trying something new at argus gallery

i have been trying to update the look of my photography site, argusgallery.com, and i would love some feedback. i designed the site five years ago, and it was great for five years ago, but now i feel like i should clean it up a little. anyway, if you get a chance, check out this link:

possible new venice 1999

and the old site for the same exhibition:

old venice 1999

what do you think--old or new?

my domestic disconnect

if i had married to be a classic doctor's wife, i would be alright. if i could be contented to shop for a living and spend guiltlessly on myself and my kids, i would be fine. if i could just go get a fucking mani/pedi/waxing/massage every week things would be great. but i'm not that person. i actually want a partner i can grow old with.

maybe i should get a dog.

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY MOST WONDERFUL BOY!

dazed birthday boy with friend eagerly eyeballing his chocolate chip pie

today is gus' 8th birthday! we have had an extraordinarily noisy and busy weekend to celebrate it. and the fun isn't even over yet--i'm bringing 2 dozen triple-chocolate brownies to gus' class tomorrow (in an act of sheer passive-aggression against his school). actually, i'm just mean that way--i really do love his school.

ANYWAY, on a side note, i no longer fear hell because i've experienced an 8-year old's sleepover party. we had NINE very active, very noisy, occasionally destructive friends spend the night on friday. my ears are still ringing. the noise level was impressive--and much of it came from gus. we only had one meltdown (by a kid, not by us), one or two mild incidents of physicality, and one broken window. no one threw up, which was a total bonus, and no one wanted to go home. i think the kids had fun overall--the only problems arose when it was getting late (like 11:00) and some of the kids were getting really tired while others were really wound up. we made them all sleep in the playroom together (except the one who had the meltdown--he got to sleep in gus' bed) and as a result they didn't get to sleep until close to 2:00 a.m. it made for a fairly low-key morning, though. of course the main reason for sleeping in the playroom is because we can close the door and have them sealed off from the rest of the house.

sadly, it didn't dampen gus' enthusiasm to do this again next year.

happy birthday to gus!

the night of madness...

...and the morning after (that playroom is a godsend)

the el vado motel is saved (for good!)

this sentence alone bears offsetting and italics:

the city of albuquerque did the right thing.

period. and i have to say, i am surprised. i don't have a ton of faith in government acting in the best interest of the population, especially in cases like this where there is a historic issue at stake (and a lot of money to be made from taxes on expensive condos), but this time they absolutely came through for the city. after years of negotiations, the city of albuquerque finally condemned the el vado motel and seized it. prior to this the city had made the owner a perfectly legitimate and reasonable offer for the property, which he not only refused but added that he would never sell it to the city on principal. former owner ("developer" richard gonzales) is no doubt stewing over this latest chapter in the el vado saga. he will, however, be compensated appropriately in the end--a judge is to determine actual value of the site soon in order to finalize this deal.

i, and many others, have been fighting via email, city council meetings, and however else we could be heard to have this structure saved from demolition. i wrote about the plight of the el vado here; ron at route66.com wrote about the most recent developments here. yay for preservation!

happy birthday mom!

my mom's birthday was yesterday and i thought i would help her celebrate by posting an online exhibition of my favorite artist's work. happy (now belated) birthday!

trying to stay positive in a medical marriage...

...without devolving into this.

(yes, i'm aware that these are two males; no, i don't have a penis.)

dr. n's shed

the owl can't believe what he is seeing

dr. n's shed is no more. amazingly, it wasn't destroyed (as rich and i thought it likely would be) but rather was moved by some seriously creative and adept electricians. they were armed with two house jacks (although one didn't work), a 24 by 8 foot mobile home base that had been semi-converted to a trailer, a toyota land cruiser that was about as old as i am, a winch on said cruiser (of the same vintage as the truck itself), lots of boards of wood and a couple of long steel pipes. there were three guys--J.W., who is pushing retirement age and weighs almost nothing, jeff who is my age and also weighs almost nothing, and rob who weighs a bit more but who has MS and is a physician of oriental medicine in addition to his electrician skills. it was a motley crew with a remarkably odd assortment of implements.

so, these three necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention masters decided they were going to put our one ton shed up on this homemade trailer. several problems presented themselves: first, we couldn't get a crane in the backyard because the power lines were too low. and we couldn't get a crane in the front because the driveway was too narrow for the stabilizing arms. our neighbors, who have both a very wide driveway and a sand backyard said absolutely not when asked if we could put it there, so that was out. and, the shed was built in situ so it couldn't be disassembled without turning it into a pile of rubbish. so it had to be lifted but it had to be lifted another way--house jacks.

