Weekend Recap: Paintbrushes and Predators

This weekend I enjoyed paintbrushes and Predators *evil smirk*. The paintbrushes were a part of my Volunteer gig at my old Alma Mater Youngstown State University. The Summer Festival of the Arts played out this year under blue skies and packed full of Art Booths, Food Vendors, Performance Art, Children' s crafts and clowns--a lot of clowns.

On that note, say hello to my new friend. We met while I was helping ankle biters--said lovingly--make beautiful messes at the Children's Craft tent. He squirted me in the face with fake ketchup (later he gave me the secret recipe) and I told him his monkey needed feeding. I think he was attracted to the bright, coma inducing colors of my above shirt *rolls eyes*. (Really, I loved the shirt. I felt very safe walking across traffic.) Ya gotta love fast friends, art fests and the projectile stage prop.

















All kidding aside, I volunteered last year at a friends insistence and plan to do so from now on. It's just that much fun to me. The kids, the art and the crowds make for a wonderful weekend. And YSU always had a beautiful campus. It's a great place to do time in the name of art and volunteerism.





















And it was a great chance to talk to other Artisans and vendors. Next year I thing I may set up my own tent for Salvaged Beauty. Help the Children's tent set up first and then sell my pretty bits of jewelry and art. So maybe...
...and the paintbrushes I promised you.

Now the Predators. I am a huge fan of nail biting action and of course Science Fiction. No matter how many high heels I've bought or chick flicks I have watched, my thirst for blood and bullets has only grown, much to the delight of my husband.

I blame my father for that. Early on I was armed with a pocket knife, good aim, a independent attitude, the mantra 'Don't you ever start a fight, but you sure as hell better be the one to end it' and a steady diet of Rambos, Die Hards, Lethal Weapons with a education from teachers such as John Wayne, Bronson, Eastwood, Lee and Schwarzenegger. So no matter matter how much Jane Austen, high heels or pretty things I place my life I shall always yell proudly.....LONG LIVE ACTION!!!!

The new reboot of Predator definitely appeased my old school action sci fi lust and gave me a new look at a favorite actor Adrian Brody. Some critiques may have originally paned him "he's no Arnold" and "The Pianist Guy who kissed Hale Berry at the Oscars?", but I loved him as Royce the MC. He looked the part and moved like the part of a professional killer. He behaved the part as a dark, skilled, all business soldier turned merc who'd become a predator of men because he felt he could not be anything else. A quote he gave in explanation of his 'predator' status amongst men...

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."--Ernest Hemingway (from "On the Blue Water" in Esquire, April 1936)

Add a few other well cast killers--predators in his or her own right, throw in alien hell dogs, nasty Predator aliens and a insain Lawrence Fishburn and it was a satisfying evening of popcorn and mayhem.