Traveling Breauxs – Day 7

Boy! Am I ready for home. We are maxed out on site seeing, restaurant food and shared accommodations.

Today was a nice way to round the trip out. We road the RTD over to the zoo and took our time looking at the animals. The weather was very pleasant and the residents were frisky. Love was in the air. At more than one exhibit, parents diverted their children from an impromptu birds and bees lecture. I, on the other hand, stood there oogling. My favorite moment happened at the lowland gorilla exhibit. A mature female came up to the glass and spread out her burlap blanket. When it was arranged just so, she sat. Following behind was her three year old baby. He grabbed his blanket and began arranging in a mock fashion. He flopped down and crossed his feet on the glass. Peels of “oohs” erupted from the child observers on the other side.

Tomorrow we are flying home. I can’t wait to see my pets. A man let me pet his Italian greyhound today. It was a good feeling.

Traveling Breauxs – Day 6

I was super grumpy today. Jon just quoted the farside strip: “If that cur Louis steps on my sandal one more time…”

That pretty much sums up my mood. I grumped all the way from the 16th street mall to the Denver natural history museum. Which is a very long walk.

The trek across town did afford the opportunity to get out of downtown. The atmosphere in the outlying areas is really fun. The buildings are old and some are crumbling. The rich and poor are sandwiched side by side as old districts experience a slow process of gentrification. Wild gardens with odd little statues creep into pristinely cultivated landscapes. Kids wheel past Mercedes on skateboards. Fat old cats sun themselves on stoops.

The natural history museum was depressing. I should have anticipated this. I’ve only really been to the Smithsonian natural history museum, which for some reason doesn’t feel all full of death and decay. These specimens were in poor condition. The pelts on the mammals looked like worn rugs – like Ms. Catherine’s bear skin rug that she is fond of standing on.

The one exhibit that I found educational was the Alaskan bear case. Looking at an Alaskan to scale is an experience. I kept thinking of Timothy Treadwell and his girl. What a miserable death. I mean, probably not as miserable as walking five miles across Denver.

Tomorrow we are going to the zoo. I’m super excited because Denver houses a red panda exhibit. I’m not sure how that’s going to work though. They are more or less canopy dwellers so I’m not getting my hopes up. I’m prepared to read a sign and stare at a bunch of trees.

Traveling Breauxs – Day 5

Every vacation has a wash day. The day where everyone has what Jon calls vacation lag. Today was our day. We got off to a late start and changed hotels. Mom’s conference had a special rate at the Hyatt, but when she called last month to book it there were no rooms available until June 26. Mom grudgingly made reservations at a hotel called The Curtis from the 22-26. Before we left, we thought that we would be on pins and needles waiting to check out of the dumpy Curtis. When we arrived we found The Curtis to be both charming and comfortable. We loved the atmosphere.

Moving over to the Hyatt was like culture shock. Gone were the elevators that chimed “stay happy.” Gone where the twenty – thirty somethings on leisure trips. Gone was free wireless. The Hyatt is a steel and glass monument to the traveling professional. The building is simply enormous. A sea of suits cross the lobby. It feels institutional, cold and full of boringly safe modern interior design. In an effort to be hip the Hyatt offers free Cranium games.

We unpacked and headed straight for the Denver Mint. We arrived at the mint to learn that there were no tours available. The nice ticket man told us that we should come back tomorrow or the next day. Tours run every hour on the hour from 8am – 2pm with fifty guests per tour. We were given a free bit of insider information too. While the 2pm tour might sound appealing, you don’t want that one. The ticket guy told us confidentially, “you know it’s hot, people are grumpy and tired. Plus, you usually get a pretty intolerable body odor issue in the middle of the day.” That’s all we needed to hear. The mint was scratched off of places to see.

We trekked over to the Molly Brown house hoping for better luck. This time we were able to procure tickets. It seemed like our luck was turning. Not so. The Molly Brown house is an unimpressive structure overseen by one very anal woman. Ms. Catherine dresses in period appropriate clothes. You get the feeling that she does this less for the tour and more because she fancies herself a Victorian belle trapped in a 21st Century life.

