First Thursday, and eek! eek! eek!

I bussed in for First Thursday this evening. A very chatty, social, young man sat behind me, next to an older woman. He struck up a conversation with her. Apparently, he was headed into town for FT as well. She didn't know what that was. So here was their conversation --

She: "Is it like Saturday Market?"
He: "Yeah, it's like Saturday Market, only more of a party atmosphere. Some of the galleries will have wine & cheese, but the art is too expensive."

"It's like Saturday Market, only more of a party..."

Wow. I bet the gallerists in town would not be happy to hear that summary judgement. I have to admit that FT has changed a lot in the last 20 years (has it been that long?) or so. Especially during the summer time, with all the street vendors and people in costumes. It used to be more of a quiet and elegant thing. Most galleries stopped with the wine and cheese a long time ago; now they just do the food stuff on private Preview Nights.

But "...like Saturday Market?" That really takes the wind out of one's sails, especially if one was having a FT opening tonight! (For non-Portlanders, Saturday Market is sort of like a farmer's market but with crafters.)

Anyhow, spent a little time at the gallery tonight for the opening, and I forgot to take pictures, of course. They changed the title of the show from Fragrance of Korea to Fragrance of Friendship, which is good, as I was already fielding questions from folks who knew about the show as 'something about Korea.'

Went out for my evening walk pretty late, after we got home. My normal twice a day walk is a 1/2 hr walk around the neighborhood, ending with a final loop around the block that our house is on. So as I walked past our house and was in front of our neighbor's house, this cat was coming up the hill towards me. I reached down to pet it, and something small fell out of its mouth.

It went "eek! eek! eek!", and started running around like a drunk. Then it started running back up the hill, like a drunk, going "eek! eek! eek!" The cat started running after it, and I started running after the cat. The whole time, "eek! eek! eek!". I was shouting at the cat (hey, I happen to like mice, what can I say, although in the dark, I really couldn't tell that it was a mouse). Then the little thing made a couple of attempts to jump up the curb, "eek! eek! eek!", before it finally made it and ran into the clump of ornamental grass growing right by the curb.

In our yard! (Smart little thing, that was probably its best bet.)

And the whole time, even after it found refuge in the clump of grass, it wouldn't shut up! It kept going "eek! eek! eek!" (I suppose it's probably hurting; poor thing.)

The cat moved on, and so I moved on.

(Oh yeah, went to Portland Nursery this morning and picked up some vegetable starts -- leeks, chili peppers, corn, basil, yellow and red chard, basil, bush beans...I think that was it. And stopped by at Fred Meyer's and got 10 cubic feet of top soil. Stopped by at Guardino's Gallery to see Sara Swink's show, which is terrific. Didn't have a chance to write it up yet though. Also had a bit of time in the studio, working on some drawings from the Tibetan symbles book. That was the day. The mouse being the most exciting!)