Museums

 Master wants me to go out and have fun today. Go to a museum, go run some errands to the market and all. (Right now, I am downloading the latest patch for World of Warcraft and plan on playing for an hour or so before vacuuming, doing the dishes, and tidying up a bit more.) None of the museums open for about another hour, and I am still trying to figure out which one to go see.

There is a "Sketch to Screen" exhibit at the Museum of Art, but that runs for another month. I really want to see it because they have the glasses Gregory Peck wore in To Kill A Mockingbird, one of my all-time favorite actors and favorite movies.

There is some infantry museum with (supposedly) a bunch of things from Hitler's bunker and house. Yes, I am morbidly fascinated with that, and with a lot of things involving WWII. (No, I am NOT a Nazi.)

Close to that is what I still think of as the Cowboy Hall of Fame, now renamed a more politically correct title. I would love to go there and see things I haven't seen since I was a child, and see what new things they have there.

Down in Norman at the university there is a lovely collection of art, but the car I use seems to need a bit of work, and I really don't want to take the chance. One of these days, though, I will get down there and check it out.

I know there are a few old houses around here that have been turned into museums, and I love things like that, too. I remember as a child how I loved when our parents took us to this mansion turned museum not too far north of there. It had two curved staircases, bedrooms and sitting rooms arranged in the way they were a century or so ago, and even a fountain in the solarium! The back doors were French doors, with slightly wavy glass, and they opened onto a huge sitting area (too large and fine to be called a porch) overlooking this huge walking garden. It looked as if it had come out of an Austen novel, but to me as a child, it was magical and a place I wished was home. When I moved back, I asked about it, only to discover the mansion had been sold to a private party, and "all" its artwork removed to the Museum of Art. Unfortunately, "all" seems only to have been some of the paintings. The furnishings and the atmosphere did not accompany them.

One of the places I absolutely adored in Los Angeles was the Armand Hammer Museum at UCLA. To stand directly in front of a Rembrandt and be able to stare at it so closely that you can see the runnels in the brush strokes where the brush hairs etched a pattern is amazing. Then for the reality to blossom in your mind, that this painting was created by hands that were warmed by the sun and by their own lifeblood four hundred years ago... it is the most profound experience.

It's funny, but most of these things I have experienced on my own. Now I think of things I have seen and enjoyed and marveled at, and I want to take Master's hand, gently tugging at him, begging him to come see all these things as well. I want to show him what I've seen and what I've known. I want to share what thoughts I've entertained in my odd little mind, and I want to know what he thinks and sees.

Anyway, while I wrote this, I somehow uninstalled all of World of Warcraft while trying to reinstall Burning Crusade. Now my CD-ROM drive doesn't want to open. I am posting this and rebooting, hoping that will fix everything.

And then? A shower, a healthy breakfast, writing a grocery list, and out the door I go!