A Most Instructive Evening

I was obviously supposed to be there, judging by the number of obstacles between my desk and the museum. We did get early dismissal from work, but I think I already mentioned that. I had a wonderfully productive day and was nevertheless delighted to shut down the popsicle stand and head out.

Obstacle the First: Card Keys. I have two of them. One for the parking garage, and one for the office suite. I have them clipped together and wear them on the hem of my shirt. Got out to the car, stowed my bags in the trunk, grabbed my knitting in case traffic screeched to a halt, buckled up, and heard a click/clunk as my tags slipped off into The Chaos Beneath The Seats. Drove the car up onto the first parking level, got out my flashlight, put on my emergency flashers and started spelunking. Two of my girlfriends stopped to ask if I was OK. It took me ten full minutes and much reinvestigation to finally locate my cards. Definitely a case of “none so blind as those who cannot see”.

Got back in, buckled up, turned off the flashers, and headed out. Eastbound traffic was at a standstill, but I had clear sailing westbound until out of nowhere there was half of a something [easy chair? box spring?] squarely in front of me, and thankfully nobody in the next lane. I went one way, the car behind me went another, and we both missed it. And almost immediately had to swerve around half of a pallet that was waiting in ambush. Thankfully, it was a bright clear afternoon with good visibility, so no harm done except to my pulse rate.

Pulled off at the credit union and grabbed some cash from the ATM, and got back onto the freeway. Found a parking spot right across the street from the museum, near a crosswalk, and my new friend P waiting for me. We then played “Marco!” with the main body of our friends, who had been stuck in traffic and were still about five miles out. Just before they arrived, a pair of the younger single sisters showed up, so all in all there were seven of us.

The artwork was nothing short of amazing. Reliquaries, old coins, sarcophagi, fragments of old illuminated manuscripts. Those early believers and artisans had an appreciation for how the Old Testament and New Testament connect, that is lost on many modern Christians. We took a guided tour [included in the price of admission] led by a lovely woman who graciously admitted that she was out of her element. She knew a lot about the pieces, but she did not appear to be a student of the Scriptures. I would have loved for some of my friends at church to have led that tour, particularly the one who was the keynote speaker at our conference last weekend.

I bit my tongue a lot last night, and when the tour was over, I went back and read the plaques on the wall and looked at the items at my own pace. I don’t like crowds, and I don’t like canned versions of “what we think happened”. I like facts and artifacts, and I like to think for myself, even if sometimes frequently I draw the wrong conclusions.

So this morning, the day before we celebrate the one of the two most important events in human history, I am glad to be alive, glad to be something of a scriptorian, glad that I don’t have to walk around on marble floors today, glad that I know the Good Brothers and some of the sisters a bit better than I did, glad for the Chinese food that we ate last night, even if my fortune was more generic than most and the cookie was stale.

Our ward is having its annual Relief Society birthday celebration this morning. I’m looking forward to that. And then I will have some puttering time before heading over to Parts East for a game night, where I will probably not play games but just sit and knit and visit.

I am not far from the heel on Middlest’s sock, and I would like to turn that heel and my own before the sun goes down. We shall see. I have some other projects that I want to work on. I did pick up some ribbon for the Stripedy Stockings, and I realized while at the fabric store that one stocking is about an inch shorter than the other. Should not matter once they’re on my legs, as one of my calves is about an inch bigger around than the other. So as long as I match the longer stocking with the larger leg, there should be no Mutt and Jeff effect.

And there is another small project that needs to be checked off the list, plus the laundry to catch up. [Like the poor, always to be with us.]

I’m off to listen to yesterday's KnitPicks podcast and one or two from the Sticks & Strings archive. Happy knitting, everybody, and have lots of fun with your kids and grandkids, if egg-dyeing is on your agenda. Iwas tempted but managed to resist.

[Resist. It's a dyeing joke. Tee hee!]

Oh, and for the record: no flirting whatsoever last night, just lots of good conversation.