Fuel Fumes

Filling my car up with gas these days is a little disorienting. Somehow I just can't wrap my head around the fact that it's over $3 a gallon so I'm always saying it wrong. "Yeah, I paid a $1.45" or "I saw it for $2.32 yesterday" when of course, I didn't and it wasn't. It's not that I'm outraged by the price. Prices just went up so quickly that I got knocked off balance.

And then there's the pumps that require you to hold them the entire time. What's up with that? Why can't I clean my windshield or take silly photos while waiting for my car to fill up?

Is Donald Duck mad?

Doesn't this toothy fish sculpture look like an insane Donald Duck? If it weren't for the studious art lover in the top corner of the picture you might not know it was in an art museum. The Ringling Museum of Art, in fact.

What is art anyway?

Friends. Art. Florida. We took a trip with friends to visit the Ringling Museum of Art on a Sunday. I've been there before. Baroque.

We took the guided tour but the four of us ended up wandering our own separate ways. I found myself in a room with only myself and these tremendous paintings. So I thought, "I will become one with the art." Well, maybe I didn't think that exact thought, but I did fancy some crooked pictures with the camera perched on my soft purse.

And that brings us to what is art? Clearly the paintings have been defined as art. But what about my photos? Is every photo a work of art? Children's crayon drawings are art, but we don't usually see them in a museum. Is museum art different from ordinary people's art?

But considering that John Ringling was a circus man, where do art and entertainment diverge? There are performing arts and couldn't a circus be considered one? John clearly didn't think so, but delightfully they have added a vast miniature circus to the museum's exhibits.

As long as I get to continue being silly with whatever medium abides me, then I suppose I don't really care what it is called. Or in other infamous words, I'll know it when I see it.