(1) the Alphonse Mucha exhibit that I went to at the art museum in the park down the road from the flat: a little funny to be going to see drapy Art Nouveau ladies in Kaohsiung, but wot the hell. I have to say, it was a totally excellent exhibit, much, much better than I was expecting (mostly because I thought I had grown out of my taste for Mucha). I had no idea the depth and breadth of his work: he's famous for the drapy ladies, but boyfriend put in his time doing beautifully detailed immaculate drawings of flowers, turtles, fish, insects, horses; dark scary quickie sketches of abandoned dead people and animals in the streets of Paris; serious realistic portraits of people (my favourite was the portrait of his daughter Jaroslava:
(btw how awesome is the name jaroslava?!?). Almost more impressive than the variety of styles he drew/painted in was the sheer quantity of work he put out: he was definitely not of the artist-as-lily-in-the-field school, but a very, very hardworking guy. In addition to the theatre posters that made him famous, he painted/drew portraits, designed crockery/silverware/wallpaper/biscuit tins, did the illustrations for several art books, painted a series of ginormous murals for the City Hall of his hometown in Czechoslovakia, etc etc etc. I don't necessarily love all of his art (or even most of it) but he was fantastically professionally good at what he did, and it's SO INTERESTING to look up close at his technique. There were also several hilarious and endearing photos of the Paris bohemian set cavorting in his studio - Gauguin playing the piano in his underwear, models lounging around on ladders wearing nothing but lace up boots, etc.
(2) the lunch we had on the last day at the "Spanish Latin American" restaurant: the sign outside had a picture of a flamenco dancer on it, the tables were decorated with traditional Guatemalan woven table cloths, the wall decorations consisted of abstract vaguely Incan (?) themed paintings involving people screaming and human sacrifice (makes you wonder a bit what's going on in the kitchen....) and plastic Chilean flags. The woman who runs the place is apparently Bolivian, married to a Taiwanese man (who I am now realizing must have been the one to let me into the incredibly cramped messy back office so that I could have somewhere to change the baby other than the filthy bathroom floor). The menu had such Spanish/Latin American classics as "Espagueti with meatballs" and "Apple Pay;" we decided that the theme of the restaurant wasn't so much Latin food as "every culture that's not Taiwanese food." I had tacos (delicious); baby had empanadas (also delicious but so thermonuclear hot that no-one could eat them until about an hour after everyone else's food had arrived); babydaddy had squid and squid ink (served separately) which was apparently revolting.
I think that I officially cannot eat squid/octopus anymore; I don't think I could ever go completely vegetarian, despite the health pitfalls and the moral dubiousness of carnivorism (carnivory?), but after I saw a brilliant documentary about octopuses at the Exploratorium a couple of years ago, I have crossed octopus off the list. They've got way too much intelligence and personality, and I can't claim that I ever found them that delicious; mostly it was the fried breaded business that surrounded them, and shit, you can get that with onion rings.
I think that I officially cannot eat squid/octopus anymore; I don't think I could ever go completely vegetarian, despite the health pitfalls and the moral dubiousness of carnivorism (carnivory?), but after I saw a brilliant documentary about octopuses at the Exploratorium a couple of years ago, I have crossed octopus off the list. They've got way too much intelligence and personality, and I can't claim that I ever found them that delicious; mostly it was the fried breaded business that surrounded them, and shit, you can get that with onion rings.
Anyway.
Back home to pack, then to the airport (I managed to leave in Taiwan, that I have figured out so far at least: my house keys, my camera, and the eight of spades from the Fish of Eastern Taiwan playing card deck that cousin S. gave the behbeh). The flight back was actually OK from a baby standpoint (she was brilliant and slept about ten hours straight, waking up to meep only occasionally) although it was horrible from a me standpoint (crick in neck, headache, nose feeling like the Sahara Desert, fell asleep watching Moneyball and kept being jolted awake by the really annoying phone ring of one of the characters), and I can only imagine how horrible it was for babydaddy, who gamely took the middle seat, didn't get up once in fourteen hours to pee, and has femurs twice the length of the average person, so has to sit with his knees bent up around his ears. We had a little drama on the way out of the airport with not one but two pieces of baggage getting left behind (one in the airplane, one in Customs) (do you like how I neatly avoid a blame-apportioning pronoun in this sentence? :)) but luckily all was well that ended well and we finally staggered home with all our bits and pieces more or less intact and BOY was it nice to walk through the front door.
The next challenge will be to see if I can survive
- jetlag plus
- baby jetlag (having a baby with jetlag adds a whole new dimension to recovering from your own jetlag, turns out), plus
- baby getting weaned off her pacifier and bottle (on the premise that a week of concentrated pain is better than two weeks of medium pain) plus
- going back to work, where the computer system has been down for the whole time I've been away and entropy is definitely winning
- recent news that i have a rodent infestation of some sort in the crawl space in the attic of my house (this coming on top of multiple recent expensive plumbing adventures...)
- ongoing negotiations re: Where and How to Live once the rent (we anticipate) skyrockets in September
ayayayayayay. ohhhhmmmmmmmm. wish me nerves of steel and purity of heart, for I will need them.
good night to all...
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