Free stuff week

Two free things I got recently, but didn't mention in my last post because they weren't art:

1.) a glass of wine at Artomatic, courtesy of Zipcar
2.) a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone yesterday, which happened to be Free Cone Day

The kicker, though, is the Zipcar mouse pad and a Not for Tourists Guide to Washington, which it turns out I won in the raffle I entered Saturday at Artomatic. Awesome.

Free art weekend

A painting by the nostalgic Turkish guy

Well, once again it's my bedtime and I haven't yet blogged, so I'll make this quick. I soaked in a ton of culture for free this past Saturday without even going to the Smithsonian. MM and I started off with the Japanese Street Festival, which concluded this year's Cherry Blossom Festival. While the bastardized pan-Asian cuisine and landscape architects from Portland did not get me feeling very Japanese, we did see some interesting displays of dancing, drumming, and swordsmanship.

Next stop was a temporary exhibit of Turkish paintings just down the street from The Ninth Floor. Unfortunately the name of the artist escapes me--it's something fairly long and, well, Turkish-looking. The paintings were surprisingly nostalgic. I liked the colors.

All this was very family-friendly; for the hipster free art experience we had to travel far--almost to the airport, in fact, to a place called Artomatic. It's an annual showcase for local artists that takes up two floors of a large office building in Crystal City, one of the Virginia suburbs. The artists each get their own little space to take over, which lends itself to an almost dreamlike experience. In a few steps I went from something involving a large circle of live grass, to wax sculptures resembling sea anemones, to symmetrical black and white photos of naked breasts. There was a ton of art, so much that I eventually gave up on seeing it all. I did make a point, though, of seeing all the Peeps dioramas.

Free Lunch and Other Anomalies

Notable events from today:

-The whole office went out to lunch at Vidalia to celebrate certain recent accomplishments. It was fancy, as you can see from my rather blurry vegetarian entree. Also it took about 2 1/2 hours.

-I got a parking ticket. I'd been so absorbed in looking at the sign that said people with my permit number were allowed to park there that I failed to notice the sign underneath it prohibiting parking during rush hour. There was a stupid $100 mistake. I'm hoping, though, that being that I'm about to ditch my out-of-state license plates (and the car, for that matter), I can stick it to the man by just not paying it. It's worked for me before (knock on wood): I still owe the city of New York $65.

-Which serves as yet another reminder of the advantages of not driving. I listed the Beetle for sale this evening. The idea leading a simpler, car-free existence held a lot of appeal for me, even before the ticket--I just wish I didn't have to give up Grommit to achieve it.

-It's the last day of July! And what a month it's been.