While I was in California, I took a moment to whine about TH having worn the same blue velour shirts for 15 years. Well, I've been home now for 19 days, and TH has not worn either shirt since my return....not once.
Which can only mean one of two things. Either TH has finally figured out how to read this blog (doubtful), or one of you faithful readers took pity on me (or him) and squealed. Either way...it has worked. No more blue shirts.
And let me tell you what else this fashion plate did while I was away. We have a guest bedroom and, when it is unoccupied, I store my bulkier coats and suits in that closet. TH will sometimes stash his sweaters in the bureau drawers in that room. However, since our younger son and his family were visiting from the west coast, we cleared all our stuff out of the spare room before they arrived and crammed it back into our own closets.
When I returned home and unpacked my suitcase, I tried to make room in my closet once again. But lo and behold, there wasn't any room in the spare bedroom closet either. While I was away, TH apparently cleaned out his own closets and drawers and pretty much filled the spare closet and all the guest bureau drawers with his stuff. And this isn't off-season clothes, either...that gets stored down the spare room in the basement.
So I suppose that could be another reason why I haven't seen the blue shirts since. TH finally realized how much more casual clothes he owns that he doesn't have to wear the same thing over and over.
Okay, we now return to our regularly scheduled post....date #9. This was TH's choice and you'll never guess where he took us. This man continues to surprise me. We went to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
Now TH and the arts aren't usually found together in the same neighborhood, or even in the same sentence. This is a man who has never shown any interest in music, acting, photography, writing, drawing, painting, dance.....Not creating it, or admiring it....NADA!
I belong to the South Boston Arts Association and, when I was more involved, I would often drag TH along with me to open studios, poetry slams, gallery events, and other displays/performances. TH usually came along willingly (because there was almost always free wine and cheese available), but while there he would mostly commiserate with the few other non-artistic spouses and so he decided to create a club just for them. He quite appropriately called it the ASSES, although I never quite figured out what the acronym stood for...something about artists and their supportive spouses. Needless to say, they don't meet regularly.
And in thirty five years of marriage, TH and I have been to exactly two art museums together. One was the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA. We stopped there to break up the long ride back from Buffalo one summer. The other was the Getty in Los Angeles that we visited with a large group of family and friends. I loved both museums. As for TH....well, he was along for the ride. And he has NEVER, EVER, been to the MFA...not once in the 60 plus years he has lived in this city.
So imagine my shock when TH suggested we visit the MFA as one of our dates. (And NO....he didn't get the idea from the POTUS. He actually mentioned this about two months before Obama attended a fundraiser there last week.)
The shock subsided rather quickly, however, when TH brought home the tickets. He handed me two VIP passes. Correction: two Complimentary VIP passes. TH had scored a pair of FREE admission passes, with free parking included. THAT's the reason we were going to the MFA. The only reason. LOL.
Although it was yet another Saturday morning date, with no alcohol involved, we both had a nice time. Because the museum is huge (it would take weeks to explore fully), we arrived when it opened at 10am. Our first stop was the current exhibit by our DIL (or someone with the exact same name LOL).
Then we moved on to Nicholas Nixon's exhibit: Family Album. It's a fascinating collection by a local photographer, and features a series of photos that he took yearly of his wife and her three sisters, starting in 1975, the same year we were married. It was very moving to see the progression of time reflected on the faces of those four women and really hit home just how long a span of life there is in 35 years.
From there we dedicated the next couple hours to the Art of the Americas Wing. Wonderful...that's all I can say. We were in awe to see such national treasures. We are truly fortunate to live in a world class city with so much history. My favorite collection was the folk art....there's something about that medium that warms my heart and makes me very nostalgic.
And I was introduced to a new favorite artist: Scott Prior. I was entranced by a self-portrait of the artist and his wife in their bedroom...could barely pull myself away from it. It was an oil on linen, but looked so lifelike, almost like a photograph. Even TH was impressed. See it here.
We had a late and leisurely lunch in the Garden Cafeteria overlooking the sunny courtyard...where we even discussed some of the impressive artwork we'd just seen. After lunch, we took a quick stroll through the gift shop. I'm always amazed that these gift shops sell fine jewelry. Now I can understand someone purchasing an expensive work of art at an museum gift shop...but jewelry? We didn't buy anything, of course. At this stage of the game, we just don't need any more 'stuff' in our lives.
Before leaving the museum, we stopped at one of my favorite galleries, the Egyptian collection in the Art of the Ancient World. TH was just as intrigued as I've always been to see the mummy cases and artwork from the burial tombs. Amazing craftsmanship that has stood the test of time.
And then we were ready to call it a date.
Indeed, it was not a bad way to spend the last day of (this seemingly never-ending) winter.
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