A Couple of Random Observations

I was heating up my dinner in the building lunchroom the other day - by building lunchroom I mean that there are folks I don't know in there; they don't work with me, they office in the same building is all. Anyway, there was a woman close to my age and two men quite a bit younger (30s maybe? I am not very good at guessing age). The older woman was dominating the conversation which was all about TV shows. I found the exchange surreal; she was explaining backstories and giving character descriptions for multiple shows in great detail. My dinner was of the frozen, prefab variety so I was there for almost ten minutes. It made me wonder. It also made me think that I have to curb my Netflix consumption and get out more before I become that person.

On a very different note, I am lucky enough to have a boss who is very interested in his staff being happy, getting to know each other and developing a campus culture in general. One day last week, for a "team building" exercise, I went with five other staff members to Hell's Kitchen for lunch and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to browse around. It was all on company time and The Boss bought lunch.

The six of us made up a somewhat diverse group; three middle-aged, middle-class whites; one young, pregnant Hmong; one West African woman with older kids and one young, male African-American. I think maybe I was the only one who had been to Hell's Kitchen before. Two of us knew a fair amount about art (the other one likes Baroque and Rococo and I am more partial to Modern and Minimalist styles, so we balanced each other out nicely). One person had never been to a fine art museum.

Varying perspectives give light to so much in an art museum, I wish it were possible to do such things more often. It was quite an eye-opening experience for me. Usually we go to museums with like-minded people, it seems. When Girl-child and Boy-child were little they gave me new insights into things I'd seen before; last week I was gaining new insights from adults who had never been influenced by my opinions. It also made me think of our family trip to Spain in 2000 and how influential that trip was in my kids' art experience.

That's about all I've got. I haven't been taking pictures like I should. I'm reading The Help, which I really, really like (thanks Joan). I'm making another hat for Boy-child. I added 3/4 length sleeves to Girl-child's Wrenna sweater but haven't gotten a picture of her in it yet (hint, hint). Someone contacted me on Ravelry asking to purchase yarn from my stash which, unfortunately for her, is the yarn I plan on using to make my next sweater; I'm committed now. Guess I'll go finish that hat so I can cast on the sweater.