Art and BBQ
I have finally ventured to some culture.
The morning started with the farmer's market, which I am loving. It takes all my self-control not to buy everything in the place. And even with that self-control, as minimal as it is, I got way more food than necessary and still have veggies aplenty in the fridge, a week after shopping.
Then, I girded my loins, and got on the Metro for an hour and a half easy breezy ride from Rockville into Crystal City (in Virginia). There was a local art show there and some friends from high school. The show was in a towering office building totally cleared of all its trappings of commerce and covered in paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media. Some rooms were painted and hung with artifacts. One was a cave of thrown-away written objects - pieces of mail, old birthday cards, letters of congratulations, postcards, anything that people felt was valuable but then decided to discard anyway. It was oddly touching. And on the silly spectrum, the Peep dioramas were on display and showcased such diverse things as Tour de Peep, Peepton Abbey, the Royal Peep Wedding, and Occupeep DC. Since this was the last day of the show, there were also performances. I think I may have seen almost every kind of art while there - a very cute play in the style of Shakespeare crossed with a Bollywood movie, a fashion show interspersed with dancing, all the visual arts in the building. I suppose I missed out on music, but I know it was playing somewhere in the building.
Feeling sufficiently cultured, I was pondering whether I should venture out of my woman cave into the city the next day. There was a BBQ battle on and I wanted to see it, but not alone. While whining about it to Robby, I saw that some summer interns posted about this very event on the FB group and so I replied and the rest is history. I made my way toward the mall, and used the inflatable pig (named Wilbur) as a beacon and met the most outgoing person I've ever met in my entire life. She was friendly with any and every person on our mad rampage through the free food booths and asked random strangers to take pictures with us. She made friends with people in line and seemed comfortable spending the whole day with basically a stranger (me). It was a great time. Strangely, I didn't get any actual barbecue, but I did eat way too many grilled meats.
Mad weekend of madness! And today, I hope for more madness of a different sort. More later.
The morning started with the farmer's market, which I am loving. It takes all my self-control not to buy everything in the place. And even with that self-control, as minimal as it is, I got way more food than necessary and still have veggies aplenty in the fridge, a week after shopping.
Then, I girded my loins, and got on the Metro for an hour and a half easy breezy ride from Rockville into Crystal City (in Virginia). There was a local art show there and some friends from high school. The show was in a towering office building totally cleared of all its trappings of commerce and covered in paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media. Some rooms were painted and hung with artifacts. One was a cave of thrown-away written objects - pieces of mail, old birthday cards, letters of congratulations, postcards, anything that people felt was valuable but then decided to discard anyway. It was oddly touching. And on the silly spectrum, the Peep dioramas were on display and showcased such diverse things as Tour de Peep, Peepton Abbey, the Royal Peep Wedding, and Occupeep DC. Since this was the last day of the show, there were also performances. I think I may have seen almost every kind of art while there - a very cute play in the style of Shakespeare crossed with a Bollywood movie, a fashion show interspersed with dancing, all the visual arts in the building. I suppose I missed out on music, but I know it was playing somewhere in the building.
Feeling sufficiently cultured, I was pondering whether I should venture out of my woman cave into the city the next day. There was a BBQ battle on and I wanted to see it, but not alone. While whining about it to Robby, I saw that some summer interns posted about this very event on the FB group and so I replied and the rest is history. I made my way toward the mall, and used the inflatable pig (named Wilbur) as a beacon and met the most outgoing person I've ever met in my entire life. She was friendly with any and every person on our mad rampage through the free food booths and asked random strangers to take pictures with us. She made friends with people in line and seemed comfortable spending the whole day with basically a stranger (me). It was a great time. Strangely, I didn't get any actual barbecue, but I did eat way too many grilled meats.
Mad weekend of madness! And today, I hope for more madness of a different sort. More later.