(no subject)
I meant to make this post on Wednesday, but then I went to sleep without even opening my computer on Wednesday, and had limited brain on Thursday too. Because I am super-organized, obviously.
Anyway, for those of you who might be interested in the FMA Ladyfest, we're a little over a week into sign-ups, and this is a reminder that you need to sign up by next Wednesday! That's six more days, counting today, at least for those of you on this side of the international date line.
We have TWENTY-SIX sign-ups already, by the way, not counting bookelfe and me, and a couple of fabulous pinch-hitters besides. We are so full of glee, you have no idea! Every time we get a new sign-up in, we send excited capslock-filled emails to each other, and that is the truth.
For those of you who don't care about FMA -- and probably some of those who do, I suppose -- I will say that my tiredness on Wednesday was well-earned through an awesome day! I've begun a new habit of giving my parents a parent-daughter day as a birthday present, date and activities to be determined later. It's fun for both of us, and it saves the question of what to get people who have a house full of objects to their own taste already. (There are always books, which are my family default in any case, but they both read pretty slowly, and thus always have a big to-read stack anyway.)
Mom's birthday was back in February, but we didn't do our mother-daughter day till this week. I took her to the Peabody Museum in Harvard (which is entirely separate from the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem), which was really interesting; I highly recommend the exhibits on "Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West" and "Change & Continuity: Hall of the North American Indian" which are where we spent most of our time. One of the few exhibits I've seen that works hard to give a voice to contemporary Indians and talk about change and living traditions. After a couple hours, we had burned out on staring at exhibits, no matter how interesting. So we moved on to picnic in Harvard Square (yes, of course I took my mother to Tealuxe, and of course she bought a bunch) and then on to the waterfront.
We wandered around the wharf for a while, ate Italian ice and watched shrieking kids play in a sidewalk fountain in the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and then took the ferry out to Spectacle Island. It was the second-to-last ferry of the day -- we'd meant to take the 3:00, but missed it, because the sign erroneously told us it was running 15 minutes late so we thought we had time to grab Italian ice -- so we only had 40 minutes or so to wander. Criminally short, we had been told, but actually Spectacle is small enough that it was a nice little wander. We read the Visitor Center info about how modern Spectacle is much bigger than it once was because it was used for rendering plants and a garbage dump, and then they sealed it over with dirt and gravel from the Big Dig and have been working on a habitat reclamation program. Then we took a wander up to the the north drumel end, caught an unnecessary but fun ride back with a park ranger (we could have walked and been in plenty of time, but this saved us hurrying), and took the ferry back. Then dinner at the Bell-in-Hand Tavern -- very proud of its 1790s founding, and one of those funny narrow corner buildings nobody makes any more; the food was tasty, but it was a bit incongruous to have loud rock music piped in the whole time -- and back home. A marvelous day, all told!
Mom's new goal, she tells me, is to find a good place to have local, fresh seafood which isn't as tourist-expensive as the places right on the Wharf like the Union Oyster House. I suspect working southwards is the way to go here. I have time to find a good place, anyway; the next parental trip is Dad's almost equally belated father-daughter day, probably in September, and he's not much for seafood anyway.
Anyway, for those of you who might be interested in the FMA Ladyfest, we're a little over a week into sign-ups, and this is a reminder that you need to sign up by next Wednesday! That's six more days, counting today, at least for those of you on this side of the international date line.
We have TWENTY-SIX sign-ups already, by the way, not counting bookelfe and me, and a couple of fabulous pinch-hitters besides. We are so full of glee, you have no idea! Every time we get a new sign-up in, we send excited capslock-filled emails to each other, and that is the truth.
For those of you who don't care about FMA -- and probably some of those who do, I suppose -- I will say that my tiredness on Wednesday was well-earned through an awesome day! I've begun a new habit of giving my parents a parent-daughter day as a birthday present, date and activities to be determined later. It's fun for both of us, and it saves the question of what to get people who have a house full of objects to their own taste already. (There are always books, which are my family default in any case, but they both read pretty slowly, and thus always have a big to-read stack anyway.)
Mom's birthday was back in February, but we didn't do our mother-daughter day till this week. I took her to the Peabody Museum in Harvard (which is entirely separate from the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem), which was really interesting; I highly recommend the exhibits on "Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West" and "Change & Continuity: Hall of the North American Indian" which are where we spent most of our time. One of the few exhibits I've seen that works hard to give a voice to contemporary Indians and talk about change and living traditions. After a couple hours, we had burned out on staring at exhibits, no matter how interesting. So we moved on to picnic in Harvard Square (yes, of course I took my mother to Tealuxe, and of course she bought a bunch) and then on to the waterfront.
We wandered around the wharf for a while, ate Italian ice and watched shrieking kids play in a sidewalk fountain in the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and then took the ferry out to Spectacle Island. It was the second-to-last ferry of the day -- we'd meant to take the 3:00, but missed it, because the sign erroneously told us it was running 15 minutes late so we thought we had time to grab Italian ice -- so we only had 40 minutes or so to wander. Criminally short, we had been told, but actually Spectacle is small enough that it was a nice little wander. We read the Visitor Center info about how modern Spectacle is much bigger than it once was because it was used for rendering plants and a garbage dump, and then they sealed it over with dirt and gravel from the Big Dig and have been working on a habitat reclamation program. Then we took a wander up to the the north drumel end, caught an unnecessary but fun ride back with a park ranger (we could have walked and been in plenty of time, but this saved us hurrying), and took the ferry back. Then dinner at the Bell-in-Hand Tavern -- very proud of its 1790s founding, and one of those funny narrow corner buildings nobody makes any more; the food was tasty, but it was a bit incongruous to have loud rock music piped in the whole time -- and back home. A marvelous day, all told!
Mom's new goal, she tells me, is to find a good place to have local, fresh seafood which isn't as tourist-expensive as the places right on the Wharf like the Union Oyster House. I suspect working southwards is the way to go here. I have time to find a good place, anyway; the next parental trip is Dad's almost equally belated father-daughter day, probably in September, and he's not much for seafood anyway.