Saturday was the Smithsonian Free Museum Day. For those of you unfamiliar, this literally allows you to go to a Smithsonian Museum for free with a ticket you print off the internet. Of course this meant I spent the day at the museum. And nothing to the ranks of Night at the Museum happened. My mom has been dying to go for awhile, and I was dying to see some art and the revamped dinosaur exhibit, so we were so there.
The dinosaur exhibit, by the way, was awesome. It is one of the biggest in US, plus it has computer screens with each part of the exhibit that take you through all the skeletons in the exhibit that you might not otherwise see. For instance, some exhibits had little dinosaurs that were but a few inches tall in the trees and what not. I didn't take my camera, but I kind of wish I had.
In the exhibit, there was a full size flying dinosaur that was not a pterodactyl, but something similar looking. It had a big head and a little body. There were also two full sized tyrannosauruses, two full sized herbivores of which I would never be able to even begin to spell their names. There was something that looked like a velociraptor, a few little guys, and at least five other ones that I can think of off of the top of my head, but can't name the species of. It was insane. That's a lot of dinosaurs. Then there were several that were just the heads of dinosaurs. In total, there were somewhere around twenty dinosaurs in the exhibit, in bone form, of course. It was too awesome for words.
Or it would have been if I wasn't afraid of the dinosaurs. Hey, don't judge me! You'd be afraid, too, if you went to the museum with my mom. Every time we came up to a new dinosaur, she would say, "imagine what it would be like to see that coming at you." So naturally that's exactly what my mind imagined. It got uncomfortable a little fast. I realized that if I lived back in those times, I would have been a mighty easy lunch, but I would have went down screaming.
I did learn a few things from the exhibit, though. For one, I learned that dinosaurs are scary. Okay, just kidding. I already knew that. What I really learned about was the diets of different dinosaurs. This was mostly because my mom kept reading what each of them ate aloud. She should have been a tour guide. Everything was well and normal until she pointed out one that was both an omnivore and a herbivore. They were bimunchual. Get it? Bi-munch-ual. Like bisexual only dealing with eating habits, because when they eat they munch and they munched more than one thing.
Okay, I'm sorry for that.
From there the exhibit went into an area about prehistoric fish and birds, meaning there were skeletons from everything from prehistoric fish, to turtles, to, well, birds. After going through all of those skeletons, I decided I couldn't take any more excitement and I had to use the bathroom. In any other blog this wouldn't be a story. In this one it is definitely a story.
There were signs pointing to a bathroom. I followed the signs. When I got around the corner the signs went down some stairs. I went down a flight, turned another corner, and was lead down two more flights of stairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs there was no sign of a restroom and I felt like I was in a J.R.R. Tolkien movie. It was a museum. I guess anything was possible.
Blinded by the fact that there were no signs, I went right, because it just seemed natural to go that way first. If this were a horror movie of life or death, I would have died a bloody, dramatic death. I came back out and came face to face with a restroom sign that couldn't be seen from the bottom of the stairs. The sign pointed outside. My first thought was, "oh no, uh uh." But then I had to pee so I followed it...out a set of doors and into an "entryway." I use entryway loosely, because if I went out the other set of doors, all the eye could see were steps leading upward from outside of the building, which really seemed counterproductive considering I had just gone down three flights of steps. However, in this entryway, stuck between both sets of doors, was a hallway. Down that hallway were the bathrooms. Wait, what? My thoughts exactly.
When I made it back from Center Earth, my mom was wandering around the bird exhibit. Now, I don't know how many of you know this, but I am absolutely terrified of birds. Except for penguins. Penguins are da bomb! I promise to never say that again, you guys.
Specifically, my mom was going through this flow chart on the wall that you followed by answering questions in order to find out what kind of bird you are. I'm a kiwi. Does this mean I can move to Australia now? I always wanted to go there. It's like it's fate. Because I'm totally not getting carried away or anything.
From the bird exhibit, we headed up the stairs and into the area that featured stuffed hide of wild animals from all over the world. There were habitats set up in enclosed glass cases of these hides in what would be their real life habitat. It was like the morgue version of the zoo. They had everything from camels, to zebras, to elk, to sea lions. It was one crazy floor of wonderment and fun. I also learned something here, too. To quote Brendon Urie, "Damn nature, you scary." Good lesson...good lesson.
We made our way through a nature art gallery where the artist admitted to photo-shopping his pictures, and landed ourselves in the hall of birds. Seriously, it was a hall of stuffed bird hides, which was different from the room of stuffed bird hides downstairs. Yeah, I don't get it either. Don't worry.
The particular winner of this exhibit, however, was the case of stuffed animals of favorite television characters like Tweety Bird with the stuffed hide of the real breed of that character next to it. As one of the ladies pointed out, if that doesn't give kids nightmares, nothing will. In an attempt to teach kids, I think it's possible the museum managed to terrify and scar them for life.
From there we toured Egypt with little excitement, and then ended up in an exhibit depicting Inuit life. It was completely fascinating. They even had a documentary about it, which I of course sat down and watched. The way this tribe lives is stunning. In school they teach the kids how to prepare an animal for food, taxidermy skills and other artisan like skills that you would never see taught most anywhere else.
