Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Jules Olitski at the Kemper
July 24 was yet another day of heat warnings and high temperatures, so we spent part of the afternoon at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, viewing the current exhibition of paintings by Jules Olitski.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Yum.
Too hot to cook, we got take out salads from Ingredient on the Plaza, and the sparkles on this beautiful Carrot Cake Cupcake were too good to pass up. Yum!
Workin'
As the first deadline for my summer freelance project approaches, the pile of books on my desk grows taller....
Nihon ryori
Monday night simple homemade Japanese dinner. From the top- Sake, Salad with Soy Ginger Vinaigrette, Japanese Pickles, Zaru Soba (cold soba noodles topped with nori (toasted seaweed) and dipped in soy-based sauce), and Stir-fried Tofu and Veggies. おいしかった！
Chips and Salsa
Entering the imitative behavior stage of toddler-hood provides for a lot of cute scenarios. For example, anyone who knows Joe knows that he eats chips and salsa daily. So when we had dinner at Jalepeno's in Brookside, it shouldn't have taken us by surprise when little man jumped in and hit the salsa, copying the behavior that he sees his Dad perform every day.
Power outage
Not much to do without electricity, so we watched the lightning and rain for a bit. Thankfully the power came back in the middle of the night, but with such hot temperatures it wasn't without a bit of discomfort. Let's all give a little thanks to the air conditioning gods.
Hot
July 11, 5 p.m., 104 temperature. Ugh. The best part about this photo is that no matter what I try, blogger refuses to post it right-side-up. Posting retrospectively after three weeks of crazy heat wave and going into our 11th day of temperatures over 100, I get it. Everything is too hot to function, trees are wilting, bushes are crisping up, so it makes sense that the temperature just flip on its head for a bit. Seems to be representative of the awful climate change induced weather we've experienced this year.
Nelson-Atkins
July 10 brought temperatures over 100 degrees to Kansas City, so we spent the afternoon in the cool galleries of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. One fantastic thing about KC is that the major art museums, such as the Nelson, Kemper, and Nerman are free, no $18 admission like at the Art Institute in Chicago or $25 like MoMA in New York. The Nelson has an amazing comprehensive collection, particularly in Chinese art, and it's fantastic that we can pop in whenever the mood strikes, not worrying about high admission costs.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Hearts of Darkness
Friday the 8th of July brought beautiful weather to KC, as well as a free show by the fantastic Afrofunk band Hearts of Darnkess on the lawn of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, out in the suburbs. We enjoyed a Thai take-out picnic, and had a great time lounging on the lawn, but perhaps the best part was when little man was dancing and then received a spontaneous hug from another dancing toddler. Too funny!
Birthday!
Wednesday the 6th was Joe's birthday (I won't say how many he has now celebrated...). We enjoyed an evening out in KC, starting at the fantastic bar at Pierpont's at Union Station. The station itself is a holdover from a more elegant era- the gorgeous interior space of the station is inspiring, and rouses a longing for a time when travel was elegant and when the U.S. had a real transportation system. I never get this feeling from the cramped and plain airports that we use today, and car travel on our crumbling infrastructure is simply ridiculous (see my post from four days prior). One can still take the train from Union Station, but it is slow, expensive, and inefficient. For example, to travel to Chicago via train is more costly than flying, takes longer than driving, and travelers only have the option to leave two times a day. That and the Amtrak trains that I see pulling out of the station appear to be of the same era as the station itself- pre-World War II. As a result of the decreased use of the station for transportation the city has tried to place a variety of tourist attractions in the station building, some with more success than others. While I'm not excited about the type of exhibits they bring in (Princess Diana's stuff, Motorcycles, etc.), I do love Pierpont's, which is located in a corner of the station. I haven't eaten in the restaurant itself, but the bar is beautiful, and the service on Joe's birthday was fantastic.
Back to KC
A distant view of Kansas City as we passed over the Missouri River on our way home from a great holiday weekend in Chicago.
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