Stephanie's Meme

Stephanie tagged me with Nicole P's meme.

Here are the rules:

The rules:
-Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

-People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

-At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

-Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Eight weird/random things about me

1.Most of the stuff about Stephanie applies to me too including the love of cemeteries, the grey hair, the fear of heights, the Civil War battlegounds with parents but not alas knowing famous musicians and people. Really! 2. But... I sat behind Woody Allen in a Dance performance by Pilobolus once. He was seatted with Song Yee and I blamed my husband for dragging me to modern dance and then paid much more attention to Woody Allen than I did to Pilobolus. I'm SO glad my partner made me go! 3. I've visited all of the states in the US except Alaska and I'm working on the continents now. My sister the Drycleaning Aunt has been to all the continents and is birding in Madagascar right now! (We think). 4. I love vampire movies. My sister, who likes Zombies, and I spend all our time together arguing about who would win in all out combat. Of course since they are all dead, it is a moot argument, but vampires are so much faster than zombies and they can fly, so there is no contest! 5. I'm scared of clowns and dolls. Have you ever seen anything(s) more fiendish!? 6. When I was in college I planted a lawn in my next door neighbors's dorm room while he was on vacation. Back when I was thin, I snuck in through the same window I watered it through! 7. I've lived in US states that line up diagonally Northwest to South East (Oregon, Kansas, Georgia, Florida). My spouse grew up in states that line up Southwest to Northeast (Massachusetts and California). We met in Texas and moved due north to Minnesota - talk about balancing each other out! 8. I live for Art! (Art doesn't care, but luckily Husband Don isn't jealous! wink) 9. I'm rebellious: Tagging 8 people is too many - I'm only tagging as many as I want to:

ChrisB you are up!

Just an aside: Here is proof that vampires are better than zombies. Don't go here , Mindy !

Sunday With Mindy

MIndy and I went to the Heights for a little sport photography. It is interesting what you can find when you go off and let the world open itself to you.

This was a neat yard with cool stuff in it - but the sign warning us of the dog was really the best part.




These are relatively common plants down Houston way - but I like the play of the shapes and lines in this particular clump of leaves.



Past the house with the wooden goose on the porch, there was a vacant lot with these conrcrete block pieces piled up in a clump.



We always seem to run into an art car wherever we go. Mindy said this one was in the parade. Its image is completely composed of reflectors. Reflector mosaics are probably just as interesting at night (if not more so!)



We stopped at what was called a pecan mill (a big wooden wheel that was nowhere near any water) off of Heights Boulevard somewhere. The roof was covered in resurrection ferns. The textures were palpable.



I liked the color of this house and found the man working on the porch interesting.



This was a ramshackle building - but intriguing because of all the different chairs that were lined up on the porch.



There was a fence around this place so you could hardly see this wonderful metal sculpture in the yard (of course the matresses and other junk (not pictures) detracted from the elgeance too.)



More dogs - very stylish - almost as good as lions on the stairs.




How about this for a garden edging!?



Then there was this monstrosity near the bowling ball edging. When I asked the neighbors what it was, they said it was a sculpture.

Animals of Houston

We went out shooting photos today and of course I had to take pictures of most of the animals that I saw.



This was the prettiest cat of the day.



This owl had a visitor on top. Gotta love those mockingbirds. We don't have them up in Minnesota.



This dog was taking it easy in his yard.



These were adorable matching poodles with different personalities.



There were quite a few dogs behind fences.



And cat on top of them.

Graduation Day

These are crummy images of the graduation, because it was so darka nd we were too far away, but Violet could not be seen any way. She was between two really tall people and she sat back in her chair, so all we could see most of the time was the top of her mortar board occasionally.



Here she is waliking up to the line to get her diploma. (She is the shortest fuzzy person near the middle of the photo.)



Here we are celebrating. You can tell the waiters at the japanese restaurants wre real impressed with us.



It was, however, a fun celebration.

The Real Soul

ChrisB asked about how accurate the description of my soul from the quiz was. I had commented on her page that I thought it was hardly likely to be very accurate determining our souls from a couple of house furnishings. (One of my reasons for saying so is that I am a frenetic and hectic person who want sot surround herself (ideally) in simplicity and elegance) but of course is unable to do so.

So here is a redo. I challenge Chris and any other reader around to do or redo their soul's description and add an appropriate image of his/her own. This should be the metaphorical soul - the spirit of your essence as an individual. have fun!

New And Improved Soul

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to. (I like this and will keep it). You can be a grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it at other times you are flighty and full of fancy - you believe in responsibility to others, but also know that there are times to be free and untethered. You have a changeable nature, moody, full of joy one moment and sadly depressed about the state of the world at others. You don't know how to view yourself. You exaggerate your faults, feel petty and bossy, while knowing there is a desire for pleasing and generosity that hardly seems to get out. You wish you would speak less and listen more. Your eyes are your most important portal to the world and you value your creative visions of the world. You long for an exotic and unrestrained future full of foreign travels and unusual flora and fauna. You also realize that there is great diversity and beauty in the world before you and you know how to look for it. You fall in love with someone who is very patient and persistent, because you value that in others and know they will need such attributes in order to be with you. Love is hard slefless work and thus it is given only when the person is likely to reciprocate with patience and understanding. Ideas are of utmost importance to you accompanied by aesthetic concerns. You want everyone to live the reflexive life of Socrates and to act with consideration.

Afternoon at Church

Some time back my sister Mindy went on an adventure to photograph a church way off in the boondocks. It was a spooky situation and she ended up leaving before she got a chance to take any pictures. I promised her if I came to visit, that we would find a time to get back there and actually take some photos. This is the bridge we used to get out of the museum district on our way to Waller.



Since it is Memorial day weekend, the traffic was thick. I find this a pleasing shot of Houston traffic.



This screams American self-preoccupation to me.



Our goal was a really spooky Baptist Church out in the country. This is the place.



It was a really spooky place behind a very junky yard that had strange things to be seen. Look at this doll and it's weird placement.



They had cows just wandering around right in their front yard.



Nearby there was a house with metal sculptures in the front yard.



Here is a closer view of some of them.



Most of the houses had a dog on the front porch.



There was a pretty neat concrete companynot too far away. Here are a few shots of it (even though it was closed.



I'd love almost any of these things except the statue of liberty for our yard!



There were a lot of lions.



How about these?



Or these?



Lions in the grass, alas!



You can't tell, but this is a gigantic shovel. 15 or 20 feet tall.



Finally we met Don at Rita's lebanese cafe for dinner. Gosh it was good food! This is Rita's husband George taking care of business.

Blog Quiz from ChrisB

Got this from ChrisB

What The Soul Really Looks Like

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to. You are a very grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it. You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you. Your near future is a lot like the present, and as far as you're concerned, that's a very good thing. For you, falling in love has never been easy. You can only fall for someone who is very patient and persistent.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

A Mid Morning in the Museum District

During the afternoon we went to the Museum district, First we drove around the neighborhood and took pictures of interesting things we saw. I really liked these planets in a yard of flowers.



There were also some hoops.



I liked the colors in this yard.



These were ssome interesting glass laden sculptures.



I loved the porch on this house.



This was simply a grouping of objects of interesting colors on someone's porch.



Then we went to the Menil and looked at some of the surrealist and post-modern works.



For lunch we went to Nit Noi. This wa a bit of a nostalgia trip for me since we used to dine there fairly regularly when we lived in Houston 18 years ago.



They'd moved into a new space and had lovely murals on the walls. Even the bathroom was painted.



On our way back to Spring Branch we saw this guy!