Phoenicians at the museum

[fbhjr]

One of the thinks we like to do with the folks from Phoenix Swords is get
them out to museums, symposiums and other similar things to help them see
the context of some of the historical things we do.
We are not a living history group, and are never going to be one.  But, we
do try and have an education component to some of our shows and it is good
to understand more about what we’re trying to teach.
(This is in contrast to the old troupe my wife and I were in where the
person who founded it told us “this is mostly to meet people for sex”.
That group lasted about 2 years.  We’ll make 10 this summer.)
But, I digress.

We got up fairly early in the morning brickhousewench (not a
troupe member, but interested in many of the same things) & palusbuteo met us at our place and we set off.
Jose was going to meet at our house too.  But, he called Saturday night to
say his ride fell through and could we meet at a donut shop in Worcester?
So, we drove off to meet him there.
The world may run on Dunkin, but Jose walks.
He was not there yet, but promised me he was walking over as fast as he
could.
Tempting as it was to wait in the donut scented breeze for him to get to
where he had promised to be, we went and picked him up.  He road in palusbuteo’s car, so I didn’t hear the reasons for the missed
donuts.
When we did stop at a rest area in CT, he made a point of getting donuts.

brickhousewench road with my wife and self in my (fairly) new
Prius.
When we were crossing into CT, a paper cup blew across the road in front of
us.  I heard it crunch under the right front tire and suddenly my normally
quiet Prius started making a loud wind noise.
We figured that the cup was somehow stuck under the car and picking up
wind.  But, other than being noisy, it didn’t seem to cause problems, so we
kept going.

A few miles later, Palusbuteo and Jose started calling us, pulling along
side and pointing and trying to get our attention to let us know
“something” was under our car.
An hour or so later we stopped and I pulled out the cup.  It was in
remarkably good condition for being dragged 60 miles.  But, I suspect the
part against the road ground off quickly and the wind didn’t do much to the
rest.

We got to the museum just before they opened.
There was no sign of adorabrightmoon and the other folks from
CT.  So, we went in and started wandering around.
Just as I was about to give up on seeing them, my wife heard from them and
we all met up.  (My wife had been texting them because she is proactive.  I
will just stand around the Greek/Roman statue exhibit and say “I thought
they’d be here by now.  Maybe we should go on without them.”)

It’s a nice museum.  They have lots of cool stuff.  I’m somewhat surprised
the folks who only live half the distance we do from it had never been, but
I’m glad to have brought it to their attention.

After a few hours of museuming, we decided to eat lunch.  Rather than eat
at the cafeteria in the basement of the museum, we had packed a picnic
lunch.  I had guessed wrong about the number of sandwiches needed, so I ate
from a hot dog stand on 5th ave.  This is in no way a hardship for me as I
like eating from hot dog carts when in NYC.  It’s about the only time I do
go for hot dogs.  (They also had a very large, quite good, potato knish.)

We ate out at the edge of Central Park in a small plaza with some large
bear statues.  It was a very nice, warm, sunny day, so I’m very glad we
picked that over eating in the basement.

After lunch we went up to the roof of the Met.  I had never been up there
before.  They had some large sculpture you could actually walk inside, but
you needed to have a ticketed time to do that.  We didn’t want to wait
around.
I heard a very interesting conversation between a man and a young woman
where he was taking about the rooftop gardens visible from the top of the
museum and how interesting they were.
“They’re not controlled or inspected by the city,” he said.  “So, you can
grow whatever you want in them.”
“Like exotic flowers?” she asked.
“Well, you could.  But, I mean there is no one who inspects them.  You can
grow ANYTHING you want there.”
“You mean no once comes by and checks them for aphids and other things like
that?”
“I’m saying you can grow things that are much more interesting than looking
at art.  Want to go over to my place and see?”
Off they went.  I’m still not sure if she was expecting exotic flowers…

In the afternoon my wife and I poked around on our own.  Mostly looking for
the sections of the museum we hadn’t been in before, or not recently.
We did stop by the fountain in the new American Wing and were amazed at the
things people throw in it.  I know lots of people throw coins, but there
was at least one dollar bill in the bottom as well as lot of coins, museum
pins and other less identifiable things.
I said I should put in for a grant to study it as part of an exhibit they
could call “Submerged”.

We packed up and left about 3:30 in an attempt to get home at a reasonable
time.
Sadly there was quite a bit of traffic on the Cross County Parkway and we
lost an hour there.  And, where 84 hits the Mass Pike cost us a good bit as
well.
So, what was less than 3 hours going down was a bit more than 4 coming home.

When taking a group shot of us, my wife referred to us as Phoenicians as
opposed to Phoenix Swords people.  I like that, and think we should start
using it more often.

All in all a pretty good trip.
Although I do have to admit I’m pretty tired this morning.  (Partially
because I woke up at the same time today as yesterday.)

Comments

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying the costume potential of being Phoenicians!

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

I was going to go all 0_o at you for that comment, but then I realized the costume I was thinking of was from ancient Crete.

[malterre.livejournal.com]

Freedom of movement! FTW! And Snakes!

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Phoenicians. Heh, I like that!

I'll let the Roman side of me slide on that ;D

IIRC Jose said the walk took him longer than he timed it doing something similar before, and, he forgot something and had to turn around.
I'm just glad he came into view at the next parking lot just as we pulled in to intercept him. Made getting on the road a little easier :D

We were sort of amazed you decided to keep going with the cup stuck to your wheel, but we figured it hadn't been causing you much trouble
up until we noticed it, so we kept an eye on things until we pulled in the rest area, and meanwhile I figured you were going to forge ahead regardless
and make that rest stop since I think that's a "usual" stop anyway. It was amusing seeing how little damage the cup had suffered, and amazing it didn't somehow
loosen and thrown out onto the road that whole time.

I still can't believe I forgot about the rooftop. Perhaps I should make that my first stop next time I'm able to go down, and really hope it's another
wonderful day like Sunday was.

I -love- your idea of "submerged" and I had a very similar thought looking at the Greek fountain.