This is a photo of an angel is Boston Commons. I took it from a moving bus. Andrew and I spent a few days in Boston before and after spending a few weeks in Southampton in July with my sister. I like it there a lot.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Boston Angel
This is a photo of an angel is Boston Commons. I took it from a moving bus. Andrew and I spent a few days in Boston before and after spending a few weeks in Southampton in July with my sister. I like it there a lot.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Vancouver Island
Back at the Dogpatch on the Hat, in Malahat, that is. It is so lovely here and the kids like it too. Poor Alfred has been kvetching a lot about being overscheduled this summer. He had over 2 weeks after school ended to goof around and a few days between Los Angeles and Canada. Maybe he’s stressed about starting high school. In any case he and Andrew both adore Canada and seem to be relaxing quite effectively now.
Gretchen has one of her old students and his wife visiting and they are also good company. The husband loves to cook so we are being regaled with all sorts of homemade goodies. He told me about a "no knead dough" for bread which I will try when I get home in an attempt to resurrect my moribund dream of baking bread. He is a behavioral therapist for severely disturbed children.
Yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. It's August so everything is much more crowded than usual. The main exhibit is on the Titanic. What hubris to proclaim that it was "unsinkable". Many people died because they refused to go into lifeboats - they believed that it was indeed insinkable. Most moving were the testimony of people about the musicians who did indeed play until the sink went down, never running off for their own safety. It was amazing how many fragile things could survive for 73 years in a frozen ocean at the depth of 60,000 feet.
We also enjoyed the exhibit on northwest Pacific "First Nations" (what we call Native Americans in the US, or did.) They were mostly settled rather than nomadic. Some of their masks reminded me of Japanese Noh masks.
Later we strolled on crowded Government Street visiting Rebecca's Hats and Munroe's Books. I picked up 2 of my favorite Robertson Davies books which youc an't get as individual volumes in the states: "The Rebel Angels" and "The Lyre of Orpheus".
Gretchen has one of her old students and his wife visiting and they are also good company. The husband loves to cook so we are being regaled with all sorts of homemade goodies. He told me about a "no knead dough" for bread which I will try when I get home in an attempt to resurrect my moribund dream of baking bread. He is a behavioral therapist for severely disturbed children.
Yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. It's August so everything is much more crowded than usual. The main exhibit is on the Titanic. What hubris to proclaim that it was "unsinkable". Many people died because they refused to go into lifeboats - they believed that it was indeed insinkable. Most moving were the testimony of people about the musicians who did indeed play until the sink went down, never running off for their own safety. It was amazing how many fragile things could survive for 73 years in a frozen ocean at the depth of 60,000 feet.
We also enjoyed the exhibit on northwest Pacific "First Nations" (what we call Native Americans in the US, or did.) They were mostly settled rather than nomadic. Some of their masks reminded me of Japanese Noh masks.
Later we strolled on crowded Government Street visiting Rebecca's Hats and Munroe's Books. I picked up 2 of my favorite Robertson Davies books which youc an't get as individual volumes in the states: "The Rebel Angels" and "The Lyre of Orpheus".
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Third Family Trip North: California to Canada
Art's Dad moved to Canada a few years ago. This our third family trip up there, to lush, cool Victoria. On our first day venturing north we climbed a bit of dusty Mount Shasta where Andrew made his own native-inspired rock towers, balancing rock on rock on rock in improbable shapes. The second day we ventured to Crater Lake in Oregon, a glorious crystal clear volcanic lake far away in the wooded mountains. The lake is the deepest in the United States and the clearest in the world. There is a marvelous volcanic island on one side of it called Wizard's Island which looks something like Merlin's hat. On another is a lava outcropping called the Phantom Ship. In the lodge I read about parties that were held there during the full moon. I would like to visit the cerulean disk of Crater Lake during a full moon. I wonder if the water will still seem blue in all that bathing white.
The next day we stopped in Portland. Unfortunately I couldn't find The Mallory hotel (of Bastard Nation Measure 58 fame) in the AAA book. We visited the Oregon Zoo, which is blissfully shaded, and which has a very good collection of arctic and the usual global beastie wonders. A favorite were the Indonesian water pigs: black, wiggly, and endangered. Washington Park is home to the zoo as well as to several other museums. We took a steam train ride to the international rose test gardens and the Japanese Garden. Alfred loved to the Japanese garden and kept trying to get away from us to think for himself, moody, reflective adolescent that he can be.
Yesterday we visit the Museum of Aviation in Seattle. Art and I loved it and I suspect the kids liked it too, despite general grumbling here and there. It made me wish again that I had had a proper math and science education. It made me fantasize about making a machine to automatically scrub my kitchen counter and suck up Charlie's fur from various surfaces.
Today we are in Vancouver, Canada and it's not clear what we will do. The boys have been mostly well-behaved with some gloominess from Alfred and some brattiness from Andrew but they are good travel-mates on the whole and I enjoy the quantity time we are having together.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
