The High Five Club

What, really, is with the high-five? It happens to me all the time, but here are about a week's worth of personal high fives:

1) Today, when I set up a Saturday meeting with my personal trainer (I know, I know), he high-fived me, and I hadn't even done anything impressive yet.
2) Last night, when I went to upgrade my membership to the new 24 Hour Fitness SUPER sport club next door, the "consultant" high-fived me when I politely laughed along at a lame joke. It wasn't really even funny, so my for my part it was a pity high-five.
3) I was high-fived by a colleague for arranging for a patient to get a hospice consult.
4) A friend and exercise buddy high-fived me after a really great work out.
5) I was high-fived by another friend when I made an acerbic comment that made her laugh.

High-fiving doesn't come naturally to me--it is during high-five moments that I feel painfully the full weight of my NPR-listening, New Yorker-reading, White self. However, I go along with it during moments that feel more appropriate for the gesture: after a good workout or a particuarly sarcastic but funny comment that puts front and center my cleverness and wit. These days, the good workout happens more often than the cleverness. But when I get high-fived just for doing my job, or when I'm 1/2 of a peer pressure high-five, I inevitably end up looking incredibly dorky (ever seen an "air" high-five?). I'm dorky enough--I don't need the added pressure.

To high-five or not to high-five--am I just anti-social?

Project Blog It: The Function of Art

All I'm up for right now is thinking about how art has functioned in my own life. I confess there have been times that my exposure to certain art forms made me feel set apart from the riff-raff. Growing up in the sticks, I'd return home from a summer in Dallas after going to the art museum, the the symphony and the theatre and would look down my nose at the poor souls condemned to life within the boundaries of crusing up and down Hwy 281, hanging out at the Bowling Alley Cafe, or drinking beer at Wayne Smith dam. I didn't completely outgrow that sense of superiority--more than once I've inwardly sneered at people who wax rhapsodic about the "art" of Thomas Kinkaid--one of the richest hacks of all time. "Painter of Light" my ass. But I digress.

Art has brought me solace. Years ago I had a dream in which I was completely alone in the Kimbell Art Museum. There was no sound and it was blissfully cool. I use the memory of that dream as self-guided meditation now when I'm stressed or grieving. At times I "see" particular pieces on the walls, but most of the time, it is about Louis Kahn's building itself.

Art has pissed me off. Art rather bungled has made me laugh (bed rolling across the stage while Rodolfo sings his heart out to the consumptive Mimi) and it has moved me to tears. I have felt closer to friends because of art and I've faced personal demons and false assumptions because of art. I have been provoked and aroused by art.

After all, it really is all about me.

Project Blog It: The Seven Deadly Dwarves

Greedy

S'envy

Lazy

Fatty

Haughty

Horny

Pissy

Snow White thinks they're all going to hell.

Maybe There Is a Magic Pill After All

Project Blog It: Strawberries

A few years ago, Shmonkey came over for a brunch, and I had some strawberries in a bowl on the table. My memory has it going like this:

1) I note with regret that the strawberries are starting to look a bit gone, and that if they were going to be eaten, that was the time.

2) Shmonkey declined, recalling a scene from "Hills Like White Elephants" in which a bowl of iffy strawberries sit on the table.

Now, I haven't thought about this moment in years, but for some reason it popped into my mind when I read that this week's prompt is "strawberries." Here's the thing about memories though--I just re-read the Hemingway piece, and for the life of me I cannot find mention of strawberries! I'm guessing Shmonkey's actual reference wasn't "Hills" at all, but this is my memory. Anyway--I also remember laughing about it--and is a welcome memory at the end of a hellacious week.

My favorite way to eat strawberries? Currently, I get them for use in my favorite smoothie:

Blend together the following:

1 small/med banana
1-1.5 cups blueberries
1 container non-fat blueberry or strawberry yogurt
6-8 strawberries
Skim milk as desired
1 T honey

It makes a lot! Whip some up when expecting some friends for brunch.

Project Blog It: Pure and Utter Nonsense Edition

Yesterday, a physician I work with, while taking an early morning walk with her husband and daughter, got back to the vacation rental home in Oregon at which they were staying in time to see the house explode knowing their two other children were asleep in the house, and probably dead.

They did die.

Other forces at work in the universe other than pure, unadulterated randomness?

Nonsense it purest form.