Museum-Tree Trek

We made our now annual pilgrimage to the city to see the museum holiday trees--the creche at the Met and the origami tree at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).  And we listened to our first spate of Christmas carols on the way, starting with the standard first one "All I Want for Christmas," then "Christians and Pagans," "Do You Hear What I Hear?", "Do They Know It's Christmas?", "As Long as It's Christmas," "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," "We Need a Little Christmas," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and others.  

Besides those two trees, we had a few extra stops at the Met, mainly the gorgeous textile exhibition tracing the cultural exchanges via fabric in the early modern period, Interwoven Globe, that I had wanted to see.  Photographs don't do the skill justice--you can see the colors and patterns, but, until you're standing in front of the real thing, you can't appreciate the individual stitches or painting that goes into the creation of chintzes and damasks, silks and cottons, Indian and Chinese trade textiles.  Plus, there were several 18th-century gowns to ogle.  The kids wanted to see the Greco-Roman galleries, to look for mythological subjects,  and stumbled across an actual Percy Jackson scavenger hunt that we went on.  We found all the cards in the brochure and several others on our own, including this Artemis and the stag--the kids really know their myths!

On the way to the creche, we wondered through the Julia Margaret Cameron photography exhibition and the Silla/Golden Age of Korea show.  We spent some time at the creche talking about how long it would take to unpack and install it.

And then we went for lunch.

And headed to AMNH, which was a madhouse.  But the origami tree, themed on "Wicked, Wild, and Wonderful" alongside their poisons exhibition, was marvelous.  I liked the owls, seen here, and the Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap.

They even had Macbeth's witches.  Clever as well as creative.

Of course, we visited the rabbit diorama in the Hall of North American Mammals and walked through the old Pacific Northwest Native Americans gallery half a dozen times.  

By then, we were ready for home and took our usual route up Broadway and the West Side Highway to head to Connecticut, with the most beautiful pastel sunset in our rearview mirrors.

And about 70+ Christmas trees on cars headed in the opposite direction!

Advent Activities: O Christmas Trees!

With rain in the forecast, we decided to ditch our plans to go to candlelight at Sturbridge Village tonight.  So we headed into NYC instead.  Not for the usual 5th Avenue promenade and visit to the Rockefeller Tree, but uptown on both the East and West sides to visit the Met and the American Museum of Natural History.

The kids didn't get into either of the audiobooks we had so we played car games--the ABC game (J and Q are hard), counting the cars (1 pt for cars, 5 for buses, 10 for trucks, -5 for police!), count the Christmas trees (more of that on the way home), then once we hit the city, we looked for iconic NYC things--taxis, food carts, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, bodegas, fire escapes.

Our first stop was the Met, where we went straight to the medieval hall to see the creche.  All the while, Bud kept telling us that a group of Adelie penguins is called a creche.  We were a bit doubtful, having heard of colonies of penguins, even rafts of penguins.  But guess what?  I just looked it up and he's right.  A creche of Adelie penguins.

Well, there are not penguins in this creche.  Instead, we saw an elephant, a camel, numerous sheep, a donkey, an ox, some dogs, plus, of course, the Holy Family, angels, Wise Men, the shepherds, and all the Neapolitan peasants surrounding them.  It was a delightful I-spy.

  

Before we left the Met, we took a detour to the newly-installed (relatively) American galleries specifically to see Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware.  We looked long and hard at the huge painting, talking about art vs. history--the sunrise halo around Washington, the stable triangle-shape of the figures in the boat, the pinnacle at the flag, the diversity of figures in the boat (Scottish, frontiersmen, African, etc), as well as how and when the actual crossing took place.  Plus the original circumstances of the creation and exhibition of the work about 100 years later.  It really is a fun painting to explore.

The kids probably could have stayed all day, but we were off across the park to AMNH.  I have long wanted to see the Origami Tree and so we headed straight to it.  And we loved it!  If I-spy was fun with the creche, it was doubly fun with all the origami animals:  koalas, owls, penguins, bunnies, pandas, hedgehogs (perhaps--they were high up!), dolphin, ducks, swan, jellyfish, foxes, lemurs, peacocks, bears, horeshoe crabs,  oh so many different critters.  Just look at the pictures.  There are over 500 figures, made by members of Origami USA, who start in July to finish in time.  Very intriguing and inspiring.

   



We visited the dioramas--both in North American mammals (bunnies!) and the hall of the Blue Whale (penguins and manatee).  Did you know that the Blue Whale hall might be the best place to stretch your back in NYC?  (Well, I bet Central Park would be good, too, but not in December.)   I spent awhile on the floor, horizontal like those around me, admiring the whale from below.  Very good for the spine!

