Looong Weekends

I went to St. Louis over the holiday weekend to hang out with some old college pals and see a concert. I almost didn't get a seat on the plane because they overbooked my flight, but managed to make it out of town on Friday afternoon after all.

Leaving on a later flight would have wrecked my plans for the evening. Nikki and I were all set to go to the Schlafly Bottleworks for dinner, since we didn't have time when I was out there last year. I picked up some hi-larious t-shirts, none of which are featured on the store's site, otherwise I would paste the pictures in here.

My favorite has the brewery's logo on the front and a take-off on the old Groucho Marx joke on the back: "Time flies like an arrow. Bar flies like a Schlafly." The other one has an old photo of people protesting Prohibition and the slogan "We Want Beer" on the front. I think the back might say "We Have Beer" with the Schlafly logo and a special logo for the 75th anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition.

On Saturday we hit the Missouri Botanical Garden to see an exhibit of sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle.
We really liked the skull — this photo doesn't really do it justice. This six-ton smiling skull was inspired by a trip Niki made to Mexico in the late 1970s. She liked the cheerful way in which Mexicans deal with the subject of death. -- The Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead seems to inform La Cabeza as a face of death that is both festive and contemplative. It pulls viewers in as it reflects life back. -- The piece is an inventory of the materials Niki used, from mother of pearl, to geometric mirrored glass, to the translucent round glass pieces that she called M&M's. This skull is fully interactive and easily accessible. -- Go inside to look around or have a seat in its domed meditation room, with its blue sky and moon. Nikki got a poster of it, so then the quest for the rest of the weekend was to find a frame for it. She's also looking for home furnishings in general, because she and her husband just moved to a house that's about twice the size of their old one. (They still haven't sold the old one yet, so if you know anybody looking for a house in St. Louis, let me know.) We did a lot of furniture shopping, but we also manged to get over to the art museum for the "Quilts in a Material World" exhibit.

Besides that, the only other activity of any note was going to the Rib America festival downtown. While I was there, Matt texted me to express his joy at being almost finished with his paper, and I wrote back with an update on my whereabouts. And now, a little Text Message Theatre*:


Matt: 2 pages to freedom!

Me: I am in St. Louis @ a Blind Melon show. Jonny Lang plays @ 6:30.**

Matt: Cry. I'd rather be there.

Me:
It's the bbq fest. Mmmm.... ribs.

Matt:
Dont make me hate u. I havent eatn all day. Been at coffee shop since noon.

Me: I need to go get a beer. They are finally playing songs I know but I'm not drunk enough to dance.

Me: Just saw a guy sporting the droop.

Matt: Bahaha! Saw 1 earlier and thought of u.***

Me: And a mullet. They just started no rain.

Me: Woo. contact high. mullet has a joint.

Matt: Awesome!

Me: Now my friend is making friends with mullet man's old lady.**** They both heart jonny and kenny wayne shepherd.

Me: Cue interminably long guitar solo

Matt: Has contact high worn off?

Me: No they keep toking up!

Me: Guys from b melon just came by ... but i had no sharpie*****

Monday we just mooched around town. We were going to stop by a few of the rubber stamp/art stores that we went to last year, but they were closed for the holiday. I did score some stuff at Hobby Lobby, which is a chain I don't think we have this far north. There might be one in Columbus and/or Medina, but not really in Cleveland.

Oh, and before Nikki dropped me off at the airport, we stopped at an Oberweis for some ice cream. I couldn't decide what flavor to get, but the birthday cake smelled awesome, so I had that in a waffle cone. It tastes exactly like birthday cake, and it's blue. Well, partly: mostly vanilla. But when it melted because I was busy telling Nikki a funny story about hanging out in Athens, it left sky-blue drips on my shorts and t-shirt. Doh!

Anyhow, when I got home and called my parents to let them know I made it back okay (Dad tends to worry), I realized that I had made plans with my sister to go see Indiana Jones 4 today. We're going to have sarma at Belgrade's (yum!) and see the movie at the Lake Cinema. (Hmm. If only we could fit in some bowling and a walk around Lake Anna, I think we'd experience all that Barberton has to offer.)





* Corporate sponsorship available.


**
Who weren't even getting top billing: Night Ranger headlined/closed the show on Saturday night — I had no idea they had so many albums out. I can't name a single Night Ranger song besides "Sister Christian," can you?


*** This is a callback to a conversation we'd had in Athens the weekend before. Some kid had his pants carefully belted around his nether regions to show off approximately four inches' worth of his white boxer shorts. Matt wanted to know if girls thought that was a sexy look. I think the consensus answer was no, not really.


**** It's hard to tell which woman belonged to which guy in the pod of white trash stoners inhabiting the picnic table next to the spot near the fence where Nikki and I were standing. I think I just assigned her to mullet man because it was easiest to explain. Anyhow, once we got home, Nikki was complaining about how chatty that woman was, and how Nikki didn't want to talk to her but the woman wouldn't shut up. So, apparently I misinterpreted their relationship as well.


***** Well, Nikki had a Sharpie, but she didn't whip it out until the guys were already gone.




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Now playing on iTunes: Blind Melon - Three Is a Magic Number
via FoxyTunes




2 comments:

  1. Hobby Lobby is all over Columbus, btw.

    And presentation is done, second draft is done, and I have only a few hours of revisions left to do.

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  2. Yeah -- it was hard to find someplace to go that wasn't part of a chain that was in Ohio, especially since a lot of the small independent shops were closed for the holiday, which is when we got around to doing this kind of shopping.

    We did poke around the Bug Store and Gringo Jones Imports after we toured the botanical gardens. Those were kind of fun, although there was really nothing I could buy there, since I would have had to have figured out a way to ship it home.

    How are you going to celebrate when your project's finished?

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