On The Edge

This isn't the post that I planned on launching today, but in light of the devastating result of  the tornado in
Oklahoma, I veered away from some of what I was going to say.

 No words can convey the sadness that our family feels for the victims of such a tragic event.

 For the the last three days, Kansas City has been under tornado watches, tornado warnings, and severe thunderstorm warnings.  This usually, doesn't have me too overly concerned.  I have, after all, lived most of my life in or near Tornado Alley. As with most Midwesterners and Southerners that reside in this swathe known as Tornado Alley, we have all had some close up and personal interaction with really bad storms.  Usually, they sound far worse on the news than they are in reality. However, there are those occasional  storms that do live up to their warnings.   A number of years ago, for example, I got a phone call from my brother to say that a neighbor had called him to say they found our father standing on the concrete steps leading to his house in shock.  The house was gone...just my dad and the steps remained.

So this past week, we had been watching the maps of the impending storms that were going to cover Oklahoma and Kansas.  Saturday afternoon, the sky darkened and all regular programming was interspersed
with weather reports. Weather is always, a big portion of our news programming here but on days when there is a threat of something....heat, drought, wind, rain, snow...or any combination of those, the programming turns to non-stop weather.    During the Spring here it is not uncommon to have  the background noise of our weather radios.  Many of us now have Weather Shield apps on our phones to alert us to updates on impending weather reports.

Which brings me to the original thought I had for a post today.

Thought Number One:  If I had my own weather station, what would the programming look like for Kansas City over the last 6 months.


Last year we were in the EXTREME drought.

Then...after Spring was supposed to have arrived

THEN...it started raining....and raining...and raining

And then the last three days of "promises" of hail and tornadoes.

Thought Number Two: I Am Worried for the Bird

Back to Saturday night...we had turned on the weather radio to listen for updates  as it appeared on Doppler that the eye of the storm would hit Kansas City and we were concerned about having to put on yet another roof...or worse.

AND we were worried about the bird...


Outside of my office window on the upper floor of our house, there is a bird, ....a bird on nest.....and in that nest there are two little eggs.... waiting to be hatched.  That poor bird didn't make the greatest choice to place her nest but there she is in all kinds of horrible windy, rainy weather.  She is tenacious though.  Even as the storm rolled through and took part of her nest down into the gutter, she remained.

(Note: the pictures are a big grainy as the only way to zoom in on mommy bird is to "shoot" through the screen.)

Our family is sending thoughts and prayers to any of the victims of  the recent storms.  We hold you and your family in our hearts. 






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News Around Town

I have a lot of pictures today!!


It's the combination of snow and ice that makes things more difficult.

 

picture is courtesy of KansasCity.com
When the city advisories said "STAY OFF THE ROADS", I don't think they meant driving off of them.

This week, here at TAOBC, I am aiming for a few  heart warming stories resulting from events around Kansas City. Anything that has the word "warm" connected to it, got moved to the front of the line.  So for today, I am just talking about some nice things that have happened in my city this past week.  Hopefully, there are nice things happening where you live as well.

 Last week, I wrote about the first wave of the snowstorm that blew through here on Thursday. With that storm most of the KC got between 10-16 inches of snow.  Comparatively speaking that amount  of snow isn't all that bad.  I guess, you might disagree if you live in Phoenix or Orlando. Here in Kansas City that amount isn't unheard of but is a bit unusual.  The upside to the snow...is that it is a  lot of fun for the kids (the word "kid" here isn't defined by age)  that came out in droves to play.  I was going to post a picture of all the people on one of the local sledding hills. but after arriving, I couldn't find a parking spot. The hill was covered with all manner of people with sleds, toboggans, even sheets of plastic to slide around on this wintery slide. SPOILER ALERT!!! Just so you get to see some sledding pictures, I have added some to the bottom of the post.

ANYWHO...  as I was saying.........That was last Thursday......and the snow wasn't done with us.  After a couple of days of milder weather, round two came through.  Tuesday of this week a second snow storm  moved into the area clogging up the already snow packed roads.  That brings me to a story that is a story about people being generous and kind.  Really?? LOOK AT ME WRITING A FRIDAY NEWS STORY THAT IS ABOUT NICE PEOPLE. 

