Oh my! Get this!

Oh my! Get this!

Only in Texas! This was parked in front of a convenience store on Hwy. 6. Just step right up and buy a divorce along with your lottery ticket I guess. Somehow it grabbed my quirky sense of humor and I had to stop.
We're off to D.C. early Monday so no blogging for a few days. Hope to get some great photos and sketches in wandering around the Mall. Can't wait to get to the National Gallery....wheee...and then the Corcoran and the Hirshhorn. And maybe my asthma will clear up.

There is redemption! Blessed be! And homage to Our Lady of Perfection! And never mind, Mother Superior! Look at me! My poem "Monster Monday" has been accepted for publication in an anthology somewhere in Massachusetts. Holy moly...I'm a poet and didn't know it.

There have been additions to my spiritual life of some saintly women who appear at random without invitation. Meet Our Lady of Perfection who pulls up a chair along side mine whenever I sit down to write or paint. She draws her Pearls of Wisdom Rosary from her long, white skirt and reminds me that she has not seen me recently in the Chapel of Knowledge. “How can you possibly imagine that you have anything to say when you have been so negligent? Who do you think you are? And why would you even want to try to put anything down on paper…no one is interested in what you have to say. Why bother?” I try to argue with her that surely my many years on the planet have granted me some rights and perhaps some wisdom but she just looks at me disdainfully and shakes her head. Our Lady goes on to reprimand me for spending too many hours sitting and sipping at the Self-Indulgence Café on Easy Street. I’d like to choke her with her stupid Pearls.
Mother Superior, in charge of the Chapel of Perfection, nearly always joins Our Lady wearing a starched apron, her white gloved hands clutching a copy of Better Homes and Gardens or worse yet, Martha Stewart Living. Mother Superior smiles sweetly saying: “I am delighted that you are writing, dear. You have always been so bright and have had a way with words. Don’t mind me….I’m just here to remind you that your sheets haven’t been changed in two weeks, the mold is a pinky inch thick in your shower, you are out of milk, there are finger prints all over the back door and isn’t this the second time you have served tacos this week? I am just so proud of you just working so hard but I do wish you would take better care of yourself. Your nails are a sight and what are you doing about your weight? Your paintings are interesting but perhaps, dear, they might be more appealing if you, well, you know, put something more defined and cheerful in them like flowers. Petunias are lovely, daisies are always refreshing and I am just sure there is a market for Texas bluebonnets. And those crazy aprons? Now who do you imagine is going to wear one of those much less understand your very strange sense of humor?”

Jeez, MS, go away. I gotta do what I gotta do. I can't stand bluebonnet paintings and these funky aprons are just too much fun to make.

What's the big deal?

What's the big deal?

Today I just had to go to Starbuck's to do research on just what it is that our devoted Far Right countrymen are so upset about. Well, there she is the Starbuck buck-naked mermaid right there on my cup. Obviously taken from an ancient woodcut from some Celtic culture and I can't see what all the whoop la is about. Golly gee whiz...now how many mermaids have you seen wearing a blouse, coat or even a wet T-shirt? Good for you but I haven't seen any. A mermaid is a mermaid is a mermaid. Those antiquainted hill billy Bible toting righteous folk really need to get a life! Come on! We have 70,000 + dead in Mynmar and thousands in China, poverty throughout the planet, polar bears becoming extinct, a stupid war in Iraq and these folks are raising hell about the boobs on a Starbuck's cup? Give me a break!

Art cars

Yesterday was the annual Art Car Parade in downtown Houston...an event like no other...the biggest art car parade in the world with over 280 cars. I try to never miss it! And the cars just get better and better. We loaded up the family and a wagon full of chairs, sunscreen and cooler and friend, Patti, and off we went. Drove right into the parking garage across the street from Sam Houston Park (free parking) and strolled over to a shady spot across from the judges' stand. Let the fun begin! And fun it was! Over 280 cars and they get better and bigger every year. Amazing work with all kinds of themes.

The picture above right is the Grand Prize Winner and is called Our Lady of Transportation. Amazing work by a local artist using car parts. The grandkids loved it and we all had a great time and made plans to go back next year and the next and the next.
The top picture is of local quilter Kim Ritter's car covered with quilting notions of all kinds.

Dear Eckhart Tolle

Dear Eckhart Tolle

Dear Eckhart Tolle,
I'm having an Ego moment or more like an hour, hopefully not a day. You see, I've been spring cleaning...amazing but true. I went through my clothes and pulled out many garments that I no longer wear, either because my body doesn't fit in them anymore or I'm tired of them or I don't go anywhere that warrants panty hose, etc. I took 3 bags to Goodwill and a car load to the church for their garage sale and gave 4 pieces to a friend who was delighted. I saved out 4 of the very best, most awesome, most adored, in the very best of shape to take to the consignment shop. One of them is the pictured dress I once wore at my son's wedding and considered it my very best dress up garment should there ever be another dress event in my life. Well, after 12 years there hasn't been...definitely a commentary of my lack of social importance...so it, too, joined the consignment store group.
Well, after touring the local consignment stores, I can tell you it ain't good news. Life is sad when no consignment store will take your very best..."out of date" I'm told. When did I lost touch? I was once a fashion diva. One shirt and pants I just bought last year and the Mother of the Groom dress (known as MOG) was only worn once. I was told "they are wearing much simpler now". Looks pretty simple to me. Maybe that was just their kind way of saying "We hate it". I love this dress and I look smashing in it! So what the hey...I'll just put it on and stroll through Wal-Mart. Now where are those matching shoes! Maybe I'll get a corsage to go with it for Mother's Day to wear to IHOP for our Mother's Day brunch. Or should I save for another 20 years to be buried in or is that another EGO moment? Please, Eckhart, tell me, tell me.
Sincerely, Kay Cox