I had a whirlwind weekend south of the Mason Dixon Line so my sister and I could celebrate the birthday we share. When I was younger, I used to think it would be very cool to celebrate my birthday by myself, as if it were mine and mine alone, and not have to share it with sister. One of the pains of being a twin was that many kids would come to our birthday party with one gift, for us to share. I always had to share my celebrations growing up, so I thought it would be really great to do my own thing, have my own cake, and not have to coordinate with anyone else. But in truth, a singleton birthday felt lonely in comparison. So I either go down to visit my sister, or she comes up here, and we get a lot more attention at restaurants together.
We decided to celebrate at Mr. Rain's Fun House, which is the restaurant housed in the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. We browsed through the museum first, and I was very impressed. The pretentious-sounding title of the place made me think it was going to be a lousy museum, but it really is a great museum.
Have you ever browsed through a gallery and thought, "Hey, I could make that?" The American Visionary Art Museum is full of artwork made by regular people with full-time jobs, but the collected works are much more powerful in their earnestness. It is not called folk art, though many of the works embody folk art traditions. It seemed that all of the work displayed had something to say. I was particularly affected by quilts that Mexican immigrants had sewn, depicting the hardships of crossing the border, with the skeletal figure of death always present.
The museum also happens to have the most awesome gift shop known to man. I spent about an hour inside. It was a melange of joke shop items, jewelry, original artwork, quirky books, offensive greeting cards, and ironic memorabilia. It was unashamedly tacky, much like the museum it is housed in. In short, Baltimore at its best. We obtained two miniature crowns there to wear at jaunty angles on our heads during dinner.
We had a tasty dinner, followed by cake. I slopped a cocktail in my lap. My sister had a kidney infection. It was our definition of high times.
I don't like to dwell on the times when things go right, so I'll tell you about what went very wrong. The next day, my husband and I slept in late and packed up to leave. As we were getting ready to go, our cat, Gypsy, had some very stinky diarrhea in her litter box. Then, after we had packed the litter box, she went again on the carpet. I had a feeling of dread, but I told myself, "she never goes number two outside of the box."
Later that evening, in heavy traffic around Exit 4 of the New Jersey Turnpike, Gypsy became restless. She went into the back, and I smelled something horrible. "Oh God, she crapped in the car!" I moaned. It was so awful, it turns my stomach to write about it. We had to wait about twenty minutes until we got to the next exit, where we cleaned Gypsy and the items she had crapped on. Fortunately it was nothing too important, but I did have to throw out a reusable shopping bag.
"Honey, you can just wash that," said Seth.
"I will never, ever use that again, not even if you wash it ten times," I replied. So that and a plastic garbage bag that had protected some of my clothes went into the trash.
It took about another three hours to get home after that, and it felt like the longest ride of my life. Gypsy was sick for a couple of days, but she seems to be feeling better.
The irony of it all is that this event seems to have been foretold in the birthday card my husband made for me. It reads:
"Gypsy and I were brainstorming over what kind of card we should send you on your Birthday. Unfortunately, we decided to part ways... So, I decided to say Happy Birthday with this card... She decided to put a huge load of crap, stinky, stinky crap in her litter box [sic]."
Maybe Gypsy was trying to give me a birthday present, in her own way.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment