If you're me, you head to the medicine cabinet and take a couple of Tylenol because you woke up with a splitting headache. It's not fair either because it wasn't the booze - all I had to drink on New Year's Eve was half a glass of wine with dinner. With a headache the size of the one I had, I should at least have had the pleasure of a bender, of tripping the light fantastic with some ditsy blonde or, even better, some sophisticated brunette, to the strains of Glenn Miller and Harry James, and finally, Guy Lombardo. What's that you say? They don't do that anymore? Those people are all dead? Oh, yes, that's right. Now it's New Year's Rockin' Eve, or some other such nonsense. At least it was a dozen or so years ago when I last made it a point to stay up to see the new year in. I shudder to think of what they do now. An all Gangsta' Rap New Year? How does Auld Lang Syne sound as a rap song? Or maybe an all Britney Spears and Friends New Year? I suppose the point of a show like that would be to pile insulting banality upon insulting banality until the sheer weight of it all caused what's left of the civilized world to finally give way.
Grumble, grumble. Anyhow, when I last left you I was at the medicine cabinet. I popped a Zicam while I was at it because I thought I felt a cold coming on. Not a good start.
By the way, that crack about dancing with the ditsy blonde and the sophisticated brunette? I was just kidding babe. Really.
I vacuumed the house, made a few New Year's phone calls and generally lolled away the morning. By lunch time I was feeling much better. The woman who is my life (really, honey, I was only kidding) and I decided to do something. The whole fresh start thing. A movie was suggested. They've made Ian McEwan's Atonement into a movie. I blogged about it previously. It's a great book and normally great books turn into terrible movies but I've heard good things about Atonement. We checked the listings and found the afternoon showing had already started at the nearest theatre. It was playing elsewhere farther away but we'd have to hurry and even then we'd probably miss the beginning. Oh well, we'll see it another day.
The National Gallery of Art was the next suggestion. They have a J.M.W Turner exhibit and an Edward Hopper exhibit running now and we wanted to see both. Great. Let's go. You sure they're open on New Year's day? Sure, everything's open these days.
Ahem. We parked near the Capitol and walked down towards the gallery. The wind was howling pretty good at this point so we decided to enter at the East Wing. Except we couldn't enter. The doors were locked. The place was dark. Closed. So much for that idea.
Okay, we're downtown, what else can we do? Well, the Smithsonian really is always open. The Most Beautiful Woman In The World had an idea - let's go see Julia Child's Kitchen at the American History Museum. A great idea, I thought. Now to some of you this may sound a bit strange. Julia Child? Yes, I say, Julia Child. I consider her to be an American Hero. A quite remarkable woman in many respects besides her cooking. Read the whole entertaining link above but how about this tidbit about her courtship with Paul Child:
In the summer of 1946, they traveled across the country together, accompanied by 8 bottles of whiskey, a bottle of gin and a bottle of mixed martinis. Paul wrote to [his brother] Charlie, "(Julia) never 'puts on an act', or creates a scene. . . She frankly likes to eat and use her senses and has an unusually keen nose." In another letter he reported "She also washes my shirts! Quite a dame!"
Quite a dame indeed. So let's go see her kitchen.
My wife, who's also quite a dame, and I walked down past the National Gallery West Wing, and then past the Natural History Museum, which had lots of people crowded around, coming and going. See, the Smithsonian is open. Okay, onward to the American History Museum.
Which was deserted. Not a soul around. An ominous sign. Then we saw a real sign - Closed For Renovation. Reopening Summer 2008. Oh, right. I think I read something about that a while back. Anyhow, Julia's kitchen would have to wait.
So far we were zero for 2008. Might as well head home.
On the walk back to the car the wind calmed down and all of a sudden it was a lovely day. We strolled along and realized that we'd rather be out walking than in some museum anyway. We both love walking, especially in the city. We go to New York City and I'm happy just to stroll along amid the hustle and bustle - I don't have to really do anything anymore. Just walking around will do. We did lots when we went to London and Paris and Rome and Vienna, and other places in Europe, but I am determined that on our next trips there we'll do less sightseeing stuff and more just walking and strolling stuff. Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that even though nothing worked out for us as planned, it all worked out.
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