Museums, malls & mice

[fbhjr]

This morning my wife, palusbuteo and I drove into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Due to the one way streets and the fact I grew up taking the subway and walking around Boston, we drove around a bit before getting there.
I can’t say we were lost as at any point I could tell you where the museum was and where we were in relationship to it.
It was more a case of “I can’t turn left here? That road is one way the wrong way?”
Things like that never happened to me when I was walking from the subway.
But, we got there. We had to park in their poorly designed, old and tiny museum. Construction closed the entrance near the garage, so we had to walk around to the front of the museum to get in.
Despite that, and the light rain, I still think it was a beautiful day in Boston.


Even the statue out front of the place seemed frustrated with it. I can just picture him saying “What? I can’t park this horse at this entrance? Since when?”


One of the things they’ve added in the “rotunda” since we were last there is mirrors so you can look up at the art on the ceiling.


It is somewhat strange to see, because when you look at it from the side, it looks like people are staring at nothing or themselves. But, eventually you can tell they are looking down to look up.


They had a special Egyptian exhibit that palusbuteo really wanted to see.
Sadly, as true with all of their special exhibits, no photos allowed.
But, it is pretty cool.
They had a collection of figures about 6” tall on all sorts of miniature boats. Priest ones, guard ones, cooking ones, exploring ones, baggage ones.
I’m sure the intent was not to make me think of Star Wars action figure collections or GI Joes. But, that is what it made me think of. Not that I didn’t find it cool, because I did.
But, because it made me say “wow, action figures from 3000 years ago and they haven’t changed that much. This guy had the whole collection, but took it out of the packaging.”
(Yes, there was information on how they had to restore the action figures. Think of how much the museum would have liked it if they were in the original package in mint condition!)

I actually liked the gift shop better then the exhibit. They had some cool stuff there. I bought my wife a present and some stuff for the godkids this Christmas.
They had lots and lots of books. I was sorely tempted to buy a dozen or so of them. But, I settled on only one, which was the catalog of the exhibit. (I like to get that for all the special ones where I can’t take my own photos. I’m sure that’s part of why they don’t let me take photos...)

With Palusbuteo with us, we stopped to look at some books too.


I was sorry that perrin_o_ravnos wasn’t with us this trip as the gallery where they have a lot of the Dutch artists was open this trip.


When we were there last they were having some sort of meeting/luncheon in there and we couldn’t go through. I know the paintings there are his sort of thing. There are certainly some where the artist was showing off.


Some struck me as being very strange due to the anachronistic elements. One, a painting of “The Arrest of Jesus” had the Roman soldiers in armor from the 1500’s.
The one below made me ask “which apostle is known for wearing blue lycra?”


One thing that I saw today that I haven’t at other trips was lots of people doing sketches of the artwork.
They were everywhere. Usually I see one or two. This time there were more than that per room.


Palusbuteo also got in on this.


I’m not too big on the Egyptian stuff. It’s cool and all, but not my favorite. I like other things like these:


Or, the light rail vehicles outside.


We tried to go to lunch at the Bugaboo Creek steak house in Framingham. They told us 10 to 15 minutes and we sat down with a bunch of other people in the waiting room.
15 minutes later, none of the people in front of us had been seated. Zero. Everyone was still waiting and getting nasty. And, we could all see that only half the tables in the place had people at them. Maybe not enough wait staff to go around, but still. They were keeping at least a dozen people waiting and lying about the wait time.
So, we went to a Chinese/Japanese place I like down the road.

Palusbuteo seemed to think it was very funny I was wearing a Godzilla/Tokyo shirt while eating with chopsticks.

(Don’t blame me it’s blurry, I didn’t take it.)

As we were near the Apple store, I wanted to go look at the new mouse they came out with and see if it was really better then the one I had.
Sadly, it turned out that everyone in the universe wanted to go to the mall today too.


My wife, who hates crowds, stayed in the car and Palusbuteo and I made our way through the crowds to get to the Apple store.
The mouse is cool. I tried to buy one. They didn’t have any.
I’m pretty unhappy about that as the Apple website says “now shipping” about it on there. But, the store says their supply of mice won’t get there until the middle of next week.
I’m not only sad I didn’t get the mouse I wanted. I’m sad I had to spend half an hour trying to park and fight to get to the store to find that out.
But, not much I can do about it. (Other than send a complaint to Apple, which I did.)

On the way out we got stopped by a political science student collecting signatures to remove tolls from the Mass Pike.
He was from Ohio and not at all prepared for the apathy of New England.

“I thought people would rush me when they found out I had a petition for getting rid of tolls on their roads,” he told us. “Instead they laugh at me and tell me things are never going to change.”
“To be fair, this isn’t the first time this has been on the ballot,” I told him. “I know I’ve voted for it before and Governor Weld tried to remove them decades ago.”
“But, this time we’ve had a law professor write the petition in a way they can’t legally ignore,” he said.
I didn’t laugh. I did sign. I expect to continue to pay tolls my whole life.

Although still annoyed at the lack of mice in stock, it was a very nice day and I had a really good time.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Hooray for MFA trip!

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I don't mind paying tolls on the Pike.

I DO mind- quite a lot- that said tolls are not going 100% to Pike-maintenance, but are substantially going to funding the Big Dig, whose beneficiaries *gasp* don't have to pay tolls!

So: I don't object to paying for use; I DO object to paying for other people's use when they are not reciprocating.

That being the case, maybe i do support the end of tolls on the Pike after all.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

This was just to put the question on the ballot next November.
So, even if they get the signatures, it will go for a vote.

And, I agree about paying for use. But, as the student getting the signatures pointed out, they make more money renting the rest areas to corporations then they pay for maintenance on the road. So, they don't really need them for the upkeep.
But, the toll money is subject to appropriations. So, it can go to anything else in the state, and usually does. Big Dig included.