squirrel burgers

I did not sleep very well at all last night. I only got a few hours of sleep, and most of those hours were spent dreaming that the end of the world had come. I guess we were all getting ready to head into some sort of nuclear winter scenario, so everyone was trying to make an end of the world survival bag, which would have some necessities to get us through. I remember I was really focused on trying to get a toothbrush for my survival bag, and then I went to a “Build Your Bag” party sponsored by some celebrities, and the celebrities had nothing useful to offer for the bags. I kept trying to tell them what nuclear winter would actually be like, based on my reading of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Then, this guy I went to high school with showed up and we decided to go watch a boat race, because what better way to celebrate the end of the world than a boat race with a guy you haven’t seen in nine years? But it was a terribly sad boat race, because everyone was upset about nuclear winter.

As you can tell, I had a pretty rough night, and I woke up very early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Eventually, the sun rose and businesses started opening so I figured it might be nice to go outside and try to calm down a bit. It was also the free museum weekend sponsored by Bank of America, so eventually I ended up at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Usually, the garden is crowded, but since I was there so early, there was no one there, I started to get kind of nervous that maybe the world had ended and that I was the only person still alive. For the first hour or so I was there, the only person I saw was literally made of stone! Like the people at Pompeii, she was frozen in time.


Just like this creepy little boy, who I guess spent his last minutes on earth naked and holding frogs.

Everywhere I turned, things had been turned to stone. No humans anywhere.

Well, except for their decapitated heads under trees!

Here was a stone thing I found comforting, though: A frog sitting on a bench pondering the end of the world.

Normally I’m not a fan of holding one’s arm out to take a picture of oneself, but since there was no around, I kinda wanted evidence that I still existed. I went for it:

While I was sitting there, trying to ask the frog about potential food sources, I did spot something living – a squirrel. Good news, everybody, squirrel meat!

But I was still creeped out. WHERE WAS EVERYBODY? Not helping matters, I don’t know a lot about how to take pictures, which means that I probably don’t angle properly in terms of light, which meant that there was this kind of reflection-y glow in my pictures, which made it look like THERE WERE GHOSTS IN THE PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

Luckily, though, I found our new overlords, and they seemed friendly enough.

Finally, finally, after I walked around for awhile, I started seeing other people walking around. There were a lot of young families, dressed up all preppy and trying to get artsy photos of their children with the flowers and the statues. I felt better about the world immediately. Clearly, everything was still right in this weird world of ours. So I went to the grocery store, bought some eggs, and came home to make a veggie omelet. Hopefully I will get better sleep tonight.

railroad lady

Writing about the Margaret Mitchell House yesterday reminded me that I went to another historical house a few weeks ago. I haven’t written about it because instead of inspiring me to write, as the Margaret Mitchell House did, that house inspired me to sit around and wait for a gigantic railroad inheritance. Three weeks later, and that hasn’t happened. I am speaking of the Biltmore Estate, which is the largest privately owned home in maybe the universe? And was built by George Vanderbilt with his piles and piles of railroad money.

Despite its status as Asheville NC’s premiere attraction, I had only been to the Biltmore Estate twice before. Once, when I was a baby – that night, our house caught on fire and we couldn’t have Christmas there the next morning. And once on a school trip roundabouts the fifth grade. When you tell people from around the country that you’re from Asheville, they tend to ask about the Biltmore Estate, and you have to tell them that Biltmore is just too expensive for the peons that actually live its shadow to make a habit of visiting. The railroad fortune didn't trickle down to us.

Now, the long-ago night that our house caught on fire, we were all saved because my mom was pregnant with my brother George, and she had to get up in the middle of the night to pee and she smelled the smoke. Now, 25 years later, George came to the rescue again by his status as a Biltmore Estate passholder. I guess he has mad connectionz now and he was able to get my parents and me some free passes to tour the house, complete with audio guide. So off the four of us went to tour this grand estate. (Though this may get me in trouble later, I do want to note that my other brother, William, was invited to come on this outing with us. However, William fell under the sway of some lady at the piano bar the night before and didn’t make it home in time to go. I guess he has some crazy connections of his own.)

