Baltimore Diary

Last Impressions

Ainsley Hayes: I'll ask again: for what purpose was I brought here today?
Leo McGarry: So I could offer you a job.
Ainsley Hayes: I'm asking because I do not think that it is fair that I be expected to play the role of the mouse to the White House's cat in the game of... you know the game?
Leo McGarry: Cat and mouse?
Ainsley Hayes: Yes.

—The West Wing, "In This White House" (10/25/00)

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All good things must come to an end, and so it was for my brother and my sister in law. The other night I went to the AirTran website and printed out their boarding passes. I also checked to see if their flight was running on time, which it was. So we got them packed into the car and off we went to Baltimore Washingtom International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

And what the hell kind of name is that for an airport? If my brother followed the sign from the beginning he'd be home by the time he got to the end of it. It must take gallons of paint just to touch up that sonofabitch.

ANYway.

We get to the airport and while we're waiting to check their bag, we notice the Departures board. And just like that, their 7:55 flight is delayed to 9:09. Well...at least they don't have to worry if the line slows down. But it's still only about 6:15. We get the bag checked and my brother decides that he's hungry, so we start looking around for a place to eat. This is easier than it used to be at BWITMA because they've FINALLY put in places on this side of the security checkpoint. We decided to stop in at the Bill Bateman's Bistro.

Our initial greeting wasn't the warmest, but I marked that down to the fact that this woman suddenly had three parties to seat at once. For all that, it wasn't especially busy in there.

By now, you probably realize that I don't write stories that begin with "We went to a restaurant" and end with "and it was delicious!" What you're waiting for is the next part, where something goes wrong and I wind up writing to the Customer Service department. So I'll let my email to them tell some of this. I used their "Online Comment Card" so they already have the date, time and location:

While waiting for a delayed flight, I stopped in with my brother and sister-in-law for something to eat. The waiter was friendly and efficient and we have no complaints there.

Shortly after we started eating, we noticed two gentlemen at a table nearby looking at something. It turned out that they were watching a mouse scampering around their immediate area. As we looked around, we realized that there were actually several mice running around the dining area where we were sitting. We counted at least five individual animals. We asked to speak to the manager and she was reportedly nowhere to be found. We told the waiter that we were leaving and would not be paying for our meal, although we did tip him for his efforts. He commented that he didn't really blame us, although his overall attitude appeared to be more as though he was resigned to the situation rather than surprised or upset by it. This, in effect, was my brother's last impression of the Baltimore area: a delayed flight and a rodent-infested restaurant.

It was actually a little worse than this. My brother got really upset and started swearing, telling the waiter that his appetite had been "frigged up" (yeah, I don't know either) and that "I'm not gonna eat this fuckin' shit. I'll give you [the waiter] some money, because you did your job. But I'm not paying for this shit." By "nowhere to be found" I meant that the manager, we soon learned, left the restaurant and nobody knew where she was headed. Back to my note:

I realize that airport restaurants don't necessarily depend on a lot of repeat customers (who, by definition, are transient) and therefore probably don't feel required to care about the people who pass through. However, this is a small, local chain which presumably still has relatively centralized control. Therefore, as someone who lives in the area, I'm inclined to generalize my experience to the other restaurants in the chain, and I'm going to have a very hard time returning, or recommending Bill Bateman's to anyone.

Yeah, I know I was baiting them there, a little bit. (Heh. See what I did there?)

I thank you for your attention and, while I'm not begging for an apology or a refund (as I said, we didn't pay for our partially-eaten meal), I would welcome your comments regarding this situation.

I read once that when you write a customer complaint, you should spell out specifically what you want out of your transaction. I didn't really want much other than acknowledgment by this point, especially since the waiter was so blasé and the manager was apparently on the run.

A couple of days later I got a letter from Lee Glowacki, the Area Manager for Bill Bateman's Bistro Corporate Restaurants, via US Mail. The letter was kind of long, so I'm going to cut a little and paraphrase a little.

They noted that the airport location is a franchise and that while they are not directly responsible for this location, "we will do everything possible to see that your concerns with them are handled appropriately." They stressed that all feedback is invaluable, and that "excellent service, outstanding food and drinks, in a clean comfortable restaurant, is what we strive for."

