Indiana Journal Day 2

It's funny how you lose track of the days on vacation. I believe today is Friday, aka Christmas Eve Eve. It's been another good one as I've found a number of ways to occupy myself in Borington.

First up, Mom treated me to an early present with an hour-long massage this morning. She has a regular masseuse she goes to who's really good. Since I've been having weird back spasms and recurring neck problems this fall, this was much-needed. It was kinda funny, since my Mom's name is Tammy and the masseuse's name is Tammy, so the conversation when Mom dropped me off and picked me up again went something like this.... "Hi Tammy, how are you?" "Good Tammy, I hope you're enjoying the holidays." "Well, Tammy, I'll see you again next year." "Great, Tammy, see you then. Merry Christmas!" It was a little mind-boggling. :-)

After I showered all of that oil off, little bro and I met up for a lunch date. We went to this sports bar that he likes and had fun just chatting and catching up. There was this cute dad at the table next to us with his 2 sons, aged about 6 and 8, and my bro and I were cracking up watching these little boys eat the single largest ice cream sundae I've ever seen. I think the waiter improvised on making it cuz the kids were so cute. It was actually served on a full-sized Fiestaware dinner plate, with a layer of about 4 choc chip cookes covered by about 6 huge scoops of vanilla ice cream and then whipped cream and chocolate sauce. It looked tasty. And the kids' faces were absolutely covered with chocolate sauce. My little bro called over "You should take their picture!" And the dad said something like "They're in a trance, I want to keep them that way...." Ah, the things we do to keep kids quiet.

Random side note -- help me settle a debate with my mother. This is the little couch that's in their den and has been for 3 years. We are at odds over what color it is. I think it's clearly dark green, but Mom argues me every time and says it's brown. What do you think? I took this photo with flash and everything else at an auto setting - no funny camera tricks to try to make it look more green. It doesn't need to look MORE green, since it's clearly already green! (Never mind the fuzzy sheep in a straw hat - it is moving time, after all!)


Back to the story.... After lunch I got a little alone time and was able to explore the Indiana University Art Museum. They had a photography exhibit up, showing a collection of landscapes by an artist named Art Sinsabaugh. I also finally got to check out the IU African Art collection, which is pretty cool. Today I was not in the mood for reading labels and really just wanted more of a "discovery" experience in the gallery, so I was excited that there were so many big, imposing, striking pieces - African masks, shields, headdresses, statues. Very cool stuff. I did feel like the gallery space was way too static for such dynamic pieces. Plain white walls, tiny-font labels, and cream canvas just didn't seem to do the pieces justice. If I were the curator, I'd want bright colors, maybe images of the pieces used in their traditional ways, and even some quiet drumming music playing in the background. It would've been so much cooler if the artifacts were all given some sort of context. But, oh well, they were shown in a very traditional museum-style way. I still enjoyed them.

Can you believe it??? We had honest-to-goodness carolers! Right before dark, we spied a gaggle of kids and a few adults starting to walk around the neighborhood. They came up to our front door and once we were all gathered, they launched into "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Priceless! And my mom had to annouce to them all "My daughter is here from Washington and she wants to take your picture." So....

The rest of the night is going to be pretty quiet. We've got "Hey Ma -- Meatloaf!" for dinner, then I think it'll be an evening of just reading and watching DVDs. Good, quiet, relaxing times in Borington.