Today was a good day. Friends from New York are visiting, and we are engaging in Boston Activities. It's fun to show my apartment and neighborhood off, but I'm ashamed by how little exploring I've done in this city. Must go on some missions when Josh's poor knee heals.
Anyway, due to the need to fall back on the classics, off we traveled to the Museum of Science this afternoon. Ah, what fun! I must admit to sort of preferring the functional, "family friendly," this-is-the-world-and-how-it-works kind of museums to the here is some old art kind. Those kinds are okay, but given my druthers I will probably gravitate toward the kind where there are buttons to push and things like that.
Some highlights of the Museum: 1) Fabulous, fifties inspired (if not left over from) signage, especially in the "Mathematica" display. Such nice fonts. Such lovely layout. Such meaningful punctuation. I wish they would make some posters of their signs, but I suppose there would not be a big market for that. 2) Tamarins! Oh my goodness they are so cute. Could someone let me know if they get along with cats? Thanks. 3) The lightning show: a perennial favorite. A set straight out of a science fiction movie, loud noises, and bright sparks, not to mention the so-dry-it's-almost-evaporated humor that is the hallmark of New England life.*
It was not until the end of our trip that we went to the gift store, so my disenchantment with my fellow man may be attributed to tiredness. However, it seemed to me that there were some frightening people there. In order, I experienced: three generations of women who had done seriously traumatizing chemical experiments on their hair, respectively: straightened and dyed pitch black atop a pale-yet-leathery face, permed and bleached, bleached and teased into a foot-high corona; a surly buzz-cut teenager with no better way to express his angst than to elbow me in the ribs, CLEARLY ON PURPOSE, as I passed him; a parent having a surreal discussion with his child about proposed methods of discipline: "Do you want me to spank you? Or do you want me to ground you?" (I, myself, do not recall ever having had a range of options, not to mention - spanking! - really! - it's time to put an end to that); endless track suits. Heavens to Betsy, where do all these track suits come from? They're not okay. Can we please all agree on that?
After the Museum it was off to Chef Chow's House for some good food and the shockingly wonderful surprise that was the Scorpion Bowl. Does everyone know about this but me? Okay. It's a bowl. A big bowl. Of liquor. With fruit pieces and ice cubes. And two-foot straws. And a flame in the middle. I have been out of the loop for so long! I must drink so many Scorpion Bowls to catch up!
The next time you hear from me, I do hope that I'll be knee deep in Tiki rum and entertaining my monkey. What better way to dissolve these end-of-winter blahs?
*Hmmm. Could the fact that I spent a good part of my childhood in New Hampshire have something to do with why no one ever gets my jokes? Or is it the whole being not of this earth thing? Nature, or nurture? Who can say?
Posted by hilatron at March 16, 2003 01:01 AM