Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

You know what's awesome?

Museums.  Art.  Historical artifacts.  Musical instruments.  Central Park.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has miles and miles of incredible art and artifacts from almost every possible source.  We took my parents last weekend when they came to town and they were simply floored by the amazing things housed in this museum.

Below are some pictures of items found in their Egyptian section.  Some are are decorative jars, some are mummies and sarcophagi, others are actual buildings brought over from Egypt that you can walk into and view the hieroglyphics.






From the Egyptian section we went to the sculpture garden, which is actually one of my favorite places in the whole museum.  They have dozens of sculptures as well as stained glass throughout that is all phenomenally gorgeous.  My favorite piece is the gold statue pictured here of Diana the Huntress.






The last stained glass image is by Louis Tiffany (as in Tiffany's, the famous jewelry store) and is one of the most gorgeous pieces of art I've ever seen.  The picture is sideways because I couldn't fit enough of the image in the camera viewfinder and still have it be recognizable the other way.  When you stand in front of it the colors swirl in such a way that it is almost impossible to believe it is glass.

Below are some images from the American Art section of the museum, which is mostly gorgeous furniture that is nicer than anything I will ever own.









From there we went to the Guitar Heroes exhibit which was incredible but didn't allow pictures.  I managed to sneak in one or two anyway but I will respect the museum's request by not sharing them with others.  The guitars were beautiful though and I highly encourage you to go see them before the exhibit moves on.  After that we moved to the permanent musical instrument exhibit and saw a ton of beautiful items, including some instruments that the museum really doesn't know much about.  A few of them are the only ones of their kind and we don't know how they were played or who created them.  The gold drum pictured below actually belonged to Ringo Starr!









The last place we visited was the weapons display.  There were swords, guns, suits of armor, and all sorts of other weaponry on display.  Even after all of these things we still only saw a fraction of the museum.  One of the things that I love about the museums here is that you can visit them over and over again and see something new every time!




Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Case of the French Pervert

This weekend a news story broke about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of IMF who sexually assaulted a maid in New York before attempting to flee the country.  As it happens, when he was brought to the courthouse and arraigned I happened to be in the area with my parents who were visiting for the weekend.  It was a media circus!
There were press there from all across the globe and several people who just happened to be walking by that stopped to sit on benches across from the court and watch the scene unfold.
As it turns out the NYC court system runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so there were judges available immediately to arraignment.  The show Night Court was based in NYC for a reason!  As the case has unfolded it has been kind of surreal to know that I sat and watched as he was going through the court system.

I know this particular post was not long or informative, but I'm working on one hell of a post to put up this weekend so stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Amor Cubano

This weekend my mother-in-law came to visit for Mother's Day.  And not only was it Mother's Day, but it was also the final day of obedience school for the puppy!  She aced her test and graduated with flying colors.  We are such proud dog parents!  To celebrate we went out to dinner at Amor Cubano, a lovely Cuban restaurant in our neighborhood.  (Well, we went and the dog stayed home with a special chewy as a reward.)  The empanadas are to die for so we absolutely love going to dinner there!
They have live music, delicious food, and a friendly staff.  Their bread is phenomenal and all of their entrees are scrumptious.  If you are ever in the neighborhood I cannot recommend them enough!

Friday, May 6, 2011

This Was a Heck of a Week

As some of you may have heard, President Barack Obama paid a visit to my fair city yesterday at Ground Zero to honor the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack on 9/11.  This visit was especially significant because, as I am sure everyone across the globe is aware by now, on Sunday Navy SEAL forces found and eradicated Osama bin Laden.  Below is one of the most famous photographs to come from the event, the president and his staff in the situation room watching the mission.  This particular photo was taken by Pete Souza (the White House photographer) and I specifically got it from The Huffington Post.



I work a few blocks from the Ground Zero site but was unable to go and see the president speak as I was working at the time.  I would have liked to have had the opportunity to go and be a part of that crowd but work must come first.

I've been somewhat confused for the past several days and not really sure how I am supposed to feel.  On the one hand, our public enemy #1 is now gone and we have gathered an overabundance of intelligence information that will help keep our nation safe and secure.  On the other hand, is it ever really okay to celebrate the death of a person, no matter how evil?  But on the third hand are there just some people who provide no value and use a surfeit of resources who serve no purpose in this life?  And even still, on the fourth hand my sense of patriotism pushes me to celebrate because of the benefit to our country and the closure this brings to all of those who lost loved ones to terror attacks those many years ago.  But on the fifth hand, as a pregnant woman I can't help but wonder if Osama has a mother that is mourning his loss right now.  I have to stop myself here though because I have long since run out of hands and am pushing into Vishnu-like territory.

No matter what, this has been an incredible couple of weeks, historically speaking!  Prince William married Kate and Osama bin Laden was taken out by Navy SEALs.  This is going to be one of those weeks you tell your kids about when they get into the more advanced history classes in high school, kind of the same way everyone knows where they were when Princess Di passed away or when JFK was assassinated.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Connecticut

This weekend we went to Connecticut to help out my husband's aunt.  She is selling her house and needs to get it cleaned and organized before buyers start coming through so we went up and helped her do some cleaning.  Well, my husband helped clean.  I cooked and watched the dogs all day because I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy since I'm knocked up.  We had a good time and the dog had the best weekend of her life apparently.  She got to ride the metro-north train out to CT and make a ton of friends.  Everyone on the train thought she was adorable and wanted to say hello.  Then when we got to his aunt's house she got to meet her dog, Splash.  Splash got her name because the house is right on the beach.
They played all day long on Saturday and then for several hours on Sunday morning.  We took them out on the beach and they ran and played together like long lost best friends.  We only got pictures of them inside and on the deck outside though.
They had a great time!  We aren't going back out to CT for a while though.  It is always a bit draining to head out of state for the weekend, especially when the baby is sucking up all of my energy.