Last week, I found a map of Houston's Museum District and realized that there were a lot of museums that I had never heard of, let alone visited, so I am making it my summer project to go see the little museums around town. Everyone knows about the Museum of Fine Arts, but how many people know that Houston has a Czech Museum? I didn't.
Saturday, I went to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, whose mission is "to advance education about the process, product and history of craft." There is a gallery, a little garden in the back (with some truly huge chard plants), workshops and a really neat little gift shop, where you can buy contemporary crafts.
A bowl of bowls!
I didn't know this when I decided to go, but my visit coincided with a charity event, Empty Bowls 2014. The place was filled with bowls donated by local artists and craftspeople. You chose a bowl, (or bowls) that you like and paid $25 per bowl. The proceeds went to the Houston Food Bank. Whole Foods got in on the act by giving a bowl of soup, a roll and a bottle of water to those purchasing bowls.
Lunch, provided by Whole Foods.
With an opportunity like that, I had to stick around and see what was on offer.
More bowls than you would have thought possible. Wooden bowls, bowls made of laminated paper, felt, clay, and even vinyl. Crocheted bowls, which if you turned them over, looked suspiciously like hats. Bowls in every color of the rainbow, and incised with geometric patterns.
If you were willing to pay more, there were "bump-it" bowls, which were larger and extremely lovely. And there was a silent auction of bowls that had been commissioned for the event.
Wouldn't that be a surprise under your morning cornflakes?
I bought two, a delicate and simpleturned maple bowl, and a brightly glazed pottery one with colors that called to me. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but it's $50 for the food bank, and that's what's important.
I have a thing for unusual rocks: interesting veins, deep colors, sparkly, embedded with fossils, I love them all. So when I saw that the Houston Gem and Mineral Society was doing a show at the Humble Civic Center, there was no way I was going to miss it. I was not disappointed.
Fossilized sand dollars
Fossilized ferns
In addition to the fossils, there were a lot of mineral samples. I had to keep myself from buying a polished labrodorite the size of a grapefruit. It was so pretty, but the grown-up that lives somewhere in my head reminded me that I have priorities other than shiny chunks of rock. Sigh.
Combination of malachite and azurite
They even set up a tent with black light to show off minerals that fluoresce. Wouldn't it be cool to have a garden edged with rocks that glow in the dark? (I must have been a set designer for Star Trek in a past life.)
Later, I went to the Light the Night walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It was the first time anyone on my team had done the walk, and we had been expecting a 5k. It turned out to be a lot shorter than we thought, barely a mile. We spent more time standing around waiting for the walk to start than actually walking. Still, my team raised 1,100 for Leukemia and that's the real point.
Of course, for that kind of money, you don't just get wine. There's a specially-commissioned bottle with precious metal detailing and that comes in a custom, handcrafted cabinet. Even empty, it's a pricey object.
Normally, I'd see a story like this, think "Gee, the crazy stuff people will spend money on", and keep going; but my eye passed over the comments section. I avoid the comments section, as all the bile and vitriol of the world seems concentrated there. But this time I saw it, and in particular, I saw comments saying that people should not be spending money on luxuries, not when there are starving people in the world.
On the surface this seems like a compelling argument. No one needs a $168,000 bottle of wine, and the poor do need help. But if you've ever bought a pack of gum, then you've wasted money on a needless luxury that could have been used to help the poor. Any money spent on extras could be used to help the needy. The real offense here is the scale of the spending. Few people will guilt you over a chocolate bar, but buy a Lamborghini and the moral accountants appear to judge your actions. However:
Just because someone spends a lot of money on wine (or cars, or clothes, or whatever), doesn't mean that they don't spend money on charity.
Not buying hyper-expensive wine doesn't mean that the money will be spent on starving children. Maybe they'll buy diamonds, a wrought-iron dog run, or just leave it in the bank. At least if they buy the wine, the money goes into circulation and keeps the luxury goods makers off the dole.
While I don't want to spend the price of a house on a single bottle of wine, I'm glad there's a market for it. I am in favor of luxury items. Can you imagine a world without luxury items? A life where you only get what you absolutely need and nothing more. It would be so dull and sad. Think of all the things that would be gone:
needless luxuries, all of them
toys, cake, nail polish, colored fabrics, cut glass, jewelry, perfume, art, cut flowers, lawns, theater, ornamental gardens, sports cars, fountains, candy, carpets, music, pillows, movies, upholstered furniture, alcohol, the list goes on and on.
And while I will never be among the super wealthy, I appreciate what money and vision can do. It is money and vision that produced the Eiffel Tower, glass windows, mirrors (the making of which led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes) bathrooms with hot and cold running water, the flush toilet (I am really grateful for that one), Oxford, ornamental gardens, palaces like the Hermitage and Versailles which make up the cultural heritage of the world - luxury items, each and every one, and aren't they grand?
Friday Feel Good Video
Something completely frivolous. Have a luxurious weekend.
I wasn't completely honest about the 30 Day exercise challenge. I said it was about health and trying new things, but it is also about the charity 5k I signed up to do in November. I haven't done one in a long time, and I really don't want to be the last person crossing the finish line.
I know that the purpose is to raise awarness and money for Leukemia research ( a very good cause - and if you want to help, there's a donation widget on the right - thank you) but it's humiliating to be the slowest person out there. Besides if I'm advocating for health, I should try to be healthy, right?
And progress is being made. I am getting a little faster. My legs don't hurt as much now as they did in the beginning. Don't get me wrong: I'm not going to start tracking my shoe mileage and worrying about lactic acid build-up in my legs anytime soon. (I know some serious runners - they keep telling me this stuff.) But I want to finish a 5k without completely embarrassing myself. A modest enough goal, don't you think?