Then we headed to the special exhibition, Global Kitchen, which is all about "food, farm to fork."  The first bit of the exhibition was perhaps too science-y for me and even too preachy (and I'm the choir!  Maybe that's why!)--gallons of water, pounds of waste, etc etc etc.  Though, as the NYTimes reviewer notes, this is an exhibition about how people have intersected with nature for sustenance and how that has totally gone awry recently with agribusiness.   But then, I prefer anthropology and social history.  There were a few history of science facts I found intriguing--kohlrabi, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, and all cauliflower actually originate from the same wild cabbage weedy-thing that has been cultivated for thousands of years; apples are 7 times less bitter than their crabapple forebears; bananas might be extinct in our lifetime because they only use one genetic family which is susceptible to a blight right now.  We had fun tasting cornbread in the Whole Foods-sponsored kitchen (mine is better!  They change the topic every two weeks).  And we liked sniffing all the different scent interactives (yeah, lavender; ugh, garlic).  We especially liked the Aztec market with its basket and bags and pots full of fish, beans, corn, tortillas, agave, iguana, turkey, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, squash blossoms, etc etc.  It was a great display.  And without wheat, cheese, chicken, or beef--several of the items we associate with modern-day Mexican food.  Or plastic or styrofoam or even glass containers!  We also loved situating ourselves at meals through the ages--a feast with Kublai Khan, ice cream with Jane Austen, reclining with Roman empress Livia Drusilla.  And cooking our own meals on an interactive computer "stove" making groundnut soup, poached eggs, grilled salmon (see here for more recipes and info).  And seeing what Ghandi usually ate (vegetarian), what Michael Phelps downs during intense training (Bud wanted to try to eat that--3 breakfast sandwiches, omelets, oatmeal, French toast, coffee, what Otzi (the 5,000 year old Iceman found in the Alps) had for breakfast the day he died (dried Ibex and some fruit, I think), and what Nobel Peace prize winner and sustainable food activist Wangari Matthai would eat.  There were also displays on cookbooks, the history of utensils, and the specific traditions of China, Morocco, France, and Korea.  The only part that fell very very short was food as ritual--two small cases cramming diverse celebrations such as Chinese New Year and Day of the Dead together, accompanied by a too-short film about different traditions.  This could have been an exhibition itself and was not properly addressed.  But the gift shop made up for the slightly rushed end--we chose several different kinds of chocolate and candies to sample on the ride home!  And so we drove home up Broadway, munching on black raspberries, peach chewies, chocolate marzipan, and "milk bottles" of condensed milk candy.

But that wasn't the end of our day!  After a two-hour rest at home (including several holiday specials I slept right through), we headed for dinner at Bloodroot--because it's Latke night for Hanukkah, where a lovely clay menorah was lit in the center of the dining room!  The kids even played the dreidl game with another little kid and his dad while we all waited for our food to come.   Then we happily gorged on porcini soup (Bud's favorite), Cambodian kanji, oatmeal bread, three kinds of latkes (potato, cauliflower, and beets, with sour cream, applesauce, and a great beet spread from the NYTimes, Selma said.  Sis loved the cauliflower latkes), halushkin (noodles and cabbage), solianka (tomato-y mushroom-cabbage dish), Jamaican jerk "chicken" with this spicy green chile spread, marinated tofu salad, and then cranberry kissl, kombucha squash roll with cream cheese (think pumpkin roll), and hot fudge sundaes!

A wonderful day of family, food, and fun.  And trees!

One of Bloodroot's cats curled up on Bud's jacket.

Terrific Tuesday

Snow

Okay, normally, I count snow as pretty terrific, but regular readers of this blog will note my waning enthusiasm. It reached an all-time low yesterday as we drove through it to get to NYC. Much more than a dusting, we probably got 2-3". And we sat in traffic for more than 2 1/2 hours to get to town. I hadn't thought of it much before, but I think I might be scared of snow. Or specifically, being out in it. I like watching it from inside, playing in it later, but I don't drive in it while it's falling nor walk around outside too much before we're shoveled. You know what they say, "If God had wanted Texans in snow, he would've made bullshit white." I knew I'd gone round the bend when I actually turned to Mama and said, "Well, at least it's unlikely that we'll get into a fatal car accident going this slow." To her credit, she just patted me and kept driving. And we did get there safely with no problems.

Doctor's Appointment

We'd left early because the kids had a school delay and we decided to go to the museum before my appointment. The weather didn't cooperate. We found ourselves in town too early to go the doctor but too late to really go anywhere. So I called the office and they said he'd see me early, special exceptions for out-of-town patients, though there might be a wait. Now, when there's a "wait" at most doctor's offices, it can be a long time. I bet we didn't wait, from entering the office to seeing him, more than 10 minutes. Bless him. He thinks I'm still doing well, gave me three trigger shots to my lumbar area to help with pain, prescribed a muscle relaxer in addition to my other meds, applauded the treadmill purchase (talked bad about ellipticals as unnatural again . . . if only we'd found him before we bought it), bemoaned hormones and the weather, and was all-around encouraging and friendly, especially to the kids who jumped when I squealed at the shots (he didn't let that alcohol dry! And, well, my lumbar spine is very sensitive). Another great visit.