Now, the thing that might drive you crazy during a Biltmore Estate tour was that this was only the “country home.” It was not the main residence, despite the fact that it had 250 rooms outfitted with tip-top of available luxury. It was not the most encouraging tour to take during this economy, but I did gain a wealth of fun facts! (pun intended!)

One of the most interesting things that I learned from the sweet soothing voice on my audio guide player was where the name “Biltmore” came from. Living in Western North Carolina, I took that name for granted and just assumed that it was a common name that was proper for shopping malls and hotels. However, it comes from combining “Bildt,” an area in Holland from which the Vanderbilts originated, and “more” meaning rolling hills. One fact I did not learn was how much the house actually cost, and that is because that’s a secret that George Vanderbilt took with him to his premature grave.

Premature grave: good name for a band or a short story? Or too morbid? I’m torn.

Anyways, this house is gigantic and I’m getting pretty tired just thinking back on my adventure through it. The highlights for me were the banquet hall, because it just had the most amazing walls, an organ and a triple fireplace. Most of the basement, which includes a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and all the kitchen-related rooms, is pretty awesome. And of course I loved the library, which had more than 10,000 books, a secret passageway, a fireplace and a massive painting on the ceiling. The furniture may not have looked immensely comfortable, but maybe by sitting straight up, George Vanderbilt got more reading done. The audio guide man estimated that G.V. read two books a week, which made me feel supremely inferior as a reader in addition to the feelings of inferiority that were already raging within me at not being a railroad heiress.

Anyways, after going through a ton of beautiful bedrooms and sitting rooms, trying to decide which one I’d want to stay in, it was off to the gift shop, where we spent a fair amount of time around the free dips and snacks you can try. Once we had a little something in our stomach, we went to the winery. It was a rainy day in the off-season, and George said the winery was the least crowded that he’d ever seen. Plus, he said we got to sample more wines than usual. I hope he was not saying those things just to make me feel better about not having inherited enough money to build myself a castle complete with its own village yet. My favorite wine was the Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc du Noir, described in my tasting brochure this way: “Semi-sweet raspberry and citrus flavors with hints of melon round out this wine’s laid-back approach.” In addition to being extremely delicious, the man pouring wines mentioned it paired well with barbeque, and whenever I hear the word “barbeque” my ears tend to perk up and pay attention. So I got a bottle of that, in the hopes that that Vanderbilt magic would rub off and suddenly I would have some mansions and whatnot.

One final note about George (my brother, not the Vanderbilt)….in addition to saving our lives in that fire years ago and snagging us free passes to the Biltmore Estate, he’s also become quite the Biltmore tour guide, as he’s been on so many special passholder tours now that he’s chockfull of fun facts, much in the same way that Raisin Bran is full of raisins. I am really not doing all the things that I learned from him during the tour justice in this blog because I am tired. So if you have any questions about the house, you should direct them to him, or hire him to take you around the house, because all I will do is whine about how I have no railroad inheritance.

speak to me, lion

If you’re a careful reader of the blog, you might have noticed that despite my Lenten resolution to blog once a day, I – how you say? – lack the motivation to do so on some weekends. I just skip it. And I can’t say I’m proud of all the weekday entries either. We can’t crap gold all the time, I guess.

This weekend, though, I got some much-needed writing inspiration. Along with my editor and friend Katie (a faithful blog reader), I headed over to the Margaret Mitchell House, because there was a deal to get in free if you said “Southern Literary Trail.” I had been to the Margaret Mitchell House once before, with my parents, but that was before I even went to college in Atlanta, so I was ready to revisit the place in which one of my favorite books, the basis for one of my absolute favorite movies, was written.

