Lion Fish

In NYC, we were shutout of the Guggenheim, with its spiral walkway that inscribes the building. I’ve never seen it, but Anne has. She and her family went to see it years ago, during their visit to the Men-in-Black worlds fair. They chose this museum, because of its spiral ramp. Jane was in the stroller and it was easy to take the elevator to the top and then wheel her down again. Nothing occurred during that visit, otherwise we would have heard about, like that other incident that we’ve heard so much about. This story is preamble to today’s adventure at the New England Aquarium, which features a similar spiral ramp and lots of strollers.

As aquariums go the New England is pretty good. Almost, but not quite as good as the one in Monterey, the gold standard of aquariums. Today, being a rainy Saturday, the place was crowded, but the spiraling ramp meant that there were always vacant windows to observe the denizens of that column of water,

We palled around with Dave all day. Meeting him down the street at yet another restaurant. The Loyal Nine was a greasy spoon, with a revolutionary flair. The Loyal Nine were nine American patriots from Boston who met in secret to plan protests against the Stamp Act.

After the aquarium, Dave took us to a nice BBQ place in south Boston, where we began watching the Purdue game. At the end of our meal they switched the channel to the Michigan game. Rather than ask them to switch it back, we left.

Up the Red line at MIT we found a bar with way more TV sets than patrons and got one tuned to the Purdue game. The adjoining flat screen had Michigan on and there two parents and their son were watching that game. It turned out that the parents live in Ann Arbor and their son went to Huron. We could have had a great conversation, but our MSU/Pioneer pedigree seemed to put them off. We stayed to the end of the Purdue game, which Dave’s team won in its closing seconds. While the Michigan fans had long since left, as the U of M’s lopsided drubbing of Penn State’s continued even after we had left the building.