"We are disappointed," Lee wrote, "at our obvious lack of attention to your needs and for the staff giving you the impression we do not care." There was a promise to follow up with the Franchise Owners (capitalization his) concerning my experience. He then assured me that it was their "corporate policy, if there is ever a guest satisfaction issue that the manager on duty should be made aware of the problem, and whenever possible be corrected immediately. Obviously that did not happen with you." He closed the letter with an offer to bring it in to their Glen Burnie location for a $20 credit. 

So there was a pretty quick response to the problem, and while it wasn't something the restaurant could have handled immediately as such, that they made the offer despite my telling them that I didn't really want anything other than a response, goes a long way, for me. I don't know that I'm going to pop back into the BWITMA location just to see whether or not they've gotten rid of the rodents, but it was good to get the response, a promise of actual action AND a coupon that basically asks for another chance.

Next up: My call to 7-Eleven and More Coupons I Didn't Really Want.

Roller Coaster Weekend

Jackson Lucas: [after being revived] I can't see anything! Am I blind?
Ned: Good news is you're not blind. Bad news is you're dead.
Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles: Makes blind seem like a walk in the park, doesn't it?

—Pushing Daisies, "Pigeon" (10/24/07)

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Yow. A few minutes to breathe, finally. So of course I'm burning them up with the likes of you.

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind. Even when I thought it was going to slow down (like it was SUPPOSED to), it didn't.

The Pig Roast was a lot of fun, despite the rain that drove everyone indoors for a little while, but we rallied and had one of my best pigs ever. Unfortunately, dealing with the rain and some of its effects on the party as a whole (notably, getting all the food moved inside) meant that I lost over an hour of mingling and socializing. So if I didn't get to chitchat with you much (or at all), my sincere apologies and I hope you had a good time. Even if I did get to chitchat, I hope you had fun as well, but at least I have a better handle on how your evening went.

Because my brother was in town, he and his wife were using my bedroom. GF was in Wee One's bed (Wee One was with her father), and I was on the sofa. This doesn't bother me specifically, since I tend to fall asleep on the sofa roughly once a week, watching old movies on TCM. It's quite the comfy couch, if you ask me. This season we're using the Idemo Dark Blue slipcover. Anyway.

Sunday morning and the phone is ringing at about 7:15. Amazingly, I'm not hung over, but I did get to bed pretty late and I'm just a bit too groggy to get to it in time. A half-hour later there's a knock on the door. I answer it and it's GF's parents. Her father asks me, "You know why we're here, right?"

It takes a second and then the light goes on. His mother, GF's grandmother, has died.

This wasn't entirely unexpected, but you still don't like to hear it. For that matter, I'm sure they didn't enjoy saying it, either. GF was very close to her grandmother, so this was naturally a huge blow to her. The three of them left right away.

Now, our plans for the day involved going to Washington DC to see some extremely historical objects and some very Federal buildings. This was pretty much up in the air now. GF called a couple of hours later telling us to go to DC anyway, without her.

Our DC tour was rather whirlwind, but we saw a lot of stuff, considering. The Museum of American History is still closed for renovations, so my plan to follow up on Friday's theme was shot to hell, since I couldn't show them the original Star-Spangled Banner. But we spent some time cruising around the Capitol Hill area, then we stopped in the Natural History museum. We had lunch in the Atrium Cafe (I highly recommend the burrito). Then we walked past the Washington Monument to the World War II memorial. I'd never seen that before so it was new to all of us. From there we walked along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial. Up the other side of the Reflecting Pool to the Vietnam Memorial. I felt badly about passing up the Korea memorial but time was getting to be a factor for us. By the time we got back home, darkness had about fallen and GF had made all the necessary plans with her father. She still had some details to hammer out on Monday, so we still wouldn't see much of her then.

Monday was my brother's last day in town, so I set up another quickie tour of the city, starting with breakfast from the Fractured Prune. They were on the South Beach diet when the came up; now I'm not so sure anymore. It may have morped into the South Park Diet.

