It worked, indeed.

Magnet #716a & b - Magnerine Polar Bears

Though I've had CBS on all day for pre-game coverage, I've had it on mute, while I just finished catching up on the LOST premiere.

What can I say about it that everyone hasn't talked about already?

Other than seriously, the only thing missing from the first two episodes beside my kitchen sink were the damn polar bears.

Honestly, could this show mess with my mind any more?

City of the bear and the strawberry tree

Magnet #715 - Madrid

My sisters brought this one back from Spain for me.

That's a she-bear on this city's coat of arms, which originated back in the Middle Ages - apparently because bears were everywhere back in the day. The stars around the coat supposedly represent the stars in the Ursa Minor constellation.

They added a strawberry tree, because those were found everywhere, and provided much needed sustenance to the local fauna.

When I was little every once in a while, we'd visit one of mom's patients to pick strawberries. But, I've never seen a strawberry tree.

Then again, I've never seen a bear, either. Hmph.

Usonian U-turn

Magnet #714 - Pope-Leighey House

There's nothing better than serendipitous sidetrips. So, after a day of hanging out at George Washington's Mount Vernon several years ago, we were headed back to my sister's place. On the way, we ended up running into the Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House in Alexandria, VA.

The house is on the grounds of Woodlawn Plantation, which is a house that was designed by the same guy who designed the U.S. Capitol, for George Washington's nephew and wife Nelly Custis. That's a great place to visit with a cool tour, but, I was all over the Wright house.

At that point, I didn't even know that FLW even built in the DC area. Of course, at that point, I hadn't been spoiled for the tragic end of Loving Frank, either - but that's a whole different story.

Such a great unexpected sidetrip that was. We made it just in time for the last tour of the day - and the guide took us in and around the house, explaining concepts and layouts for the FLW Usonian house. Basically, FLW's goal was to bring his architecture to the common man, affordable homes for cost-conscious people with great taste.

Though I really love touring and looking at his houses, and seeing all the intricate details in his design work, I gotta be honest. I don't think I could live an a Wright house - mainly because the places he liked to make small, I like to have big. He was a big believer in common spaces being bigger, because that's where the family gathers. His homes have big living and dining rooms, with incredibly small hallways, bathrooms and bedrooms.

And, really. Have you ever tried the plopability of his sofas or chairs? I haven't sat in many, but man, if you can't plop on to a sofa or a chair, there's no point trying to sit in it!

Do you ride?

Magnet #713 - Aerosmith's Rock n Roller Coaster

I got asked that question by a colleague, who was trying to figure out if she'd have a ride partner during the Disney client retreat party.

Do. I. Ride???

Please. I love riding roller coasters!!!

Well, not technically totally true - I can ride any roller coaster. Except the ones that go up and down. It's true, you can ride me backwards, forwards, upside down, corkscrew me, standing up, sitting down, hanging tracks, inside out, whatever, that's fine. But I can't take the ups and downsy ones.

I'm always convince that when I'm headed downhill I'll fall out of the car.

So, when they closed down part of MGM (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) lot for the client party, and gave us free reign on two rides, I was absolutely thrilled to see that this coaster was one of the rides. (The Tower of Terror was the other one, but see above for why we didn't go on that one.)

Of course, I think I was more thrilled to discover the ride itself. Seriously. Apparently, it was opened in 1999. So how did we miss it during SuperSoap Weekend? Like, for realz, yo. We spent a ton of time there during that weekend. Mind you, I know we were watching the hot soap guys, but that's no excuse!

On the other hand, I totally got to ride the ride twice in 10 minutes. So. Freakin'. Awesome. Running up the ramp to ride it the first time, doing the 3Gs to go 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds, the three inversions, in the dark with hypercolored neon signs, all while listening to the Aerosmith boys blaring in our ears. And then running back around to do it all over again. If I could have found someone else to ride it with me, I'd have done it again. And probably again. I don't care if my buzz did go away. It was totally worth it.

My only complaint is that at a minute, 22 seconds, it was way too short. But, hey, I also didn't wait the customary 40-60 minutes for it.

Rock. Freakin. On.

Running for dummies. Or just me, eh?

Magnet #712 - Canadian Army

Save the World BIL is a runner. In fact, that's why the AGE10 ended up getting me a slew of swaggy stuff from an Army 5-Miler last year, including this Canadian Army magnet from the Canadian Army booth.

I once was a runner. For about 3 hours.

One day several years ago, I went over to Central Park for a random walk (believe me, if you know me at all, that's totally random) and that's when I discovered the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir running track. It goes a little over a mile and half around and it was totally full of runners.

It was then that I was convinced, yeah, I could do that. Mind you, I'm the girl who hated the track and field portions of our phys ed classes. Actually, I hated all phys ed classes, except the basketball section, where I was pretty good.

Anyway, by the time I finished that walk, I had myself convinced. I walked over the Barnes & Noble, picked up a Dummies book on running, dropped off at a Foot Locker to buy a set of running shoes, and voila! that afternoon, I was a runner.

Or, at least, I would have been. Had I ever gone back to the park to run.

Sigh.

Well, I also passed the Central Park bridlepath that day, so I guess it's lucky I didn't buy a horse.

A dream is a wish

Magnet #711 - Cinderella's Castle

Ok. I bought this magnet in the Yacht Club souvenir shop, and of course, I will soon have a better picture of it when I get home from this Disney client retreat. Done.

I have to tell ya'll the best Disney story ever. And one from several years ago now. And I just know I've told this story before. I don't care.

I know some people have their issues with Disney. I. Am not one of those people. Like a good little brainwashed kid, I. Love. Disney. I don't care how jaded you are, there's just something wonderful about the wonderful world of Disney. You'll never get me to believe otherwise.

So, once upon a few years ago, during the year of a thousand dreams, in a magic park just a magical express bus away, I was shopping in one of the stores on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, and a couple of castmembers came through, and they found a little girl. A little girl whose dreams had just been granted.

She had been invited up to Cinderella's castle to help Cindy get ready for the ball!

Can you just imagine? You're five years old, and you love Cinderella, and all of a sudden you get to be Cinderella's BFF and get to help her get ready to meet Prince Charming?

I would love that job, granting wishes to little girls (and boys), and all it takes is a little hard wishing. *sigh*

I seriously had to go make myself busy in the High School Musical section, so that I wouldn't get all sniffly over the little girl. C'mon. How does that not make you teary?

Seeing the whole picture

Magnet #710 - Gallen-Kallela's Lake Keitele

Ya'll know how I bought that magnet set from the National Gallery in London, the set that has a bunch of insets of famous paintings, and then I spend hours tracking down the name and artist of the paintings, by a sheer matter of guessing?

Heh. Success. I have found that magnet set, and they totally list what painting's whose. So fun! Or rather, really convenient, not to have to look through a thousand pages of the National Gallery's online collection. Not that I don't love doing that, too.

Anyway, I'm always amazed when I pull one of these magnets, and actually look at the full-on image. It's always interesting the places they thought to crop in on. This one was fairly obvious, but when you see the full image, it's amazing.

This particular painting's done by Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela, called Lake Keitele, which is, according to the wiki, is Finland's ninth largest lake, and is situated right in the middle of the country. This photographer caught this image of the real lake at 3am, and it, too, is just breathtaking.

Anyway, I picked it for today, not because I was about to draw some deep Jack Handey thought about being able to see the bigger picture in our lives, and how this, too, shall pass, but really I wanted to because when I saw the full image, I just had to share.

You can see the Monet influences there, and it's just so darn beautiful, I love it.