DC hijinks
Apologies for blog hiatus. Just got back from four days in DC. Am sworn to secrecy about the events of the weekend by my bashful travelling companion, "Pubshy", but I can, I think report to you a conversation overheard in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, just by the part of the First Ladies' Gallery where George Washington's wife's dresses were on display:
American teen (maybe 16): "Miss Reeves?"
Teacher: "Yes?"
American teen: "What's the name of, you know, the First Lady?"
Teacher: (gesturing at the exhibit) "You mean, Martha?"
Second American teen: "Martha Stewart?"
American teen: "No, not her, I mean the First Lady now."
Teacher: "Laura? Laura Bush?"
American teen: "Yeah."
I quite liked the Museum of American History - there were a lot of interesting bits and pieces ranging from the hat Lincoln wore when he was assassinated, to the Deep Blue computer that beat Kasparov at chess. There were Enigma machines (an American father was commenting to his son, "you know, like Brad Pitt in U-571"), early FBI fingerprinting machines, and the same kind of morse code machines they had on the Titanic. And there was a whole load of stuff we didn't have time to see about war and Brown v The Board of Education and jazz. If I lived in DC I would spend a lot of time there, ideally at strange times of the day when the hordes of hapless were not around. I hate trooping round with hordes of hapless, it makes me want to kick the back of people's knees.
We also visited the National Gallery of Art. I am not very good at viewing art, but this was a nice building: lots of space, not overcrowded, and lots of lilies growing in pots. Also a tippity top museum shop. I am absolutely positive there are a whole bunch of people who go into museums to eat and to shop and leave without seeing any of the paintings.
On Saturday, we went to a spa in Georgetown. The lady who did my facial was called Johnnie and within 30 seconds had elicited my life history, present situation and future aspirations, and was trying fix me up with a 25yr old English guy called Dan who is her house mover.
She was very business like. American facialists, unlike English ones, believe in cleaning out the pores manually, which means attacking you with a stainless steel torture device. With my eyes covered with a bandage it was left entirely to my imagination what this device looked like (it felt like dagger-nosed pliers) but when I eventually saw it, it turned out to be a Lilliputian spoon with a tiny hole in the middle. She strongly recommended aginst rushing out to buy one, because, she said, "you can do a lot of damage to yourself". I dread to think.
American teen (maybe 16): "Miss Reeves?"
Teacher: "Yes?"
American teen: "What's the name of, you know, the First Lady?"
Teacher: (gesturing at the exhibit) "You mean, Martha?"
Second American teen: "Martha Stewart?"
American teen: "No, not her, I mean the First Lady now."
Teacher: "Laura? Laura Bush?"
American teen: "Yeah."
I quite liked the Museum of American History - there were a lot of interesting bits and pieces ranging from the hat Lincoln wore when he was assassinated, to the Deep Blue computer that beat Kasparov at chess. There were Enigma machines (an American father was commenting to his son, "you know, like Brad Pitt in U-571"), early FBI fingerprinting machines, and the same kind of morse code machines they had on the Titanic. And there was a whole load of stuff we didn't have time to see about war and Brown v The Board of Education and jazz. If I lived in DC I would spend a lot of time there, ideally at strange times of the day when the hordes of hapless were not around. I hate trooping round with hordes of hapless, it makes me want to kick the back of people's knees.
We also visited the National Gallery of Art. I am not very good at viewing art, but this was a nice building: lots of space, not overcrowded, and lots of lilies growing in pots. Also a tippity top museum shop. I am absolutely positive there are a whole bunch of people who go into museums to eat and to shop and leave without seeing any of the paintings.
On Saturday, we went to a spa in Georgetown. The lady who did my facial was called Johnnie and within 30 seconds had elicited my life history, present situation and future aspirations, and was trying fix me up with a 25yr old English guy called Dan who is her house mover.
She was very business like. American facialists, unlike English ones, believe in cleaning out the pores manually, which means attacking you with a stainless steel torture device. With my eyes covered with a bandage it was left entirely to my imagination what this device looked like (it felt like dagger-nosed pliers) but when I eventually saw it, it turned out to be a Lilliputian spoon with a tiny hole in the middle. She strongly recommended aginst rushing out to buy one, because, she said, "you can do a lot of damage to yourself". I dread to think.
posted by alranson | 12:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home