Yesterday was a chattery day. You may have picked up on that from my extra-long post. But the week leading up to yesterday was so busy and fun that I wanted to jabber on all about it. I ended up talking to my parents on the phone for two full hours about nothing.



Joe was hanging out with Jason last evening so I had the rare night to myself. The first thing I did on my way home from work was to stop at Tops for ice cream. I haven't bought ice cream in about a year. There was a time, long ago, when I bought ice cream just about every week. Whichever brand was on sale, I'd get a gallon. Ice cream is my vice. Not chocolate, not candy, not even cookies, but oh for a great frosty bowl of ice cream in its soft rounded scoops, the delicious creaminess melting onto my tongue. Any flavor. Put things in it... fudge swirls, peanut butter ripples, brownie, cookie, cookie dough, candy, fruit, it doesn't matter, or just give me the naked, undistracted flavor. I don't think I've ever met an ice cream I didn't like. I like it in a waffle cone or in a bowl, in a sundae covered with candy and hot fudge and whipped cream, in a milkshake so thick the straw practically collapses when you try to drink it, and occasionally with soda in a float (especially a dreamsicle float). But nothing beats a heaping bowl of it all by itself, creamy and soft and just waiting for my spoon, mmm. I love ice cream.



So... I was tired yesterday, and sort of cranky, so I thought, what the hell. I haven't had ice cream in my own freezer for ages. (Not that I haven't been eating it, especially last week at Joe's, but not nearly as much as I used to.) So I stopped at ghetto Tops since it was on my way home to pick some up. And was very disappointed to find that the brand on sale (Turkey Hill) was mostly sold out. Just vanilla and neapolitan left. :( Not what I was hoping for. I was almost deterred. "You don't need ice cream," I thought to myself. "It's not healthy and you've been so good about giving up unhealthy stuff. And it's an extra $5 you really don't need to be spending, especially with all the graduation gifts you need to be buying next week! This is a sign... let it be... you can have ice cream another time." Yes, sometimes I am rational. But sometimes I am not. So I got back in the car, drove to the other Tops, and deliberated between Butter Almond and Rocky Road for awhile. Eventually I picked up the Rocky Road along with Peanut Butter Ripple, paid for them, and brought them home, where they are now nestled into the corner of my freezer.



Then I ended up being on the phone until 11:30, so after all that, I didn't even get to have any. :P But it's all right! Because I know they are there, if I need them later. I am gonna make it last... this $5 worth of ice cream is gonna get me through a few weeks or even more, so that hopefully I won't cave and buy myself any more for a long time. Unless Tops has a buy one, get two free sale on Friendly's. But they usually only do that in the winter. ;)



Hooray for comfort food. :D



Last Friday Joe took me to the Albright Knox Art Gallery to see the Rodin exhibit. (Rodin... the Thinker statue... yeah... that guy!) That was pretty neat. A bunch of sculptures (duh). I didn't realize that artists do "sketches" in sculpture. For some reason sculpting just seems like a one-shot deal, but, obviously, I am wrong. For all the big pieces that Rodin did he had a whole bunch of related ones, maybe a miniature of the finished product, or he'd take one figure out and experiment with the pose, the facial expression, the clothing. And sometimes doing the same sculpture in bigger or smaller sizes for detail work. So it was kinda neat. The first room we went into was a bunch of pieces from the "Burghers of Calais" and there were studies of the individual men, bigger and smaller, or just a hand or a head. The main room was all different pieces made for "The Gates of Hell", of which the Thinker is a part, and which Joe was hoping to see in its entirety, but there was only a picture of the completed work. A lot of the sculptures that he made for the Gates didn't make it onto the final work, but became famous in their own right. The Thinker IS on the Gates but is also famous all by itself. :P It was cool to see it, but it was much smaller than I expected. On TV or whatever you always see a big 6-foot cast of it, but the one on the Gates is much smaller, and the one we saw was only a foot tall, maybe two. Even so it was cool. The Three Shades (ALSO a part of the Gates) was a nifty one too, because all three of the figures are exactly the same. Joe found that particularly nifty. :)



I think my favorites were the hand sculptures. Not completely sure why I guess. But those are the ones that stuck with me. There was also a bust that looked exactly like Jean-Luc Picard. :) It was neat seeing the works of an actual famous artist, even if I don't know anything about art. ;) Joe says paintings are more his medium than sculpture. I think I'm inclined to agree. We are both agreed that much of what constitutes "modern art" nowadays is a bit... ehhh... crap. ;) Although I did really like a set of sculptures that was just outside the Rodin exhibit, which was titled "Licks and Lather". The artist made 14 casts of her own head, 7 in soap and 7 in chocolate, and then "erased herself" by licking the chocolate and washing with the soap. So most of the sculptures were in various phases of facelessness. I thought it was a really interesting idea, but maybe I just like the idea of chomping on my own chocolate nose. Yeah, I am twisted. ;) Joe also showed me his favorite painting, the Marvelous Sauce, which true to his word really DOES look like a photograph. Quite cool. :)



Art is fun. :)



Today I am back to real life. I'm reeeeeeaaally tired today. :P Too many days of being up past my bedtime I guess. I've been falling asleep at my desk for most of the day. This evening I have a doctor's appointment. The FUN appointment as Angela would say, take from that what you will. I can't say as I'm particularly looking forward to it (duh, who would be?) but it is a necessary evil. At least after that I will get to see my Joe for a while, and that is always nice. :) Not sure what we shall do. This morning he asked if I want to go see Shrek again (for the record we saw it for the FOURTH time on Sunday). ;) But I think tonight I am probably going to be in a staying-in kind of mood. Maybe curl up with my cute to watch a movie at home or something. At least that's the kind of mood I'm in right now. ;) Maybe we'll have some ice cream. :)