very simple

I noticed these popping up out of the ground. I’m seriously hoping this means that winter is really ending.

For some time now, I’ve been contemplating getting some sort of pet. I’ve been wavering between a dog or a cat – I had both growing up, and loved having both. The “fun” part of my brain wavered toward dog, but the sensible part of my brain, the part that reminds me that I will have a job at some point and will not be home all the time to go on walks, wavered toward cat. I’d been visiting the cat adoption days at the local pet store, and had a few cats that I was keeping my eye on, but then my parents called me this morning from the vet (they were bringing ollie in again for more tests/treatment for the mystery disease he seems to have picked up at the tail end of his stay with me) to say that one of the cats the vet had available for adoption would be great – she was getting along with ollie in the waiting room, and they started sending me pictures. Needless to say, I ran over to meet her…

…And totally fell for her. She’s 9 months old and had been left as a kitten in a box by the clinic’s front door. So she’s been living at the vet the whole time, allowed to roam around and play with all the other animals and people. Which probably explains why she’s been so chill since she got here. I’m still in a trial period for the adoption, but I think we’re going to get along fine. The vets had been calling her Shea, but I nixed that. So now she’s Sadie.

Labor day weekend, we took a break from our normal routine of doing as little as possible, and spent an afternoon at the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Berkshire Botanical Garden. Pictures aren’t allowed inside the Museum, so I don’t have anything except the sign below, but it was the first time I had been to the museum and was really struck by how much more…well-rounded…Rockwell was as an artist than his most well-known Saturday Evening Post americana would suggest. I (of course) had seen some of his civil-rights era art before, most notably, The Problem We All Live With, but “Southern Justice” stopped me in my tracks.

I was really shocked by it. Of course, even without looking at the title, I knew exactly what it was in reference to, but more than that, both in content and in style, it’s incredibly different from anything we “expect” when we think about Rockwell. I’m pretty sure I stared at it for about 10 minutes, just devastated. I also took a brief tour that was given, and the guide (who clearly loved his work), talked about the fact that Rockwell chafed for years against the Saturday Evening Post edict that people of color were only ever to be depicted in positions of servitude toward whites. Which explains why this painting was done for Look magazine.

Changing subjects, the following are the photos that I actually took, at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. They had three specific exhibits going on – one dealing with chairs, one dealing with dogs, and one where these little cabins were decorated extravagantly. That should make these photos pretty self-explanatory.

My brother, who just finish his Masters Degree in education, is leaving the country (again) to travel to Africa and Nepal for a year. In between climbing lots of rocks, he’s planning on visiting a variety of educational institutions during his trip in order to…well, I’ll just let him explain it himself.

I can’t believe he’s leaving again. It seems like he just got back from the Peace Corps yesterday.

(and yes, he is totally one of those do-gooder-type people who wants to make the world a better place while the rest of us obsess over the real estate market).

After a few more rainy days earlier this week (during which I was out of commission thanks to a bug half the people at our seder caught), I think spring is really here for good this time. Trees are blooming, tulips are coming up, and we can sit outside at the local cafe, which meant that my friend Ed could show off the puppy he’s training for a friend. This was as much excitement as said puppy could muster while getting toasty in the warm sun.