Dan took an early flight Saturday morning, departing for a week-long work adventure. While I have been trying to travel with him as much as possible, I stayed home to hang out with the children this time. (More to be back-posted later on some past adventures that we reported in our Christmas letter but haven't expanded on yet.)
But what to do alone with the children for a whole week?
The Kids and their Practically Adult Activities
Saturday started out with the idea of figuring out the Project Of Will Getting University Logistics Going (POWGULF). While initially an overwhelming concept, after some research and thought, we determined that we are smart people and can figure this out together. So many parts of Saturday were spent creating a plan on a marker board and researching deadlines. We determined that with his current grades and SAT, Will has a 5.38% chance of getting into Cal Tech, a 50.94% chance of getting into Georgia Tech, and a 95.16% chance of getting into Virginia Tech. So really, there is a good chance he can find a school to attend that works well for him. We identified our three greatest concerns: Essay writing and editing, finding merit-based scholarships to apply to, and determining the calendar of application deadlines.
What about Alex? We broke out his passport and SSN card and took him over to his new job to complete his onboarding paperwork. On the way, we listened to NPR (learning that Weird Al made a move about himself starring the actor who played Harry Potter) and stopped off at one of the rare automatic car washes in our area to try and get the encrusted pollen removed from the car. The work paperwork part was successful, but we felt a bit silly after the car wash when a torrential downpour commenced.
Continuing the Tradition of Forced Art Appreciation
Sunday after church, we hopped on the metro to go downtown. You see, I still have lots of metro dollars left over from before the pandemic when I rode the metro daily to work. We went to the Hirshorn Gallery, which has a Kusama exhibit. We saw one of her giant pumpkins but weren't able to take photographs in that section. However, we did get to take pictures in two different infinity rooms. The infinity rooms are both rectangular rooms that you can physically enter. This is a picture of the outside of the first infinity room.
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| Outside the Infinity Room |
The guy standing outside is responsible for crowd control. He lets you in for 45 seconds, then kicks you out. I shall call him, The Infinity Room Bouncer. So the Infinity Room Bouncer tells you the time rules, the photography rules, checks to see if you are in a group together, and then lets you in.
To this crazy place:
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| Which Way to Look for Photograph? |
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| Yes, That Way. But What About Will? |
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| There We Are, In a Row |
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| Alex Wondering What Those Things Are |
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| Alex and Will are Wondering about Their Infinite Doppelgangers |
So it turns out that the red-dot-covered things are soft, phallic sculptures, and the room itself is called "Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field." Apparently, the artist experienced some trauma as a child. Her mother would ask her to go spy on her philandering father. This influenced her art. The other aspect of Kusama's experience and expression of her art is that she experiences hallucinations which she then translates into art. She has been experiencing these since about age 10 and finds it therapeutic to create art of infinite dots to cope. She has lived in a mental institution since the 1970s and walks to her studio each day to create art.
Another of her infinity rooms is called "My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe." Like a never-ending nightclub, the dots are glowing here.
A little difficult to photograph; we had to get really close to one of the lights to be illuminated.
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| This Time We Didn't Lose Will |
Food Truck?
After our dot adventure, we departed from the Hirshorn and contemplated shwarma. We walked up to the first food truck that had shwarma on the menu, but Alex was unsure that they would be able to produce a plate of rice, fries, and meat without other ingredients like tomatoes and onions. We walked by two more shwarma food trucks. The offerings were more of a gyro sort of sandwich containing other ingredients. He suggested that we try a restaurant. Of course, there are few restaurants on the mall, so we found the nearest "shwarma" on google maps and started off on an adventure to find the restaurant called Zaytinya by José Andrés. Of course, we didn't think it completely through. Obviously, if a restaurant name has "by Fancy-Chef-Name" after it, it's going to be different than "Shwarma Guys." Alex was wanting Shwarma Guys or Lebanese Taverna. We arrived to the fancy Mediterranean restaurant, and indeed there was no plate of rice, fries, and meat. In fact, they had zero fries at all.
The pita was lovely.
And look, the water glass even had lots of dots, just like our museum visit. Throughout the whole experience, Alex kept saying, "This was not what I expected." But hey, we had a new experience at a new place. And we all ate delicious, unexpected food.
