A striking metalmorphosis

Several weeks ago I saw a picture online of this giant constantly-changing head sculpture slash fountain that, when operational, squirts water out its mouth.

And the thing is, the sculpture does not rest. It's in a constant state of flux, whole sections of it twisting this way and that, transmogrifying into shapes that don't add up, then back into the likeness of a face.

Czech sculptor David Černý's Metalmorphosis is the centerpiece of an otherwise ordinary office park in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Charlotte is a city I visit only on occasion but one which I drive right past -- close enough to see the whites of its eyes -- every time I go to Stephanie's house.

I MapQuested the exact coordinates of the marvelous grosse tête and found that it was about as far off the Interstate as I could throw a Frisbee, were I inclined to do so, which trust me I am not.

In other words: Right There.

So why had I never noticed it, near to the road, large and in charge as it clearly is? I wondered.

I've been going up through that neck of the woods every couple of months since July of 2007, which is right about the time the sculpture was installed.

I cross-reffed with Google Earth to confirm with my eyes that the sculpture indeed stood in the immediate vicinity of where I would soon be when I ventured north for Baby Andrew's first birthday party.

I told TG: We're going to have to stop on the way back home, for pictures of that thing.

Okay, he said.

Which is what he always says, not because I am a harpy but because he is a love.

So on Friday after we crossed into North Carolina from I-77 North and looped around onto I-485 West, at the exit for Arrowood Road I looked to my left.

And there it was. The giant mirrored head fountain. Visible from the road. And yet I'd never seen it. With the brief glance I got, I could see that the tiers were not jumbled but aligned into the forward-looking face.

It was then I knew that returning home the next day, all we had to do was exit right and there we'd be.

Just like almost always when I travel to -- or home from -- a destination with plans for a stop-off photo shoot of something remarkable, the weather did not cooperate. It was gray and cold all weekend.

But on Saturday when we arrived at Metalmorphosis, at least it wasn't raining. Even so, we had the place to ourselves.

To my chagrin the fountain head was not on, as in, the mechanized plates were not moving and no water was spewing from the mouth into the huge and perfectly round black granite infinity pool. A piece of heavy equipment was in fact parked right beside the whole thing, so I concluded that work is being done.

Or maybe they turn it off on winter weekends.

I don't know but there it was and here it is. I love it.

They say the best pictures of Metalmorphosis are to be made at night when due to lights trained on its silver planes, it is at its most mysterious.

I can see how that would be true but I would also like to capture it with an azure blue sky and puffy dreamy clouds reflected in its eyes.

At any rate I'll be back.

Here's hoping your eyes reflect a blue sky today.

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Happy Wednesdahead

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One more thing

I guess you've figured out we went to North Carolina for the baby's first birthday.

We had a pizza party -- to include fresh veggies served with Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch dressing and Rotel/Velveeta dip with Mission tortilla strips -- and birthday cake and presents for the boy, who I believe exceeds the legal limit for cuteness in most states.

The kid enjoys life too. His mother ordered a transferable cake topper for him in his party's theme: Curious George. It came with a t-shirt that featured the same design that went on his cake.

He wore it with gusto and panache.

Last spring on Allissa's fourth birthday our theme was Strawberry Shortcake and the same lady -- a friend of my daughter's -- made the transfer for that cake.

TG and I took the cardboard flat envelope down to the Ingles supermarket not far from my daughter's house and handed it to the ladies behind the counter in the bakery. We picked out a sheet cake.

The ladies couldn't have been nicer if they'd graduated with highest honors from niceness school.

But my daughter was buying this birthday cake and it was more convenient for her to take the envelope containing the transfer to a Food Lion store.

Where the ladies couldn't have been less cooperative. As in, they refused to put the edible Curious George design sheet onto a cake for her.

As Stephanie walked away one of the ladies raised her voice and said: "Cross contamination, you know."

?????

So Stephanie went to Ingles where the bakery staff were glad to help her.

Oy.

After supper and before tucking into that cake -- oh and cross contamination is delicious, just so you know -- Andrew opened his presents. He got lots, to include a basketball goal from his parents.

Everybody helped him figure out how to use it.

I got him a Little Tikes Push & Ride Racer which is being delivered to him tomorrow. I had to order it online. His mother says he needs something to ride in the driveway.