Ms. Catherine’s signature phrase is “don’t touch that.” She radiates a certain idolatry of the Browns and their home. For all of that devotion, Ms. Catherine was shockingly uninformed about the turn of the century. For example, when talking about Molly Brown’s charitable attitude toward the homeless children of Denver, Ms. C remarked, ” I’ve never found out where all of those orphaned children came from. There were so many in Denver.” Sigh.

Traveling Breauxs – Day 4

As usual, Jon and I started our day by hunting down a good breakfast dive. We settled on The Delectable Egg, which was delectably similar to all of our previous breakfast stops. My meals at TDE and Le Peep were nearly identical. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It probably says far more about me than the restaurants.

Next, we walked over to Confluence Park. The park uses the South Platte river as a focal point. We stopped for a while to marvel at the dozen or so people enjoying free recreation while a thousand others packed themselves into Water World across the fence. The river goers were super entertaining. A kayaker struggled futilely to climb the current and a rock formation. We watched him roll over a few times before the amusement wore off. Just in time too – three boys were standing at the edge of the river at one of the fastest moving points. Jon had just remarked that the current looked pretty strong. As we watched, one of the boys jumped in with his dog. The kid immediately started struggling to keep his grip on the ledge. The dog paddled madly to stay above water. It was all very dramatic. I thought about grabbing the dog. The boy managed to hoist himself out of the river and drag his dog by its leash onto shore. That was enough excitement for one day so we ambled over to REI.

The store was massive and expensive. I saw lots of things that I could really enjoy – I can see how hiking could be fun with the right gear. The tents and bicycles were on the top of my love it list.

Our major outing today was the Denver aquarium. I guess my expectations were inflated – the Aquarium of the Americas is so special. This aquarium was considerably smaller – there were no big herps. few birds, few frogs and small fresh water exhibits. I most enjoyed the otter habitat and the jellyfish. When I pressed my face up against the jellies, the purple floating world became my entire field of vision. It was very peacefully and terribly eerie.

Traveling Breauxs – Day 3

Jon and I started our morning at Le Peep with a yummy breakfast. From there, we walked over to the Cherry Blossom Festival – a celebration of all things Japanese American. We browsed the booths and sat in on the Denver Municipal Band. We also took a short tour of the Denver Buddhist Temple and caught a lecture on Buddhism. The DBT dancers put on a good show too.

After the festival, we took the trolley to Pridefest. The mood there was so, well, festive. There was shopping, live bands, non-profit tents, food etc. Everyone was sunburned and happy. I loved the atmosphere. Everything was so celebratory.

From Pridefest we were a very short walk from the Denver Art Museum. The place is massive. Even though Jon and I blocked out what we thought was plenty of time, we had to power walk the new wing. Some of the modern art was out of this world -most notably, Takashi Murakami – his art had people giggling and mesmerized at the same time. I was super-excited to see the work of one of my favorite contemporary artists: Butterfield. Most large museums in the US house one of her pieces as a permanent exhibit. Still, discovering one just around a corner is practically a spiritual moment (for me at least).

At 7:30 we all caught a performance of A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum. I wasn’t sure what to expect; I knew nothing about the show. It turned out to be a riotous combination of bawdiness and wit. The cast was excellent.

Traveling Breauxs

Yesterday Mom, Jon and I flew to Denver, CO. On our second flight (out of Memphis) I shared a row with two guys who looked approximately my age. At first we said very little to each other, but after a considerable delay on the runway we succumbed to socializing. It turns out that we are all from Louisiana (Lake Charles, Gonzales and Lafayette), we were all the same age and we shared a love for LSU.

I guess the odds of sitting with two people from your state on any given flight are not really that slim. But the three of us were pretty excited about the coincidence. We fancied ourselves special. For the next hour or so we exchanged LSU stories. We even gossiped about the Tiger Truck Stop. It made the flight a little more pleasant.

