Mother's Day Weekend

Why is Mother's Day singular possessive? Isn't it a day for all mothers? It's not my mother's day. It is also my day, and a day for lots of otherses' motherses. I will stop this now, and go on to give you some highlights of my nice weekend.

Saturday I went to Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Really an excellent exhibit chronicling his looooong career, explaining his personal symbology, and--new to me--showing how wonderfully he fit(s) into the Surrealist movement of the 30s and 40s. We saw the Dali exhibit at the PMofA last spring, and the connections I was making as I viewed this one were stunning.

I especially enjoyed seeing the local scenery in Wyeth's works (he spent much of his life about twenty minutes from my house). But try not to think of him as a painter of quaint landscapes. For me, the exhibit was kind of like my "rediscovery" of Robert Frost. Yes, I knew his poems were inscribed into the American psyche. But I figured they were all convenient captions to Currier and Ives prints (nevermind the historic disconnect!). But NO. Once I was ready to revisit them (in graduate school), I realized these were deeper, darker poems than anyone had cared to point out to me before. Same holds true for the masterpieces of Andrew Wyeth. Yes, it's a pair of fishing boots. Quaint Maine lobster hokum, right? But NO. It's a portrait of Wyeth's friend and local ne'er-do-well, Walt Anderson. It's a portrait of his friend, but it's just his boots. The same way the painting of two doors is a portrait of his neighbors Alvaro and Christina Olson (the blind subject of Christina's World--probably his most famous work).

I've rambled enough about the exhibit. Obviously, I thought it was great. So if you're in the area, please take a peek.

That was Saturday. So how was my Mother's'es' Day on Sunday? Just wonderful. D let me sleep in. He supplied the family with my beloved Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. He watched the kids when I wanted to go poke around at the nursery and the hardware store. We worked in the yard. We took a walk. We played. We got takeout for dinner. IT WAS FANTASTIC. It's why I got into the business, friends: 'Cause one day a year, they let you do whatever the hell you want. ;)

N was all about donuts at breakfast. We stopped him at one and a half, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep asking, right? When we told him that breakfast was over and he needed to quit asking for more donuts and go play with his sister, he replied, "Can I play with a donut?" I almost let him, just for being so damned entertaining.