My experiences attempting to find and purchase that toy -- or one like it -- at a price that wouldn't bankrupt me, is a whole separate blog post.

After presents, the cake was lit and blown upon and thoroughly enjoyed by one and all.

No one has suffered the ill effects of cross contamination yet.

After baths to cleanse them of the grease and grime of pizza, ranch dressing, cheese dip, buttercream, and general hilarity, the children were put to bed.

I was showing Stephanie and Audrey the Little Tikes Push & Ride Racer using the same link I provided above, when I mentioned to Stephanie that I would have gotten Andrew a toy lawnmower if I'd seen one.

She lit up like a cross-contaminated river running by a neon factory and ran from the room.

Audrey and I looked at one another, puzzled.

Stephanie returned with a Walmart gift card that had been sent to Andrew by one of his relatives. She wondered if they had such a toy lawnmower at Walmart dot com.

Turns out they did, and Stephanie pretty much flipped out and we ordered a Little Tikes Gas 'n Go Mower for Andrew, using his birthday money.

Audrey marveled aloud: "We just helped a baby open at least ten presents and now we're online, ordering him one more."

Yeah. How we roll y'all. Now when I was a kid ... never mind.

On Saturday we took the kids outside for pictures and invigorating outdoor play.

Andrew was feeling his one-year-old oats (or maybe it was all of that cross-contamination) and immediately began charging up and down the lane.

I think he would have done it all day if we'd let him. Not one single toy accompanied us outside.

Later TG posed Andrew on top of a tree stump and he really seemed to like the view. I know I did.

The big sisters wouldn't sit on a tree stump but they posed sweetly near a tree.

Andrew the Younger, as I think of him (he even has his own board on Pinterest), had a blast on his birthday.

But then, he has a blast most days. He's my lollapalooza. One of my klediments.

I love him. A lot. I think he's pretty swell.

Have as many birthdays as you can, Andrew. I heard that birthdays are good for you. Those who have the most, live longest. Coincidence? I think not.

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Happy Monday

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The power of one

Look who's turning one today.

Baby Andrew born 2/22/12 at 2:13 p.m.

The Lord willing, before I sleep tonight I'll add a picture of him at his birthday party.

Update 10:15 p.m.:

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Happy Weekend

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Jarring news

Don't report me to A&E to suggest I be featured on an episode of Hoarders just yet.

We are still able to open our door and walk through the house relatively unobstructed.

But to come clean, for the last fourteen months or so, I am unable to throw away a jar.

I mean, even a jar that held pickles or salsa. If it's glass, where once I faithfully recycled, I am now compelled to wash it and store it.

Do you know how complicated that can get? Once-available (well, relatively) cabinet space is now a sea of thread-mouthed glassware.

There is a sizeable cache of jars under my kitchen desk built-in (I never put my feet under that desk so no worries) waiting to be cleaned of labels, as well as of wax residue and soot.

Yes. Those would be candle jars. Jars that once held candles are great for stuff like Ceylon cinnamon. 

And what's left of the Lindt Lindor truffles from TG's Valentine's Day. 

For your information I ate only two of those.

Then there are canister-type jars that are meant to store stuff like oatmeal.

And what's left of the Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's.

I ate more than two of those.

These Atlas Masons (once filled to the brim with Classico pasta sauce and Don't Forgetta Mezzetta roasted bell peppers) now do the I-need-just-a-wee-snackie thing as on-the-counter holders of Nestle Toll House semisweet chips and Wonderful pistachios.

(Actually I doubt the Mezzetta peppers came in that jar. I forgetta. The point is, with my system you can mix and match your lids. There are no hard and fast rules.)

Look how nicely these Ball jars cooperate when commissioned to hold tapers and tealights. Because no, I never can anything. The only thing I preserve is my sanity.

Barely.

That's some unsung heroes right there y'all.

It does not stop at jars; I am equally enamored of bottles. You've got your odd common but gorgeous Pompeian balsamic vinegar bottle which, who could toss?

Not me. I drink out of it. Sometimes. No, not the vinegar. I'm sweet enough already. But, like, maybe ice water. With a Glass Dharma straw, of course.

Remember the Penguin? You don't? Oh.

Anyway TG will get a dirty plastic souvenir cup out of the dishwasher and wash it to drink from before he'll use an already-clean glass. 

Not always, but frequently enough that I thought to mention it. He likes plastic bowls too.

