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So now Mom has decided that she wants to go downtown to the concert (mostly because her mother called asking if we were going to the inauguration, and my mother rightly fears recrimination if she doesn't attend at least one inauguration activity). I was perfectly willing to go back when we would've left at the asscrack of dawn (for a Sunday, anyway) in order to stand in line in the cold so we could actually get in. I'm sure the concert area filled up hours ago, while I was asleep because I was up until 3. And I'm sore from the gym yesterday, and I'm supposed to meet everybody for dinner and Steelers at 5.
Gah. I know we will just end up going to the Gallery, because Mom doesn't like the Corcoran or the Hirshhorn or the Freer. Oh well, there's a Pompeii exhibit on so that should be interesting. I think she just wants to buy an Obama hat from a street vendor like Dad and I did last weekend. Speaking of which, the American History was disappointing. Two and a half years of renovation and they hardly changed anything, and what they did change I hate. There's this shiny, generic, white-and-chrome entrance hall that looks like every other modern museum in the world, and a big ugly abstract chrome...thing hanging in front of the Star Spangled Banner gallery (which is nice, to be fair). I was actually kind of upset and we didn't even go back after lunch. And the Philadelphia is still sitting in a corner all by itself. The Price of Freedom and American Presidency are still cool (although wherefore that creepy case of presidential hair clippings, Smithsonian?), but there was some appalling thing down by the trains which we avoided. And the shops suck now! The big one is like a quarter of the size with an eighth of the stuff (it used to be full of books, among other things), the teddy bear one to the right of the mall doors is now a stupid visitor's kiosk, and the music one had like nothing in it. DO NOT WANT.
Sigh. Look, it's not that I'm not thrilled about the inauguration. I just don't care for huge crowds and I can't afford to miss a day of work on Tuesday. The concert was supposed to be my compromise, except now we're doing it wrong.
Gah. I know we will just end up going to the Gallery, because Mom doesn't like the Corcoran or the Hirshhorn or the Freer. Oh well, there's a Pompeii exhibit on so that should be interesting. I think she just wants to buy an Obama hat from a street vendor like Dad and I did last weekend. Speaking of which, the American History was disappointing. Two and a half years of renovation and they hardly changed anything, and what they did change I hate. There's this shiny, generic, white-and-chrome entrance hall that looks like every other modern museum in the world, and a big ugly abstract chrome...thing hanging in front of the Star Spangled Banner gallery (which is nice, to be fair). I was actually kind of upset and we didn't even go back after lunch. And the Philadelphia is still sitting in a corner all by itself. The Price of Freedom and American Presidency are still cool (although wherefore that creepy case of presidential hair clippings, Smithsonian?), but there was some appalling thing down by the trains which we avoided. And the shops suck now! The big one is like a quarter of the size with an eighth of the stuff (it used to be full of books, among other things), the teddy bear one to the right of the mall doors is now a stupid visitor's kiosk, and the music one had like nothing in it. DO NOT WANT.
Sigh. Look, it's not that I'm not thrilled about the inauguration. I just don't care for huge crowds and I can't afford to miss a day of work on Tuesday. The concert was supposed to be my compromise, except now we're doing it wrong.
grumpy
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Sad to hear that AmHist isn't much improved. The people who work there apparently call the building "the shoebox" and I've heard more than one suggestion that it should just be torn down and rebuilt!
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