Our tour started in Hampden, since my brother wanted to see "something funky". The first thing I thought of was the flamingo in front of the Cafe Hon. We cruised the neighborhood a little bit and I pointed out a few details. (Try explaining the Miracle on 34th Street to someone when it's 80 degrees out.) From there we went down Falls Road to get into the downtown area. This is a great way to go if you're touring people around, since you spend so much time on a road that does NOT allow you to believe that you're so deeply within city limits. We stopped for lunch at Lexington Market, which is only "World Famous" on the signs out front. My brother had a sausage from Polock Johnny's, which he liked enough that I now have to bring a box of them down next time I visit.

From Lexington we headed past the Inner Harbor (since we'd already seen it), cruised through Little Italy and stopped in Fells Point for a bit. We poked though the stores and stopped into Maggie Moo's for some ice cream cones (yeah yeah, I know, Vaccaro's, but my S-I-L was insistent on this one: Waffle cone, butter pecan). MM's has ice cream that's flavored just like Twizzlers, by the way. My curiosity got the better of me and I had a taste. For what it's worth, it does taste just like Twizzlers, which is why I'd never get an entire cone full of the stuff. We also spent some time in Sound Garden, where I bought a T-Shirt, since I'd had a minor ice cream mishap, and at Ten Thousand Villages, where I picked up a couple of baubles. More on those in a near-future post.

Back in the car and we cruised through Highlandtown and grabbed I-95 to get home. On the way I stopped at a supermarket and picked up some fixin's to make crab cakes. May I say I did a fine job, especially for a non-native.

And then it was to the airport, but there's a new story in that and this post has been in draft for far too long.

Rockets' Red Glare

Rose: I had the strangest dream last night. I was at a baseball game. Charlie Brown was pitching, Shroeder was behind the plate, Lucy and Snoopy were in center field, and they wouldn't let me play. When I woke up, I was crying. What do you think it is?
Dorothy: Peanuts envy?

—The Golden Girls, "Cheaters" (3/23/90)

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My brother was in town this past weekend. He's only been here once before and we didn't get a lot of visiting time then, so he and I were both determined that he get a pretty good look at the Baltimore area.

We had tickets to the Orioles game on Friday, so we originally planned to hang around the harbor all afternoon. I realized, however, that even for a tourist that gets old quickly, so after emerging from the tunnel and jumping out onto Key Highway, our first stop was at Fort McHenry. We didn't go into the fort itself, but they got to hear the story of how Francis Scott Key was out in the harbor and saw that our flag was still there and was inspired to write "This Land is Your Land" as sung by drunken Brits. Or some such. He got a story, anyway, and was duly impressed.

From there we went down to Nick's Fish House in Port Covington for a bite to eat. GF and I basically had the same thing, except mine involved bread. S-I-L had a soft shell crab sandwich, and I say More Power To Her, since I'll pick a crab but I don't know about those soft shell jobbies. My brother, ever the brave one when it came to seafood, ordered a steak. I presume that this is the reason that we had to wait so long for our food, since in my experience they're not usually that slow. My guess is, they had to send someone out to the Safeway to get the steak. We ate on their outdoor deck and enjoyed the view and the breeze and such.

Our next stop was (finally) the Inner Harbor. We parked in that ground-level lot across the street and strolled the promenade from the Visitor Center to the Aquarium. On the way back we strolled through some of the shops so we could use the rest rooms and get something to drink. From there we walked up Conway Street to the stadium.

Our seats were in Section 47, which are pretty good seats although were were apparently in Pittsburgh Pirate Country that night. Had a few more Orioles fans shown up in our section, it might have been a little more endurable, especially since the first three innings of the game were nothing short of excruciating. By the end of three innings, the Pirates were ahead, 6-1. This game, by the way, was the first time the O's have played Pittsburgh since the 1979 World Series. Anyway, the O's woke up in the fourth inning and went on to win the game, 9-6. So it was pretty exciting all around. And, as we left the stadium, we were treated to a fireworks show that went for 15-20 minutes after the game. We stood on Conway Street and basked in the lights and the noise before heading back to the car.

So, quite coincidentally, my brother and his wife started their tour of Baltimore with the Rocket's Red Glare and Bombs Bursting in Air, and ended it the same way. Cool.

