Last Friday Ed & I played hookie from our grueling schedule (and by grueling I mean dragging ourselves out of bed around 8:00 a.m. to lounge around for a while before taking Jack to daycare so Ed can drive the gym, work out and write a bit while I stay at home an edit for a few hours before taking a long walk and then catch up on domestic duties). We decided to do some sight-seeing and headed to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), followed by lunch at Quincy Market, or Faneuil Hall.
The MFA was truly enjoyable. We nabbed an amazing parking space across the street only to encounter about four dozen grade school kids spilling down the steps waiting to get in. Apparently, it was MFA field trip day in the Boston Public School system. We squeezed past the children, paid only $15 for both of us (being a student does have a few perks), and headed into the Japanese exhibit.
I haven't been to a museum in a l-o-n-g time and I forgot just how much art can be displayed in one building. I realized, about 45 minutes into the Asian arts, that the best bet is to plan one or two exhibits to inhale fully and then skip through a handful of others; otherwise, it gets to be overwhelming. By the time we made it to the Renaissance artists, I could barely conjure up my mass-produced appreciation of Van Gogh or Monet (wow: all my notecards neglected to show those intense brush strokes). I must have read abotu 200 placards, poured over 100 paintings, studied over 50 pieces of pottery, marveled over a few Egyptian tombs, and browsed the odd assortment of dinnerware. By the way, those Greeks didn't mess around. We observed a plate depicting a man having sex with a prostitute doggy style (I am being as straightforward here as the pornographic antique). The description below read, "Man urges prostitute to hold on" (she was grabbing onto a chair, I think. The silver haired ladies in front of us seemed amused (you go, girls).
Fortunately, the Greek formal dining set wasn't the biggest impression made. The MFA holds one of the largest collections of Buddhas outside of Japan. There's a room tucked away with seven or eight different Buddhas - all at least four feet tall (about half were at least 6 feet tall). They were impressive. The room was designed to re-create the worship ambience from which the Buddhas had been removed: it was relatively small, without windows, and the only light came from small lamps highlighting the faces of the buddhas. I immediately felt as if I had stepped into a place of workship and nearly fell into reflective, prayer state. At the same time, I remembered that I was in a museum (with the notorious dishes only a few yards away). I wasn't sure it was all that appropriate - to look upon religious artifacts with curiousity. I wondered, is there a museum in Japan somewhere with a small room and in it seven various crufixes from different times and places? And, why didn't we have that in the museum? I didn't have time to thinkg about it too much; Picasso was waiting.
After hitting the aforementioned Renaissance rooms, despite my bloodsugar's severe drop, we drove the car to Comm Ave in front of BU and took the green line to downtown near the Commons where we ate lunch, walked around and enjoyed the sidewalk shows (jugglers, stand-up comedians who broke themselves out of straightjackets),We then bought some chocolate truffles like good visitors. It made us realize how little we toured Seattle when we lived there.
The weekend was as relaxed as the previous week- up until Jack threw up Sunday afternoon. And then, proceeded to throw up on our neighbor's carpets (yes, he walked a few steps after spewing milk on the red carpet in their dining room to throwing chunks on the living room capet). Before you ask why I brought a sick kid outside our home, you should know tha he didn't have a fever and was acting just fine, even eating, so we assumed he gagged on blankie at the end of his nap or something. ANYWAY, the poor guy couldn't hold anything down and ended up puking four times in three hours- the last time he upchucked a sip of water. He's doing okay now, barely eating, but nothing's coming back up. We are hoping, of course, that the flu doesn't find its way in our system, particularly because I have deadlines this week and I don't think the laptop would fare well if I kept throwing up around it to get my work in on time.
Ed starts teaching in a few weeks; I just missed the opportunity to teach an 8am class at Bunker Hill (turns out it takes me - woman with a toddler, student-husband, and one-car -- a lot longer to figure out if I can get across town that early to teach a class while Ed gets to BU at 8am and Jack to daycare than it takes other teachers. Go figure). But, I've got enough work and things will pick up again just enough so that we don't kick ourselves for being lazy bums these last two weeks.
Cheers to what seems to be the neverending fact of "things working out" and, well, working out rather well. Today.
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