I had a really great weekend in Phoenix. My niece (who is my age) came in from California with her two girls (who are Jay's age). We were all at my sister's house (her mother) and we never stopped doing stuff. It was that kind of thing that's really fun for up to 48 hours, then, if you continue, you will pass out. We went to the Museum of Natural History (at Jay's request), and that was very cool. There was a special exhibit on Mars, a real jail from the early 1900's, and a ton of dinosaurs. There were all kinds of Southwestern things like 2000 year old bowls, and we also panned for gold. Excellent museum. My favorite thing there was the poop exhibit (of course). Here are a couple fun pictures from it!
My advice is to click on these pictures to enlarge them and them you can read the cool stuff about "one-hole poopers" and "the amazing huge whale poop." Well, that's what I would do.
We also went to a horse painting festival. No, it was not artists painting horses. It was (supposedly) horses painting pictures. I have to give the place credit....they do take in old, feeble, abused horses so they don't head straight to the glue factory. But it was a total money drain; fee to get in, $4 for a small bag of carrots, $2 to paint a horseshoe, etc.... Then, we wait an hour for the big show (in 100+ degree heat) and this was it......the horses painted by having a guy stick a paintbrush with paint on it in their harness. Then, he takes a canvas and SLIDES IT ACROSS THE PAINTBRUSH. I'm sorry, that is not a horse painting a picture. It is a man painting (badly) a picture with a horse attached to his paintbrush. Plus, it must have been a very stimulating act for the horses as I heard more than one person say, "Is that what they mean by hung like...."
It was very funny, and I was far too sarcastic, and the kids had fun for the first 10 minutes out of the 75 we were there. And then, without pause, we headed to a fabulous lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (avocado eggrolls and yummy lettuce wraps), and the movie, Night at the Museum. This movie was pretty funny but not quite as funny as the first one. Ben Stiller is a crack up (sorry Maggie) and Hank Azaria was pretty good too. When we got home to my sister's, there were two little baby birds tweeting by the outside corner of the house. they were so tiny and
cute and we could see the nest they had fallen out of. We did not touch them, but we did get them a pan of water. We watched them for awhile, worried a bit, and then went swimming. When we came back, one was gone, and a bit later the other was gone too. I'm not really sure what the real story is on the do not touch thing, although the kids were great about it. I, on the other hand, wanted to pick one up and walk about with all cuddled up in the palm of my hand but I was once again foiled by the "good role model" theory. I'm convinced that whole "the mother will smell you on them" thing is an old wives tale but I was out of my league as everyone else, including the children, believed it.
Within that 48 hours we (the grown-ups) also took in a happy hour, saw the movie "Management" (worst movie of 2009 so far), and went to The Coach House, a neighborhood bar that has been in the same spot for 50 years (what would compel a grown man to wear a very thick bandanna around his forehead and pretty much completely cover his eyes and think that's a good look?). All of us also went shopping at Trader Joe's, had breakfast at Starbuck's, went to Church (that is a whole other post), and went to a BBQ.
Note: most everything was done with a fair amount of laughing.
Whew. Okay, I'll finish with a few of my favorite quotes.......all of them short, all saying much more than just the culmination of the words.
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
'thank you,' that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart
"I imagine that yes is the only living thing."
e.e. cummings
Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy,
we soon cease to feel it.
-- Lin Yutang
To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.
--Pearl S. Buck
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