Travels With GF

Katie Bueller: I just picked up Jeannie at the police station! She got a speeding ticket, another speeding ticket, and I lost the Vermont deal because of her!
Tom Bueller: I think we should shoot her.

—Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

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Part of our journey last week involved travel through the Great State of Georgia (motto: "Enough with the Peach jokes, already"). At one point, we ran into a traffic jam that was reportedly caused by an accident about ten miles ahead. What to do?

Fortunately, we had a road atlas in the car and determined that the next exit was a road that appears to easily rejoin our path several miles down the road. We might lose a little time not being on the interstate, but not as much as we'd lose if we stayed where we were. So GF, who was driving at the time, grabbed the exit and off we went on our little tangent.

The problem with taking a detour like this is that you wind up on a road not unlike Route 301, where it's 65 MPH for awhile, then you hit a town and the speed limit changes downward in increments to about 35, then increases again as you leave town until it's back up to 65 MPH. I'm used to doing that when I'm on 301 in Florida; GF is not because she usually does the interstate driving.

So we're passing through a town called Screven. We're in the left lane and I happen to look up in time to see a car in the right lane suddenly do a hard left across our path and into a convenience store. GF has to brake hard to avoid hitting the guy. There's lots of swearing on her part. Something catches my eye, and I see a police car with the lights flashing. We've passed the convenience store by now, so I just say to her, "That one's for you, honey."

And indeed it was. The oh-so-polite officer informed GF that he'd clocked her at 57 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, an infraction which will net a fine of $210. And the guy who'd cut us off? Cop saw nothing of the kind. Go figure.

The Jinx Strikes Again

[In the hospital waiting area]
Father Dougal McGuire: Who would have thought being hit by lightning would land you in hospital?
Father Ted Crilly: What? What are you talking about? Of course it can land you in hospital.
Father Dougal: Well it's not usually serious, is it, Ted? I mean, I was hit by lightning a few times and I never had to go to hospital.
Father Ted: Yes Dougal, but you're different from most people. All that happened to you was that balloons kept sticking to you.

—Father Ted, "Entertaining Father Stone" (4/28/95)

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It's getting to be a family tradition, one which I first chronicled here. I go to Florida, someone in my family goes to the hospital.

On Sunday, my brother hosted Easter dinner with the family. Nineteen invited guests showed up, along with three (welcome) surprises. Literally minutes before dinner, my uncle (whom I hadn't seen in years) was on the patio petting the cat, when the cat suddenly turned and bit him. Odd behavior for that cat to say the least. My uncle started washing it out at the sink, someone got the peroxide, etc., but my aunt overrode all this, noting that he's diabetic and has a heart condition for which he takes Coumadin, and besides, it was kind of nasty-looking anyway. So, off to the Emergency Room. Dinner was a little maudlin, to say the least, but we had a pleasant time nonetheless. By the time they got back (and they were relatively fast), several people had departed and it was easier to engage in a little more chitchat with everyone. Basically he's okay, keep it clean and call the doctor if he starts rolling around in the catnip. Heh.

Of course, the second part of this is the visit from Animal Control, which happened yesterday. They took a look at the cat, said to keep him indoors for 45 days, and they may come at irregular intervals to look again.

The curse continues!

That Went Quickly

Daniel Webster: Oh, come, come now. Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler.

—The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

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It was a week ago Monday that I met with the real estate agent to give her a key and the last of the paperwork that put the Morrell Park house on the market. She told me that there'd be a sign out front about three days later, and someone would come along to take a photo for the website listing.

Today, we were just about to leave for Florida for spring break when the phone rings. It's Marlene, the agent. She received an offer on the house. Can we come by to look it over? Sure, why not. It's on the way south.

So we get to Long & Foster down in Elkridge, where Marlene's office is located, and she outlines the deal. Since I'm still relatively inexperienced with this, I need some of it explained to me. GF is actually overselling me on the deal because she's so anxious to see it gone, but between Marlene and another woman in her office whose name escapes me, I see that it's not an awful deal. But the "walking away" money isn't quite what I expected. On the other hand, there's an awful lot of damage to deal with at that house, and since I was selling it "as-is", and the guy is getting a 203K loan to renovate, I could close the deal without having to do another thing to it. I make a counteroffer and Marlene calls the guy's broker. He's pretty sure his person will go for it, so assuming he does, the house is sold.