If you want to re-live the tour I took, then you can click here: http://gwtw.org/tour.html. But here were my impressions:
You enter the home on Peachtree Street level, and you go into a room with lots of photographs. A tour guide explains who all the people are, how Margaret Mitchell knew them, and how they formed the basis for characters in “Gone With the Wind.” For example, on one side of Margaret Mitchell’s family, there really was a lady named Melanie who fell in love with her first cousin. But instead of marrying the man, she became a nun, and instead of being a pansy ass, the man went west and became Doc Holliday, a far superior outcome than that that awaited Ashley Wilkes. You see a few pictures of how the house and Atlanta used to be at the time; Katie was quite taken with the pharmacy for some reason. I guess she takes a lot of drugs.

Then you go downstairs, to the apartment where Margaret Mitchell lived with her husband John Marsh. There were 10 apartments in the home at the time, and Margaret Mitchell would have entered below the street level we came in on. The tour guide pointed out that while the furnishings we would see would not be originals, the floor we were standing on was. STANDING ON THE SAME FLOOR AS MARGARET MITCHELL DID!!! At first that was really exciting to me, and I was trying to breathe deep and get a hole of that southern writing magic. But then I remembered how many people had stood on the floor in the meantime and the feeling was a little diminished.

The tour guide said that Margaret Mitchell was very superstitious, and as she came into the tiled hallway that we were standing on right that very minute, she would rub the nose of the lion’s head that formed the bottom of the stairway, so that she would have productive writing sessions. The tour guide said we should do it, too, even though it was a reproduction. So I did, because I was trying to capture the spirit of Margaret Mitchell, and also because my editor was watching and if, God forbid, I have any trouble finishing my assignments this week, I don’t want her to say that I missed a golden opportunity by not touching that lion.

Then it was into Margaret Mitchell’s apartment. You enter her living room, which was also where she wrote the book. She kept a towel at her desk so that if she had any visitors, she could throw the towel over her typewriter; she was very self-conscious about what she was writing. As I glanced at the tiny typewriter replica, I couldn’t help but think that my apartment just doesn’t lend itself to writing the way this apartment immediately screamed “Write!” to me. It is probably because I am lazy when I am in my own apartment, and inspired when I am in an apartment that has already produced something notable, but all the same. I don’t care that the apartment was tiny, or that Margaret Mitchell called it “the dump”…Margaret Mitchell House people, please let me move in. I think if I had a week there I could write a book too. Not one as big as “Gone with the Wind,” but maybe a thin volume of quatrains or something. At least 10 good blog entries.

Then into the bedroom, which has a beautiful bedspread and a very tiny bed. Then into a tiny kitchen. They don’t let you linger too long in these rooms because you might steal all the Margaret Mitchell magic. Instead, you go into an exhibit hall where there are letters from Margaret Mitchell and her husband which prove that both had an excellent sense of humor.

Then you get to go to another exhibit hall that has movie memorabilia. The highlight for me was the painting of Scarlett that was hung in Rhett and Scarlett’s home….the one where she’s wearing a blue dress, the one that Rhett throws his drink at after Scarlett tells him she doesn’t want to have any more babies? That one was there. Apparently the painting is owned by the Atlanta School Board and has been hung in places like elementary schools but was being loaned to the museum. Can you imagine going to school and sitting in the cafeteria and getting to see that painting? I THINK I WOULD FAIL SCHOOL SO I COULD CONTINUE TO LOOK AT IT.

That’s pretty much the whole tour, and frankly my dear, I am glad I got to go for free because otherwise it’s a little overpriced. I don’t know if I would have felt quite so much Margaret Mitchell magic if I’d had to pay $12 for it. However, for the very same price that admission would have been, I got to take some of that inspiration home with me. In the gift shop was a bookend of that lion’s head that Margaret Mitchell used to touch on her staircase every day, so I got one, brought it home, and set it up next to my laptop. Now, when I don’t want to blog, I shall touch the lion’s nose and try to have a productive writing session. Then maybe one day girls will get excited when they stand on a floor where I once stood.

an atlanta institution

This blog is about Coca-Cola. Writing this blog has been on my to-do list for awhile, because it contains the details of something that happened over a month ago -- my visit to the World of Coke museum in Atlanta, GA with a houseguest who was in town for a week. But it kept getting pushed to the side, first for all the cruise blogs, and then because writing about soda during the first few days of Lent, a time in which I had given up soda yet wanted one very very badly, seemed too hard. But now, with less than a month to go before Easter, I don't really miss soda that much anymore! So this seems like a safe topic to cover now.

