Oh Goddess let us get through this one!!

A friend of mine recently told me that a teenager's world is so small. I 've been thinking about it all morning. Artie is having a teenage crisis. She is here in NY and wants to go back to Lopez but she is unable to find housing for herself. Living in our house is out of the question. It's too complicated for her to be responsible for the solar system and especially the propane system.
Poor kid. I feel for her. She came home for three months with the understanding that if we were unable to move in March that we would fly her home on or before April 1st. Well, April 1st is coming up our ass and she still doesn't know what she is doing. I was under the impression that she had this all figured out before she left Lopez. She thought that we were going to help her find a place to live come April (in other words we were going to find her a place to live). She's very cranky about having to put effort into things these days. I think it's the work vs. id thing.
We have, in and around her Lopez crisis, been talking a lot about her future. One week she wants to be a special effects makeup artist the next week she wants to go to art school the next week she wants to go and live in Seattle and take art classes the next week she wants to college and get a liberal arts degree. Who can keep up?
Last night I drove her home from an art show that we are doing so that she could go to work at the coffee shop today. We talked all the way home which is good because it made the 3 hours go by quickly. There is a summer art program here in Saratoga at Skidmore College. Michael is very good friends with the man who is head of the program and we are sure that Artie could get a spot in the Studio Art program. We propose that somehow we get enough money to let her be able to live on campus. That way she can get a college experience to see if that is want she wants to do. "But then I have to be here. You have no idea how much I loathe it here!" is what gets screamed back at me. She does admit, however, that the Studio Art program sounds really great. We propose that we fly her back to Lopez for her friends high school graduation and let her stay there for 3 weeks and then she comes back here for the Studio Art program and then in August hopefully we shall be ready to move (maybe). If we are not ready to move than she can decide what she wants to do.
I know she loves us. I know that at her age friends are important and she is very tight with her Lopez buddies. But really, to sacrifice things that you are passionate about just to hang with your friends. Oh...I think I remember a few arguments with my parents about not wanting to travel to Europe because I needed to stay with my friends in my hometown.
I don't feel like her world is small. I don't feel like she is small. It's just different priorities of a woman of 17 vs. a woman of 45. Oh Goddess let us get through this one!!

Ode to a museum.

While in Tucson we went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. This is my favorite museum in the whole US. All of the animals at the museum are animals that have have been injured or came from people that illegally owned them...things like that. This museum rescues animals. I can not say enough good things about this place. If we still lived in Tucson we'd all be docents there. Here is my photo essay:









This is our souvenir.

Ode to a museum.