Monday Inge and I made our annual Christmas shopping trek to Ann Arbor, an hour away from the farm.
We browsed Crazy Wisdom bookstore with all its pretties like these soaps on the right. We sipped coffee in the tea room on the second floor. We ransacked books, some for gifts, and some for ourselves.-
Books I leafed through:~ Immersion Travel USA has ideas for visiting a place long enough to really get to know it, and maybe to volunteer and make a difference where you stay.
~ iBrain is Dr. Gary Small's book about how technology is shaping the way 20-somethings' minds develop, function and interpret information.
~ John Lennon: The Life is Philip Norman's new in depth biography of the Beatle.
I can't tell you which ones I bought, it's a secret.
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A few c-c-c o - l - d blocks away is another have-to stop: Hollander's School of Book and Paper Arts. You can buy everything you need to make a book. I've never done that. But I am in paper heaven walking the wood floor between racks of decorative papers, some of them home-made. In fact I start going into a trance, a defense so my systems don't overload with so much beauty.
Is there anything more full of promise than a blank journal? Well, maybe a baby.
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It was freezing cold outside, windchill around 0°F (-18°C), so we didn't stay in the mini windy city as long as usual. Didn't even stay for dinner. Too bad the Michigan Theater didn't have any matinees. Ok I have to explain why the photo below is so good. Those of you not from Michigan may not realize that two of the universities in this state are major rivals: Michigan State University (aka "Michigan State" or "State" or "MSU" - GO GREEN!) and the University of Michigan (aka "Michigan" or "U of M" or "UM" - GO BLUE!). I could write an essay on the cultural phenom between these two schools. To summarize: Michigan State (where I work and earned my BA - woohoo!) is in East Lansing and began as an agricultural university referred to often and a bit condescendingly as "Moo U." The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor and is known for its law school, med school and other high falutin hoity toity snobby entities. (Oh! Did I say that? Forgive me, Ginnie! You're one of the nice, humble alums.) They are both excellent research institutions, but there is little love lost between the schools' sports fans, and otherwise. Anyway, I could go on and on. But I enjoy walking up Liberty Street in Ann Arbor - home of "Michigan" - in the photo below, and looking at the two theater marquees that spell out "Michigan State" - bwaahhaaa.
BTW, this Michigan Theater is a wonderful historic artsy icon. You can still hear organ music before the movie starts; the 1927 pipe organ rises up from under the stage.
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Today's ornament:
Dorothy: "There's no place like home."
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