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton to say on this long-awaited entry about the World of Coke museum. I think I came to the conclusion that the museum is sort of like Coke itself, in that it has a lot of bubbles at the time, but is kinda forgettable later.

When I was growing up, we all went to the Coke museum in its old location, which I remember being a lot more cool, but then I was younger and probably more easily impressionable. When I went to the museum that time, I got laughed at by some Asians who told me I was drinking the "poo-poo drink" of their country. The old museum also had these cool fountains that sprayed your Diet Coke or Sprite up into the air before depositing it in your cup.

The museum was moved though from those golden oldie days, and this was my first trip to the new location. The highlight is still getting to try different Cokes from around the world, though they got rid of the fountains that sprayed drinks in the air. From the experience, I learned that I never really want to go to Africa. Or if I do go to Africa, I don't want to drink Cokes there. None of the other continents had Coke that stood out as offensively to me as the African ones did, but then, none of them really grabbed me in their awesomeness either.

My houseguest wanted pictures taken of his reaction to every single beverage he tried, but I just wanted pictures of myself with giant objects, preferably inanimate. To wit:

I consider it a feat of strength that I wrote this entry during Lent without succumbing to the power of soda. But I shall always have a weakness for giant bears and funny statues.

what sound does the sheep make?

This weekend I went to the Atlanta History Center, because it was the weekend where you could get into some museums free with a Bank of America card. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the place. There were exhibits on the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta’s growth, folk arts in the south, Bobby Jones and golf, and a pretty awesome Civil War exhibit.

Unfortunately, my experience of the Civil War exhibit was slightly marred by a school group that was present. Apparently the kids and their adult sponsors were assigned to find one fact to share with the rest of the group. So the kids would walk around with a friend, and then they’d get to a spot and read one random thing aloud. One kid would shout, “that’s my fact!” And then the other would say, “No, I want that one!” Even the adults were pretty annoying about it.

My favorite part about the history center, though, were the historic homes and the gardens. First up, I toured Swan House, which was owned by a very rich family with many things named after them in the 1920s and 1930s. The house was absolutely beautiful inside, and the voice on the audio guide was oh so soothing. Apparently the home is one of the most photographed sites in the country:

Beside the home was this garden:

And this playhouse:

Why oh why couldn’t I have been a rich kid in Atlanta in the 1930’s? I mean, I’d be happy living in that playhouse even now.

After Swan House, it was off to a farm. When you go from 1920s opulence to an 1840s farm complete with an outhouse, smokehouse, blacksmith shop, slave quarters, etc, it’s a bit of a letdown, no matter how much you love pioneers. It’s much more fun to fantasize about living in the other house. But the farm did have sheep!

Although this got me paranoid that I smelled like sheep for the rest of the day. Sheep and sweat--the most alluring scent known to man.

i could have danced all night

Man oh man. What an Inauguration Day. We got to take a little pause from work and watch the swearing-in and the speeches. People in the office broke into applause after Obama took the oath of office and then you could have heard a pin drop while Obama gave his speech. What a moment.

But now I am home and on the couch and watching all the commentators re-live the day. And the Obamas are going to TEN balls! I would be happy just to go to one ball in a big poofy dress but they are going to TEN! So I decided to make a list ten balls that I would like to go to:

1. Pope Ball
This would be a ball held in Vatican City. The Pope sits in a chair and watches everyone dance. All the males have to come dressed as their favorite pope. Or they get assigned a pope, because we don't want everyone coming as just John Paul II or something. Maybe it would be creepy to dance with a man dressed as a pope; after all, they are supposed to be celibate. But I think I would get over it. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type wore in the Renaissance.

