Grumble grumble grumble

Why is it that so many people hear "Christina" when I say my name? [Certainly, this is a rhetorical question as are those that follow below (a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected).]

I will never understand why this happens. This is something that never happened while I was growing up. I, better than anyone, know my own name and I know how to pronounce it. Pretty darn sure I that I don't put the "a" on the end of it. Do people prefer "Christina"? Is this a passive way of protesting my real name? Or is the root of the problem that people just don't hear each other...don't listen...have poor communication skills (of which listening is a key component)...are seriously disengaged from really connecting with others? I put up with a mother-in-law deliberately calling me "Christina" for many many years...in spite of lengthy explanations of how that isn't my name and numerous requests of her to cease. That just wasn't a battle worth fighting with this particular person. BUT!!! This is an ongoing thorn in my side, because it happens frequently and it's hard sometimes to avoid getting upset over what seems to be disrespect of the awesome name that is Christine.

So.........I just wanted to grumble about it a little. Thanks for "listening."

Bangs or No Bangs?

I noticed that bangs seem to be making a comeback, so I thought I would try them out.

Makes me smile

Hannah continues to demonstrate her skill of taking pictures of herself with others. She is quite good at it, actually. I can only aspire to such greatness. There are more from this particular photography session, but I am sure that I am much more amused than anyone else. As such, I have resisted the urge to post them all.

I hope this one makes you smile, too.

It's not just me!!!

Jennifer was telling me a story about dealing with the ticket agent at the airport. The woman kept calling her "sweetie" and "dear." Jennifer finally leaned over to her and asked her to stop doing that, because it is offensive. See??? It's not just me!!!

Jennifer and I were roommates for a few years...a million years ago...when we were students at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She lives in the Denver area now with her awesome four year old daughter and husband. So, you may be wondering, "When did Christine have time to visit Denver?" You're so silly. Jennifer is in town visiting family. We were fortunate enough to be able to have dinner together tonight. As always, we had a great time and I enjoyed her company more than I can say. Good times.

Using my new "Happy Mother's Day To Me/Happy Birthday To Me" digital camera, I took our picture. Not too bad, huh? I would put the "a million years ago" picture up next to this one...I have it handy, in fact...it's on my fridge for entertainment purposes. But, we look like a couple of whores in that picture and I don't particularly want to share that image with the world... you might think less of us. It was the '80s. It was Halloween. We thought we were sexy and cool.

I like the mature and wise women we've become who still have our sense of humor, think alike, hate terms of endearment, like to make fun of people and can finish each others' sentences. Aside from those things, though, this is an enduring friendship for so many other reasons. We have a bond that I can't explain. It could just be, because I'm afraid that if I turn on her she'll tell all my secrets or it could just be that Jennifer is like a sister. She is family. I love it when she comes home and I hate to see her leave.

Oh, Brother?

Oprah is now fascinated with past life regression. So, hold on to your hats...America will probably follow suit. On the up side, maybe it would be good for the economy in some way for millions of Americans to suddenly start buying books on past life regression and then go to (and pay, of course) therapists who can facilitate the hypnosis process this requires. I watched some of the taped sessions on Oprah today. (Yes, I dislike Oprah, but I was drawn in by this topic...No, this doesn't make me one of her gullible followers.) I felt like Dr. Weiss (a psychiatrist who is an expert on past life regression) was asking leading questions while the patient was in his hypnotic state. Yes...I am ever the skeptic.

Music Appreciation

Standing across the street and looking at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, I knew there had to be some significance to the design of the building. It wasn't until I was looking at shot glasses in the gift shop, that I saw it. Do you see it? A piano, no? (No, silly...that's not the shot glass.) ...and according to Wikipedia, "more conspicuous images include the diamond-shaped radio mast, which is a miniaturized replica of the WSM tower located a few miles south of Nashville. The round discs surrounding the tower symbolize the different size records and CDs country music has been recorded upon. When viewed from the air, the building is in the shape of a bass clef. The north-west corner of the building juts out like the tail fin of a '57 Chevy." That's pretty darn cool! (Please don't judge me for using Wikipedia. I have often discouraged the use of Wikipedia saying that it's not a good source of quality academic research material...primarily because anybody can add to it and it has had a bad rep for being unmoderated.)

