Aaron arrived on Saturday afternoon. I'd been up all night the night before and managed about four hours of sleep in the morning, so I was a bit discombobulated. I fed him ramen soup with peas for lunch. We did a little grocery shopping, largely to supply
him with his requisite morning cereal and
me with a refrigerator full of fruit and vegetables with which to fuel my Juicer. (Yes, the Juicer gets a capital "J." I love it Just that much. You now how miso soup both tastes good AND you can tell that it's good for you? Well, the Juicer makes Juices that are both fabulous tasting and patently
good for you. The Juicer is my new bestest buddy. Which should give you some idea of how pathetic my frame of mind is right about now. OK, back to the narrative.)
For dinner, we went to Mei Wah, which I think I've frequented exactly ONCE during my time with the lovely Andrew, who disdained it as being too expensive for a Chinese restaurant. Actually, I think it's a very good value. The portions are enormous, and the food is really very, very tasty. We ordered way too much, gorged ourselves, and then ended up having take-away leftovers anyway. Fortunately, it was a fairly cool evening, as we left them in the car while we went to see
Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Folger.
The play was a hoot. As you may recall, it's considered one of the 'problem' plays of Shakespeare, because one of the main protagonists (Proteus) is a truly disastrous cad. He reaches his nadir mere moments before the happy ending (!) of the play, when he threatens his lady-love with rape. Nice, eh? This particular production didn't really try to do much to make sense of that ~ but it did include three women who played all the minor roles, including all the clowning parts. They were fabulous: versatile, inventive, and hilarious. Holly Twyford, one of my very favorite actresses, was among them. For me, this production was a stellar example of how important
stagecraft is... and how it can utterly transform a script into a living, breathing theatrical experience.
Sunday morning, I plied Aaron with JUICE (yum!) while he ate cereal, and then he graciously came along with me to church (I was serving in the healing rite). Immediately afterward we went to Neisha Thai for lunch, emphasizing large plates of Pad Thai. Because, after all, one must eat, no?
We then drove out to the new Air & Space Museum branch at Dulles, the Udvar-Hazy Center. I'd been there with Andrew once before. Aaron wanted to go, mostly I think because he wanted to see for himself the way the
Enola Gay is displayed. (He's currently working for a nuclear disaramament project funded by the city of Hiroshima.) For the people he works for, and in his own view, it is obscene to display the
Enola Gay as just another artifact ~ or even at all ~ considering that it was the delivery vehicle for a weapon of mass destruction, unlike any other, aimed at a civilian population. He feels that, out of respect for the victims, some other Flying Fortress should be on view. I entirely agree that the signage associated with it is inadequate. But I'm not sure that it shouldn't be displayed at all.
On the one hand, the A & S Museum is not a war museum. None of the artifacts there, many of which ARE weapons (missiles), are labeled in such a way as to indicate their destructive uses. Flying Fortresses fire-bombed Dresden. Nuclear cruise and MIRVed trident missiles could end civilization as we know it. At the museum, they are presented simply as milestones in the history of flight. To provide labeling that restored all that context would completely recast the nature of the place.
On the other hand, the history of aviation, and indeed
all technology, is the story of the interchange between combat-driven and commercial impetuses for development. Indeed, the vast majority of the technology of every kind that we enjoy today had its roots in warfare. A failure to acknowledge this at all, to gloss it over or, worse, to glamorize it, is a moral and intellectual failure. It is not enough merely to coo over artifacts. (And the
Enola Gay is also a beautiful machine as well as a technological marvel of its time.)
Aaron wanted to know how I'd feel if a museum on valve and rubber gasket technology (a dubious prospect, but for the sake of argument...) had a display of an actual Zyklon B showerhead from Auschwitz. One actually used to exterminate people. Obviously, it's a hypothetical, and I can't say for sure, but I think I'd be okay with it. But I'd sure as hell want some very strongly worded placarding to put it in context. What do you think?
Okay, back to the eating. The eating was taken to new heights at dinner, which was dished up in great profusion by David and Lynn on Sunday. David went postal on many pounds of potatoes, and the result was (wait for it)
more potato latkes than we could eat. Yes, you read it right. The six of us,
including my brother, king eater of all time, were unable to finish the quantity of latkes that he made. Almost an entire quart of peanut oil gave its life in the process. The experience was on a par with one I had in Japan where, seated at a restaurant and plucking dishes from a conveyor belt, I for the first time ate
all the sushi I could eat at one sitting. Except much, much richer. We watched the
Survivor finale together, and then Aaron and I waddled to the car and went home to collapse.
I couldn't even imagine eating until about 3 in the afternoon on Monday, when I zapped a plate of Mei Wah leftovers.
Monday evening we were both STILL FULL. We went to see
Ray at the Uptown. We both highly recommend this film. For those of the appropriate generation, the music is from our life's soundtrack. I learned things about Ray Charles's music that I didn't know, the acting was terrific (Jamie Foxx
nails the part), and although a bit melodramatic in places, the movie is well made.
We came back to my place, I made some more ramen noodles, and we both staggered off to bed. Aaron left this morning. It was a really nice visit; I'm grateful that he chose to spend some time with me.
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