Happy Feet

The groom.



The bride.



Catherine. Note: she is wearing her shoes.



Sarah. Note: she is not wearing her shoes.



Here Sarah and Billy are dancing. I used to dance on Daddy's feet like this when I was a little girl.

Pieter's grandfather's paintings

I apologize for the quality of these images which is the result of trying to photograph them through glass without a flash. However, as fuzzy and dark as my photographs are, the paintings are really quite beautiful.

Pieter and Karen live in his grandfather's lake house near Newton. New Jersey is the Garden State--really--it's just that you have to get up to this part of the state to enjoy it.

Pieter's grandfather was a Manhattan ad man who had a remarkable talent for water colors. I spent the morning of the wedding just admiring them.



I'm amazed by how well he could manipulate both the pigment and the water. Sometimes the brush is dry, sometimes wet.







There's really nothing more to say. The pictures speak for themselves. And this is just a fraction of the paintings that hang in there home.

Pre-nuptual events

When I think of New Jersey, I think of Scrabble. My fondest memories involve my repeated attempts to beat my sister-in-law Diane at this game. I consider the trip to be successful when I can beat her at least once a visit. The above board was actually laid out after we played a game. It seemed to be an appropriate segue to a wedding in New Jersey.

The first thing we did when we arrived in NJ was to meet Kristen and Eric for dinner at Macaroni Grill. From left to right are Catherine, Sarah (Billy's girlfriend), Billy, Bill (at the head of the table), Pieter (Karen's husband), Karen (Bill's twin and mother of the bride), Kristen (the bride), and Eric (the groom). I'm surprised that our side of the table looked so alert for the picture--we woke up at 3:00 am!



On Friday we went to Grandma and Grandpa's home. At the other end of their townhouse we were met by this deer.



He's at the edge of the walk to the front door!



Here are Catherine and Bill's mom. Neither one really likes to play Scrabble.



Before we left, Sarah had asked what Bill's parents were like. Dad loves to discuss issues, nearly any issue, and like Bill, he enjoys an audience, too. I don't know what the three of them were discussing, but they were really focused on the topic.



On Friday night we went to Sushi & Wok. Next to Bill is his dad. Across from Bill is Diane, his older sister and the one to beat in Scrabble.



Billy was thrilled that from the word aqua he was able to compose the word aquarium. Incidentally, Diane won, Billy came in second, one point ahead of me, I was third, and Catherine and Sarah were fourth. I don't think the girls cared for the game, although Sarah was quite tickled with herself when she was able to form a word that worked both vertically and horizontally, the latter being directly adjacent to her new word.



So all of these events occurred before the wedding. To be continued...

Kristen's Wedding

Our neice, Kristen, married Eric on September 19th. During the four days we were gone I took more than 200 pictures. Over the next few blogs, I will provide pictures of the events.

My first semester, 5 years ago

Recently, I came across images of my work from my first semester. It was just basic design, nothing specifically architectural at that point, at least in studio.

In this first project, we had to take a cube and deconstruct it. After constructing a 3D model, we then had to draw the image.



And then we had to build another one and paint it according to a color scheme. I chose shades of red, although the shades aren't very apparent from this view.



And next I drew the red model.



Another project was based around a module which had to be replicated.



Here is a view of two sculptures, mine is on the top left and Catherine's is on the bottom right. Catherine's was really neat, but she hated it. As I recall, she stomped on her project as soon as she brought it home! Artists!

Projects for Cat

I'm taking another trip down Memory Lane and am bringing my readers along for the ride. Before I lose my hard drive again, I decided to post some of my work from my school days. I got into Interior Design because of two things: it is art and it is a copyable art, as in blue prints which aren't blue anymore, but that's immaterial. These projects were created while studying under Cat Wallack, one of my all-time favorite professors.

In order to acquaint us with some basic terms in our first year, we had to draw and label a bell pepper, above.

The first spatial design involved the mixed use (commercial and residential) building below.






While the pictures above were hand-drawn, by our fourth semester we were designing in CAD, computer-aided design. Below is a longitudinal section of Beryl's house. Who's Beryl? Cat, our professor, made up a bio for her. She was a single woman who, in my case, had a collection of Timo Sarpaneva's work. I pegged Beryl as a Birkenstock wearer which seemed to amuse Cat.



