the originals of great paintings that we only see in books or posters.... just like the Matisse poster in our den. I guess my favorites were the large David Hockney canvasses at the end of the exhibit. There was no photography allowed in either exhibit, so I couldn't take photos for you.
Photo used without Lisa's permission. So sue me.
Driving to see The Stephenville People in person - NOT in cyberspace.
After Friday's computer virus at work, I started thinking about all of my files on the home computer and spent a long time last night and this morning trying to get them all organized so that I can back everything up. A couple of years ago, I got a virus that my anti-virus software did not catch and it detroyed many of my files. I had a computer file specialist try to retrieve the files and copy everything onto a new hard drive. So, I have the old drive, the new copied drive with intact and damaged files mixed in, a brand new drive to try to organize on, the computer at work, and old back up CDs all full of files. Of course, I am mostly concerned about my photos.... so I have been going through all of these sources to try to get some of the lost files back and get it all organized the way it was so I can then make discs for back up in case a virus gets me again. I was naive when I thought that virus software plus a separate hard drive would protect me. I put everything on that drive! Many photos were lost. It is such a monumental job that I can only work so long on it before my remaining eye starts to fall out.It seems to be that way about everything. I need to digitize all of my music - get all of the old record albums copied onto CD, I've even been trying to get CDs put on the iPod. All of the video tapes need to be transfered onto DVD - including the old Betamax tapes. Some of those are almost 30 years old! I'm sure after much longer, they won't play anymore! At least I can pick and choose what I want to save. So much of that I don't care about anymore. All of my photo albums need to be redone - the old acidic pages are ruining the old photos. I'm trying to scan the best ones to be able to retouch and brighten them and save them digitally. There is just too much to do! I'll work on one thing or another like a maniac until I get tired or run out of time.... then it's on to something else. Maybe I'll eventually go round and round until I get all of these jobs done.With the arrival of the digital age, I thought all of this media would be saved permantently and safely. Not so! One little glitch and it's gone. So, back your stuff up in more than one location!
We were busy, busy bees this weekend.Bill's cousin, Laura was in town from California and they wanted to get together to get reacquainted. Laura just lost her mother and she and Bill got in contact again after the funeral services. Since Laura was coming over this morning, we had to clean the house - which was overdue anyway - especially for a NEW guest. And yesterday we went over to Bette's house to fix her walkway in the backyard. Since it has been raining SO MUCH, water had been standing over the sunken cement walk and Bette couldn't get back to the trash cans. So we added some cement pave stones to raise the level above any standing water that might happen. Maybe the rain will let up enough that it won't happen again.
I loved meeting Laura. She is a minister at the United Church of Christ in Danville, CA. http://www.danvillechurch.citymax.com/page/page/2333976.htm She made a life change and became ordained in her forties. What a beautiful. loving person! She's so smart and a lot of fun - casual and laid back. I hope we get to see more of her when she comes into town to see her family and help her dad after their loss.So, with my day off dwindling, I gotta get more chores done. Be back soon.
Charlotte is spending the Fourth inside where it's cool .