In the meantime, GF and I have been working on refinancing the Parkville place to get us out of an adjustable-rate mortgage. That deal is on the cusp of closing and my original mortgage company will be getting a payoff shortly after I return from Florida.

So at this point I'm partway to Florida, sitting in a Super 8 Motel somewhere in North Carolina, with no mortgage payments in my future until June 1^st. Looks like we're getting the GOOD seats to the Tampa Bay Lightning game this week.

More Like It

Jimmy Rabbitte: Elvis is not soul.
Jimmy Rabbitte, Sr.: [defensively] Elvis is God.
Jimmy Rabbitte: I never pictured God with a fat gut and corset singing "My Way" at Caesar's Palace.

—The Commitments (1991)

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This past weekend I went back up to Long Island to see the fruits of Daughter's labor on a play she'd been doing at her high school. Since Daughter is usually on Tech Crew, we're going up to see a play performed by a bunch of strange teenagers who are standing in front of my kid's artwork. Move outta the way, dammit!

The play that the high schoolers put on was All Shook Up, which is a jukebox musical that combines Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with the music of Elvis Presley. Now, since this is usually the part where I start bitching about how the kids were in over their heads, etc., let me say off the bat that this was definitely NOT the case.

This group did a fantastic job on the play. It was remarkably clear that these youngsters worked their hearts out, and all the hard work paid off. With only a few exceptions, the kids did everything on this play. Contrast that with the other youth theater group that Daughter works with during the summer, where nearly everything is done by the adults in a misguided effort to make everything look slick and professional, and the kids are just so much cattle moving about between the hi-def cameras (so you can buy the DVD, natch) and the rented scenery.

Now, ponder this: the summer group is a motivated bunch of kids. They're there during Summer Vacation. They want to be there; presumably they want to do a good job. But they're given either very little direction, or very poor direction, or I don't know what. But their enthusiasm and desire to succeed is so overshadowed by the lack of attention given to them that they look lackluster and the high-end production values (the program is printed by Playbill Magazine, for godsake) only makes the whole thing worse.

Back to the high school group. Not all of these kids are going to be theater/drama majors when they get out of school. Some of them will, certainly. Some of them are working on a play to get a sense of belonging to something. Some of them are there because a friend talked them into it. Some of them are there because their girl/boyfriend is participating. Whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is that you've got a pretty mixed bag of students here, and they all did a fabulous job. In fact, the first half of the play was absolutely plagued with sound problems (Daughter later told me that the mikes were brand new and the sound person was still getting used to the system), and nobody really cared. They overcame the troubled technical issue and gave us a good play anyway.

The summer play this year, incidentally, will be Once Upon a Mattress, which is a 1959 musical based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Princess and the Pea". I'll say this: at least they finally learned not to overreach with the plays. Whether they'll take the kids into some consideration this time around? I'll let you know in August.

A Family Affair

Jack Gallo: I believe a toast is in order. To the bride, to the groom, and to God's warped sense of humor. First the duck-billed platypus, now this. I'm kidding, of course. Drink up.

—Just Shoot Me!, "The Odd Couple: Part 2" (5/25/99)

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As mentioned earlier, my sister's wedding reception took place at the Milleridge Inn, which is one of the better places to do such things. But more on that anon.

My father had arranged for a group rate at the Huntington Hilton, but unfortunately we couldn't get that rate because of when we'd called. GF tried to get through to a reservations supervisor, but when she was put on hold and left there, she hung up and didn't bother calling back. Hey, if they don't need our business, then c'est la vie. Instead we booked a room through Travelocity at the Bethpage Motel. This place had the advantage of being central to nearly every destination we had for the weekend, plus it was a hell of a lot cheaper than the Hilton. In fact, it was about $35 cheaper than the group rate for the Hilton. We got in around midnight and there was a little confusion because somehow they'd gotten under the impression that we were supposed to arrive on Wednesday night (and, in not showing up, had somehow cancelled), but they managed to accommodate us anyway, although we had to wait a few minutes for a room to be made ready.

