On Wednesday we went to the Walt Disney Museum, because I wanted to see their Mary Blair exhibit.

"I feel great pleasure merely gazing at a work by Mary Blair. It�s as delicious as feasting on rainbows."--John Canemaker, author of a book about her that I thought looked quite nice at the shop.

I am a Mary Blair fangirl. I love It's A Small World and no, I'm not ashamed to admit it. (Though I will not comment on the song being played enough to make you crazy in the ride.) So I was pretty psyched. Plus the title of the show is "Magic Color Flair." How could I not love that?

It was a sorta small private exhibit in a back building, with lovely colors painted on the walls. They had a lot of her art but not that much video, which I actually kind of enjoyed because the sheer amount of video in the main museum is overwhelming to try to watch. (And the previous time I went to that museum, we did that.) I did wish there was a little more It's A Small World, though. And that they had more of the merchandise on sale featuring my favorite art pieces, because they were selling ones I was not that into. Oh well, what can you do and I'm just being nitpicky. After that we went through the entire museum again....so see previous entry for that. Mom has decided to buy herself a museum membership. I don't really get the concept of such a thing unless your museum changes up a lot (I'd say that it was pretty much the same experience going through it a second time as it was the first), but hey, it's her money.

On Thursday we had to go back to my neck of the woods. Mom scheduled us to get our picture taken on Saturday afternoon--I wasn't thrilled at that timing, but whatever--and she wanted me to get my hair done. Fine, so she dragged me to the hairdresser for a trim and highlights. I still would rather get purple hair instead, but as usual that is not worth Teh Dramaz that would erupt if I did something crazy. Oh well, I do like the highlights--I think they came out a bit blonder than previously and it kinda looks like tiger hair. I'm cool with that. I also watched the World Cup opening ceremony and hoo boy, was that ever like the Olympics. I now look forward to those Olympics...should be crazy good times.

In the afternoon we left, but of course my car wasn't done yet. "We have to wait on the clips, and they haven't come in yet. Should be in by Friday around 11." Ooookay then. Given how Mom had her shrink appt. at 4, that was fine. She did insist on bringing me along "just in case we do something afterwards," which the shrink thought was weird. I don't know why she was surprised. But I did enjoy having an hour of SILENCE in which I did not have to be Entertaining and Talking All The Time. And apparently that session went so well that they wanted to keep going--and she booked a Friday morning appointment. Go figure. After that, yeah, more shopping occurred, because that has to.

I still had to go to the appointment with her on Friday morning--on the one hand, ugh on the morning, but on the other hand, MORE QUIET. Yay. After that we did yet more shopping, and she took a nap, and I kept trying to call the mechanic's to "check" and see if the car was ready yet. Nobody ever answered the phone, so around 4 p.m. I just said, "Let's drive over there and see what's going on." What's going on was that the owner was out for the day and nobody was answering the phone. (I talked to another employee about this later and she said that when he's out, she's not allowed to answer the phone because all people are calling about is when their car will be done and how much, and she can't answer those questions. I feel ya.) It was a good thing we went over there in person, because we talked to another guy who said the clips hadn't come in yet, hopefully by Monday. He also said they could come pick me up at the end of the day so that I could go over there and do the payment stuff (though I ah, ended up having to do it for Mom by proxy). Okay then...that also ended the potential argument about Mom wanting me to drive home yet again over the weekend.

After that we went around the 2nd Friday art event in town, which was fun. We saw the Shakespeare Festival do some scenes from upcoming shows--though in all honesty, YOU NEED MIKES ON SHAKESPEARE (see The Tempest), so the non-songs were hard to follow. We also went to the art gallery of my old painting instructor and had a good time talking to her, and went in a few other galleries. I was kind of hoping we'd just not leave until Saturday morning, but Mom insisted on leaving even though by the time we did, it was pretty late at night (nearly 10).

On Saturday, we pretty much lazed around in between her styling my hair. I got a lot of photos uploaded, which was great, and she left me alone for a few hours to do whatever, so I got some peace. Huzzah! We got all decked out and got our pictures taken--the photos came out very nice for me, I thought Mom's smile with teeth looked kinda frozen though. (Didn't tell her that.) That kind of thing is why I insist on no smiling with teeth photos--dear god, I just can't freeze my face that way, and I had to keep telling the photographer that. Anyway, I looked great, so yay. It was a pretty low-maintenance day for a change.

And on Sunday, we went to the Northern California Pirate Festival in Vallejo. I thought it was great. Mom probably did not think this so much. I don't think it was as traumatizing to her as the time we went to the How Weird Street Faire (and this time nobody offered her pot), but she still seemed somewhat traumatized that *gasp* people might actually dress up like pirates at a pirate festival. Who woulda thunk?!?! And when she'd see someone wearing "normal" clothes, like old couples, she'd start being all, "WHY WOULD THESE PEOPLE COME HERE?!?" She eventually decided it was so that the men could ogle boobs. I was having a very good time except for the parts where she seemed to have misery wafting off her and wanting to go home to get away from all those weirdos. And I'm thinking, "look, your own kid is one of these weirdos, I just haven't paid that much money to have a real outfit." (I was wearing a red velvet fake Renaissance top, a tank top that said "Surrender the Booty," a black skirt and black boots. Not terribly weird or interesting.) I did find a lovely skirt I really wanted, but it was $155 "on sale." And Mom started glaring at me about wanting it because of all of the car repairs. I still wouldn't have bought it because I prefer to keep my handmade clothing purchases under $100. She was all, "could you make one?" and I was all "that skirt is way too complicated for me to sew." It had layers and drawstrings and gathers, and I suck at gathers in particular.

On the other hand, Mom did enjoy the shows they had going on. Neither of us was terribly impressed by the mermaid show (literally, it's two mermaids from the Mermaid Bar um, posing and that's it, and you can only look for like 3 minutes before they make you move on. What a ripoff), but the parrot show was a hoot. The guy cheerfully manhandled and posed with parrots, and they did tricks while he made pirate jokes. We also enjoyed the magic tricks of "Captain Jack Spareribs, so I don't get sued by a mouse." We caught a bit of a few other shows. All in all, she claimed to have had a good time, but she still wanted to leave early. I would like to return again....but I'd like to bring folks who would be more into it, if possible. I still felt kind of bad dragging her, but I felt it was kind of on the "borderline" or "I can get away with dragging her to this once before she knows what it is" status for her.

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