Today we headed over to Look Down on High Art. What I really enjoyed about this event was the opportunity to watch artists in action. You don’t often get to watch over an artist’s shoulder while they work – it’s inspiring and exciting. Each artist had a different approach – some started at the center, others worked from the outside in. Some layered lightest to darkest and still there were some who started dark. This was the easiest way to pick out someone with an art education and those who are self taught. Both found systems that worked for them. See some of the artists in action on my flickr page.

Mom’s seminar this morning was about cutting and self mutilation. I am always amazed by scientific discussions re: teenage life.  Good luck finding some uniform explanation and fix for a very personal behavior.  Besides, the triggers and underlying motivators that folks cite seem shockingly narrow.  Anyway, mom and Jon are busy role playing mom’s newly assigned counseling plan. I hear mom asking Jon, “have you ever wanted to injure yourself and done something different instead?” Jon is replying, “Yeah, but I beat up my sister instead.” I don’t think I like where this is going.

Audio Books

In a word, they suck. It’s a great idea really, I am in love with the notion of books on tape or disc. As a commuter, I am always looking for a better way to spend an hour in the car. I probably could have learned a second language by now. But I’m lazy and I love a good story. So I find myself scanning the fiction available on disc at the Vermilion Parish Public Library.

I was (luckily I think) raised in a little pocket of modernity where oral tradition isn’t completely dead. Maybe that’s why I’m so critical. Once you’ve heard one good cajun storyteller, you’re ruined forever. Still, I’d like to think that the rest of the commuting world is a tad disappointed in the narrators that audiobook companies get for these readings. I’ve found that some of the best novels are almost intolerable in audio form. The narrator just butchers the reading.

My biggest pet peeve: the adoption of different voices for different characters. Seriously, like three people in the world do this well and none of them have been reduced to reading books on tape. I recently listened to a delightful book narrated by Neil Patrick Harris – a great example of a person dying to destroy the integrity of a literary work. Mr. Harris seemed to want to try out every canned voice in his repertoire. Unfortunately, this includes the Sean Connery inflection. Mr. Harris also thought he had mastered what I assume was his version of the young urban black man (with all of the stereotypes that make us cringe.) Super unfortunately for me the listener, about three-fourths of the way through the novel Mr. Harris accomplished a merging of the two voices. It was Sean Connery meets Ice-T. There is nothing more nerve grating. Trust me. To add insult to injury the characters aren’t even human. They are animals – dogs and coyotes. It was painful.

Listing

My Birthday is fast approaching and I know that most of you are loosing countless hours of sleep trying to decide on the PERFECT gifty. So, with only your health and mental balance in mind, I’ve composed a short list of my material lusts. Drumroll please.

1) Chocolates or Tea

2) The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

3) A trip to the theater to see

a) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

b) Ratatouille …I promise not to sneak in any fans of the four-legged variety

4) Any pet accessory or toy suitable for: a yappy terrier, a lazy cat, a fat rattie or an evil hammie.

5) A card with you loving thoughts. No really, that would be awesome.

6) Another orchid – mine is doing super great. I am ready to add another.

7) A mini photo book of my pets from flickr and qoop: http://www.qoop.com/photobooks

A subscription to Vanity Fair

9) pottery

10) Markers for art projects

D-e-c-e-n-c-y

This week is civil court week. Taken alone, this information is never very exciting. Before you’ve done one complete docket circuit, you might even cling to the flawed notion that criminal court is colorful and civil court is genteel. Wrong you would be. Some of the worst behaved and most deluded people on the planet haunt the halls of civil courts. As an example:

On Monday a jury trial was cancelled on account of the plaintiff’s decision to communicate via hieroglyphics and only with aliens. Sounds weird right? Try this one: Also on Monday a different plaintiff told the court that he was in contact with the United Nations regarding the slavery that he was forced to endure when he wasn’t paid for his labor and materials on a job. He digressed into a speech about torture and inhuman treatment – as if Darfur didn’t exist and life as an American carpenter is as bad as it will ever get. But for me, the icing on the civil cake was far more subtle and more troubling.