For us, motel rooms are little more than crashpads. We're not spending a lot of time in them, so as long as they're clean I'm going to be happy. And this place was a little older but still rather nice.

Friday morning, I busted Daughter out of school and took her back to the hotel, where everyone got changed for the wedding. The wedding was at St. Joseph's Church in Babylon, only steps away from Argyle Lake Park. Argyle Lake, incidentally, is a VERY popular place for bridal parties to do their pictures, but my sister went elsewhere.

We got to the church at about 3:15 for a 3:30 service, and it turned out that the clergy were in there still doing the Stations of the Cross. They finished up and we moved almost directly into the ceremony. The wedding was not a full mass, which was okay by me. I hae to woder, however, if the only reason they didn't do a full mass was because they couldn't do one. No kidding: if you believe in transubstantiation, how can you eat the body of Christ on a Friday during Lent?

The bridesmaids, six of them, plus the maid of honor (my other sister), all wore strapless gowns in bright red (think Valentine's Heart red). The guys wore tuxes and, of course, looked like they'd never worn one before. Their part of the procession had a vaguely Mafia feel about it. But my sister looked terrific (natch) and she and her groom clearly had fun during the ceremony itself.

The Milleridge Inn is actually a collection of buildings. Some of them are shops and a couple of them are banquet halls. We were in the Milleridge Cottage, which features a hall and, at one end, a circular atrium that's glassed in. It's like a glass carriage house (if you go to the link, this room is at the bottom center of the photos). But the Carriage House, in fact, is a different structure on the grounds.

GF learned that when you go to these things on Long Island, the Cocktail Hour is where the real eating is at. This is a partial list of what was available (partial because I can't remember everything):

• Carving Station with London Broil and about four different sauces to put on top
• Penne a la vodka, which was just as good as I remember from the last time I was there
• Tortellini Alfredo
• Sliced tomatoes and fresh mozzarella balls (about 1" diameter)
• Chicken Teryaki
• Beef with peppers and onions
• Eggplant parmigiana, shaped like manicotti
• Clams/mussels/shrimp marinara
• Calamari
• Assorted fruits and crudite (hey--who let in all those empty vitamins?)
• About a half-dozen different cheeses

This was all at tables around the room. Then they had the roving waitstaff with:

• Mini egg rolls
• Pigs in blankets
• Mini quiches
• Bacon-wrapped scallops
• Pizza bagels
• Skewered chicken
• Fried Shrimp

All, of course, with the open bar. I had to explain a Vodka Collins to the bartender but otherwise everything went smoothly there.

The main event was pretty typical but still kind of fun. Wee One spent pretty much the whole evening on the dance floor. Daughter did not, since she was a little mopey because she was probably the only 16 year old there. It was a collection of three basic groups: Older folks (Dad's friends), young adults and small children. Having said that, I did make her get up and dance with me. And she didn't even die of embarrassment. Go figure!

Love is in the Air

Paul Buchman: Why is it I love you any more in the middle of February than on, say, August 21st? You know, to me, every day with you is Valentine's Day.
Jamie Buchman: So, in other words, you forgot to buy me a card.
Paul Buchman: That's what I'm saying.

—Mad About You, "Valentine's Day" (2/8/99)

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For the record, I didn't forget. GF got a lovely card and, of course, a bauble.

I'm posting from the Lovely Bethpage Motel, just steps away from Hempstead Turnpike on Long Island, home of Billy Joel, the Stray Cats, Blue Oyster Cult, assorted Baldwin Brothers and Yours Truly.

In about 14 hours, my little sister—

—all my siblings are "little", that's the way it goes when you're the oldest, But she's going to be 28 in a few weeks. Does that still count as "little"?—

—is going to change from a "Miss" to a "Mrs." and she's invited a bunch of us to come and watch it happen. So we're up in New York for the weekend.

Of course, while we're here we'll be stocking up on a few supplies: Bagels, baked goods, knishes and we'll be feasting on an actual pizza.  We're also planning on dining at Christiano's restaurant in Syosset village, which some claim is the one discussed in the Billy Joel song ("Bottle of red, bottle of white"—yeah, that's the one), although that would make Christiano's the third restaurant named to that distinction that I know of. Anyway, try the baked clams. They're amazing.

