Xmas etc.

As my job of a humanitarian affords me much free time these days, I was able to spend a couple of weeks prior to Christmas hanging with my new buddies at the Mosaic Shop in KC. I initially sought out the place when making a homemade wedding gift for friends Andy and Jen Tiehen. I ended up getting hooked to the art of mosaicing and decided to dive into a major job of mosaicing the top of a toy chest for my new niece Kate. For those of you unfamiliar with the settings of a working art shop, they are largely populated with the female middle-aged to grandmotherly types, who, when not making lemonade and baking pies, dedicate the rest of their lives to arts and crafts. And so, during the daytime hours of much of the two weeks preceding the holidays, I was a comrade in arms with these fine women. And since all other respectable males in their mid-twenties are gainfully employed and probably have no desire to hang with this demographic, I became quite an anomaly around the shop. Have you ever wondered about being a fly on the wall in a room full of gossipy women from all over town? Well, I was that fly and could probably write a book about the experience. Not to mention that when I return from this trip I have dates with about 15 of their granddaughters. In all seriousness, I had a great time at the Mosaic Shop and want to thank all the very pleasant and talented women that I met there. If you up to speed on the blog, you will notice that this experience combined with my “bingo experience” definitely shows a pattern in my recent associations. My only defense of this, if one is needed, would be to say that my delving into the American elder-underworld may be an attempt to gain a little insight into their lives before I am absent from it for a long time. And aside from bedpans and voice homogulation problems, I think I definitely prefer the company of our wiser generation.