second, we couldn't get the trailer that the shed was to go on actually in the backyard because J.W. drives a converted 1970 tom's peanut truck/snack wagon for his transportation and the length of it combined with the length of the trailer meant that he would most certainly end up in the ditch that runs behind our house. so he cut the fence down and spent about an hour slowly angling it into place. although then we had no fence. and, after the trailer was in place he realized it was about 6 feet too far over from where it needed to be to get the shed on it.

thus problem #3--how to move the shed? solution--they jacked up one short side of the one ton shed (i might be exaggerating the weight, but that sucker was heavy and solid!) as far as they could then pushed it over--BAM!--so it fell on a slight diagonal from its original position. then they went to the other short side and did it again. they walked the shed the whole distance by doing this over and over, one side then the other, about 5 or 6 feet. and that thing totally held together! there was one slight crack between two adjoining pieces of wood, but it held. impressive.

after they got the shed moved to position they jacked it up one last time, as far as they could, backed the trailer up as far as it could go and realized there was about a 6 inch gap because of the trailer bumper. couldn't get the bumper off, so they got behind the shed and these guys PUSHED as hard as they could. it cleared the gap and caught on the trailer. amazingly, the trailer didn't flip over (it was being weighed down by the toyota).

now, how to get it on the trailer? they wrapped the shed with an extra-long piece of nylon mesh rope, which promptly snapped the first time they tried to winch the shed and thankfully didn't hurt anyone. so, they tied random bits of rope and what was left of the mesh together and tried to winch again. ultimately, it all worked.

gus takes a break from foremanning

when we first moved into the house, we had a lot of electrical work done and J.W. (who did all the work) told me that if we ever wanted to get rid of the shed he wanted it for his property in the mountains. he is a committed activist and has been pushing for light rail in albuquerque for years; he will certainly be in this shed/cabin writing his rails manifesto for years to come. rich and i have wanted a basketball court back there where the shed was, and the neighbors (the ones who wouldn't let us use their yard...) were complaining that squirrels were living under it and infesting their ductwork, so we figured it was time to let it go. we are getting one half that size and placing it in a totally different place--dr. n (the previous owner) liked to keep lots of handy things in the shed, but we are not so resourceful. thus dr. n's shed is no more. (and, FYI, there wasn't a single squirrel or squirrel dropping or anything anywhere--perhaps they just like my neighbor's ductwork?) look for pictures of the basketball court to come!

i'm putting two movies up of some of the action--enjoy!

is he insensitive or one burger short of a happy meal?

pop quiz: your husband accepts a request from a neighbor (one you are not particularly close to and have multiple requests of this sort from) to babysit their son from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for the following day (today) without asking you. and then he forgets to tell you. and then for said day (again, today) he happens to be on call and off checking on inpatients and emergency clinic visits for most of the day so you are on your own. and you've been stuck in the house for almost a month with your two sick kids and haven't even gone to the grocery store for forever. and you're more than a little pissed.

so what is the verdict--insensitive or lacking the burger? or both (that is a possibility...)?

i feel like i need to make a public proclamation that i am not the neighborhood babysitter! this particular family is a two-physician family with crazy work schedules and i swear i think they think (and rich thinks, apparently) that i have nothing else to do with my time so why not take care of their kid. and the kid is fine--he's not terribly intrusive or anything like that. but shit, am i not even worthy of being consulted anymore? is it because i've gained weight since we got married or stopped working and am not bringing home a paycheck or what? rich worked from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on friday, 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. yesterday and is at it again today. he is not terribly involved in our life here at the moment and i'm so glad he has decided to determine my time for me. in any event, you'd think two physicians could get it together enough to hire a full-time nanny.

MWF seeking relief from the pesthouse

the pesthouse is back. gus is sick, again, with an ear infection (i think). he's in a ton of pain but really no fever to speak of, so he's going back to the doctor tomorrow. and, he's got that wicked cough again. sophie, who i thought was getting better (and who i just started taking out in public again) seems to be having a recurrence of her shingles. is that even possible? she is breaking out again along the same dermatomes. and she has a fever. and she is grumpy and lethargic. she is also developing a new type of rash, also kind of linear, on her other leg that doesn't look like shingles--they actually look more like traditional chicken pox.

what the hell is going on?

when we go to the pediatrician's office they are going to put us in the plague room because of sophie's rash and fever, so if they weren't sick going into the building they most certainly will be coming out. i really thought we were past all this--gus had a friend over to play this afternoon; sophie and i went to the zoo this morning with a friend of hers (hannah) and a friend of mine (louise). all this really kicked in tonight. i can't even fathom the idea of being inside again for a couple of weeks--i might actually crack. i think rich would have done very well to retain his pediatric training...