2. Southern Belle Ball
By this I mean a ball that takes place in the south. I know I live in Atlanta, so it's not inconceivable that I could go to such a ball one day. But I'd like the ball to take place in pre-Civil War times, ideally. I am pretty much modeling this idea on a few scenes in Gone with the Wind. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type worn in the pre-war south.

3. Underwater Ball
I keep hearing about these snazzy restaurants where you eat in enclosed glass while fish swim all around you. This would be a ball like that. Where you dance in glass surrounded by fish. But only pretty fish. No scary fish. Nothing like eels or anything. Requested attire: Whatever dress you want.

4. Art Museum Ball
I was thinking of some awesome art museums in Europe that would be fun to have a party in. So just a ball where people get to run around in an art museum. Particularly one with sculpture all around. And you can say things like, "Darling, go get me a class of wine and I will wait for you by the Monet." Requested attire: an outfit that has actually been in a painting.

5. Castle Ball
I guess this is sort of obvious. But what would really make this ideal is if we still lived in the kind of world where there was really a chance of meeting a prince and becoming princess and have it mean something. If there was still really that stress of producing male heirs to continue the monarchy. I can't decide what time period I'd want, or even what monarchy I want to marry into. But basically a big ol' royalty ball.

6. North Pole Ball
This would be an outside ball. It would be all snowy, but not uncomfortably cold. There are a ton of elves, both male and female, so that you always have someone to dance with. Santa dances with all the ladies. You get presents at this ball. You arrive at this ball in a sleigh. I know these aren't Christmas per se, but if some adorable creatures could scamper around during the dancing, that would be ideal.

7. Cheese Ball
Picture a huge cheese wheel. Like the hugest cheese wheel you've ever seen. Now picture it 29384093840293840 percent bigger…so big that we could carve out the middle of it and have a circular cheese wall big enough for people to dance in. At the ball they would serve the cheese that was carved out of the middle, but it would also be encouraged to just take pieces of cheese from the wall. Cause the ball is not over until all of the cheese walls are eaten. Requested attire: a big poofy dress that is loose enough to accommodate you eating a lot of cheese.

8. Roller skating ball
You know how fun it is to wear a huge poofy dress? And you know how fun it is to roller skate? Well, COMBINE THE TWO and you have a roller skating ball.

9. Amusement Park Ball
You can dance all over the amusement park. OR YOU CAN RIDE ALL THE RIDES. Also all the concession stands are free during the ball so you can eat lots of hot dogs and funnel cakes.

10. White House Ball
But this isn't an inaugural ball. Oh no. This is a ball where all the dead presidents appear and dance with the living. You can chat them up about what they think about the country now and they try to offer you snacks that were typical of their time. Lincoln would be a total playa at this ball and would always be trying to show the ladies the Lincoln Bedroom.

a perfect day in D.C.

Not this week that just ended, but the week before, I was up at the University of Maryland for a conference, learning about things to help me do my job better. It was very exciting for me to go to a work-related conference that involved flying, because at my previous job, work-related trips were limited to driving a cargo van to various Seattle neighborhoods and suburbs. I can tell you, getting to fly somewhere and stay in a Marriott is much, much better.

My editor and friend Katie also went to this conference, and we made our travel arrangements so that we could have an extra day in D.C. before heading back to ATL. After the conference ended, we headed by cab into the city, and we were delivered a devastating blow: the Smithsonian Museum of American History was closed for renovation. It had, in fact, been closed for two years. How could this be? The airlines should give you a little pop-up window when you buy tickets to D.C. that says something like, "Just so you know, the Museum of American History is closed." And then when planes actually land in D.C., there should be another announcement that goes, "Just in case you got your hopes up during our flight, we wanted to remind you that the Museum of American History is closed." Do people come to D.C. for things besides that museum?

Since I had really been looking forward to going to that museum and seeing some first lady gowns, I was initially crushed. What oh what could we possibly find that would replace such wonder? I started to feel a little better though when I got to the hotel and saw that above my bed was a gorgeous photograph of Abraham Lincoln, the stone version that sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Then I took a nap and felt a lot better. I think Abe affected my dreams, and I also think that I was just really tired.

