Urban wanderings or Our Wacky Adventure

So I went running this morning, having been lured by yesterday's forty degree temperatures into thinking it would be a nice day to run. However, it was thirty degrees this morning, and there was a nice layer of ice over every surface outside. So I really worked at it, and ran alongside the sidewalk in the crunchy snow, but then I'd hit a driveway that was iced over and I'd have to delicately pick my way across it before starting to run again. I kept picturing Bambi doing his ice-skating thing and desperately not wanting to be him:


After that we wrangled the kids to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, which we (well, I) have been wanting to go to for months now. I ran into a dad I know from preschool a while back, and he had on a MCP t-shirt, so to make conversation I said, "Oh, I've been meaning to go there. Is it any good?" And he paused, and said nicely, "My wife works there. It's actually got a world-class collection." I told her the story later on and she laughed. So we tried to go on Mother's Day, but it was closed, and we just hadn't gotten back to it until today. The exhibit there right now is a collection of photographs intended to honor and invoke the Woody Guthrie song "This Land is Your Land," which he apparently intended as a sort of antidote to overly sentimental patriotic claptrap. My favorite photo was a huge billboard, handmade, in Texas that said in enormous letters "Never Hillary" [sic]. There was also a very cool set of photos of an illegal gathering of fireworks enthusiasts blowing things up. Mike looked at one photo and said, "Wow, look at that anvil!" and sure enough, there were various guys running from the explosion they'd just sent off, and then way up in the sky there was an anvil, apparently still on the way up.

Then we did more mundane urban things like eat lunch and go to Costco, where there were so many lovely begonias that one basket of them just made their way into our cart along with the assorted other stuff (Easter dress! Salmon! Beer! Coffee! Organic milk! Pears!) You know you've chosen a pretty plant when people in line next to you admire it and ask you which part of the store you found it it. (My response: "Thanks! I got it over there! [gesturing wildly toward the back of the store.] I'm going to plant them in the spring! It was only $12.79!")