A Weekend of Artsy Outings

Originally, I thought we'd be able to head down to Columbia on Friday night. But, by the time I got home from the retreat and working that afternoon, I was just too tired to repack and drive. Instead, I decided to treat Jeff to some yummy food at Brixx, a brickoven pizza place where you can sit outside and hear music in Birkdale Village. Sadly, when I went to pay, $30 was missing from my wallet. I hadn't opened it since I'd left for the retreat, so sometime between Wednesday and Friday someone got my cash. We weren't even given a way to lock our rooms, so there's no telling who took it. I highly doubt it was one of our students. It's just not their style because they're quite proud of their honor code. Luckily, nothing else is missing from it, but it just stinks that someone would do that. 

The next morning I woke Jeff up too early (he was grouchy) and drove to Columbia around 8:30. After we (meaning Jeff) helped my parents load a bunch of stuff out of our old house's FROG storage area and take it to the dump, we went and had Groucho's (YUM), and my mom and I headed to the art museum to see the Turner to Cezanne exhibit we've been trying to go see forever.  It was great!! I was thoroughly impressed (other than the one Van Gogh they had...his depiction of rain completely ruined the image). My mom and my favorite part about the trip was that we both wanted to adopt this older woman who was there with her grandson as our own grandmother. She was sooo cute! Her grandson couldn't have been older than 7 and she explained each picture to him in a way that he could understand what was special about each image, yet it was simple enough for him to really get it. It was precious to watch. 

Below was Mom's fav painting of the afternoon: Monet's Charing Cross Bridge

Below was my fav: Cezanne's Provencal Landscape

If you're in the Columbia area before June 7 or one of the other cities the exhibit is headed to, I'd highly suggest checking it out. It's worth the $15. 

After the museum, the parental units, Jeff, and I headed to the Southern Strutt Concert (the annual review of all of the dances for the company I belonged to at the studio I danced at from age 4-18). I was trying to remember the last time I went, but I really think the last one I went to was in 2003, the year after I graduated high school and that was the first year in a long time that I wasn't in the concert. In 2003, I had a really hard time making it through without sobbing because I missed being in the studio and the challenge of dance a lot. But, this year, I'm so far out now that it was just nice to see how much those were were just starting out have grown into such beautiful young ladies and amazing dancers. The choreographers they use have changed a lot (but I loved the Mark Meismer and Travis Wall lyrical pieces...beautiful job ladies), but I can tell the soul of the studio is still the same. And, the costumes somehow look much more comfortable now...darn, I'm jealous of that! You can tell how dedicated they all are and how much they love to perform. It's lovely to see how much these girls can learn and grow from that experience. 

My 14 years there were definitely something I'm very proud of and miss very much. My boss currently advises the dance team here at Davidson, and as he says, he knows nothing about dance. So, I might take over those duties for him in the next coming year. And, I'm going to take a dance class here in the fall just for fun. I did that one semester at Vandy and I found that even though I'm no where near as good as I used to be and it's a little more challenging on my body these days, dance is still my preferred mode of artistic expression and it really helps me unwind. I'll keep you posted on where all of that goes. 

Other than that, not much is going on right now. Graduation was yesterday, so things were really quiet in the office today. I'm saying goodbye to my last couple of seniors that are leaving tomorrow. Sad day!