Glass Museum
My sisters and I visited the Museum of Glass in Tacoma while nearby for a Quaker conference this summer. (To check out why one might be interested, browse some Dale Chihuly-related sites. Remember, we’re adults. We had a semi-disastrous visit at the Museum because the exhibits weren’t nearly as good or interesting as the free-to-see Dale Chihuly work we’d already seen elsewhere in the area and two of us lost the third (or first) sister and the staff — despite being asked two or three times politely where else someone might have gone besides the Gallery — did not mention their live showroom where visiting artists directed a work involving glass. Which was where that other sister was for an hour or so — too enthralled to let us know where she was.
At almost closing time, after two of us had wasted that hour looking for her over and over again in the small Gallery, going out to ask the information desk about where she could be, etc., we found her and she decided to efficiently show us the best work in the whole museum, which was in the hallway to the bathrooms. (Neither of which had been mentioned by the staff, either.) In the long hall there were about 10 cases with one work in each which had been created by a different visiting artist. Some artists used glass just because they were supposed to, but there were several quite beautiful and interesting pieces. As we approached the best piece, two people came out of a door not open to the public … they seemed to be on break of some kind. They stopped at that case and continued a long conversation. They put their bags down. They all but leaned on the case. We went all around the nearby cases … they didn’t budge. We approached that case. We peered at the case from as many angles as we could without physically pushing them. They didn’t budge. Two of us started to talk as loudly as we could about the rudeness of people standing in the way, making it impossible for others to see works of art in a museum.
Then we fought all the way back to the conference about whether our rudeness had been justified.
I’m kinda glad Matthew wasn’t with you. But wouldn’t it have made sense to ask them to move?
Comment by michael — December 6, 2006 @ 7:24 am
The not finding the sister thing would have put me over the edge. I would have been too annoyed re her disappearance to enjoy anything after that. Like Michael, I’m curious why you didn’t say “excuse me, move”.
Comment by La Rad — December 6, 2006 @ 8:53 am
A not-finding-the-daughter thing almost put me over the edge once. But I soothed myself by saying how delighted I was that the young lady (who shall remain nameless) hadn’t been abducted or hit by a car or fallen off a balcony. Things got better after I convinced myself of that.
Comment by rakkity — December 6, 2006 @ 4:45 pm
Michael, why did this come out so hard to read? I know my writing is hard to read anyway …
About the “excuse me” thing: I was going to say that we said that, but I couldn’t absolutely remember that we did, so I had to leave it out. (Of course, I left a couple of other lies in the story.) You know how sometimes you say “excuse me” too softly, and then you say it louder but some other noise happens at the same time, and then you say it louder and it turns out you’re screaming and it doesn’t sound at all like “excuse me” any more? I think asking for help/advise about where the lost sister might be was the first two or three “excuse me”s, and the loud rude conversation was the final one.
Comment by Jennifer — December 6, 2006 @ 7:56 pm
Jennifer, I think the reason your sentences are broken up like that is that your lines ended with carriage returns and the lines were longer than the blog likes. If you submit a message with no carriage returns, the blog will put in its own “returns” at its own pleasure. Mike could, theoretically, fix the message by deleting the “returns” one by one, if he felt really good and had the time.
Comment by rakkity — December 7, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Sorry, Jennifer, but for some reason it displayed perfectly on my screen. Usually that carriage return problem explained by rakkity is obvious and I correct it before publishing it.
Comment by michael — December 7, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
Yeah, see, I HADN’T sent it with carriage returns. Something about from me to Michael must have put them in. Thanks for fixing it, Michael.
Comment by Jennifer — December 7, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
Probably an email client. Anyway there’s some Chihuly at the Mayo clinic that’s pretty amazing. Wortht he trip if you’re in Rochester, MN.
Comment by t — December 8, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
Hello
As newly registered user i only want to say hello to everyone else who uses this board B-)
Comment by boonnavuh — December 19, 2008 @ 2:49 pm