Monday also saw the beginnings of a bench trial. There was a computer snafu, which prompted an aged, crusty and generally grumpy old plaintiff’s counsel to declare, “this is why I hate computers. We rely on them too much instead of relying on human beings.” Sounds pretty germane right? It wasn’t. The old goat then scanned the row of court staff (myself included) scrutinizing us as if to determine whether we were indeed more efficient machines. By the time my brain processed the man’ s true meaning, he had moved on to some other complaint.

I however, was stuck. I couldn’t get my mind off of what I had just heard. I see it implied often enough. Attorneys do everything but kick my tires before testing me with some useless piece of information to see how I perform. I am constantly assessed in a detached and uniform way. Am I a new-model clerk or one of those lurchy old jobs? Like the old bat in court, they make it clear that they are relying on me because I am simply a more advanced bit of machinery than the computer – for the time being. They can upload all sorts of implications and expect me to process them. They can stress significance, urgency and sincerity. They can try to move to the top of the judge’s stack through his neat little machine.

The result of being treated like a machine and prodded like a machine is that I’ve learned to respond in a very machine-ish way. I do not make my emotions available. I do not offer my thoughts or opinions. I don’t empathize. I take information and I deposit it. I sabotage the system – the system of utilizing the human device. I don’t do this to be vindictive or ugly – I do it because my humanity is something so precious to me that I will never allow it to become a commodity. But am I standing along some fringe? Is it becoming the norm to think of yourself as “human” and others as processing equipment? It is a sign that exploitation is at an all-time weird.

After watching Tsotsi the other night, I’ve been thinking a lot about adoption… again. I think about it in an abstract way – not some immediate plan. I think, I either don’t have the courage or the obtuseness required to conceive a child in this environment. I couldn’t bring life here but I could certainly shelter one. In the movie, a crippled man asks Tsotsi, “what kind of man kicks a dog?” I think the answer lies in the man who has disengaged from everything – even his fellow man. Teacher tells Tsotsi that this is about “decency.” So you can spell it, but do you understand, he wants to know. Teacher knows that decency is about respect – for yourself and for others.

How Little We Knew Ye

All of the baby hams died in the last 24 hours. I’ve been very down about the whole experience. I’m even having a hard time rekindling affection for Lilly who I can’t help but feel screwed up the only thing she is under any biological imperative to accomplish. I know, it’s stupid.

In a half-hearted attempt to distract myself from the depressing micro universe in my apartment, I decided to take Ash on her first field trip. We started at Durel’s. There, I saw a college-age looking boy getting into his car with a box of rodents. Great, I thought. The last thing I wanted to see yesterday was somebody buying feeder rats. I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

Not finding what I was looking for at Durel’s, I decided to try Petsmart. After selecting a harness for big fattie Ash, I got in the checkout line to find myself standing behind the boy from Durels. I looked down at the aquarium and small animal hutch in his arms and he stared down at the rat magazine, small animal harness and hamster roll-about balls in mine. His gaze drifted over to my purse where a small nose and a very long set of whiskers inspected the area. He smiled. I smiled back – he had just made my dreary day. He wasn’t buying feeder rats he was buying pets! We struck up a conversation with Ash as the center of attention. Behind us a slew of narrow-minded dog and kitty elitists rolled their eyes. We didn’t care. We walked out of the store side by side – two strangers had become fast friends.

My spirits were lifted further by the understanding and sympathy of my friends. Everyone could identify with my sad little circumstances. Gretchen told me that it was like the time she and Veronica came home from vacation to find that her mommy fish had given birth and was eating the babies. They both cried. As morbid as these stories are, they make me feel so much better. There is nothing so comforting as knowing that someone else has been in your shoes and can truly empathize. So please, feel free to leave your story here. We can commiserate together.

Oh, and I almost forgot: as if to remind me that life goes on…and on, the orchid bloomed this morning. Right on time.