Don't expect many Friday or Saturday entries in this blog this year; I went over to Ryter's on Friday night, and we made dinner together-- well, he did most of the work, I just cut up some veggies and chicken and stuck the rice in the rice cooker. He did the actual cooking-- a Japanese curry that was really good.
Then we had ice cream sundaes, because the weather was in the nineties with ridiculous humidity. There was a slight disagreement as to whether they were "sprinkles" or "jimmies" but all was resolved.We've decided to make this a weekly event-- we'll cook together, and make something neither of us has had before. Note to self-- no gazpacho.
Anyway, Saturday we went to Salem, Mass to see the Peabody Essex Museum, which was very cool. I've never been before, but it's a favorite of Ryter's. It was pretty cool-- lots of maritime art, especially figureheads from ships, but also a large collection of Asian and Native American art.
One thing that I noticed was that in a display, there was a woman's shoe from the 1700s, clearly worn, and I thought to myself, I wonder what the woman who wore this shoe would have said had she heard that 250 years later, it would be on display in a museum for people to look at and marvel at how ridiculously small her feet must have been?There was also a carved ivory tusk that impressed the hell out of me, it was so finely detailed with little people and animals (and made long enough ago that the ivory part doesn't bother me); and a wooden Indian altar that was just amazing. If you're ever in the area and get sick of the kitschy witch stuff, see the museum. No, see it regardless, it's way better than the witch museums.
Speaking of kitschy witch stuff, we walked around a little after we finished at the museums. We went to a couple wannabe-witch stores, the kinds with silver pentagrams and incense and crystal pendulums where you can get a palm reading in the back room. Ryter wanted to get his fortune told but it's Salem, witch central, so you know they charged ridiculous fees. We settled for looking around and getting a smoothie (me) and a celery-apple-carrot-whatever juice (Ryter) at a place that advertised "We have wheat grass!" and had fliers for various "spiritual mediums" and a "school of conjuration."Then we wandered back to the car, and as we went we looked around; we passed through the Old Burying Point Cemetery, as I wanted to look at the gravestones, but then we realized that thanks to the placement of the paths we were walking on graves themselves and left post-haste.
There's something inherently disrespectful about walking over a grave, even if the grave is so old that the remains are surely nothing but bones and even the headstone is crumbling and unreadable. Of course, nothing can top the disrespect that I saw when my high school English class went to Salem and were told to eat our lunches in the cemetery; bad enough that most of my classmates picnicked on the grass between the headstones (I forced my friends to eat on the edge of it, by a tree, so we weren't as blatantly disrespectful), but the chaperones perched on one of the above-ground tombs and used it as a picnic table.Now, I don't think there's that much significance to a body after death but honestly. You do not use a tomb as a picnic table. Somebody put their loved one in there. That still irks me.
We headed back to Durham after that since Shrewd was bringing up various things I had forgotten (bathrobe, shower sandals, phone charger, etc-- all important things) and anyway, it was really, really hot and we were tired.
Fun times, though. Even though Salem is so very kitschy, the museum is nice and honestly, I like laughing at kitschy and spending no money on it.
Cellamica was gone for the weekend so I had the room to myself for the day, which I spent doing my mountains of homework. Very boring. Got it all done though, which is all that matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment