Local Treasures

I popped for a membership to the Nelson-Atkins last year, but the visit I bought it on was one of those kinda burnout situations. The friend we took with us that day had never been, and she got a scooter because one of the reasons she'd never gone is she isn't physically able to do that much walking.

So after that marathon, where we came about as close to seeing the whole thing in one day as I'm ever going to get, that membership didn't get used so much for a while. The membership gets you in to the various ticketed exhibits and covers parking in their garage, which is eight bucks otherwise (and on-street parking around the place is very limited).

But the last few months I've been trying to make more frequent but short trips with Mo. It's much more enjoyable when you spend a half hour to an hour, just kind of pick a wing and do that.

It's a remarkable thing for a city of half a million people (or more like two million if you figure metro area), to have a museum of this caliber. It's not the Art Institute in Chicago or the Met in New York, but the Bloch addition by itself is about the same square footage as Museo del Prado in Madrid, and the collections are high quality. And where I shelled out $18 when I hit the Modern Wing in Chicago a few years back (and it was worth it, not complaining), anyone can walk into the Nelson, it's strictly suggested donation.

It was pretty busy, a touch crowded in places, but shouldn't it be? Actually, given what's on offer for basically free, there should probably be twice as many people wandering these galleries.

Molly Seal of Approval

We were late for our movie, or rather really early for our movie since we went to the next showing of Going in Style. So we stopped in on the Kemper Museum.

When Mo sees a piece she likes, she typically goes and stands by it or in front of it and waits for me to take a picture. She doesn't seem to have much interest in looking at the photograph, but I take it. Last time we were at the Kemper, my camera's batter had died and I had to pretend to take pictures.

Trashboat Regatta VII

I wasn't going to float the Regatta this year. What with planning the Post Modern Pentathlon, extra hours at work because it's an election year, building a boat just didn't seem to be in the cards. Plus, I did it last year so I reasoned it was Corinna's turn, I'd hang with Mo and take pictures. I'd arranged for the following weekend to be my bachelor weekend on account of aforementioned Pentathlon.

So then Corinna dug out the hot tub lid that has been down the river so many times now (it wasn't part of H.M.S. Charlie Foxtrot last year, but it was part of Safety Third, H.M.S. Detour, H.M.S. Road Closed, and the unnamed first boat we went down that was the trashboat analog to those massive cargo ships that made them build a new Panama Canal.

Corinna hauled the boat to Kaw Point with her bike, and me and Mo went there by car, floated the river and Corinna picked us up after. A team effort, she wasn't feeling up to the float, I wasn't feeling like towing a barge with my bike, and Mo was definitely keen on floating the river.

Mo answers no to pretty much every option we give her for activities. Going to the movies, getting a Sprite, these are exceptions to the rule, but generally she's a No Nelly across the board except for watching YouTube on her tablet. So imagine my surprise when we were tucking her in on Saturday and asked if she wanted to float the Trashboat Regatta. She'd done so two years ago, and it must have been a positive experience because she answered with a resounding 'Oh yay yay!' At that point, I couldn't not go.

So go we did. I bought a half a case of Sprite to go with a few PBRs in the cooler on board ship and off we went. Well, everyone left all of a sudden, even before Michelle said go, and we scrambled down and got in the water to demonstrate the power of Slow.

This is not the first time the trashboat I'm on has been DFL, not the first time it's been the slowest craft on the water. I don't know why, it seems like we're all on the same current but the rest of the boats just drop me like a bad habit.

I guess I'm extra glad the route got reset to Kaw Point to the park right past Pile of Debris Casino. Michelle had, for entirely sensible reasons, planned to have us put in on the Kaw at 7th Street and pull out at Kaw Point. Sensible, for sure, but compared to the Missouri, the Kansas River speaks in quarter inches. And given how slow I seem to float on the fast, dredged Missouri, I might still be 100 yards downstream from 7th Street if that launch hadn't been, in Michelle's words, locked up tighter than the Seventh Seal.