Of all of the work I produced in Cat's classes, and I tried to take her as often as I could, I think she was most impressed with my wall section. It must be a good wall section because I still refer back to my portfolio to look at it to see just what my walls should look like.




Once we had an assignment where we had to come up with three different concepts for an Edward Jones office within one week. In case you've never visited one, they're often found in strip malls and have that cookie-cutter feel to them. Rendering in CAD takes a while, so I decided to set the perspective in CAD and render the views and plans by hand.






By our third year, we had a large museum project. This one is rendered in CAD. It turned out to be a little too green for my liking, but it was OK. There's a sculpture visible in all three views--it's actually a real sculpture involving suitcases--that I rendered in CAD, too. That sculpture was pretty labor-intensive, as I recall.



In school we're forever being reminded to put people in our drawings for scale. Actually, I found a seated receptionist that I added with Photoshop before I put the above photo in my portfolio.



The shots above and below were taken from the museum's dining room.



One of my favorite projects while in school was my honors thesis that I wrote under the direction of Cat Wallack. It involved train stations and how the architecture of train stations developed over time and how their unique architectural features help people navigate through them (a very brief and not very eloquent summary of my thesis). Anyway, my proposal was accepted by the Environmental Design Research Association for its poster competition in Veracruz, Mexico. Believe it or not, my 98-page thesis was reduced to the 4' x 5' poster below!



So now if I lose my memory (computer or otherwise) at least there is some record of my school projects.

Thanks, Cat, for your help over the years!

Family Night

This was our first fully attended "family night." Family night is a tradition that was started by Rhonda and Chuck Adams whereby all family members in town, including significant friends, get together for dinner at Mexico Viejo. And so it was with us tonight. We kind of started our own tradition last Sunday following Mass at St. Thomas. Last Sunday, Catherine, Billy, and Sarah joined us for dinner at Tim's Pizza. This week we headed to Mexico Viejo and were joined by Peter, Catherine's boyfriend. He's been spending nearly every waking hour studying for the DAT exam (the dental school admission exam).

It was nice to have everybody together for Mass. We all squeezed into the last pew. For Sarah, Billy, and me, it was our second service of the day. You see, Billy and I joined Sarah at UBC (University Baptist Church) for her service. I felt right at home there, especially when the congregation sang "Holy, Holy, Holy." Apparently, it's not uncommon to be a double-dipper at church these days. I also ran into my SSA boss's son at both services; he's also a former student of Bill's.

The school bus

I've been riding a UA bus from my parking spot on Lafayette to school on rainy mornings which reminds me a little of riding the buses in Roma, except that these buses are free and I can always find a seat.

Have Gun - Will Travel

When I was a little girl, many, many years ago, there was a TV show called Have Gun - Will Travel. Now I never was nor am I now a fan of westerns, not even Spaghetti westerns, and we all know how much I love things Italian, but I do have to draw the line somewhere. So it's odd that the title of that TV show should come to mind as I considered what to name this blog. Furthermore, such a blog title is really politically incorrect in this post 9-11 world we live in. For the record, I don't own a gun, have no intention of ever doing so, and haven't even touched one. But I ramble on...

Travel is on my mind. Next week our family will fly to New Jersey for our niece's wedding. We decided that we would not check any luggage, but a trip to the attic revealed that we did not own enough 20" suitcases for the four of us.

The last time I toted a 20"-er through the airport was in London. Bill and I were flying home from Cambridge but were on different flights. It had only been six months since I had broken my wrists, and while I had given Bill explicit instructions to bring down the "good" suitcase from the attic, I ended up with the one with the broken trolley handle. Unable to carry the suitcase, I took the identifying ribbon and turned it into a make-shift handle. It really didn't work. I ended up with tracks of bruises on the backs of both legs!

When we first moved to Fayetteville, now 30 years ago, there was a punch bowl that we both really wanted--OK, I probably wanted it more than Bill--but it was too expensive at the time so we didn't buy it. We had some fiscal restraint at the time, motivated, no doubt, by the fact that I had missed a transfer to the Social Security office by three weeks and was unemployed. Because of our economic circumstances at the time we did not buy the punch bowl. In the following years whenever we were tempted to make a purchase that stretched our purse strings, we'd simply say punch bowl, Quinnese for saying "we can't afford it, but we want it." To this day, we still regret not having purchased that punch bowl.