The challenge in describing the experience of touring this facility is in being adequate. I cannot possibly do this museum visit justice.

Most of the music I listen to is country (if you don't count the workout mix on my MP3 player). I enjoy it, because every country music song is a story to which I can often relate and that I can understand (the words, that is). My love for country music could certainly be rooted in the countless Saturdays that we (my siblings and I) were forced to watch Hee Haw on network television...courtesy of my father. I doubt it, though, because I hated it. If we didn't want to spend time doing anything else that was our only choice...we had only one TV in the house and it was controlled by...yep! you guessed it...Dad. What I did not know at the time is that Roy Clark, Buck Owens and many of the cast members were already country music legends in their own right. I had no idea. I thought they were just a bunch o' redneck hillbilly Hee Haw'ers. Well, I was wrong.

One of the major things that the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum does it that it displays/teaches/shows the history of country music (yes, including Hee Haw)...going way back. Country music is rooted in the music of the British Isles and traveled to the New World with them Englishters. The first recordings and radio shows took place in the 1920's. Along the tour, we read and heard more information and trivia about country music artists than we will ever remember, but had a lot of fun listening to the various styles of music and learning about its evolution. LOTS of display cases include stuff that belonged to the artists (like clothes and instruments), pictures, albums, history notes and other memorabilia. And, although I got to see Dwight Yoakam's pants, I did not get to touch them. Darn! There are a couple of mini-theaters in the museum which have films running on a loop. One chronicles how country music has changed into what it currently is today and includes clips from Hee Haw, Dolly Parton's TV show, Glen Campbell's show, country music award shows, etc. The other seemed to be nothing but Hank Williams, Jr. talking about guns and cannons from the Civil War that have been in his family for many years. The topics discussed may have been more varied, but we didn't feel like staying and watching any longer than we did.

Other cool stuff: Elvis' customized Fleetwood limo (24K gold trimmed, paint made of diamond, gold, and pearl dust...I think), Webb Pierce's Silver Dollar Cadillac (trimmed with guns, horses, and decked out on the inside with silver dollars all over the dashboard, riding leather-esque seats & floors, a saddle for the console, and stirrups for the gas & break pedals), a Marty Robbins exhibit (including many of his elaborately embroidered suits with their matching boots), the Williams Family exhibit (as in Hank and Hank, Jr.), and two walls full of gold and platinum record replicas where you can open a the record panel and listen to various recording artists' hit songs. The Williams Family exhibit includes just about anything you'd want to see: family history and pictures, instruments, clothing, furniture, etc. The list goes on. This family really did an amazing job of saving memorabilia relevant to their history, especially as it relates to their place in the history of country music. Unfortunately, this is not a permanent exhibit nor is the Marty Robbins exhibit. They will end at some point to make room for other similar exhibits to honor different artists.

If you are interested in a lot more detail about the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, you should visit the website. It would be silly for me to tell you what is already published about it. What is very difficult, however, is to convey how exciting this is...the history, the memorabilia, and the seemingly trivial information. Yes, it all excites me and I enjoy it enormously. I loved this place and would love to go back to be sure I didn't overlook anything!

A Special Happy Mother's Day

Today, I honor anyone in my life who is a mother...

...single mothers (no need to elaborate...you know your challenges and so do I)
...mothers of only boys (lots of testosterone in the house)
...mothers of only girls (hormones. And proms are expensive)
...mothers of LOTS of kids. (LOTS = 4 or more)
...mothers of cats (even cats named Oscar)
...mothers of dogs (even when one of the dogs is not one you particularly want to keep)
...mothers of Earth (even when an outcome is in conflict with what is desired)
...mothers who have mothered my own children
...mothers of my nieces
...mothers of my nephews
...grandmothers (because you are especially grand)
...mothers of children who have special needs or disabilities
...mothers of my cousins
...mothers who have lost their own mothers
...mothers who have lost a child--through death or even through estrangement

...mothers who gave birth, but who didn't raise that child

...mothers who unconditionally love and support their children even when they silently don't agree with a decision or a path taken
And...
...especially...mothers who have supported me and comforted me since my own mother left this earth.

