Denver Art Museum

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For her Christmas present, yesterday I took a friend to see “El Greco to Picasso”:http://www.denverartmuseum.org/microsites/elgreco/highlights.html#highlights at the Denver Art Museum. Tickets to the special exhibit were sold out, and I had purchased the tickets previously via the museum’s website.

The most famous painting in the show is probably Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. I had seen many reproductions of this painting, but the reproductions lacked the impact of seeing the original, which is quite large. I can imagine gazing at it for hours, each time seeing something new. I also enjoyed seeing the Klee’s, Corot’s and the Van Gogh’s.

Afterward, we had lunch in the very crowded cafeteria, and then went to the Asian floor of the permanent exhibit, where I took this photo of the horse, carved in China about 500 AD.

Bathrooms, bleh

I am painting two of the three bathrooms in our house. I painted the third over five years ago. It took me that long to forget how tedious it is to paint bathrooms. When I painted the kitchen a very pale yellow, I had one full gallon left over, and we decided it would look good in our bathrooms.

Fortunately, I only have one more roller coat to go in my bathroom, and Jack’s bathroom is completely festooned with masking tape and newspapers over every flat surface. I think Jack’s bathroom will be easier to paint than mine, not least because his has a natural light from a window.

We are replacing the icky old towel bars and I have a new medicine chest to replace the mirror that used to be over my vanity. As always, I was relieved to see that I actually do like the paint we chose in the room. The old color was a cool shade of white, and the pale yellow warms the room considerably.

Jack’s sunrise

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Jack, who is not a morning person, does not see too many sunrises. However, he had to get up early this morning for a 7:00 conference call, and called to me: “Get your camera, quick!”

Looking South

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Looking south from the ridge that lies to the north of us, one can see an edge of Cheyenne Mountain over the ridge that divides our valley from the Air Force Academy.

From the North East

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Yesterday, it was very windy on the plateau to the north of our house, so we walked along the crest of the ridge instead. Jack took this photo of our place. I think of our five acres as being a rectangular plot, but you can see that it is actually more of a wedge.

I gave Jack a heart monitor and a pedometer for Christmas this year, and we have been taking walks to test them out. The heart monitor has a strap that goes around his chest, with a readout that looks like a watch, and it seems to work quite well. He says it is comfortable enough to wear all the time.