Monday Visual Quasi-Inspiration: Cherry Creek Arts Festival 2012

The monsoons from Mexico hit Friday afternoon, just in time to cool down the Mile High City for the Cherry Creek Arts Festival.  Of course, those of you glued to the Weather Channel know that the heavy rains bring a mixed blessing to those fighting the wildfires: the rain puts out fires, but the lightning can also start blazes, plus the water sluicing over burnt ground tends to cause flash floods.  Some people never get a break, I swear...


But in the streets of Cherry Creek North, the arts were alive and well with folks showing off amazing paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works...and making a living off of selling them, no less.  Musicians kept the area humming with a stream of live performances, and the food vendors perfumed the neighborhood with spices and hickory smoke from their outdoor grilles.  I got some holiday shopping done ahead of time, and I also realized that I was really rested after a three-day weekend...rested enough to go home and do some art of my own.  Here's hoping everyone takes a break this July and does something good for their souls!

The roof, the roof, the roof (and everything else) is on fire

Well, not exactly, but you get the point.  There are separate fires burning north of Denver, west of Denver, and south of Denver, and the recent record highs and lack of rain have not been helping matters. Generally here, it's been hitting 70 by 8am and then mid- to high-90s by 2pm, and humidity keeps scraping along at about 5%-15%.  (Meanwhile, Scarlett in Vegas snorts with laughter at our wah-wah-it's-so-dry-and-hot-here lamentations.)


Guy and I are safe, as we live five minutes from downtown Denver.  However, one of my coworkers had to evacuate her house while on vacation across the country.  (I don't know how she did it, but she did it.) Mostly you notice the fires here in town by smelling the air and finding a fine layer of soot/black dusty sand on everything outside...or on your floors if you left the windows open for a few hours.  I went out to swim the other morning, and it smelled like someone was having the mother of all cookouts.


So, I owe St. Blogwen the Patient and Beneficent an apology for not responding sooner re: the Gaping Maw of Burning Fury in the Mile High.  I've been writing an application on my own behalf to join a professional organization with great prestige (no, not the Masons) plus three presentation proposals to a variety of architect-y conferences.  And naturally, all of these things were due July 1st, so I spent most of June running like...well, my head was on fire.  I'm looking forward to a quiet July, but you know how well-laid plans of mice and men and pixies oft go astray. But here's hoping for some quiet time by the pool with a cheesy fashion magazine for the next few weekends in a row.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Faces of Snooze

Hazel in various states of snoozy repose early one weekday morning while I did yoga.  Whoever invented Cat Pose in yoga clearly hadn't watched a kitteh like Hazel rollrollroll around and get comfortable.

Urban bun!

This bunny hopped all the way past me and into a school playground near Cherry Creek North, where it proceeded to nomnomnom on some grass and clover.  Just a few yards from busy streets and shops and people going about their lives, this little creature (about the size of a 12-week-old kitten) was living its life the way its ancestors have for thousands of years.


Sometimes, our construction displaces wildlife.  Other times, it just makes life difficult for them, but they adapt.  Bunnies live in empty lots and tiny parks.  Foxes and their kits live in the storm sewers in nice neighborhoods.  Squirrels use power lines to get from tree to tree.  I'm not advocating that all human progress and construction is good and we shouldn't worry about the creatures, but it's nice to know that sometimes they find a way to live amongst us.  It's a furry middle finger to the so-called top of the food chain.

Monday Visual Inspiration: so close to peace...I can see it!

Living room of Death Valley Ranch in Death Valley National Park, Feb 2012

I've been working on two deadlines, CA for Gestalt's Uber MOB, and three presentation proposals for work over the past month. One deadline is behind me, another is looming, the CA is neverending, and all three presentation proposals are due on either June 30th or July 1st.  Suffice to say, I've had my work cut out for me, though I'm not so sure I've been cut out for my work.  And rumor has it that a couple of projects that went quiet in March are about to come back at 100 mph and 140 dB.


Posting will be slight for the next few weeks while I put all my energy into finishing these deadlines.  I beg your patience while I sprint/hobble/schlep towards the finish line here.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Attack of the modern unisex public bathroom

Public bathrooms fascinate me for many reasons.  They are places that seem so detail-oriented yet so half-assed--elegant hands-free fixtures and Ann Sacks tile in a room that more often that not doesn't actually meet the ADA clearance requirements.  It's a room in which we are most human and most private, yet the guy that has to come in after us knows just exactly what we've been up to.  I could do countless posts on bathrooms, but I'll start with just one, showing lovely pictures of an almost-acceptable toilet room in Cherry Creek.

The toilet is beautiful, and the flushing mechanism is simple (the stainless steel panel above it), but I'm not sure how as a person in a wheelchair I'm supposed to reach it with the toilet in the way.  How am I supposed to get on the can in the first place with only a side grab bar, and not a back grab bar as well?

Let's look at that sink a little better.

 Wow, that's a true hands-free faucet, and there are little smooth stones in the sink basin.  Squee!  WANT!

 This door is crazy cool.  The glass panels are frosted, so you can neither see in or out, but it lets light in for a less claustrophobic potty-going experience.

The lighting in this room is really nice and flattering to anyone using the can or the mirror, but that grey square on the left is an exhaust vent absolutely caked with lint.  Can someone bring a Swiffer cloth in here once a month, please?

Monday Visual Inspiration: Attack of the tangerine summer dresses

The store windows in the ultra-fashionable Cherry Creek North shopping district (about a 5- to 10-minute drive from downtown Denver) are telling us that tangerine is the color of the season.  Unless you can make your own clothes (or have someone make them for you), then I guess that's what you're gonna be wearing.