When Katie and I awoke from our naps, we showered and headed to a restaurant that had been recommended by a guy who went to the conference with us. It was called Brasserie Beck and it was an amazing meal. If only I had studied the subject of writing in college, and if only I wrote things down for a living, then maybe I could tell you how good that meal was. But words are inadequate.

For an appetizer, I had an onion and shallot soup that ruined me for all other onion soups, while Katie had some oysters. I tried one and those were also delicious. Then, we had a cheese course. Then, I had duck almondine, and that was a quacking good time, while Katie had a lamb shank. At first, Katie was upset they didn't bring her a knife for the lamb shank, but then she realized that little lamb was so tender that it just fell off the fork. "Melts in your mouth like candy," as my parents used to describe meat when they were trying to make us eat it as kids. But this meat really did. Adding to the enjoyment of the meal for me was a beer that is only available in America at that very restaurant. And it was an amazing beer. I feel sorry for the rest of you that you will never have this beer, unless you go to Brasserie Beck. It was everything a beer should be. Rarely do I eat a meal so fancy and wonderful.

It was during the first course that Katie and I realized that we had the potential to have the greatest 24 hours in a row known to man. That's how good the meal was, and we were determined to not let this meal down. So after dinner we headed off to Georgetown to meet up with a person we met at the conference. We went to Martin's Tavern, which had a wonderful little handout letting me know that every president since Harry Truman had enjoyed a meal or a beverage at this establishment. And if I counted the tables correctly, we sat in the Nixon Booth, where Richard Nixon used to eat meatloaf. And that put us just one booth over from the booth in which JFK proposed to Jackie. This is when I finally got over the pain of the American History museum's closure. Why just look at something that a president has touched when you can sit somewhere that a president's ass has touched? I was in heaven.

By then it was the wee hours of the morning so we skipped off to bed and I again had sweet dreams because I had Abraham Lincoln standing guard above my bed.

The next day proved to be nice as well as the rain predicted by forecasters did not fall. We headed out to see sights that weren't closed. I did make one wrong turn in navigating Katie around the city which resulted in a bum yelling random obscenities at us that I shall not repeat here. But that was a temporary blight because we came across the most wonderful sandwich shop. How did we have such good luck finding food? I think it was the spirit of Abraham Lincoln guiding us. We walked by the White House and I used my powerful mind meld to will the next inhabitant to be Barack Obama.

Then we went to the Corcoran, a lovely little art museum. The big draw was an exhibit of the work of Richard Avedon. It was called "Portraits of Power," and I think every school picture photographer should attend this exhibit. I think it would provide some very interesting ideas about how to make yearbooks infinitely more entertaining.

Here were the portraits of power I liked the best:
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
-Charlie Chaplin
-Adlai Stevenson
-Rudolf Nureyov (he was naked!)
-Bob Dylan
-W.H. Auden
-Malcolm X
-George Wallace
-Billy Graham
-a leper
-Joseph Brodsky
-Salman Rushdie
-Ronald Reagan
-Barry Goldwater
-Barack Obama

I don't know what that grouping says about me, but those were the ones I wrote down at the time. And here were the paintings I liked so much at the Corcoran that I wrote down something about them in my little notebook:
-a bunch of dead buffalo
-Niagara Falls
-a clown
-horses fighting over a trough of water
-a series of Dutch landscapes
-a fisherman
-a homestead by the sea
-a monastery
-some weary wayfarers, one of whom might have been a ghost

I did NOT like any painting that involved people washing something. You try to stick the women of the village down by the river washing clothes in there, and I am guaranteed not to like your painting. I don't know why.

After a few hours of art, Katie and I headed down to see some monuments. We stopped by the new WWII memorial, which was very nice although a bit confusing because there was some weird photoshoot going on that involved a girl in a gigantic orange dress. Katie thinks it was her quinceanera.