dogpile and clinging monkey

dogpile!

gus is taking this awesome class where he combines elements of stop-motion photography with video editing and he has come up with some wonderful stuff. he has made two projects so far--dogpile and clinging monkey. gus shot the images (his friend conner is holding the props), loaded them onto a computer, edited the shots, added the sound and made these shorts. the fact that he actually manages to tell a story is remarkable--i seriously doubt i could have put together something like these when i was 7.

way to go spielbergus! (coppolaugustus?)


clinging monkey!

p.s. i finally fixed the video on sophie's touch, so if you are interested give it a look...

what's that new button?

see that all blinged-out "feelin' chatty? give us a holler!" addition? (it's under the "old posts" section on the right hand side.) if you so desire, you may actually call the allen family bermuda triangle directly now--and it is absolutely free. you press the button, input your name and phone number into a miniscule area, then push the sort-of button on the bottom right. the service will ring you back at the number you put in and will take you to a voicemail where you can leave us a message. or an insult. or whatever. if i get brave in the future, i'll have it go directly to my cell phone. try it out!

happy birthday lindsay!

i hope you have a wonderful 30th birthday! we love you!

beautiful migrating sandhill cranes

right now our village is home to hundreds of sandhill cranes. they are everywhere, but they particularly like this one vacant lot. i think there were over 200 of them gathered at this site, happily poking away for subterranean delicacies this weekend. they make a really interesting sound--kind of like the sound effect for the velociraptors in jurassic park. very relaxing and pretty to see.

(p.s. thank you, dawn, for reading my rants!)

gus and sophie pix

the princess demands a chocolate milk

everything i wanted to write about is coming out super-cynical tonight, so i'm switching to the cheap emotional ploy (god, that's cynical too!): pictures of the kiddos. and, yes i know, they still don't look like me...

princesshood came early, and naturally, for sophie

sophie explores her scandinavian roots in this stunning ensemble

sophie's red princess outfit

this actually counts as a family portrait, almost (we need gus)

"i bet i could cram this up dad's nose before he wakes up..."

sweet boy gus

this also counts as a family portrait, almost (we need sophie--but she did leave us her duck)

gus and sophie study the heriz carpet

they are conspiring against me somehow.

more art-o-mat-y goodness

the kind folks at art-o-mat have generously asked me to do another set for them! this time around, i am just doing a single image in a limited edition:



it is from the "dr. oetting's passionflower" series, of which there has been a grand total of one ever printed (and it was a different image). of course, dr. oetting has that one. i am doing 50 of these for this first set with a total count of 100 (possibly 150--i can't decide) so it will be 1/100, 2/100, 3/100, etc. i loved doing the grid with the puzzle, but art-o-mat was always on the fence about it and i'm fine with that. i think they're happier with the limited edition idea.

so far as i can tell, my gridded puzzle got sent out all over the US: rayko (san francisco), amarillo museum of art, chambers hotel (minneapolis), pop deluxe (madison, WI), and to the brett weston archive in oklahoma city. one was sold in a very cool set called art-o-carton (art-o-mat artworks are sold in rehabbed cigarette machines, hence the mail order art-o-carton).

i am still so thrilled to be a part of this!

happy valentine's day!

the buehrle collection robbery

there was a major art robbery in zurich over the weekend:

paul cezanne, "the boy in the red vest," 1894

edgar degas, "count lepic and his daughters," 1871

claude monet, "poppies near vertheuil," 1880

vincent van gogh, "blossoming chestnut branches," 1890

these four paintings were stolen from the buehrle foundation on sunday. hopefully the police will be able to figure out who did this quickly and get them back, but there is almost no way to guess the motivation behind such a robbery. they can't be sold on any kind of legitimate market; they can be traded for drugs, weapons, etc. or held as ransom for money from the insurance company, the foundation itself, whatever. there is speculation that they were stolen to be traded for a lesser sentence in a totally different crime--how would anyone even know that? whatever the reason, they are now gone and are probably not being stored properly... ironically, the degas has a sort-of companion piece that is sometimes also referred to as "count lepic and his daughters," which was considered lost or stolen for decades:

degas, "place de la concorde," 1876

same guy, same girls only older. i love how there is such a great psychological disconnect between count lepic and his daughters--the borzoi seems as important as the girls. this painting was missing for like forty years and then one day the hermitage just announced that it had been "found" in their collection. it had been confiscated by the russians (in germany) after WWII from a private collection. anyway, it is now a feature of the hermitage's permanent collection.

