Hundertwasser-oh my goodness!!!

Hammy brought me home a book from one of his pubs, Prestel, called, "Harvesting Dreams: Hundertwasser for Kids" by Barbara Stieff. I'd never heard of Friedensreich Hundertwasser (which means "Peace-land Hundred-water) before yesterday but I am in awe of and in love with his work today. I have never before seen such beautiful, crazy, organic, life-affirming architecture! His buildings are a crazy-quilt of energy and enthusiasm and JOY! He loved people and nature and believed they could live harmoniously together and designed amazing places to live that honored people in nature. Here's a wonderful quote by him: "If man walks in nature's midst, then he is nature's guest and must learn to behave as a well-brought-up guest." and so he would design apartments which would have trees growing in them and verandas with grass and other plants. And he loved color and abhorred straight lines. He designed for me!

Look at this! It's so beautiful! It's alive, living, breathing! It looks about as close to heaven as I could ever imagine or want; forget streets paved with gold, I'll take roofs paved with grass!

"Priceless" Scooter

Hammy, Declan and I went to see Audrey Tautou in "Hors de Prix" ("Priceless"), a French farce in which a scooter plays a major role. I have not been able to find any photos of the scooter nor ascertain what kind it is. Audrey Tautou is still adorable, although quite the opposite character from "Amalie", and waaaay too skinny.

Odor du jour

More smells:

a bakery (yuuum)

a laundromat (get downy with it)

freshly mown grass
swamp grass
onion grass
hay
alfalfa

Oh yeah...the smell of a marsh or swamp (I'm sure there's a difference in smells between them but I don't know them well enough to know).

Today, I had the disconcerting experience of seeing a mimosa tree, taking a big whiff as I drove past it and inhaling a nosefull of the stench of a rotting corpse (hopefully just roadkill. I didn't see what it was).

Each fast food restaurant has it's own, greasy, smell. Today, I particularly noticed a Long John Silvers and a KFC (which I could smell from a block away, although I may be more sensitized to that one because my first job was at a KFC and I don't think I'll ever be over it).

When I was a young teen, I used to love to walk around my neighborhood on summer evenings smelling the different smells from each house: Something cooking at one, laundry in a dryer at another, the smell of toothpaste at the house with 4 young children...

Prayer for Perspective

This is what has been my prayer for the last few weeks:

God, please help me to remember:
Not,
how you fit into my life
but,
what my place is
in your creation.

My Nose Knows

Smells are my favorite reasons for ridin' a two-wheeler:

water coming from a hose on a summer day

air just before a rain


rain


dirt just after a short sprinkling (what I call the smell of "God's dirt")


a pizzeria baking pizzas


roadkill deer
dog
cat
opossum
raccoon
armadillo(!)
skunk


live skunks (I saw a family of skunks crossing the road the other day)


river water
creek water


magnolia blossoms
roses
honeysuckle


(and my favorite) mimosa


and one other lovely flowery smell that I couldn't see and wasn't able to identify olfactorily


freshly cut lumber


tar (I LOVE the smell of tar-reminds me of family vacation trips to amusement parks)
blacktop (which I dislike the smell of because it reminds me of elementary school recess)


cigarettes (which I dislike the smell of indoors but actually kind of like the smell of outside)


exhaust
bus exhaust


garbage
dumpsters
garbage trucks (the worse is following a garbage truck down a street on trash collection day)


yesterday, while out working, I rode through a neighborhood in which someone was cooking supper which smelled richly and deliciously of something buttery


meat cooking on a grill (vegetarian-don't care for the smell)


pond in spring
pond in summer


lake in spring
lake in summer


spring air
summer air
cooooold winter air


I'm sure there are many, many more things I smell each time I ride but which are too subtle or quickly passed for me to notice, identify or remember.