John was supposed to go with us, but at the last minute, he was really too sick to go, so the three of us went anyway. Nobody ever accused me of being a nice guy. So we knew that the day we decided to go, July 1, was the day they were raising the bridge tolls, and while we had planned to go during rush hour to take advantage of the free carpool lane, all the rules had changed and that was now the most expensive option. We ended up going around the bay and across the Golden Gate bridge for one $6 toll.
The exhibit was great, though predictably crowded and had kind of the first half of the Impressionist period. No Van Gogh's for instance, but lots of really good stuff. It's now two weeks later and I can't remember a single name. We also went to the Legion of Honor for another show that's of posters, drawings and advertising flyers from the same era. They were also very interesting.
Then this Thursday, John, Zoe and I went to Stockton, where they have a wonderful exhibit of California Impressionists (which is probably my favorite school of art) from the Irvine Museum. John and I and Vera and Bill had tried to go to the Irvine Art museum several years ago with disastrous results. The place we ended up was some sort of an industial park and when we finally found the museum, it was a day it was closed. So this time we finally got to see the paintings.
We were astounded at what a good museum this little Haggin Museum in Stockton is. First of all, it's a nice building and a lovely park. The entrance is only $5 ($2.50 for seniors) and they had all these really great paintings on loan. Additionally, they had a very interesting show of posters by Leyendecker, an illustrator who was a contemporary of Parrish and
Norman Rockwell, and did rather Rockwellian-type work, though he painted many of his in oils originally. The museum appears to have a smallish collection of its own paintings, but they are really quite good. The other special exhibit was of women's clothing from about 1860 to 1910 or so. As always, I looked at those tiny waists and could hardly breathe. And of course, since this museum is only in Stockton and only 45 miles from here and no bridge tolls, it was a pretty inexpensive trip. We even got to go to Sizzler with the rest of the senior citizens for lunch. Last night Zoe had us over to dinner with Tim and Lynda. She made these great tri-tip sandwiches, some wonderful beans, and cole slaw from my food channel magazine. I got to find out how good that recipe was without going to the work of actually making it myself. She also made a great berry cobbler with ice cream. Frankly, none of this was good for my diet, but I've been pretty good for four whole days.
I have a harp gig tonight that's going to include hors d'oeuvres, which will probably be a problem, but perhaps I'll just confine myself to a bit of wine. It is finally getting easier for me to jog in the morning. Not that I like it any better, but my hips and knees aren't hurting so badly. I'm trying to decide if it's the calcium pill I've been taking for the week, or the fact that I've been trying to stay away from things I know are bad (read fat) and eat stuff with lots of anti-oxidants. I've been actually drinking milk (yuck) mixed with Alba -- which was kind of a staple of mine way back when I was in weight watchers. It's a really low cal way to make a milkshake out of skimmed milk and actually makes it possible for me to imbibe milk.
Finally, I scored big at a yard sale this morning. In two ways. First, I bought an old typewriter (the keys are very much in demand for jewelry and craft projects) and secondly, I got John to carry it home for me. The damn thing must have weight 25-30 pounds. It took me about an hour to get all the keys off, and I only ruined about three of them. Now I just have to figure out how to put something on them so I can string them or something.
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