Category Archives: Events

Pass the haggis

Events, ,

Until recently (like two days ago) I didn’t know that Robert Burns’ birthday was January 25. I also didn’t know he wrote Auld Lang Syne. Nor did I know that some Scottish folk celebrated his birthday with a dinner in his honor.

Now I know all of this because our Scottish friends, the McBride / Weatherers (or McWeatherers as some call them), have invited us to a Burns Night tomorrow.

According to the Internet a Burns night is celebrated with haggis (eww), whisky (yum), and poems. (fun).

I think I’ll recite “To A Mouse”.

I’ll let you know if I survive.

The Orphanage – a family outing

Events, , ,

Before Pan’s Labyrinth came out my daughter and I were sure we wanted to see it. Then I heard from many people how little fantasy was in it and how violent it was, so I thought that perhaps I didn’t want to see it. I went ahead and rented it anyway and we loved it. I think that the people who warned us about it were unprepared for the violence, but I knew what to expect in the reality part of the movie. I was pleasantly surprised at how much was fantasy. Not to say it was not depressing, but it was well done and I’m glad we saw it.

So when Clare and I saw that the director of Pan’s Labyrinth produced and presented a film called The Orphanage, we immediately wanted to see it, even though I’m not a fan of horror films.

Dean wanted to do something with the family (a task that is nearly impossible these days with our two teens who have completely different views of what fun is). Before we left, Andrew was livid. He had no desire to see a “Spanish horror movie” even though we explained that it was more along the lines of The Shining than The Ring. He complained the whole way, muttering things about subtitles and the unjustness of it all.

The film was wonderful. Even Andrew liked it. It had just the right amount of suspense and drama. The audience screamed at least once. There was only a little blood shown in the film, enough to satisfy folks that like that kind of thing, but not enough to make anyone too ill.

The story is about a small family who move into the building that once was an orphanage where the mother in the story was raised until she was adopted. I’ll say no more to avoid any spoilers.

The best part of the film? The discussion at dinner. We talked about the film on the way to the restaurant, all throughout dinner, on the way home and even after we got home. We all saw the same movie, but had different interpretations of what happened and what it all meant.

Hopefully this experience will prove to all of us that family time is still a possibility in our busy lives.

In which we do not see the Hopper exhibit

Events,

I had a couple of ideas for posts at different times today, but cannot recall what they were now. One might have been on New Year’s Resolutions, but the context has slipped to an area of my mind I cannot access right now.

Dean has been hounding me suggesting we visit the Edward Hopper exhibit in DC. I’d meant to plan a day we visit over the break, but as I suspected, didn’t get around to it. Today Dean mentioned it again, so I thought, why not. No work to do and we could go to the neighbor’s open house a little later.

Dean was online, checking the particulars, so I ate a quick breakfast (so what if it was noon – I ate scrambled eggs) and finished getting ready to go. We drove – Dean talked about how mellow he was feeling after waking up at 9. (about 4 hours after his usual wake-up time) He drove slowly and got us to the museum area of DC just fine. We parked across the Mall from where I suspected the exhibit was being held and I mentioned it, in a not-so-bitchy tone. Dean’s mellow mood prevented him from bitching back – he said we could walk right across the mall and there it would be. I asked which gallery it was being held, and he said the American Museum of Art. I told him I thought that museum was connected to the National Portrait Gallery and a bit farther away than “across the Mall”. He thought it was on the Mall. When we got the National Gallery of Art and saw no posters for the exhibit we suspected he was correct and set out to walk the few more blocks to the American Museum of Art, although there was an exhibit that looked good at the National Gallery. Dean said the Hopper was going to close in two days, so we should concentrate on that.

Being a warm-enough day, we really didn’t mind the walk. We got to the museum and Dean headed to the bathroom. I asked a volunteer where the Hopper was and she pointed to two large paintings at the end of the hall. She then told me the Hopper was at the National Gallery, but it was closed today. I wanted to argue with her, because, after all, Dean said it was here, but then realized that she probably knew more than Dean did. She said we really should see it because it was a great exhibit. I lamented that it was going to close in a couple of days. She said that it was not closing until January 21 – but the Turner was closing in two days.

When Dean returned he was surprised, but still mellow, that he was so wrong on so many accounts.

We saw the Katherine Hepburn exhibit instead. A paltry one-room show of a few photos, some posters, and her red turtleneck sweater. Big Deal.