All of the pictures in this post, and more, are available in full resolution over in a Google photo album.
We just got back from a fabulous trip to New York and Washington, D.C. The proximate reasons were to spend time with Caroline, who lives in Brooklyn, attend my 50th high school reunion and dig a little deeper into our national museums.
Our first stop was New York City and Caroline. We only had a day before we had to leave for the reunion, but we had a lot of fun going to a photography exhibit she’d found (among many other talents, Caroline is an excellent tour guide) and seeing The Third Man, an old Orson Welles film.
Caroline recently bought a studio condo just east of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Although not quite as hip as where she used to live on the other side of Prospect Park, it’s a very nice building in an up-and-coming neighborhood.
It also has a “semi-living” wall in the lobby. It’s semi, according to the doorman, because not all the parts of it need to be watered.
The up-and-coming aspect of the neighborhood was on vivid display due to all the construction projects that were underway. I was particularly taken by this job site dress code safety notice, which was pretty much life sized. Kudos to the company for fulfilling what is no doubt a legal obligation in a remarkably artistic way.
The first photography exhibit we went to had a number of galleries, but most of it was focused on pets and animals. All of the pieces were interesting, and some were quite beautiful or startling or both.
But my favorite involved photos where pets mimicked their human owners. This guy reminded me of Moose focusing on some small creature about to become a target.
There was also this collage of the same dog, with photos taken throughout the COVID pandemic and then overlayed together.
The reunion itself was quite a bit of fun1.
But we had a devil of a time getting there, because we’d cunningly decided to do this trip without renting cars…and we arrived in the midst of an unexpected torrential rainstorm. Which dumped almost 7 inches of water on NYC in less than 24 hours.
This shut down all the subways we needed to get to the train we needed. Renting a car at the last minute would have been problematic. We could postpone traveling to the next day, but that would involve getting a hotel room for the night when we’d already paid for one near the reunion.
So, we opted to take the most expensive Uber ride we’ve ever taken. Which worked out fine, even though it took 3.5 hours when it should’ve taken less than one. Kudos to our driver for taking it all in stride2.
After the reunion we went to DC by train, which I’ve written about in a separate post. But we came back to New York (also by train) to spend more time with Caroline. The trip down was on the Acela high speed train while the trip back was on the regular train. The regular train was only about half an hour slower.
In both cases there was a lot of “turbulence”…which, surprisingly, didn’t bother me, even though I’m typically a fairly nervous flier. My hind brain must take comfort from being close to the ground.
The second phase of our trip in New York was even more fun than the first. We visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, a treat any time of year. While not many of the plants were in bloom, they also had a bonsai tree exhibit. Some of the little trees were over 150 years old!
There were also some interesting characters lurking about.
We also continued our tradition of visiting the Brooklyn Museum, which I really like because it’s not too big, and it’s got well-curated, and eclectic, stuff. They were running an exhibit on African fashion which I found intriguing, in part because I’ve always liked brightly colored clothing.
I did say it was eclectic.
Another exhibition we visited involved miniatures, meaning 3D works done at small scales…and sometimes put in odd places. Like the sneaker-based sea creature confronting the people in a bottle cap boat…in a puddle on the street.
We all got a laugh out of this interesting take on Kill Bill.
There were also some amazing works that used shadows to construct images.
As well as some works built out of the tip of a pencil, and origami.
We often visit the American Museum of Natural History when we’re in New York. This time they were showcasing a beautiful live butterfly exhibit, where you got to walk around a room filled with plants and butterflies. A truly unique experience!
You can find a brief video of the butterflies here.
But despite all the fun we had at all these places, I have to say my favorite was our visit to the Brooklyn Cat Cafe. That’s a place where Caroline volunteers, which takes in stray cats and kittens, helps them, and gets them adopted. It’s a wonderful enterprise…and the cats are a whole lot of fun!
Someone’s lurking above you!
There was one newly-arrived resident, though, who was very leery of me. Even though I didn’t do anything to him, honest! She just walked around a case on the counter I was leaning on…and froze. She couldn’t take her eyes off my shirt, and kept creeping towards and away from me, never once looking at my face.
It might have had something to do with the tee shirt I was wearing, of a cat taking a selfie with a UFO landing in the background:
What do you think? 🙂
All of the pictures in this post, and more, are available in full resolution over in a Google photo album.
2 thoughts on “Reunion & Family Oh My!”
Wow. Thanks for sharing the amazing art, beautiful butterflies, and cute cats. (Kinda funny how my choice of adjectives worked out…)
Sounds like a lot of fun, well not the 3+ hour Uber. Great pictures, too.