The Pied Piper of Elegant Leisure

Because of my unemployed Life of Elegant Leisure I get to spend more time with friends and their kids during the day.  So lately I've been feeling like the Pied Piper. The kids, they're flocking.  Yesterday was especially so. My friend Heather's kids have become my new best friends - they're the ones I had a coloring party with a few weeks ago.  They were having a Grandparent's Day at school and since their grandparents live far away Kaiya asked if I would come as her Special Friend.

Would I!

I hung out with her in her classroom and we made a fancy construction paper Christmas tree and I chit chatted with the 7 year olds about who they liked more, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift (Taylor won out.  I didn't even ask about the Bieb.) and then strolled around the book fair.

It was only the cutest thing I've ever done in my life.

When I got home from that I headed over to watch another friend's kids where we made enormous Lego towers and danced whenever we knocked them over.  There was a lot of dancing.

And that's not all.  Because after I got home from the Lego tower dance party Heather called to say they were coming over with a surprise.  She and the kids brought me a Christmas present of multi-ethnic skin tone markers and color pencils.  I did not know that these even existed!  I can finally stop coloring everyone with peach skin.

Since I had a few hours of free time I invited the kids to stay over and color.

Is this not the best picture you've ever seen?  We're coloring and painting and drinking hot chocolate with candy canes in them.  I'm going to frame it and look at it whenever I'm having a rough day because that is nothing but pure joy.

I was just about to type that kids seem to be the way to go when it comes to having fun but then I recalled that just about an hour ago I had a Facebook exchange with my friend Andrea (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!) wherein we reminisced about doing crazy things like getting lost on a dead end road then nearly running over a hobo and wearing pioneer bonnets around Old Town Pasadena.  So I will instead say that I appear to collect friends who don't mind having funny adventures with me - no matter what their age.

Nick Lachey is a Robot

1.) Last night I watched my friend Heather's kids and we spent the whole two hours drawing, coloring and painting.  A while ago I told them about my ridiculously large collection of art supplies and they were eager to see them so I brought them along and they were sufficiently impressed.  I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty rad collection.  There are hundreds of crayons (in standard, neon, metallic, glitter and glow in the dark), colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, markers, and glitter paint.  It was kind of an awesome night.  I love Heather's kids (K said, "I think we should start an art society," as seven year olds do.) and I love to color and now I'm trying to figure out how to get other kids to color with me because it was so much fun.

2.)  I've done it.  I've made amazing rolls.  Year after year I try to make rolls and they always turn out sort of mediocre.  But I was trying out a new recipe for Thanksgiving and I wanted to give them a test run so I made some this afternoon and THEY ARE INCREDIBLE.  I feel victorious. (Fluffy Dinner Rolls from America's Test Kitchen baking cookbook.  ATK has never failed me.  I'm also making their sausage cornbread stuffing that I made last year and have been dreaming about ever since.)

3.)  Is anyone watching the Sing Off?  And is anyone else annoyed that Afro Blues was sent home?  And does anyone else think that Nick Lachey may be a robot?  He does not vary from his host mode at all.  From the inflection in his voice to his shiny shirt/black slacks combo to the way he stands with his hip a little out to the way he drops his arm when he's done talking, everything is exactly the same week to week.  It's creepy.

More Treasures

Whilst conquoring the lower quadrant of my closet this evening I found more treasures.  Namely, my art box.  Going all the way back to the glory days of college (which, by the way, thanks a big fat lot BYU.  My bracket stinks now.) my roommates and I would have regular coloring nights.  Because I don't actually have much artistic talent I would copy famous works of art but as something funny.

For example, I take Monet's Wheatstacks

and turn it into Cream o' Wheatstacks

(My scanner is clearly not appreciating the depth of color I strive for in these.  I apologize to you and the entire Art Community.)

Or The Death of Marat

To Fifteen Minutes Before the Death of Marat

If you look closely there is a People magazine tucked in the rack next to the toilet.  And once again that darn Marat forgot to put the seat down.  Even a fake artist knows it's all about the details.

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In Pod News:  A new patient came in this morning and guess what his job is...HE'S AN OLD FAT VEGAS ELVIS IMPERSONATOR!!!  It completely made my day - because as you all know OFV Elvis is my favorite.  He looked just like him.  The hair was perfect and he was wearing aviator sunglasses while sitting inside our windowless office.  Had he been wearing a leather rhinestone studded jumpsuit I would have made him sing In the Ghetto with him, just so I could help out with the backup.

We are the art!

I found this on Etsy today. So pretty! And cool! And nautical, in a way. I would use it for shrimp cocktail. Where's my Wealthy Benefactor when I need him? Because even if I had that kind of money to throw away on a chip and dip plate I would never do it. But I'd let the Wealthy Benefactor do it.

I'm not actually writing about wealthy benefactors and the presents they would buy. That very pricey chip and dip plate got me thinking about art, which got me thinking of a show I watched the other night. (Slight pause while I hop over to the PBS web-site to find the name) "Simon Schama's Power of Art". I don't know who Simon Schama is (slight pause while I find out who he is)(Every time I do one of these slight pauses I get side tracked and 3 hours later I remember I have a post waiting to be finished)(Success! Only two minutes). He's some art historian type guy. I probably could have guessed that. Anyway, he's been doing this series of shows where he features one artist for a whole hour, expounding on their genius. I saw his Van Gogh one a while back. The guy playing Van Gogh in the reenactment did a very realistic job of eating paint. I watched the whole thing because I was mesmerized by this Schama fellow's speech habits. He had a way of conducting his words with his head. The next time we meet, ask to see my impression of it. Plus he kept pronouncing Van Gogh's name with a soft guttural "gh" which made me laugh like a loon.

The other night he was focusing on Mark Rothko, who paints stuff like this:

and this:

and this:


Now, I'm of the opinion that it's the intent of the artist that makes something art. People looking at a piece and giving an opinion doesn't make it any more or less artistic. An elephant with paint and a canvas provided by its trainer can produce all sorts of paintings but that doesn't make it art. The elephant isn't thinking "Finally! I can get my message across to these humans! You, with the broom, fetch me my brushes!" He's thinking, "Food. Water. Where are the other elephants?" (Pray that I never tell you about the other PBS show I watched about the elephants. You will weep. Weep, I tell you!). Rothko was obviously trying to get something across with his paintings so I'm not going to comment on how it looks like something an unmotivated 5th grader would do during painting time. And I'm not going to argue that people can find meaning in these. Obviously many do, otherwise he wouldn't be famous enough for a full hour of PBS time.

What I am going to argue is the Schama is crazy in love with Rothko and is so deluded by this love that he spent 15 minutes talking about how these particular paintings at the Rothko Chapel in Houston:

"pulsed with life" and "throbbed with meaning" and "exuded electricity". You do not need to adjust the color on your screen. They are, indeed, all black. There are 14 of them in the chapel. Sure, I guess I can see how people would be moved by these, especailly when faced with all of them at once. But listening to Schama practically cry over them as the camera zoomed in on the black canvass I couldn't help but think of that episode of Murphy Brown, when Elden (that was his name right?) had an exhibit where he did a mural on the ceiling and it was covered by a cloth, ready to be unveiled, but when the artsy people came in they only focused on the cloth, thinking it was the art. When the mural was unveiled the cloth fell on a bunch of people and one of them yelled, "WE are the art!" We are indeed.

I guess my whole point is this: If your last name is Schama wouldn't you at least try to legally change it to Schama-lama-ding-dong?