"Dinosaur Museum"

The kids had voted for the American Museum of Natural History since we'd been to the Met the last two times (and the exhibition on the Forbidden City hadn't opened yet), so we headed there next, across the park covered in snow. We always go on Saturdays, so it was nice to have the museum to ourselves, well, relatively, for one of the top tourist attractions in the city. Sis chose to see the bunny diorama and Bud the dinosaurs, so we went to those first. And just happened across the monks, who we hadn't known were going to be there.

Tibetan Buddhist monks. And they were creating a traditional Tibetan medicinal mandala out of colored sand (that's the sand up above). It was fascinating to watch them work, beautiful to see, as they applied minute amounts of brilliant sand layer upon layer in synchronized silence, one monk on each side of the mandala table, no instructions, no model, all from memory and study and teamwork. The kids, at least conversant with Buddhism from their talks with Ma and Gong and visits to temple in Queens, were still surprised to see the red-robed men. And, because Ma and Gong follow a different tradition, curious about the Dalai Lama, whose picture was on the altar next to the mandala.

We watched for a long time, purchased a few children's books on Buddhism and a new set of flags to hang outside, and then headed to the cultural anthropology dioramas of Asian peoples. Where we happened upon a children's activity about to begin. They would be able to make their own sand picture, over the brain logo of a current exhibition, using Tibetan techniques with the help of a monk. Sis and Bud were the only kids there when it started, taking the chakpur, long, tapering, hollow metal tubes and tapping them, with the monks' help, to distribute colored sand on the outline. They concentrated very hard, were very careful and serious, and then became shy when they looked up to see about a dozen curious adults watching them. It didn't deter them long and they went back several times to add different colors, as other kids and adults took turns too. We spent quite awhile traversing between the two stations, the monks working on their mandala and the visitors working on their picture. It was such a special experience.

(Actually, it always seems to be at AMNH, from our wandering through polar tents during an Arctic global weekend, to watching traditional Chinese performers during another, from the Silk Road exhibition to this. While I'm usually biased in favor of art museums, AMNH has done a better job of capturing our attention and delighting (and educating) us with new experiences. )

Fondue

We stayed much later at the museum than expected or intended. And so we decided to stop for dinner on the way home, realizing we'd get home too late to eat, especially because they'd probably fall asleep. And so we stopped for fondue. The kids were cautiously optimistic, since we promised shrimp and chocolate (no, not together) and told them it was "Swiss night." And we all had a great time. They both tried the traditional cheese fondue but then just ate the bread and apple bits, leaving all the cheese to Mama and I, which was fine by us. Then they had chicken, steak, and shrimp in a boiling vegetable broth. Because they've had Korean BBQ, they've had some experience with cook-your-own-at-the-table, though not quite in a soup pot (and Bud wanted to drink the boiling soup, like you would for sukiyaki, so we'll have to do that with Ma and Gong), but we still had some cross-contamination with eating forks touching raw food and impatience for food to be cooked before it was. Bud loved the shrimp, Sis the chicken. I ate all their vegetables. Mama ate surf-n-turf. And then we had room for chocolate! The highlight for both kids because there were strawberries too. It was late, but they revived when they saw dessert and our server was nice to bring extras.

After such a day, you won't be surprised that they slept all the way home. A good sleep after a great day.

Things that Make You Go "Llllll"

"Loom, Mom," he said, "not a 'yoom'."

And so Bud hit another milestone and a little bit more of his young childhood faded away: he is beginning to pronounce "ls."

We were at the "dinosaur museum" yesterday, showing Gommie the Silk Road exhibition, with its silk loom, that we had so enjoyed a month ago with Ma, Gong, and Goo (and, between two viewings, with kids, I think I've seen almost the whole show now!). The kids loved pulling Gommie from the camels to the worms to the musical instruments to the market to the videos to the astrolabe to the water clock. "Gom," Sis would implore, "come here!" Yep, "Gom." Just like I am often now "Mom." But whereas I don't mind at all, Gommie doesn't particularly like the shortening of her name. And sometimes adds the "mie" to the end herself.

Anyway, Gommie didn't enjoy the exhibition as much as she could have on her own, with all the leisure time to look and read and reflect, I think. It's hard to be the grandma sometimes. But she was a sport about wandering around the whole place, seeing dinosaurs and dioramas and the Discovery Room. That was a big thing this trip: Sis loved playing "I Spy" with the baobab tree replica (looking for hidden animals and evidence of animals like honey and dung), while Bud both excavated dinosaur fossils and pieced together a dinosaur model. One part I enjoyed was standing in the turret overlooking snow-covered Central Park and beyond to the midtown skyline. It reminded me of the view of Central Park from the 5th Avenue office where I worked, which was one of my favorite parts of that job.

We didn't stay to close the museum as we had on our last trip, being more tired this time and with no performance in the middle that required restful and rejuvenating sitting in the dark for a long time. But we did get a few treats in the shop--a new T-Rex for Bud and a bag of pink rocks for Sis--and fruit cups in the cafe before heading home.

But the journey wasn't over, for Sis and Bud played caravan in their beds long after bedtime, with their critters backing their things and heading from Baghdad to Xi'an. Though, I don't think there were any camels . . . .