wilted flaneuse

Ever on the lookout for cheap/free activities, I saw that there was a Blues Fest yesterday. But when I stepped off the Metro and it was 103, I scrapped that plan. 

The first building that was open was the Botannical Garden. As it's all glass and tropical, it was a very short visit. A much better refuge come February. But I did see some very cool puffy thorn flowers~and no, I didn't find a plaque saying what they were.

I find it fascinating that I can be in the middle of a major city and step into alcoves where it's so silent you can hear the crickets playing and bees buzzing.

I ate a quick food truck lunch and ducked into the National Art Gallery~any one who visits me is going to get to experience this very cool tunnel that connects the East and West Galleries.

The largest Calder mobile I've seen. 

Just some pretty Kandinsky swirls. 

And, of course, I went up to visit the rooftop rooster and found this fun new numbers exhibit. 

For my Allie-gator niece.

For my Joshie/Woshie nephew. (He's a little horrified and a little thrilled that that's what I called him as a baby. And no, I will never call him that in public.)

Cooked coq. Chatted briefly with the poor security guard who had rooftop duty today.

Pretty excited that I didn't drop my phone down all six flights of stairs.

Someone painted my brain waves! 

Just love the shading on this. 

These are painting of actual people's skin tones. Synecdoche takes up an entire wall.

Remember the dyed ice cube paintings? This is the stack where those papers came from. When it's not so hot and I won't ruin them by sweating on them, I will grab a stack for a classroom project of some kind. 

What most of us would call our living room floor~aftermath of moving, perhaps~is an installation of deliberately placed....mess. One appealing thing about visiting all these art galleries is that it certainly pushes one's brain in different directions.

A brief pop-in to my favorite niche in the gardens.

Butterflies, bees, crickets, cicadas~an entire insect symphony going on today.

Love the contrasting colours here.

The path of tropical plants is going nuts in this weather~wish this page came with scent, because it is...shall I say, heady?

Squished my way back to the Metro~am postponing anymore wandertags until the humidity breaks. When your clothes are drenched, it's hard to walk~not to mention the breathing! 

New sesh of ESl kicks off today~my regular classes, plus a Saturday class of regular ESL and another for citizenship. Am very excited by that curriculum of history/geography/maps, etc. While I do not care for the weather back here, it is such a rich region for American history.

And it will be fun to welcome back all my Saudi students who went home for the summer. I am prepared for endless cups of coffee and many packages of dates. (No, sigh, not those kinds!)