Distracted by my journalversary and other issues, mostly related to work (about which I am experiencing some stress lately, as manifested in a dream two nights ago about one of my coworkers telling me that having me on the team was like having no help at all), I’ve neglected to write about my smoldering weekend escapades. But now, mere hours from beginning a new weekend’s fun, I’m going to remedy this oversight.
The escapades were slow in starting, as I spent all of Saturday morning in my bathrobe, working on a quilt project and futzing around online. One of the items on my weekend to do list was “Henry Ford quilts?”, and instead of just ignoring it like many of the items on the list (“find bicycling goat pic”, I’m looking at you), I looked up the exhibit information and found that it was still going on, but only until Sunday. Since I wasn’t sure what effect Mother’s Day would have on crowds at the museum, I figured I should get myself dressed and go as soon as possible. Mr. Karen agreed to come with me and we headed off to Dearborn.
Once at the museum, I made a beeline to the exhibit without stopping to ask where it was. Lucky guess? Mystical connection to all things quilted? The fact that they were in approximately the same place as the quilt exhibit they had in the late 1980’s? You decide. The stars of the exhibit were the pieces done by Susan McCord, she of the famous (at least among some quilters) vine quilt. I’d seen these before, at the exhibit they mounted in the late 1980’s that my mom and I went to way back when I was a new quilter, and was surprised to find a new one, acquired recently. (Of course, if I’d done even a little research, I would have known that ahead of time; indeed, I could have taken a virtual tour of all the quilts here.) I was also surprised to see that they were letting people take pictures; there were no signs prohibiting it anywhere I could see. This is isn’t common at museums, so I hadn’t brought my camera in. When there were no postcards or exhibit catalogs in the quilt gift shop just outside the exhibit, I decided to go get my camera from the car and came back to take my own pictures. I didn’t use flash, out of respect for the quilts (since light damages them), so my pictures are rather yellow, but that’s okay. I can still see enough to inspire me.
The other place we spent a lot of time at in the museum was the Dymaxion house, which was new since the last time we’d been. Studying the exhibit raised many questions, like why I cannot buy curtains made of Fabricoid, a durable cloth-like material use in the partitions of the Dymaxion house, and why we do not yet have futuristic subdivisions like the one in this model. The answer to many of these questions seemed to be that R. Buckminster Fuller could not raise the capital needed to fund production. It might be just as well, because I don’t think I’d like living in a Dymaxion home– the o-volving shelves would be no match for my fabric stash, for one thing. (There’s a lot more information about the house here.)
We also spent a little time at the 1986 Taurus exhibit. I can still remember how startling that car looked to me when it first came out, with its rounded edges so different than the squared off look that was prevalent then. Now it looks almost square itself, but a glance at the brochures of the Taurus’s competition that year shows some really, truly angular cars. What’s been catching my eye lately in cars is the higher midline, like in the Pacifica. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but right now some of these vehicles look like the automotive equivalent of the guy who wears his pants up around his chest. It’s eye-catching, but not that attractive.
After we left the museum, I finally visited the Dick Blick store in Dearborn, something I’ve thought about doing since way back in August of 2002. It was not a magically transporting experience, though I did get a few new gel pens (and straightened up their Gelly Roll display– the Starbursts were mixed in with the metallics; oh, the horror), and now I know what they have. I resisted getting the lime green and teal Sharpies on display at the counter, but I must admit I sniffed one of them just a little bit. We rounded out the day with dinner at a Thai place followed by a walk to burn off a few of the calories ingested in the form of shrimp chips and curry.
Sunday was pretty much escapade-free. And okay, there was no smoldering, either; I just like to say “smoldering escapades”. Thanks to that same Mark Alan Stamaty cartoon, I also like to say “my beard is seventeen miles long” and “quiet people get run over by trains”, but they’re harder to work into everyday conversations and journal entries.
A year ago, I was basking in the afterglow of spring snow.
Two years ago, I was starting work on the kitty baby quilt.
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