Now Bill and I started our quest for carry-on luggage at Tuesday Morning. There we found some lovely suitcases; the Tourbach Collection by Victorinox, makers of the Swiss Army knife was at the top of the list. Naturally, we fell in love with these suitcases. I mean, really, short of buying some Louis Vuitton we could not have found luggage more expensive. But this was Tuesday Morning and while the price was considerably reduced, the luggage was still pricey.

Punch bowl.

The good little angel (Conscience) was speaking in our ears at the time and we walked out of the store without making a purchase. We did some comparison shopping at TJ Maxx but also left that store empty-handed.

Punch bowl.

So I looked online. The markdown at Tuesday Morning was better than the markdown on the internet.

Our 32nd anniversary is Thursday.

Punch bowl.

OK, this opportunity might never come our way again, and we do need some suitcases. Besides, we plan to travel to Europe again and there's nothing like carrying expensive luggage when you're flying Ryanair for 20p one way, right?

Punch bowl.

Well, I guess you can see where this story is going. I went back to Tuesday Morning on Saturday. I found a black one right away, but it was the only 20"-er I saw, so I asked a salesperson if he had another. There was a lovely red one one the top shelf. His and hers; Bill's is black, mine is red.



This is the inside of my suitcase.



The large black object fastened to the lid of the suitcase (above) opens into a wardrobe carrier (below).



In addition, our suitcases come with their own identification numbers. If our suitcases are ever lost, we can be reunited with them. Now that's pretty tony, if you ask me.

Each of our suitcases comes with a lock, too. Mine is silver, Bill's is black. Apparently, the TSA folks can use a key to open it, if we wanted to lock it, that is. The locks can be set but are only three digits long. I have codes for two digits and for four but not for three. Hmmm...I'll have to give this some thought.

In the meantime, I can't wait to use my new suitcase.

I think this blog should be titled Have Suitcase - Will Travel.

Happy Anniversary, Bill!
Love, Tricia

Boules, bocce & croquet

We had a very busy social schedule last weekend, one full of boules, bocce, and croquet.

The first event was Friday evening at the Billingsleys. This was Roberta's second "White Party." Everyone had to dress in white and then we had to pretend we were very rich. I was Bunny and Bill was Lance. Can't you just see us in Newport, Rhode Island?



Here's a group shot: Casey Jones (the City Prosecutor) and his wife, Sarah (one of Bill's former students), Bill, me, Chuck Adams and Rhonda, Roberta, and Rob (the psychiatrist).



We're either playing bocce or boules. But these balls are smaller than our bocce balls (read on) and are metal, so I really think we were playing boules. Boules is a French lawn bowling game.



We dined al fresco. Salut!



At this point in the evening I became interested in taking artsy shots with my camera.



This is a view looking up at the wisteria and white lights that hang on the pergola. I thought the wisteria pods looked cool in the glow of the lights.



Then I took a picture of Zelda, the Billingsley's psychotic old cat. Take a look at the window pane to the right of Zelda. Those are her eyes reflected in the glass. I think she's an evil cat. She even hisses.



The sub-theme of reflections continued. This is my engagement ring under the little lights that hang from the pergola. This photo is not enhanced.



Well, that was Friday night.

On Saturday night, Bill and I went to Melissa and Curt Rom's house. Curt was the first honors professor I ever took at the UA. We also saw him in Italy last fall. Melissa was an English major, although never one of Bill's students. She now works in the UA athletic department.

Here Curt is throwing a bocce ball. Their grass was so lush and thick that we had difficulty finding the pallino.



I love this patio furniture.



Here is the food that Curt and Melissa prepared for us. Yumm...



Here I am again taking photos of wine and glasses and reflections. Look at the bowl of the spoon--the wine is reflected in it.



OK, now it's Sunday afternoon. The croquet party at Jo's house was another white party, but we didn't get the memo. There is Dick looking up at us.



Here is Robbie hitting the croquet ball.



I hold a mallet this way.



Bill holds it the other way. Actually, either method is correct.



We still had our bocce set in the car from dinner at the Rom's, so we got it out and played some bocce. It's not a bocce game unless the closest ball to the pallino is contested.



Roberta and I beat the guys in this throw.

It was simply a wonderful weekend full of good friends, fine food, and fun sport.