There are definitely dangers to the Missouri. You want to keep between the bridge supports, getting pinned against one of those is a Mistake. And getting over to the edge for the pull out, you need to plan ahead on that shit. But other than that, it's relatively tame for the stretch we float. And there are two jet boats full of firefighters just dying for something interesting to do like save your ass.

Friends on bikes followed us down the river as usual. And as usual, I had to call out to them, where is your boat? You can't be too broke to float the Trashboat Regatta, the rules say you can't spend over $100 and most of us are way, way under budget.

Lots of stuff people throw away is perfectly buoyant. And just ask my kiddo, there's not much more fun things to do of a Sunday afternoon than to float on some trash down the Muddy Mo.

Michelle did promise that the trophies would 'blow.' But I like mine. I liked mine last year, too, it's proudly displayed on my desk at work. This year's has the bonus that it included a bottle of Two Buck Chuck cab sauv. I'm not a big wine drinker, but when I do drink wine I like big, dry reds and this is one of those.

Explore the Glore

So we've got a sick kitty cat, Bulldog has a tooth infection. We tried to take him to the vet, but they were overbooked and turning people away Saturday morning. Started to head to the emergency vet, which of course is a pretty spendy option. And the only measure we were really agreed on taking would be antibiotics: he's old, a $600 tooth extraction just doesn't make sense. I don't want to have him put down, but I just can't put that kind of money into an old cat when the shelter is full to the rafters with kitties needing homes.

So we headed out to the farm supply to see about buying the antibiotics and administering them at home. But the farm supply, while it had amazing $9,000 lawn mowers and equine antibiotics, didn't have the dog and cat stuff. For that, we had to go to St. Joseph. And since all the pets were due for their routine shots, we went ahead and got all of that together. The total was $110, that's rabies plus the five way annual vaccination for two dogs and three cats plus intramuscular injection penicillin for bulldog. I bet the emergency vet would have been more than that just to look at Bulldog on a Saturday afternoon, and as far as getting the other animals their routine stuff, I don't remember what I paid last year but I figure we saved at least $250 there.

While we were in St. Joe we ate at Crumbly Burger, a loose meat sandwich shop that's just cute as a button and super awesome delicious.

Then, as an afterthought leaving town we went through the Glore Museum. Which was cooler than I expected, with displays of some of the worst ideas we've had over the years for dealing with the mentally ill.

ECT, burning at the stake, various isolation boxes, the hollow wheel (basically a giant hamster wheel you can't see out of), surprise immersion in cold water, hydrotherapy... I knew about most of these things but seeing them up close and personal, picturing yourself forced into one of these things, creates a visceral reaction.

There's also a doll museum and a black archive in the Glore. Some of the photographs in the black archive really struck me, both because they were photographically interesting, the shallow depth of field says huge aperture, yet you can see motion blur in spots because the exposure was still quite long, and because these were not cheap snapshots. These were huge glass plate photos that would have cost real money, and to have so many of them in one place with black subjects, I wondered (the museum people didn't know) if perhaps a black photographer was operating a photo studio in Atchison, Kansas where the photos were from. These pics date back to the 1870s, so I'm sure it was rare to find blacks who could afford to sit for such portraits (and photographers who would take them).

After all, you only had to look at the segregated water fountain setup to see how separate and unequal things were.

There's also a morgue museum in the basement of the Glore, and oddly a couple of very highly customized cars.

Civil War stuff, too. The mental health section of the Glore is pretty focused, but surrounding it is really a mix.

When we got home we gave the animals their various injections. Bulldog is now on day three with the antibiotic injections, I can't tell if he's getting better. So he may need to go to the regular vet on Tuesday after all.

But we managed to have an adventure. Mo really dug the Glore despite thinking it was bullshit that we were stopping places we hand't planned on. And I know she dug Crumbly Burger. Same basic concept as NuWay, if you've had that, it's a sloppy joe minus the sauce.