Idling destiny festers so last evening I put on sturdy shoes and chased it.

My friend Vivian squired me to Third Thursday at the Nelson Art Gallery.   We mingled among lawyers, secretaries, Rostafarians, aging hippies, cruising men in tight suits, and clumps of mid-thirty-somethings wearing pleasant smiles and plastic leis.  The evening’s theme being Endless Summer, photographers posed partiers in front of a plastic palm tree and inflated dinosaur.  Vivian and I sipped Mai-Tai (her) and Diet Coke (me) and people-watched our way through the surprisingly large crowd.  We ditched our plastic cups to wander in the galleries, admiring carved ivory, delicate brush strokes, and intricate inlaid wood.  We darted down hallways looking for a collection of lithographs which I’ve always liked.  We discovered instead M. C. Eschers, works from the Dada painters, curious depictions from the Rococo period, fallen angels, the impressionists, and connections in our lives that we didn’t know existed.  We strolled and chatted about ourselves; and about love, children, men, and our philosophy of aging.

And yes, folks:  We saw Elvis.

Portrait of the Sculptor Paul Lemoynes, c. 1812, oil on canvas, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres