July 25, 2009

Driving Around

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We've been driving around with the kid home from back east.

There had initially been a plan.
Pick him up at SFO, eat a delicious meal somewhere, head to the Tutankhamen exhibit, drive home, check on the dogs and go to a movie, drive home again, go to bed exhausted, not to mention driving him back the next day.

Then, we got two texts.
(I can't say "texts" in one syllable, I only can say, "text-tss")
And two phone messages from one someone awake in the Eastern Time Zone to two someones asleep in the Pacific Time Zone and finally a live call immediately before he boarded his plane AND before we took off for the airport, to say he'd missed his flight and would be about 5 hours late. Fine, now we didn't have to leave so early. And we didn't get lunch either.

Someone considered painting the next side of the house and was discouraged, thinking getting to the airport earlier rather than later would be good.

Then it became apparent that our scheduled 1/2 hour to get into the Tut exhibit was very close to the kid's flight arrival. Possibly too close to get to the airport, p/u said kid, get to the Park, get to parking, not to mention get to museum.

Hmmm.

Some people in this family thrive on the slogan, "Keep it Complicated". Luckily the other two refuse to participate.

Through 17 phone calls, (Or so it seemed: I'm here, I'm looking for a cab, I'm in the cab, I got dropped off, where are you, oh I see you now.) and an expensive cab ride, we found each other at the coat check outside the museum. Two cases were swiftly tossed in, the smaller one holding everything needed for two weeks, the other cymbals.

Rushing in, we found our place in line, 1/2 hour late, but that was OK with the exhibit docent guy. I love silly coincidents (coincident-tss) and smiled at meeting the kid's high school buddy in front of us. 5 1/2 hours from NYC, a hasty cab ride, rushing to the line and there they meet. We parted as we were moved ahead to the front of the line due to us being members vs. him not being a member. Though uneasy, we sucked it up and were glad to forge ahead of the peons. (How do you spell peons? Maybe I should say peasants.)

Wonderful things were perused and studied, oohs and ahhhs and lookitthis's were whispered back and forth in the darkened rooms. How can anything at all be 3 thousand 200 years old? Especially if it's painted wood.

Especially, whilst back at the ranch; T. hastily scrubs the outside of the house, brushes paint into the plaster and trim, because it's time after only 20 years.

Of course the house sits outside in the weather while King Tutankhamen's treasures remained in an airtight chamber inside an airless massive pyramid that remained under tons of dry hot sand for millenniums (millennium?).

No sand, no pyramid, and no airtight house. It's got to be much nicer breathing in a cozy house. And we do get out more this way.

I loved the childish chair.
At the age of 9, ascending to Pharaoh, did he sit seriously and deliberately to oversee his kingdom from the palace throne? Or did he wiggle and chuckle playfully in the royal hall worshipped by all?
Poor Tut hung around dead for quite a while.
Such a serious society.
Maybe the objects (including his bodily dried out self) were just inert symbols left for the living to figure out, while the worshipped one spent thousands of years of in a happy-go-lucky, heavenly playing ground.
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