Hello World,
Happy Earth Day! Sunday would be the day to honor all things here on terra firma – and while we’re at it, over the bounding main and into the wild blue yonder besides. And once again, need I remind everyone that it behooves us to treat the planet with the utmost care, since it is apparently the only place in the universe with chocolate. (And not to mention, beer as well, it goes without saying.) In keeping with the “green” theme of the moment, I am reminded that the Easter Bunny brought me some lovely seasonal flowers for the recent holiday, and they were not only a delight for the senses, but a thing of beauty indeed. There was a pot of hyacinths, with its heavenly fragrance, in three different colors of pink, purple, and white. There were also 2 lovely campanula (or bell flower) which is not something that I’m familiar with, but it seems that they come in combinations of lavender and purple, and look just like tiny sweet and dainty hydrangeas, so what’s not to like? We’re looking forward to them gracing our garden for many Earth Days to come, and while I don't mind saying that I'm happy to provide the chocolate, when it comes to beer, frankly, they're on their own.
Last weekend, we were glad to welcome a visitor to our shores from the West Coast, and in a surprising show of hospitality, even the weather cooperated for a change. Alert readers may recall a pair of sisters from the San Francisco bay area, who came to New York a couple of years ago, and we took them out in the harbor for a spin on the venerable Circle Line, which we all found very interesting. This time around, only one of the young ladies made the trip, and although she had many other plans and activities during her stay in The Big Apple, she still was kind enough to squeeze us in for a bit on Saturday. It all began innocently enough when we met at the legendary Grand Central Terminal, where she had never been before, so that is always a very special destination for tourists, and she was suitably impressed. Of course, there’s a veritable panoply of food choices in the station’s Dining Concourse, and she was happy to make a meal out of wild mushroom soup at Hale & Hearty Soup, and a genuine New York bagel from Zaro’s Bread Basket, with plenty of cream cheese. Bill threw caution to the wind and grabbed a veggie hot dog with the works from Frankie’s Dogs on the Go, while I had one of Zaro’s famous Triple Grilled Cheese on a toasted challah roll, which did not disappoint, I can tell you that. Thus fortified, we were prepared to hit the streets and go where the day would lead us.
After already experiencing The Circle Line excursion on the previous visit, she was more in a museum frame of mind than otherwise, so we took a pass on the nautical adventures, and opted for more educational pursuits on dry land. Well, that is to say that it probably would have been more of an educational pursuit, but instead of taking the standard tourist perambulation through the fabled Metropolitan Museum of Art, we signed up for a somewhat “off the beaten track” museum tour from our new friends at Museum Hack - and which you can believe me when I tell you is not your grandparents’ museum tour, and not by any means. (Please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at www.museumhack.com and see for yourself.) Our tour guides were two personable young fellows, Kevin and Evan, with boundless energy, and the dogged persistence it would take to wrangle 14 strangers through the endless galleries of the Met without losing any, whether accidentally or deliberately. (Mind you, about 10 of the other people in our group were part of a tourist outing from Pennsylvania, who had already traipsed the length and breadth of two other museums in the morning, so by the time they got to this one, their energy and enthusiasm had noticeably waned as the day wore on.) Their focus at Museum Hack is more on the oddities and curiosities of the collections, rather than the major art treasures that the Met is so well known for, so this would not be the tour for someone who had never been there before, and would probably want a more traditional and well-rounded view of the place. (Museum Hack also offers a wide variety of other interactive tours, including birthday parties, reunions, bachelorette parties, team building exercises, and more.) Our oddball tour gave us an opportunity to see the first ever object that the fledgling museum acquired way back in 1870, and such a squatty and disreputable Egyptian sarcophagus, that the curators now hide it away in a dim corner of a forsaken gallery where nobody even goes anymore. We went pelting through the various displays, upstairs and downstairs, while they peppered us with fascinating historical trivia and anecdotes about the artwork, artists, and popular culture of the time, so that even the weary Pennsylvanian tourists couldn’t help laughing along with the rest of us. There were even games and prizes along the way, and in a surprising twist for everyone (even our unflappable guides) we made history, in a performance art sort of way. Another offbeat tour group approached us in the American Art wing, and said they were on a scavenger hunt, and they needed 4 of us to join 4 of them in acting out “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in front of the classic painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware, while someone else in their group recorded a video of it for the scavenger hunt judges. It was hilarious. Fortunately, our affable guides were kind enough to take requests, which was why we were with George at the Delaware in the first place, and we also got the chance to see the notorious Madame X, as well as brief glimpses of Arms & Armor, and musical instruments as well. Whew!
Two hours seemed to fly by, and before you know it, we were back outside on the sidewalk, with just our memories and souvenirs to go with our aching feet and happy hearts. We popped our visitor into a cab because she had a concert to go to afterward, while we headed back to Grand Central Terminal for a nice hot pretzel before catching our train home. It turned out to be a longer day than we expected, since what with one thing and another, we didn’t actually get home until after 7:30, and except for the train, had been on our feet since about 10:30 in the morning. But it was a fun and unusual day all around, with glorious weather, and for anyone looking for something different to do in the city so nice, they named it twice, I would highly recommend it. You can tell them George Washington sent you.
Madame X
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