Miracle of 74th Street

Emergency crews were called to a south side Kansas City neighborhood on Tuesday where  a resident had collapsed  of an apparent heart attack while trying to shovel out the snow from his drive.  Unfortunately, when the ambulance tried to enter the unplowed street, it became stuck.

Deck the Malls

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Here in Kansas City, the holiday season kicks off on Thanksgiving evening with the lighting ceremony at Country Club Plaza.

There is just something magical about Christmas lights.

Thought Number One:
Over the past few years, it seems that a new holiday topic is making the headlines. 

The avalanche of sales and deals, 
the "never-been-cheaper",  the "must-haves",  and steals. 
Yikes....now thousands of lights are losing their luster, 
as our attention is fixated on which stores have "Door Busters". 

I, personally, didn't go shopping on Black Friday this year.  I'm becoming more and more annoyed by the sport of "extreme shopping.  Is is just me or are others thinking this craziness is...well...crazy?

Polls, Studies and Other Fairy Tales

Thought Number One .. Do these Polls Have It Right Or Wrong?

Do you happen to live in St. Louis, Missouri? If you do, you might have placed NUMBER ONE on a recent poll by Men's Health magazine. Of course, it is possible that you wouldn't want to be #1 as this particular list. That would mean you live in the city that has the worst drivers in America.

 Perhaps, you think that Men's Health got it wrong and the worst drivers are where you live.  OK, you still have a fighting chance at the title.   According to Travel + Leisure magazine, that honor goes to Miami, Florida.   Still not where you live???   No worries... you  have yet another shot at the prize (?)....You could have been the winner by living in Washington DC if you listen to Allstate Insurance's Best Driver Report (or worst depending on which end of the list you are on).

So what is the take away from all of this?????


YOU CAN'T TRUST A POLL, STUDY OR SURVEY...

Or maybe... another take-away is that there are a lot of really crappy drivers in  a lot of cities and no one can figure out who is the worst of the worst.

Thought Number Two:  A Lot of Disparity In the Numbers

To examine the differences between the polls dealing with America's worst drivers, I looked to see how my city's ranking fared.

The Allstate's Best Driver Report has Kansas City, Kansas listed as 37th best in a field on 100 for being safe drivers and Kansas City, Missouri as being the 22nd on the list.  So according to Allstate, we're bad drivers but clearly not the worst.

Then we get (nearly) vindicated by  Travel + Leisure.  They have Kansas City ranked as the second SAFEST city in America with only Portland, Oregon beating us out.  Yay us!!!

But wait...not so fast in taking our bows.... Men's Health has us as number 95th out of 100 on the WORST list.  There seems to be 5 other cities that have drivers that are worse than Kansas Citians. 

In all fairness to the various poll takers, perhaps the reason we are both 2nd from the top of the best drivers and fifth from the bottom of the worst drivers is that people are horribly confused about which state's DMV to check with.  There is an never-ending confusion on where we are and what state we are in.

First of all to locate us....we are in the middle...nearly the exact middle of  the United States. 

I did find it interesting as I looked at the cities listed on these various polls, most cities had a state listed behind it.  For example on all the lists Dallas, was listed as Dallas, Texas.  (BTW...for those of you that live in Dallas, your city did very well and ranked high for being the worst drivers in America.  You were #2 on the Men's Health Poll.  So close...but not quite the winner.  Better luck next year.) But conspicuously, there was not a state listed behind Kansas City.  I think given the fact that people were probably arguing back and forth..."it's Missouri....no it's Kansas" they opted not to take a chance and get it wrong.


I have to give praise where it's due though.  Allstate not only figured out that KC has a presence in two states but even ranked both sides of the city as noted above.  (Missouri 22 and Kansas 37.....as this was listing cities with safe drivers.....number one being the safest and 100 being Washington DC)

Maybe in the future I will confine my bad driving to the Missouri side of town, so I can try to help even up the score.

