Nelson Marathon

So usually the Nelson is kind of a hit and run for me and Mo.

Our friend K said she'd never been to a big museum before. And it was her birthday weekend. But she had a bum knee.

But it turns out they have scooters you can borrow for free. And that was all it took for K.

She said she didn't need to make it a long outing, but damned if she wasn't reading the plaques in depth. You can hit the high points or you can focus on a section but you can't, I don't care who you are, you can't do the whole of the Nelson including the Bloch addition in one go. It's not the Met but it's a down payment plus a few points towards a Met.

So the attempt was made to do it all. After four and a half hours, we had maybe done a third to a half of what's open now (there's a big wing of the old building that is closed for remodeling). Not counting the outside, because there is more outdoor art at the Nelson than there is indoors at most museums for cities our size.

But K's scooter odyssey gave me a clue for my Mom. I remember going to the Nelson after church when I was growing up. She's still got scar tissue from those outings because my Dad didn't warn anyone and we were all in foot damaging church shoes. There's no reason anyone should wear shoes like that to church, they're probably a lot of why we all seem to need special shoes and orthotic inserts and such by the time we're 30 years old in this family.

Anyway, the scooter. My Mom wasn't super impressed with the idea. Said she'd probably hit someone. It's not a Camaro with a fifth of tequila in the cup holder.

Then there was the objection that 'I don't know that much about art.'

Who does?

It's not a test, it's art. You like it or you don't. It gets a response out of you or it doesn't. The black on black Mark Rothko the Nelson has is bullshit as far as I'm concerned. But I've seen Rothko paintings that definitely moved me, I'd even go so far as to say I'm a Rothko fan. The next person, maybe even my Mom, might look at that black on black mess and really feel something. And I guess in fairness, feeling irked that it doesn't really say anything is feeling something, just not something that warrants precious wall space in a world class museum.

Molly definitely got to thinking we were never going to be done. Like I say we usually are there an hour or less, and at four and a half hours, she had froke out several times thinking isn't it time to go?

Meanwhile K had killed the battery on one scooter and gotten a replacement.

I can tell it's going to take some work to get Mom to the Nelson even with scooters. But that will give Mo a chance to forget the time she thought we'd never leave.

I mean, how can you not want to come to a place where basically for nothing you can look at a few billion dollars worth of priceless art?