Venture Forth
This weekend, Bryan and I managed to unglue ourselves from the couch and venture forth into civilization. It seems like going and doing fun, enjoyable activities would be easy. It’s not. We are constantly fighting the overwhelming inertia and laziness that encapsulate our house. It’s like trying to get the kids dressed, shod, fed and into the car is a feat only achieved when there is a perfect alignment of motivation (which comes in brief and infrequent spurts around here), incentive and oh, I don’t know, the magical moment when a particular grain of cosmic dust is perfectly centered over the Arctic circle which signals something in our brains to PUT ASIDE OUR SLOTHFULNESS AND GO FORTH. Sometimes, this is accomplished kind of like a symphony–everything is harmonious, choreographed and beautiful. And then there are times like this weekend–when it’s more like a middle school beginning band class.
We started out with an oft discussed, never attempted scheme to enjoy some of the benefits of living close to a metropolitan area. The latest ploy involved the High Museum of Art’s showing of the Terracotta soldiers. We were utterly aware and in agreement that the significance of this would be completely lost on our children who are, frankly, too young to enjoy anything of cultural significance beyond Scooby-Doo and Disney World. But we rationalized this in two ways:
1) The High is free for children 5 and younger.
2) You never know when Ancient Chinese Artifacts will wander within fifty miles of your home again.
So, we woke up Friday morning and decided it was The Day. We planned to take Marta (Atlanta’s Mass Transit Train) because of the raping highish cost of parking in downtown. And we knew the kids would be totally stoked to ride on a Real Live Train with Real Live Drug Dealers! “Mommy, is that the guy who sells smack? Can we get his picture?”
Anyway, we arrived at the High with all of the other culturally with-it people and proceeded to breeze through the exhibit like brides storming Filene’s Basement. In the FIRST ROOM, Malyn fell apart because…well, I don’t remember. It doesn’t really matter. We read approximately 0 of the informative plaques and we struggled valiantly to inject enthusiasm and entertainment value into old pottery. “Look, honey! Here is a pottery fragment from a roofing tile! Isn’t that EXCITING! I bet Scooby-Doo would think it’s a CLUE!“ But it didn’t take long before they were quite finished with old dirt, thanks. So, pressing our luck, we rushed through a couple of sections of the Louvre exhibit but, unfortunately, the most interesting thing they had (from the kids’ perspective) was the Woman With A Penis. (Which was actually…ummm…I don’t know because I didn’t have time to read the plaque.) Actually, it was a God of Something and He was Male but He had long hair, so Drew assumed it was a woman with a penis. Chinese Pottery, Woman with Penis. Check! I think our day is done.
Overall, I am glad we did it but I wouldn’t do it again. As we were not allowed to take pictures, I have nothing to show for our trip but a teeny tiny soldier I bought from the museum’s gift shop because, dangit, we were going home with some tangible proof that our kids have received cultural education.
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We emerged from our cave today to take the kids to lunch and then the park. It wasn’t an easy feat as evidenced by the fact that I may or may not have stomped my feet and ‘harrumphed’ at my obviously slightly hungover husband (see Starting Out Drinking at Noon and THEN watching The Patriot) because he wasn’t helping corral the kids toward the door. Eventually, he persuaded me out of my funk and we made our first stop at Man Cook Rice. For those of you who don’t speak “Drewish”, let me explain. When Drew was younger he used to call the Japanese Steak House/Hibachi place the ‘Man Cook Rice’ place. I say that like we went all that often. We didn’t. It has always been prohibitively expensive for our meager budget. But a man who cooks rice AND makes fire right in front of you makes quite an impression. At least on our culturally deprived kids.
**(Lo, we have found the secret for enjoying a nice hibachi experience without first selling an organ on the black market–going at lunch! Same show–half the price! Hee!)**
Then we ventured down to a nearby park to enjoy some bike riding and playground fun. It’s a really nice little park with this shallow, rock lined path with water in it flowing down from the top of a hill toward the lake. The kids love to take their shoes off and play in the water–running up and down the path and harassing the geese who are paddling patiently down at the lake for a bread handout. I realize that my description leaves something to be desired so here is a picture of the path.
Of course, once the geese start congregating, inevitably someone shows up with some chips or bread and the kids flock (pardon the pun) to that area and harass the geese. And, without fail, one child ends up in the lake due to either jumping around on the slick rocks or extending a bit too far in an attempt to snare a goose.
And because it was just that kind of weekend, we hit the “kid in the lake” lotto.
(Who’s a horrible Mom for taking a moment to snap this picture before comforting her? Who’s a horrible Dad for allowing me to do so and snickering quietly in the background?)
Here she is showing you her *very* hurt knees.
Our outing ended pretty quickly after that, as you can imagine. And because the kids were soaked–Malyn from her plunge into the lake and Drew because he’s…welll…a 5 year old boy playing in water–we ended up stripping the kids down to their underwear and heading straight for the house where we all settled back in to entropy and laziness–Scooby-Doo creating the background noise for the rest of our evening.
Tags: Atlanta, Chinese, culture, High Museum of Art, history, lake, MARTA, park, playground, Terra Cotta Soldiers, water, weekend, wet
April 5th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
You have my sympathies and Malyn has Payton’s. He came in when I was reading the part about the park, took one look at Malyn’s knees and said, “Ow, I know that hurts.” Melodramamitc children must stick together.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
And who’s a horrible internet friend guffawing out loud at the picture of Malyn in the lake. Oh, my gosh, I can’t stop giggling…. I do hope her very hurt knees are feeling better, and I send a cyber-kiss to the top of her head.
We should go to the Man Cook Rice place in our town – thanks for the lunch tip.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I just love your blogs, kiddo. You have a huge gift with words (and your pictures aren’t so bad either). You would make your Grandma so proud (take picture FIRST — comfort later). And your talent as a wordsmith makes me proud as well — all that money invested in books when you guys were kids at least paid off with ONE kid — it was worth it.
Love ya!