But then we went to the best monument of all, the Lincoln Memorial. I was glad to find that Abe was there, because I bet sometimes he likes to wonder around D.C. and look at stuff and observe people. But as if he knew I was having the perfect day, he stuck around and sat stoically. I think he winked at me, but I have a tendency to think most presidents are winking at me. That should not, however, be seen as any sort of endorsement of the winkings of Sarah Palin.

Then, as if God or Abraham Lincoln or the entire city of D.C. knew that Katie and I were there, a rainbow appeared over the Washington Monument. A rainbow over the Washington Monument!!!!! Are you kidding me?

Then we went to the airport, and thus ended the perfect day in D.C.

the night the lights went out in georgia

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls. I wanted to ride around in a covered wagon and live in a little house on the prairie and roll down giant hills the way Melissa Gilbert did in the opening credits of the television show. Plus I really dug the outfits and the hairstyle.

But frankly, I’m not cut out for pioneer life. That was reinforced to me last night when we had a doozy of a storm and the power went out. For awhile I was all like, “ooh, I am a pioneer!” but once you’ve read by candlelight for awhile and eaten Pop-Tarts for dinner (the only thing I had in my apartment that didn’t require microwaving) then pioneer life becomes awfully dull. Plus, even Laura Ingalls had the ability to build a fire and Pa would have made some venison for dinner and then played the fiddle. They had it so much better than I did.

The power came back on around 4 a.m and I celebrated by turning on all my lights and my television and then turning them off and going back to bed! But I’ve been thinking about the olden times versus the modern times a lot today. I decided to take advantage of a program offered by BANK OF AMERICA, in which you show your BANK OF AMERICA debit or credit card at selected museums, and you get in for free. I am mentioning BANK OF AMERICA a lot in case they want to give me other things for free. One of the museums that was free with a BANK OF AMERICA card was the Fernbank Museum of Natural History so I headed over there.

One of the nice things about Fernbank is that they are probably one of the only places in Georgia that teaches what evolution is. But that can’t be immensely interesting for some of the little children who go there, because I heard a lot of parents saying, “let’s go, we’re going to take a ‘Walk Through Time in Georgia’” and the kid would just start wailing. But don’t worry small child, there are plenty of taxidermied animals for you to enjoy during a ‘Walk Through Time in Georgia.’

In this exhibit, it was hard for me to tell which was more ear-splitting: the artificial shrieks of all the birds that have lived in Georgia since time began or the conversations between parents and children, most of which went like this:
Parent: Do you see the bird?
Child: No, where?
Parent: Right there, the bird.
Child: What bird?
Parent: It’s right there, a bird. It’s red.
Child: Oh I saw that bird five minutes ago you fool. (starts crying)

Another interesting thing I observed about these parents and children was just how much the parents lied to the children. The parents brought their kids to a natural history museum and paid for their admission (unless, that is, they do trust their money to BANK OF AMERICA), probably hoping to teach the kid a little something. Then the child would ask a question, and instead of reading the text that accompanies the exhibits, the parent would just make something up. Not that I completely blame the parents. The kids were asking some dumbass questions.

If you stand just right, you can make the T-rex look like he's eating this thing!

If I understood the chronology of this exhibit correctly, then Coca-Cola predates the earliest humans!

After walking through time, I walked downstairs where there’s exhibit of ‘The World of Shells,’ which as far as I could tell, had audio narration performed by our 35th president, John F. Kennedy. I guess he did like sailing.

Then there was another exhibit about polar bears and penguins. The most exciting part of this exhibit for the children was a station where you could put on a little penguin costume and then go down a slide that looked like an ice floe. If you’re into education, I would say that this was proof that children learn by doing. I watched one little boy get all suited up like a penguin, and then he started begging his dad to watch him slide. But the dad was talking on a cell phone, making dinner reservations for the evening and asking detailed questions about the wine list. Based on the information he received, it looked like the family’s learning time was over. It was time to go try some wine.

