Thanksgiving; museum; gym

[redbird]

cattitude, adrian_turtle, and I are hanging out together in Arlington. Cattitude and I got here Wednesday evening (the most exciting aspect of the train journey was probably that I dropped and had to retrieve a Scrabble tile), and the three of us cooked together yesterday. We got a little frantic near the end, and the sweet potatoes didn't come out well, but that was okay. We had lots of other good things to eat, and more of everything than we could eat. It will be turkey sandwiches with cranberry-orange relish for dinner in a little while. The apple pie was a failure, largely because the commercial pie crust Adrian picked up was over-salty, so we threw it away, cut up more apples, and made an apple crisp, which was quite good.

This morning we slept in a bit (by my standards, past 8 counts; I woke Adrian about 9:30 because we had plans). Down to Harvard Square for pho and tea (both to drink and to restock Adrian's kitchen) and then we went to the Gardner Museum, which Cattitude's father recommended strongly over the telephone yesterday. It is a very dense and jumbled collection, in a very nice building with an impressive atrium that visitors aren't allowed to enter, only look at. I mostly found myself looking at ancient statues, and at bits of furniture with mother-of-pearl inlays, ceramics, and small silver objects, rather than paintings, but one of the paintings that did catch my eye is labeled as a Rembrandt self-portrait. (I put it that way because there is controversy over the attribution of many paintings that are either by Rembrandt or his students.) The light and dark caught my eye, and my thought was "student of Rembrandt," because mature Rembrandts tend to be darker than this, but if it's by him, he painted it at 23.

We ran out of museum energy well before they ran out of museum. I want to go back sometime on a sunnier day, because there is very little artificial light in there, and lots of large windows. (This is a reasonable choice if they're worried about UV damaging the paintings.)

From there, we went to Central Square, so Cattitude could visit Pandemonium and I could go to the gym. It was 4 or so by the time we got there, and I was more tired than I'd planned on, so it was a brief workout, but worth it. We rendezvous'd at Toscanini's, where I had a cup of tea (caffeine matters) and then a hot fudge sundae. They had gotten there slightly before me, so were already drinking their hot beverages when I arrived (and started their ice cream sooner).

As I type this, they're in the kitchen discussing how to improve stove and oven design.

Cardio, 8 minutes, top heart rate 142
Balance ~fly, 50 pounds, 2 sets of {15 with each foot forward}
Leg press, 240 pounds, 2 sets of 15; 230 pounds, 15
Chest press, 55 pounds, 13; 50 pounds, 9
[seated] calf raise, 70 pounds, 15; 65 pounds, 11
Biceps curl, 10 pounds each, 20; 8 pounds left and 10 right, 20
Crunches, 2 sets of 30
Back arches, 17
Balance squats, 2 sets of 15
Stretches

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*waves to you across the city*

[liv]

That sounds a really lovely Thanksgiving, I'm really cheered to hear about it.

I turned down an invitation from an American ex-colleague to her TG meal, because she was holding it this afternoon and I'd already planned an 'introduce cartesiandaemon to my friends' teaparty. But so far we're having a nice quiet weekend appreciating being in the same place.