At any rate, the reception is at the Milleridge Inn, which is a cut above your usual wedding factory, so good things are expected. Stay tuned.

At the Hopper

Ferris: Cameron, what have you seen today?
Cameron: Nothing good.
Ferris: Nothing - wha - what do you mean nothing good? We've seen everything good. We've seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!

--Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

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Yesterday I took the girls to Washington, DC, so we could go view some of the extremely historical stuff they have there. Those of you who have driven in DC know that parking is a huge headache, especially on days ending in "y". So unless I get very lucky and spot someone actually pulling out of a space, I usually head down to the Ronald Reagan Building and park in their garage for the flat $10 weekend fee and be done with it. This is a decent, centrally-located place, steps away from the Washington Monument.

The bad news (for the girls) was that our ultimate destination was the National Gallery of Art, which is 'way back up the Mall toward the Capitol Building. NGA is actually two buildings, designated "West" and "East", with a street between them (but a tunnel connecting them underground). We were headed toward the East Building to see the Edward Hopper exhibit.

I've actually been to a Hopper show before, at the Whitney Museum (I think) in New York City, and this collection was comparable to that one. I think, however, that the overall organization of the pieces was a little better at the previous show.

This show was broken down into several categories. First there was a collection of his etchings (Evening Wind is seen here). The galleries then went through several historical periods, when he lived in Gloucester, MA, then New York City (he took an apartment in 1913 that he lived in until he died in 1967), then he learned to drive and started to spend a lot of time in New England again. Close to the end is a small auditorium which is showing a short film about the artist and his work, narrated by Steve Martin.

After that are two more rooms which have some of his most iconic and famous pieces, including Nighthawks, which is instantly recognizable and probably one of the most-imitated/parodied pieces of art ever. This is a guess on my part, but it's probably second only to the Mona Lisa in that category.

So what happens is that you have a pretty popular exhibit in the first place, which means that you have to get in a line to see it. Spectators get to enter in these dribs and drabs as a means of crowd control, but it doesn't help much; it's still pretty busy in there. But you also get people who will give no more than a cursory glance to the etchings or the Gloucester paintings so they can get to Chop Suey (seen here), or Automat (not--do your own damn research already), because these are the ones with which they feel familiar.

Plus you get the crowd that feels as though, because they read the flyer before they got into the exhibit, they're much more knowledgeable than the rest of us. "Look at the expression on that woman's face," they'll say. "Can't you feel the underlying tension?" Or: "The city is usually so bustling except in his images. Look at all the loneliness, all the isolation, the relative lack of movement." Or: "Did you notice that he paints a lot of telephone poles but never any wires? The poles are reduced to compositional elements." Shut up, already. I read the brochure too but I'm not about to parrot it just to make myself look smarter. 

OK, so you're wading through all of this, and then you get to the short film. And you may stop in and watch for a few minutes. Now, if you're there for the end, you're basically about to get caught up in a whole new rush of people who want to see the last two rooms, which is where Nighthawks, and Gas, and New York Movie (here), and basically several or his most famous works. But now the room is totally gummed up with the lowbrows who want to see only the famous stuff, plus the movie crowd who want to see this stuff and/or just get out already, plus the few serious people who are desperately trying to get a good look at the artworks. We were in Group #3, except for Wee One, who had had just about enough and sat herself in a corner until Daughter and I were ready to leave.

We finished up with Hopper and went through the tunnel to the West Building, where we had some lunch in the café there. Then up into the building where we got to see several paintings and sculptures by Rodin and Degas. The girls liked those a lot, even when Wee One caught grief from a security guard because she'd touched the pedestal of one of the statues. He had a cool way of expressing how she shouldn't touch the artworks, though, so it was a low-stress moment.

All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day. Then we got home and GF had us take out all the Christmas decorations. The girls decorated the tree and GF and I busied ourselves with other aspects of decorating, but we're far from done. In fact, right now the living room looks kind of like Christmas came in and puked all over the place. We'll have the house completely decorated just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I think.