Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

We've spent the past two nights trying to coax our newest visitor, Lux, out of hiding. Lux is Rebecca's sister Suzie's cat and is spending a few days with us (mostly hiding deep in our spare bedroom) while Suzie is on her way north to Seattle. More on this trip later, but trying to get Lux to befriend us has been a tricky situation. Sometimes that's the way house guests are. Even if they're cats.

Last Sunday night, we went with the Rocks to the Snell's house (does this constitute some sort of triple date?) to play a game called Munchkin. [fun game, fun people, fun time]

Monday morning was President's Day, so Rebecca's work kicked her out and required her to take a holiday. I, however, did not have a free day as SJSU doesn't believe in President's Day (although I guess they believe in Caesar Chavez day). So instead of running errands or getting personal projects done, Rebecca decided to skip the holiday and work remotely. That's good because it means we are able to save another day off for later. Sadly, though, we learned that the school sponsored trip to NYC was (probably) canceled, leaving our trip plans a little more open. We have been playing with going to various different locations. Anyone want to come with us to Germany over the fourth of July week? [or Scotland? or Jerusalem?]

Tuesday evening, I had a forum/panel with Steve Dietz, the curator of Zero One festival as well as many other projects. Most of the panel centered on Zero One and the potential reflection of this festival's content onto the city of San Jose. Currently in San Jose city planning committees, the theory for vitalizing San Jose's culture scene is a bottom up approach, with the city offering reasons for that bottom group of artists to start coming here. How this translates in my mind is that the Zero One festival and other activities like it are art festivals for artists only. Although little discussion centered on this dilemma (because it involves a discussion of many of the flaws and cracks in the bedrock of art history), the forum panel was good and as a curator, Steve Dietz is in the top of his class.

After my meeting, Rebecca and I drove up to our local IHOP to get some free pancakes. Tuesday was national pancake day and IHOP was offering a free stack of pancakes [significantly on fat Tuesday]. So we got some and had a very late (or early) breakfast.

Friday night Rebecca's sisters pulled into town. They had planned on spending the weekend in San Francisco but didn't want to drag the cat everywhere with them. Since they will be joining us for Sunday through Tuesday (Suzie's birthday), they made a pitstop in San Jose to leave Lux with us. Star has been very interested in getting to know Lux, but sadly Lux is too confused to want to get to know anyone else. It will be fun to have Suzie and Amy here for the next few days.

I had a long talk with one of my professors this week about my studio environment and difficulty I've had in working there. Or anywhere. We decided together that I really needed to clear out my studio of all my paintings in order to free up some mental space for working. Saturday, my studio mate and I filled up his truck and took my paintings home. This should be a great step in clearing out the mess my current working state is in. Then that evening, Rebecca and I played some games at Kate and Robi's house. We introduced them to Killer Bunnies and they really enjoyed playing Slapagories.