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Weekend on the Plaza

Two Thoughts for Tuesday

Thought #1 Staycation in Kansas City

I know I am starting to sound like a travel blog with all my posts about Kansas City.  This is, however, where I currently reside after moving hither and yon for the last forty years.   Over the long Labor Day weekend we stayed in town and had a KC vacation. 

Kansas City is known for a lot of different things.  Usually out-of-towners bring up the barbecue (KC style not to be confused with Texas style).  There is a history of jazz and blues which is still visible in the area of town around 18th and Vine.   While New Orleans is considered the birthplace of jazz, it is said that it grew up in KC when in 1929 Count Basie signed on with Benie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra. 

As one of the inhabitants of KC, I will tell you one of the prettiest areas of town is the area around the Country Club Plaza.  This area was the first shopping center that was created to allow for people to come by automobile.  JC Nichols started acquiring the land for the Plaza in 1907.  The construction started in 1922 patterned after the architechture of Seville, Spain.  The 55 acre Plaza houses retail stores, offices, apartments, condos, churches, entertainment venues and upper scale houses.

We decided to stay in town over the Labor Day weekend.  As you know we went to the KC Zoo on Thursday and on Friday checked into the Raphael Hotel on the Country Club Plaza.  (Note:  Grandboys weren't invited on this part of the vacation)

Going in...later there was a string quartet set up here playing
music. 

The Raphael is a historic boutique hotel that overlooks Brush Creek. It was built in 1927 as apartments before becoming a hotel in 1975.

The Lobby

There were flowers waiting for us in our suite.  Very nice!!!



Our room overlooked the Plaza



Walking out of the hotel over to the shops/restaurants



I just thought she was cute.



The JC Nichols Fountain

Leaving the fountain, heading for the restaurant

Do you notice that I am usually lollygagging behind Mr. Longlegs



McCormick and Schmicks restaurant



This is the way up to the restaurant

Heading back to the hotel

Thought #2  Who said it wouldn't last?

Forty years ago on September 4th 1971, two teenagers decided to get married.  Not spur of the moment or anything as they got engaged a  year and a half before that.   Still it took parents to sign papers as teens need permission to get married if you were under the age of twenty-one.

Yes, husband and I got engaged while he was in the Army and I was still in high school. A year and half later we got married.  Two and a half years after that we could legally drink. 

Happy 40th Anniversary to US!!!

The Good for the Day....Proved all the nay sayers wrong.  We are still going strong.

The Bad for the Day...Husband's mom signed for us to get married but is no longer around to appreciate that we are still together.

The Weird for the Day....After we were married a couple of years and I was approaching 21...it was not so very far off.... but not there yet.  We got kicked out of a bar.  I wasn't even drinking as we were expecting our first baby, but still I got carded and ousted.  

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Monet, Monet, Monet

I am not known for my vast knowledge of art.  Surely, you have picked up on the fact that there are a number of things that I am not a connoisseur of.   My inspiration to go to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art today was not so much that I have been waiting my whole life for three panels of Monet's Water Lilies to be displayed together but the fact they are being displayed and I don't like to miss out of anything that is unusual or rare. 

This is the last weekend of the exhibition. 

I will tell you a little bit more about the Water Lilies in a bit.

So off to the museum, we go....

One of my favorite things about the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is the

Shuttlecocks out on the lawn.

There are three of them but it is very difficult to get all 3
in one shot.

Rodin's "The Thinker" sits thinking outside of the main entrance



We, hightail it directly to the Monet exhibit as it is one of the few exhibits that require tickets.

Brought to New York in the 1950's, Claude Monet's Water Lilies triptych of Aga­panthus was separated and the individual panels were sold to the St. Louis Art Museum, the Nelson Atkins Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.  The last time these panels were shown together was in 1979. 



Each panel measures 6 foot by 14 foot.  It is believed that Monet started working on this these paintings in 1915 and continuously kept reworking on them until his death in 1926.  No one knows for sure if he considered them finished.  Conservators know that he obsessively worked and reworked the painting.  Part of the exhibit details the x-rays that reveal layers of older paint that was painted over.



