Me Time

I was (understandably) a little peeved about that whole car estimate thing (see below).  I mean, you walk into a shop expecting to leave the car for a few days for a $1000 repair and the dude comes back with an estimate that is way outside of your ballpark -- and you start thinking about where else you can take the car for an estimate, and why on earth didn't you take that woman's contact info., and maybe this is a sign that it's time to start shopping for a new car anyway ... and next thing you know you've tied yourself into a pretzel and you wake up at 4:30 in the morning with the sudden urge to comparison shop on Edmunds.com.

Yeah.  That's me.

So, Saturday, I'm in my what-am-I-going-to-do-about-the-car daze and I decide to just do a little something for me.  See, there's this particular exhibit I wanted to see at a gallery downtown near where I work.  Over the past couple months I'd tried to get a group of co-workers to go down there over our lunch hour, but the timing never worked out and the exhibit was closing on Saturday.  I was all set to give it a pass this year, but after the experience at the body shop, I figured I needed to center myself by taking a good look at ...

Movie costumes!

Our good pals at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising do an exhibit of movie costumes every year.  They include the five films nominated for the Oscar for costume design, as well as maybe 20 others.  The Doc Oc, pictured above, was particularly impressive.  (You can see the whole collection online here.  All the movie titles are links to the costumes.)  You're not allowed to touch them or take your own photographs, but you could get scarily close -- close enough to see all them little wires and switches in Doc Oc's mechanical arms.  Way cool.

Took me awhile to drive down there, and I wasn't at all sure it was a good idea until I walked in and found myself face to face with these guys

(The exhibit always has one carryover from the previous year -- the Academy Award winner -- in this case, Return of the King.)  Don't know why being face to big-scary-black-hole-where-a-face-ought-to-be with an Orc King was somehow comforting -- but as soon as I saw it, I just felt like I was exactly where I ought to be.