National Museum of Art

Shadow of a sculpture by Alexander Calder


Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo da Vinci

This is the only da Vinci's painting in the United States and is an important collection of National Museum of Art at Washington DC. She looks so real that I almost forwarded my hand to move her curly hairs that are blocking her eyebrow away. And, this is one of the few artworks that actually attracted my attention.

Dental visit

It’s already day 4; I still haven’t reconciled with my sparklingly cleaned teeth. It is odd when I feel my teeth with tongue. They are so clean. I am also working on the recommended hygiene process: brush, rinse and floss, everyday. I am pretty happy with the result but the dental visit wasn’t very pleasant. I still clearly remember how the dentist crank opens my mouth to deep clean my teeth. It was my first dental visit in 4 years; too much to be cleaned, I supposed. One of the dentists in the clinic is a Russian and I bet he likes classical music because it was on the air all the time I was there. It was Bach playing on the background when I lying on the chair. Hopelessly with my mouth wide open, I saw the dentist holding up his tools start working on me. That reminded me the scene in the movie “Hannibal” when Dr. Lecter cracked open the skull of his victim, carefully cut out a piece of brain and fried it. He then fed the piece of brain into his victim’s mouth. If I remember correctly, the background music for that scene was Bach too. I was scared when I think about that. Luckily nothing wild happened. My teeth are clean and I am back in one piece. Of course, there will be follow up visit soon. And, I will beg them not to play Bach next time. Otherwise, I won’t open my mouth.

Tango

It was at this warm sunny afternoon, I watched the replay of my all-time favorite movie, Scent of a Woman. I remember I was 17 when I first watch this movie. And, watching Al Pacino, playing a blind retired Lt. Col. Frank, elegantly tango with a beautiful woman he met at a fancy restaurant just blew my mind. That was the scene intrigued me to learn tango (and ballroom dance). Although I have learnt some Argentina Tango, I, regretfully, didn’t have chance to tango very often. My life has been caught up with so many things since my last dance. But, just like Al Pacino said, “If you get all tangled up, just tango on.”

Sunday Brunch

I was reading a book by Mark Haddon while having my late brunch at Panera Café. To prevent my eyes from overwork (still pretty sleepy), I'd look around the café every now and then (observing people is part of the fun in a café). This is a very busy café but I enjoy the jazz music they are playing; it’s weird but the selection music blended particularly well with milk frothing buzzing noise from espresso machine. I guess the sun direction must have shifted after awhile. The glare reflected from cars parking outside the cafe hurt my eyes every time I look away from the book. I decided to turn my seat 15 degree counterclockwise (I’ll hit a wall if I turn right). My eyes feel a lot better immediately. However, after I shifted my seat, I saw there was a young sexy lady wearing a low cut tank top with a pair of boobs almost popping out sitting a few tables away from mine and facing my direction. I found that’s extremely distracting because I’ve “unconsciously” look at her every 10 seconds. So, I decided to shift my seat 5 degree clockwise. And now, when I look up, my vision is between sun glare and a pair of boobs. I am pissed. I gave up reading and brought out my laptop to work on some stuff. With that, I've avoided both distractions because I can stare at LCD display longer than a book. When I first walked into this café, there was a big sign on the door, “Free Wireless High Speed Internet”; but to me, that translates as: “Free Unprotected Sex.” As usual, being paranoid about privacy and security of my information, I decided to work offline (including writing this blog). It was a pretty enjoyable time at this café (except the dilemma between boobs and sun glare part). I would buy a pair of sunglasses next time.