Day 3190

The art conservator threw me a curve today. The restored lithograph actually looked very nice, but as I was leaving the studio, the conservator told me to be sure to store the art horizontally until I had it framed again. Where? The print is very large and I knew immediately that it wasn't going to fit anywhere in the house. It wouldn't fit under the bed, since there is a support post right in the middle. I tried, but the print was way too large to fit under the bottom half of the bed. The closets aren't deep enough and I couldn't even put the thing under a large rug on the living room floor. The bricks on the floor absorb moisture, so floor storage wasn't really an option anyway. This sucks. The conservator specifically warned me against taking art back to the storage warehouse. "You're asking for trouble," she said. I guess I could re-frame the picture and hang it back on the wall, but I've already replaced the art I sent to the auction houses with pictures of dogs I took myself. I think I like the dog pictures better anyway.

I took a better camera on our morning walk and managed to get a decent picture of a Great Egret and a Coot together. It was hardly worth bringing the camera unfortunately. Dash wouldn't stay still and most of the pictures I took while moving were out of focus. I have to concentrate on Dash to keep him from falling. We walk on a very short leash now and his harness has a big handle on top that I can grab to keep him from falling. I walk directly alongside of Dash so I can easily lift him up or steady him without knocking him over. I've practiced this technique with Dot and other older dogs. It works pretty well, but walks aren't very relaxing.

I listened to a show on RadioLab recently about how efforts to save the Kirtland’s warbler inadvertently burned down a Michigan forest and killed a young wildlife technician. The efforts to save the bird from extinction were eventually successful, but now cost almost a million dollars a year. The locals now hate the bird, but birders fly in from all over the world just to catch a glimpse of it. I think the show was called Weighing Good Intentions and it was mostly about unintended consequences. I wonder if people realize that there are unintended consequences to almost everything we do. Whenever I turn on the TV these days, my first reaction is "this isn't going to end well." There are very few winners here and a few years from now, there are going to be a lot of unintended consequences. I think everyone is acting badly. Maybe I should just quit watching TV while I have my morning smoothie. It might be better to take up knitting instead.

I received a printed copy of one of the auction catalogs in the mail today. My art looked pretty, but I'm still nervous about the auctions. I'm sure there are unintended consequences to unwinding a lifetime of collecting things. I think I'm doing the right thing, but like most things in life, I won't find out what it all means until much later.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day