buehrle (the swiss foundation guy) made his money making weapons and selling them to the third reich; he then purchased some of his paintings from collectors (jews and other nazi-deemed undesirables) fleeing their home countries. the rest of his paintings were purchased immediately following WWII when collectors, still desperate, were looking to unload anything of value (many works at the university of iowa museum of art, among other august institutions, were acquired in a similar manner). this is called "flight art," in contrast to the much more illegal "looted art." however, buehrle did have both in his collection and he rectified the "looted art" problem by paying the families they were stolen from.

hopefully these four works will find their way home soon before they get too damaged.

the pesthouse, redux

almost exactly a year ago our house was the pesthouse; today we celebrate that anniversary by becoming the pesthouse once more. gus has been sick for over a week with some atrocious bug that is just attacking his respiratory system, and sophie, of course, trumped that with the shingles. she is also developing the atrocious bug so my normally beautiful, precious little angel has become scabby, sputumy, whiney, girl-variety blob. yuck. gus' bug even gave him an ear infection, so he's on antibiotics as well (and they are fortunately of a variety to kill any strep that might have been lingering in him). i'm just hoping to dodge all this while i can.

in the mean time, i am prepping and preening for my sister's wedding next month. i have botoxed, hydroquinoned and bleached my teeth not quite to chiclet grade to look good for this event. if the wedding gets cancelled, i will be pissed, although i guess you wouldn't be able to tell it by looking at me. rich is always too thrilled when i want to do anything cosmetic--this time he took it a bit too far and said he could probably get me in for an upper lid blepharoplasty before the wedding. i asked him who was going to do his and he got all insecure. then he went and stood in the mirror and botoxed himself until he felt better. i am actually going to buy makeup for the wedding, which is primarily to alleviate some of my mother's stress about how everyone and everything will look. i am a bridesmaid (bridesmatron?) and i think there are like 400 people invited to this event. i barely even remember my wedding...

awesome idea for a class-action lawsuit

i have a ton of stuff to write about at the moment, but i am going to set it all aside for an awesome idea for a class-action lawsuit (cindy, if you are reading this, this is for you!).

the above picture is sophie, as of this afternoon. she has shingles. she is 20 months old, perfectly healthy, not immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, and she has shingles. the strange thing is, she has never had the chicken pox. traditional wisdom says that you must have one (chicken pox) to have the other (herpes zoster), but she and a very few others are proving this to no longer be so. sophie, like all kids under 12 or so, had the chicken pox vaccine. sophie had only one dose--a recent change in vaccination policy from two doses, which gus had--and it was thought that one dose is/was enough to prevent the child from contracting chicken pox. and it probably is enough to prevent the kid from coming down with the first instance, but it does not prevent the child from acquiring the virus itself in their system.

confusing? you bet. sophie went with me and gus on the trip from hell just after christmas to visit my mom, who had recently broken out in shingles over the stress of her move and lindsay's wedding. i called sophie's pediatrician and asked if it would be alright for her to be around my mom, as her infection was fairly new and fairly acute, and she said no problem. so, we went on the trip from hell and sophie seemed fine. what we think must have happened is that since she was exposed to the virus via my mom it still got into her system but didn't manifest itself as chicken pox. however, 5 weeks later, sophie does definitely have shingles. so the virus still got in her system, attached itself to whatever nerve endings (in her case it is along her left leg), and blossomed as shingles rather than chicken pox.

hence my (actually, rich's) awesome idea for a class-action lawsuit: there is absolutely no critical reason to get the chicken pox vaccine. while it can prevent the initial chicken pox breakout, it cannot prevent the far more serious herpes zoster (shingles). thus this shot ain't doin' what it ought. and the fact that my 20-month old now has shingles is more than disconcerting, and i feel like this vaccine has to have something to do with it. i am ready to hire turner branch and get this ball moving! there must be more people out there with kids who developed pediatric shingles--a fairly rare disease--whose children had the varicella vaccine.

why do doctor's kids always get the funky diseases and disorders?

happy 農曆新年! (chinese new year)

happy year of the rat! clean your altars, set off some fireworks, give out red envelopes and go find a dragon dance somewhere. i am a monkey--an earth monkey, like my beloved gammy, to be exact--but we get along with rats (and everyone else). rich is a snake (wood), gus is a dragon (metal) and sophie is a dog (fire). a nice balance there. any rats out there? if so, this is your year, baby! dress up in red and celebrate.