City chicks

So, my uber-generous Mum took me to Washington DC last week.
I'd never been before, so it was quite an adventure.
We stuck mostly to museums and shopping. Figure that next time, I'll have to be better about checking out historical monuments and political icons.

What a wonderful time. We had perfect weather and even managed to avoid the Pope!

The only downside of our trip was an attempt on our first morning to take a trolley tour and get an overview of the city. It was a ridiculous wait (they say they pick up every half hour - well, that was not even remotely accurate). Also, there was no point getting off, since the lines to get back on again were out of sight. However, I understand that there are good tours - the Grey Line tours are supposed to be pretty decent.

We spent 2 days over at the National Gallery of Art. We agreed that there were some really special works there. We particularly liked a landscape by Claude Lorrain, Raphael's lovely fellow (oooh-la-la), Gerard David's 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt' and of course, there are !3! Vermeers.
I also thought that Cassatt's picture of the girl and her dog flopping on ugly chairs after a strenuous bit of playing rather sweet. I could go on and on.
One thing that was interesting was the choices of art they put together. A room might have 4 pictures by, say, Bellotto and Canaletto and then 3 pictures each by two other lesser-known artists. This really illustrated what makes the 'great' artists truly great. It also opens discussion for how certain compositional challenges are handled. For example, I adore Boticelli, but what is up with his picture of Giuliano de' Medici? Charming, but weird!

Birthday bliss

I am a bit behind in my updates here. Oops!
A couple of weekends back Curt threw a birthday party for me. What a nice time!

Marti and Brad brought bloody mary's and most everyone else started out with beer and/or wine. Over the course of the evening, the remnants of us migrated to vodka (everyone else) or water (wussy me).

I think the memorable quote from that evening is 'Have you seen my pants?'

I got really thoughtful and lovely gifts. My friends know me well...
beautiful plants, Adirondack chairs, vibrant cut flowers (still have a few of the casa blanca lilies going), a birdhouse on a pitchfork, an indoor witch ball, yarn, wine, jewelry, cookies, cake and a fun print. There is more, but I don't want to get y'all too envious.

On the following Monday Mum arrived and visited us for two weeks (tragically, she had to leave yesterday :(
So, she and Curt took me out for a fancy-pants dinner. I made up for not getting properly blotto over the weekend by indulging in 2 gargantuan glasses of red wine. The next day I was singing Neil Diamond in UB40 fashion...

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