Born with a plastic spoon in my mouth

As a patron of the arts member of the Asian Art Museum, I received an email yesterday announcing that the museum is accepting applications for their Docent Training Program. Well, hell! I thought. This sounds fabulous. I'd be willing to blow off a few SCA events to do something like that. So I click on the clicky for more information. "The three-year Asian Art Museum docent training program will begin in August 2011 and continue through spring 2014. Training will include weekly lectures, training sessions, workshops, and participation in school programs. During all three years, trainees will be obligated to be at the museum every Friday morning for training lectures from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm for 15 weeks in the autumn and 15 weeks in the spring. Trainees will also be obligated to attend workshops either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, and will be required to be in the museum a couple of other weekdays each month to participate in school programs."

Oh. you mean nobody who actually, you know, WORKS for a living can participate. And I would have to pay you $1200 not including "all training and reference materials" for the privilege of being qualified enough to be a volunteer for you.

This is of a piece with all the announcements you send me about  special programs and lectures you hold on weekdays! We're not all do-nothing wealthy trophy wives, just 'cause we have paid memberships.

Trippy, man!

Met up with James, Sylvia, Jess, Lyman and Jeff last night for dinner. I'm not sure what I did to make Jessie shriek like that when I walked in - we've only met in person a few times - but it was quite gratifying. We were originally going to go for Korean, but James and Sylvia needed to pick some at Pasta Pomodoro (for the non Californians, it's a chain). I ordered something called Farro Risotto. Not knowing at the time that farro isn't in fact rice, I was surprised at the non-risotto-like texture of what appeared before me, laced with pancetta, asparagus, zucchini and shrimp. Despite the initial disappointment at the first hey-this-ain't-risotto! mouthful, it was quite good and I brought home half of it, which will probably be Monday lunch.

I've been playing DJ a bit over on Facebook the last couple of days. Thursday was That Seventies Night and today I'm running with psychedelic tunes off Youtube while getting some hand work done on the Sooper Sekrit Project this morning. I'm just better by hand than on the machine, and the results simply look nicer. It is the Way of Things. The Psychedelic Saturday was simply inspired by hearing the Amboy Jukes on KFog last night. I was not an acid dropping hippie or anything, being ten in 1968 for anyone who needs to do the math, OK? I just like the tunes.