I, meanwhile, continued to more exhibits. I looked at a giant dinosaur. Then I learned how we use our senses to perceive the natural world, and how cultural objects from around the world reveal a lot about the people they belong to. Lastly, I stopped by an exhibit on the “First Georgians.” Little is known about the first Georgians other than they had a canoe, they used spearpoints fashioned from rocks, they made tiny pieces of pottery, and like you, they might enjoy some of the delightful items available for purchase in the gift shop.

On the way back to the exit, I saw a small child licking elevator buttons. Clearly the modern world has loads more to offer than the prehistoric world.

glass houses

Tonight I went to the Seattle Art Museum, and it was truly wonderful. I highly recommend it. As a bonus, the first Thursday of the month is free, and tonight there was live music and the museum was open til midnight. I don't think I've ever done a museum at night before, and I think that's the ideal time to do it.

The night didn't start off so lovely....I got a little surly and resentful because they asked me to take notes with a golf pencil instead of my ballpoint pen, which I understand in principle but I still walked around fighting the urge to draw on the walls with my stupid baby pencil just to teach them a lesson. Then I got over it because I saw such wonderful, weird things. Here is a list of some of my favorites:

--I think my favorite thing was the Porcelain Room. It's like the Amber Room in Russia, except with porcelain. Cups, dishes, statuettes...in these cases that go all the way around the room. A thousand pieces. It's got this low-lighting that makes the porcelain glow and you feel like you're in a fairy castle. I just want to put a big bed in the middle and live in that room. I wouldn't need a computer or a tv or anything, and I would never turn the lights down to go to sleep. I'd just lay on the bed and look at the porcelain.

Midway through the room I was like, this is so stupid that I'm getting excited about porcelain, you can get it in junk shops or at Target. Then I read the wall and that was kind of the point: "Today when porcelain is everywhere in our daily lives, this room evokes a time when it was a treasured trade commodity--sometimes rivaling the value of gold--that served as a cultural, technological, and artistic interchange between East and West."

Here's a slideshow of it (I would mute your computer because the narrator is creepy!) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/sam2007/porcelain/

--A coffin shaped like a car by an African artist. There was this film about these customized coffin sculptures. There was a screwdriver for a carpenter, a can of evaporated milk for a marketwoman, and a stack of fabric for a clothes seller. They carry the coffin all around so the dead can visit their favorite places and people before being buried. This sounds like the way to go. I definitely want a customized urn. I will have to think about what it should be though. If you had a customized burial container, what would it be?

--Any painting by an Italian, because the Italians will always be my favorite. Tonight I saw "Madonna of the Magnificat" by Sandro Botticelli and wanted to go back to Italy so badly that I could hardly stand it.

--A sculpture called "John with Art" by Robert Arnesen. It's a stoneware toilet with a fake crap in it.

--Erotic Frog Cup by David Gilhooly. It's two frogs doing it in a cup.

--Mann und Maus by Katharina Fritsch. It was a giant black mouse standing on a man lying in a bed. I just Googled it and it has to do with the dominance of the mouse in human biology and biomedical research.

--Some/one by Do-ho Suh. This is a gigantic coat made out of military dogtags. It's huge..covers the floor. It's about the individual becoming part of the collective.

--The African stuff. They had these cool cloths with bright colors and wacky patterns that I wanted for a bedspread. They had these awesome chairs that were so intridately carved...something sitting on every rung, or a back made out of a person or a bunch of leopards. I'm not describing it well, but maybe I should go to Africa to decorate my next apartment.

--Totem poles. Also a head dress made out of cedar but shaped like a heron.

--The Japanese teahouse

--These aboriginal paintings that were just dots or lines but had this enormous effect when you stepped back to look at them. They were supposed to represent places, I think.

--Mark Tobey's paintings, of these wild crowd scenes, that were paired next to his recollections of the Pike Place Market.

--This bear that looked like taxidermy, but when you got closer, you saw the bear was made of glass and beads and shells and the like.

I guess there was more, but I am getting tired. I hope I have colorful and creative dreams about art tonight!