Because you are a mother, there is no explanation needed for why I honor you. You should know, however, that each of you has something special about you that reminds me of my own mother. She was a strong, wise, intelligent, warm and loving woman. Though a few words can never do her justice, it is because or her that I know you are a good mother and worthy of the special recognition that Mother's Day reminds us is necessary.

I love you all. Happy Mother's Day.

Disclaimer: There is no particular significance to the order in which these are listed; therefore, there is no hidden meaning if your 'category' is not at the top (first on the list doesn't represent importance or ranking).

Art and Architecture

It was recommended that we take a gander at The Parthenon in Nashville's Centennial Park. So, after the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and before the Grand Ole Opry, we headed over. This is a stunning full scale replica of the original Athenian Parthenon in Athens, Greece. This one serves as Nashville's art museum. We were certainly up for more art, but we arrived after closing time and we missed the recreated 42-foot statue Athena which is housed inside. The Athena statue is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. Though not an artistic statement or a testament to stunning architecture, this Parthenon has chicken wire (or something resembling it) covering the friezes and the tops of the columns, presumably for pigeon protection. If I couldn't get inside to appreciate the works there, then I was at least glad that the Parthenon has a sophisticated Pigeon Poop Protection System. The little tiny person in the picture with the dark top is Barbara. Being deprived of our tour, we cruised through a craft fair on the grounds. There was certainly an impressive variety of local art to be appreciated (and bought) and included all sorts of wooden items (from furniture to sculpture), metal sculpture, stained glass, photography, pottery, jewelry, painting, and more. That was worth the park visit. From there we headed east to check into our hotel and get ready for the Opry.

Art Appreciation

Longtime pal Barbara and I spent Saturday in Nashville. When I initially pitched the idea of a Nashville trip it was simply to see an art exhibit at the Frist Center for Visual Arts in Nashville. (We ended up doing lots more...I'll post that stuff later.) I read about the exhibit Monet to Dalí Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art and suggested a trip. This exhibit includes some works of Cézanne, Dalí, Degas, Gauguin, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Rodin, Seurat and Van Gogh. After only seeing photographs of their work and learning about them in high school Art History, it was quite thrilling to finally see some of their works in person. I was so excited to be able to see some of the work of these artists...in person and up close...the brushstrokes, the textures, the canvas, the cracks in the canvas, the colors, the way that some of the artists so skillfully used light in their paintings.

A photograph will never do any of these paintings justice. Van Gogh's Poplars at St. Remy, for example, is quite vibrant--he used very bold yellows, greens and blues in this painting. And...the paint is slathered on...he layered paint very thickly and it looked like he didn't always use a brush (as occasionally painters don't, of course), but instead frequently used a palette knife. It was disappointing to find reproductions of this painting in the gift shop and see that the poplars were a very pale yellow. Even this photo here doesn't do it justice. It was more bright yellow-orange (heavy on the yellow) than it was this pinky orange that you see here.

It was a bit entertaining for me to read the sign next to each painting. This one, for example, said something about how Van Gogh used bright colors to convey his excitement and enthusiasm for nature or springtime or something like that. A lot of the "insight" for each painting was amusing to me, because I am suspicious of its legitimacy. If I ever paint again (or engage in any type of artistic self-expression), I will also keep a diary so that people can't assume things about what I was thinking or feeling when I composed a particular work. About this one, my mental response was, "How do you know!?!? The man couldn't see!!!" (He suffered from cataracts later in his life.) So, maybe what is "regular" yellow to us needed to be really really really bright yellow for him. In any event, I don't recall the other Van Gogh works at the exhibit (if there were any). I specifically remember this one, because I got a small souvenir of this painting for someone.

After the Frist, we went over to The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Later, we caught the show at the Grand Ole Opry. Stay tuned for those reports.