Month in Review
Earlier in March, we went to New York City on the occasion of relatives' birthdays and saw a musical called The Drowsy Chaperone about which I intend to write more, really, I promise. Getting half-price same day tickets makes for a really long day, but if we got tickets ahead of time, going down for a matinee would be quite workable, so we'll have to keep that in mind. Any particular recommendations? I should note that Chad's not much on musicals unless they're metafictional or have some other reason for people bursting into song.
We've also booked our Japan flights and hotels. All we need is the rail pass (90 days ahead) and our flight seat assignments (ditto; not that I have any great hopes of getting an exit row, but we'll try). Now I need to start thinking about learning the language . . .
And as discussed previously here, I started taking a yoga class. It's certainly exercise, but I haven't decided if I'll take another one; the instructor hasn't been very useful in telling me which exercises I should avoid or modify because of the bursitis in my hips, and I'm not suited to the less-concrete parts of the class. On the other hand, having a scheduled class is a good thing for a procrastinatory Kate. We'll see when it's over.
Last weekend we went to Boston. We spend all day Saturday at the Museum of Science, as it was hosting the Darwin exhibit that originated at the American Museum of Natural History. It had all the stuff you would expect, documents of Darwin's and fossils and specimens, all of which were informative and interesting-plus two Galapagos tortoises that I found terribly comic in how very slow and deliberate they were. As a complement, we went to the IMAX movie on the Galapagos, which includes some great underwater footage. After a break at Papa Razzi, a local chain Italian place, we just wandered around the Museum. Lots of the hands-on stuff still needs fixing, alas, but we still found plenty to entertain ourselves before having dinner with prince_eric and spouse. Sunday morning we put in an intense two hours at the Museum of Fine Arts: Japanese Bamboo Art, Tsutsugaki Textiles, really cool marbled paper made by Sufis, and a fascinating exhibition called "Women of Renown: Female Heroes and Villains in the Prints of Utagawa Kuniyoshi." According to information in the exhibit, the MFA has thousands of Japanese prints and is starting to digitize them; you can see some online.
Finally and very belatedly, papersky tells me that I am Bapchild. I have what is "thought by many to be one of the finest Village Halls in Kent"; a cricket club (with fantasy cricket!); and a spring named after St. Thomas a Becket. I was the site of the Synod of Baccanceld in 694, and am currently involved in a controversy over the construction of a Kent Science Park.
(And now to post this while the borrowed wireless connection has faded in rather than out, since our DSL went out last night and Verizon doesn't know why . . . )