Reading: God of Small Things

Moving: ???

25 March 2000: Museum of Natural History

Yesterday we got a thank-you note from RDC's cousin who got married in October. (I mailed the first of ours from the (Newark) airport on the way to Key West for our honeymoon, nyah nyah.) The envelope was addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Hisfirst Hislast." Opening such makes me think I'm condoning being addressed so, but it's a mistake I can forgive. Even my mother's husband's daughter recently addressed her wedding invitation to "Mr. & Mrs. Hisfirst Hislast," and her first connection is with me, not with him. (Usually people who know only me but slightly call us "Mr. & Mrs. Hisfirst Mylast.") When the four of us daughters were introduced, the elder asked how it was that I was married but still had my family name. She's older than I but younger than my sister: young enough that you would think, somewhere in her experience, would be a woman who choose to retain her own name when she married. She phrased her question, "How can your name still be Myname," not "How did you decide to keep your name?" I wanted to say I married my cousin, but since I was officially being Good I paused in awkward silence as I struggled for words and tone that didn't indicate what a conservative sheltered unlettered yahoo this proved her to be. So anyway, I opened the envelope yesterday and drew out an engraved card, Cousin & Husband. That explained the wrong last name. Then I opened the card.

"Dear Richard and Sara,"

Ha! Well, I've only met her the once.

Yesterday the radio stations continued their Bruce Springsteen frenzy. Less than a week and it'll all be over but the shouting. One hopes. RDC alleges that a governor of New Jersey wanted to use "Born to Run" as the state anthem, and Springsteen refused. I don't remember that. I remember a Republican presidential candidate wanting to use "Born in the U.S.A." as a campaign theme. The governor and the candidate both unaware that the popularity of the songs does not translate in either case to patriotism or good cheer. "Let's vacate New Jersey" as the state's anthem makes a lot of sense but not the sort the governor wanted to convey, and isn't "Born in the USA" about a disgruntled Vietnam vet? Whatever.

So anyway, driving up to BB, I confessed there was a song on Born in the USA that I liked. "There was?!" demanded my husband, visions of annulment dancing in his head.
"Yeah, something about fire...what was it?"
"That one that sounds like your father's singing it?" (My father will never be acclaimed for his articulation.)
"I liked any song in high school that was about unrequited love. Remember my big crush."

Later that night we had a tickling spar. Eyeing each other suspiciously, RDC said, "Truce?"
"Truce, Bruce," I agreed.
"Sara," he retorted.

On the phone with KMJ, who is from the Amherst/Smith/Hampshire swath of Massachusetts:
"Have you been home recently?"
"Yes, we went home in November for a friend's wedding."
"Was it nice?"
"It was Connecticut in November."
"No, I know that, I mean, was the wedding nice?"

---

We went to the Denver Museum of Natural History--the Colorado Natural History Museum is what they call it in "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" and I wish another, livelier, better film would be set here. We saw the "Amazon" IMAX, which was succulent and lovely and didn't show any of the denuded bits, which I appreciated. We saw scarlet macaws preening each other's necks and a brace of military macaws snap at a monkey who wanted to come onto their branch. And a huge long anaconda that I would love to have. I could feed it cockatiels.

There was footage of whatever tribe it is that shoves the bamboo through their own faces. It's not bamboo: that's not South American. And it's only in their chins. I don't care. I don't care a whit about cultural diversity and nonjudgmentalism when people are slicing holes in their faces and sporting logs. Yiii. Perhaps if I were growing up among a more pierced generation, it wouldn't strike me as so perverse. I don't mind the saucers in the lower lip (is that African or South American?) and as long as people can hear, I don't care what they do to their ears. There's an African tribe that indulges in ritualistic scarification and their backs look like Braille. That's okay. But that chin thing, like trach piercings, lies outside my tolerance zone.

Of course we had to look at the casts of dinosaur skeletons. On one monitor, you can scroll through time and see how the continents have arranged themselves and where different dinosaur digs have been.
"Did you put them back the way you found them?" asked RDC when I joined him.
"No, but I have to show you something." I led him back to the monitor, scrolled back in time to a distinguishable North America, and told him to watch. I pointed to Africa, moving my finger toward New England. "See?"
"No, what?" So I did it again.
"Right here."
Finally he got it.

See, my father has these bizarre ideas--like that the fact that crows and seagulls don't interbreed should be a guide for white and black humans to follow--and one of them is that Rhode Island was not originally a part of the North American landmass. I just looked for a mention of this, as it's one of RDC and my favorite jokes about my father, and it seems I have somehow failed to mention it. He thinks Rhode Island just kind of drifted over from Africa separately. His one proof, which he delivered in tones challenging me to refute, was "Didn't you ever wonder why it's so sandy?"

Rhode Island is to New England what New Jersey is the rest of the country as far as "what exit?" and armpit jokes go, and that prejudice has to have some bearing on however he came up with this hypothesis.

So anyway.

Also we looked at a bunch of stuffed birds, raptors and song birds and waterfowl and everything. It's there I should go to practice my birding. RDC said the exhibits should be animatronic, and I said if they were the Museum would draw more people than the Zoo, since the performance, behaviors, and appearance of the animals would therefore be guaranteed.

After a few hours of this, RDC's skin was crawling with his kid-allergy and he wanted to go somewhere kid-free. He suggested a drink at the Fourth Story, and I said okay desultorily until he added books to the mix. So he bought Midnight's Children and I bought The Professor and the Madman which I think I first saw on Orcas Island and we wound up at Roy's, a new restaurant in the Cherry Creek Mall, since the Fourth Story wouldn't open for another while.

Roy's, despite the inauspicious name and the fact that it's a chain, serves up some tasty fish. Maybe because it's Hawai'ian. We were going to have just bar appetizers, but by the time we finished they were serving their full menu. We shared Thai Tiger Coconut Shrimp and spring rolls. The shrimp were rolled in coconut, impaled on skewers, roasted, and served over a delicious Thai sauce of unknown ingredients. The spring rolls dissolved lightly and crisply on the tongue, and by then the bartender had talked up the steamed fish of the day so much that we got it as well. Ahi ahi in a ginger peanut sauce and oh, it was exquisite.

I'm hungry.

Despite all that, we picked up two slices of raspberry chocolate torte from Alfalfa's (to go with "Election" from BB) before we came home. A satisfying day.

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Last modified 26 March 2000

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