Plastic does not touch my lips -- or my spoon -- unless I can help it. I cop to being a glass snob.

The flip-up sipper on my blue go-everywhere unbreakable water bottle is the lone exception.

This jar-and-bottle obsession sort of started when, in the fall of 2011, I saw on Pinterest that you could make your own decoupage solution (Elmer's and water = poor girl's ModPodge, who knew) and turn glass containers into works of art.

The kind you illuminate with a tealight inside.

You may remember I made some of my children. These were actually cheap vases.

By now I perceive you have consulted your skin-watch a couple of times, wishing you were scraping gum off the sole of your shoe, anything but reading about ordinary jars.

I can almost hear your inner voice asking: Does she believe any of this is revolutionary? Does she think I need to be told to wash a stupid jar and use it to hold something else?

No. Why would I insult you thus, dear reader? 

It was all a lead-in to this:

Check out the octopus opening a jar in order to extract its contents: a feckless crab.

I'd like to put a saucer of toast and a tightly-closed jarful of Smucker's apple butter in front of him and sit back to watch the show.

I adore the part where the green lid is stuck to his suckers, held aloft in silent victory while he ambushes the little sucker inside the jar.

And I think there's a bird in the room, rooting for one of them. Like I'm rooting for you.

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Happy Wednesdopus ~ I know you'll go jar

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If wishes were ponies then beggars would ride

 

You've been wondering where I am today, right? Since it's my usual practice to update my blog on Mondays?

That's so nice. I'm right here.

First thing this morning I got a text from Sara, one of my best buddies.

Sara and I have been friends since 1978 but in the late '80s she moved away from where we both lived. She went straight west.

In '91 I moved away from where I still lived, which was where we had once both lived. I went south and east.

I've seen Sara a few times over the intervening years, but not many. Not nearly enough times. She lives significantly closer to me now and I really should make an effort.

But we stay in touch at Christmas -- she always sends me a picture of her beautiful family, which brings a tear to my eye -- and maybe once every year or so we have a nice long talk on the phone.

Imagine how thrilled I was to see her text on my phone this morning when I got vertical and located said detested device.

She wondered if she could call me and I texted back, absolutely, please do.

So she did and we gabbed for two and a half hours. Don't worry! Sara got to say plenty.

We laughed and cried, reminisced, and worked out several problems which plague society.

After we hung up I thought, I need to update the blog and I've got nothing. I wonder if I could find an old picture of Sara and me together.

I had a particular one in mind. But I couldn't find it. What's that? You're more organized than me? Good for you. Now step off.

Then I received a dismal email concerning a beloved relative, the contents of which set me back for awhile, unable to do anything but think and pray.

Sorry to be so mysterious. I cannot say more. Just, pray for a beautiful lady who is reeling from some terrible news. The Lord will know who and what you mean.

If I do find the picture of me and Sara taken back in the day, I will either add it to this post or, as in the case of the above picture -- which I did find, although I wasn't looking for it, having forgotten it existed -- make a whole new post of it.

Remember when I told you about our experience with Furby and the Christmas when Audrey found the too-sweet odor emanating from the vinyl hide of her My Little Pony to be a trifle nauseating?

The picture above was taken that very day. Audrey had not yet gotten sick. Perhaps she had not yet consumed her thousandth Christmas cookie of the festive season.

Notice she is still holding the MLP near her nose. And it was pink with a turquoise mane and tail, not all turquoise as was previously reported.

Doesn't Stephanie look enamored of her butter-yellow MLP? I think she was a year or two too old for that present.

And Erica? That is her expression in many photos of her childhood. Clearly miffed about something. Maybe she didn't want a lavender MLP with pink tail. 

p.s. Audrey, to sort of make up for the MLP debacle of so long ago, look what I found while searching for the old picture I know is somewhere in this house:

(Audrey looked high and low for this volume last summer, searching our shelves until she was worn out. We knew we had the book. We just didn't know where it was.)

So a few months later she put the title on her Christmas list. I said, "But we have that book. It's the bright red one with the smiley face with a Hitler moustache."

And then the whole thing started up again, and still we were nowhere.

Until today when I opened the door to a seldom-used compartment in my bedside table, and found eight to ten books that had been stacked in there. By me.

Ah, Christmases and Mondays. They can't come around often enough.

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Happy Almost Tuesday

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