Monet walking in his garden



No one knows how many paintings Monet actually painted.  There are over 2000 that are known about, although it is suspected there were many others.  He constantly was reworking his art, throwing many away because he wasn't satisfied with them.  There are over 250 different paintings that have water lilies as the theme.

I was surprised to see how different the real paintings look in person than they do in photographs.

After we left the Water Lilies exhibit we walked through some of the other areas of the museum.  There are several other paintings on display of Monet's. One of my favorites that also resides at the Nelson Atkins is Boulevard des Capucines.

Boulevard des Capucines

After we wandered around through the galleries of the European art and the American Art we made our way to the Egyptian Gallery.

Within the Egyptian gallery there is the complete funeral assemblage from the tomb of Meretites. Meretites was a noblewoman from 2300 years ago.  Yeah, 23 HUNDRED.  Around 350 B.C.

Visitors get  to view a spectacular inner coffin and outer coffin from middle Egypt, both decorated with hieroglyphics and images of gods and goddesses. The collection includes a gilded mask and protective body plates, plus intricately carved blue and green figurines called ushabti.  These small figurines were buried with the deceased and supposedly came to life in the afterlife do their bidding.  Little workers for eternity...

These little guys come to life and become workers.
I want to be one of those that GET workers not BE workers.



After looking around for awhile, we decided to rest, read some of the brochures and get some dessert in the Rozelle Court Restaurant.

Before leaving we took a walk around the grounds to look at the sculpture garden. 

One of the newest sculptures is Ferment by Roxy Paine. His sculptures are called dendroids.

That is one big stainless steel tree...oops dendroid



Pretty complex description of a 56 ft. stainless steel tree



The Good for the Day... Seeing the art that people through time have created out of their creative imaginations.  Some of this art dates back to BC.  Isn't that amazing?

The Bad for the day... Some of it I just don't understand.

The Weird for the Day...Robert Arneson is an artist that is known for his more humorous art pieces.  In the sculpture "Pablo Ruiz with an Itch" he is taking Pablo Picasso's self portrait as his inspiration and having some

fun with it.

Picasso's self portrait








Pablo Ruiz with an itch.  You look familiar.



Now That Is Just Playing Dirty

April 4, 2011

Mother Nature:

GAME ON, Mother!

Couldn't take a little criticism pertaining to your "less than appropriate" dump of snow on my budded and flowered flora, huh? 

Seemingly, you and I are just not meant to be friendly this year.  My first note to you was friendly enough, I thought. I simply asked you to encourage Spring to be a little SPRING-like.

I will admit that my second letter was a tad firmer but I was hopeful that the pitiful picture of my deflowered Magnolia would elicit a little kindness from you.  But NO you chose retaliation, instead.  Really were the dropping temperatures (90 degrees  down to 43.... really??) gusting wind of 50 MPH, and the real nastiness on your part: the hail, necessary?   Did you really feel the need to bring Kansas City to it's knees? If that was your intent, WELL PLAYED, Mother.







OK, where do we go from here?  Now that you have done further damage to my plants and trees, are there any other mean spirited things up your sleeves?  What do you want from me?  I am totally prepared to grovel, if that would  make you happy.  At this point I am keeping a close eye on the sky. 

As you are aware you have already put me through a couple of tornadoes and yet I continue to try to make friends with you.  What do you want from me????

I am trying my best to be conciliatory and appease you but I am at a loss what exactly do you want?

Still trying to be pals,

Cheryl P.

PS The roof damage is on you!!!

The Good for the Day......No broken windows

The Bad for the Day....I want to get the garden started (sing to Pink's song)

The Weird for the Day....The Kansas City Chamber of Commerce says that one of the most asked questions they get from people that are not familiar with Kansas is, " How much like the movie the Wizard of OZ is Kansas?  The Chamber people aren't joking.  As I have said in the past and will say again, Idiocy is a growth industry.  (I see a lot of people getting rich in that line of work)