The exhibit developed into marriage customs of cultures similar, as well as Native American cultures. In one culture, weddings took years to prepare, and days to carry out. The actual ceremony only consisted of the bride and groom having their hair washed together, but there was a slew of other things that had to be done with every single person in the family, even distant relatives, over the course of almost a week.
In another culture, women had one chance to go on a date with any suitors that were interested. During the date, the suitor and the women would walk around with a blanket over the two of them so that they could have quiet time and everyone knew they were dating. The other suitors, if there were any other suitors, they would follow behind in a line until it was their turn. The girl would then pick which suitor she wanted to marry, and if there was only one, she got him. It made me happy to be able to chose my mate, or decide if I want to chose one at all.
The art part of the museum was next. The first part of the art museum consisted of furniture from as far back as the 1400s. It was in this part of the museum that I learned something that probably not many other people learned. Apparently, dead people like their furniture. Instead of finding something better to do to bide their endless time, they hang out with their furniture to make sure no one touches it. I mean, do you know how much some of them paid for their beautifully ornate furniture back in the day when they had it made? Because I do. Seriously? You're dead. It's just furniture.
Up next was the art gallery. I was super excited to see some art. I was even more ecstatic when we got into the gallery and there were two Monet paintings on loan to the museum. One was about twenty feet wide by six feet high. Please do not ask me to name which ones they were, because neither were in English and I can see me murdering a whole culture's language in one go.
The true gem of the gallery, however, was the uber creepy guy who went around taking pictures of all the pictures with naked or shirtless women in them. Oh, and did I mention he was with a woman? Because he was, and he was a jerk to her. Maybe that's why he had to take pictures of naked women. It was probably the closest he was getting to any action.
What I learned from the art section of the museum was that dead painters don't generally hang around their paintings. They painted them to be shown off and are happy that they are fulfilling their purpose. Rich, eccentric people who paid a lot of money for their furniture, however, can't seem to leave it well enough alone. It's always good to learn an "other world" lesson while trolling a museum.
The last part of the museum was the Hall of Architecture. Or the Hall of Admissions, if you're my mom and read the sign wrong. This place was beyond spectacular. It boasted the biggest collection of ancient architectural casts in the world. They had everything from the entire front of a chapel, to parts of Notre Dame Cathedral, to parts of caskets. And no, the dead people did not hang around the cast of it. The size of these structures were unbelievable, leaving the chatter around the hall to wonderment of how they got the pieces into the museum in the first place.
We left the museum exhausted and ready to sleep for about a week. We don't get out much. Before we could head home, we had one more thing we had to do. About a half mile out of our way there was a salon that sells a certain product in which I had a coupon for. Normally one would check the hours online, go to said salon, and voila! They would have success. Have you read my blog? Because if you've read it, you already know this did not turn out like normal in any way. No, we didn't get lost. That would be too normal for us. In fact, we found the place and parking just fine. We made it to the front of the building and pulled on the door to find it was locked just fine, too. This is where things got a little dicey.
There was an intercom to side of the door. The door was glass, and when you looked in you could see that the only place this door led was up a flight up stairs. I had checked the website to this place prior to leaving the house and it said the salon was open until six that night and there was no sign on the door that contradicted that. So we rang the buzzer thinking that, because the only place the door led was a staircase, they had the buzzer there for a reason so they could control who came in and out. Only, no one responded to the buzzer.
I called the phone number on the storefront to try and find out what was going on. This is where normal goes right out the door. The conversation went nearly verbatim like this. All that's changed is that I attempted to make this lady more understandable than she actually was. She was a hot mess.
Me: "Hello, I was calling because I am at your salon and I was wondering how to get in. I tried the buzzer but no one answered."
Woman: "What! I don't get what you're saying."
Me: "I'm at your salon..."
Woman: "Are you outside of the salon?"
Me: "Yes, but it appears no one is here."
Woman: "Just come inside."
Me: "I can't. The door is locked."
Woman: "What location are you at?"
Me: "Point Breeze."
Woman: "Oh, I'm at the Mars location today."
Me: "I read on the website that this location was open today until 6."
Woman: "It is, but I'm the owner and I didn't feel like going in and opening that location today, so I just had the phone ring me here. But you can come to the Mars location." (I shit you not, this is what she told me.)
Me: "Bye."
Yep, I hung up on her. The two locations are almost two hours apart. I knew when she answered that it was going to be an interesting phone call, as I wasn't sure what it was that I was saying that she didn't understand. By the second sentence she spoke, I almost asked for someone else to speak to. Imagine my surprise when I found out she was the owner.
I was appalled by this woman, quite frankly. She shut down the salon because she simply didn't feel like "going in and opening that location today." It was a large place. How many appointments did she cancel, employees did she call off, and people's days did she change? If you're supposed to be open, you should be open. I understand family emergencies and what not happen, but this was not the case. I wonder how she even stays open. I'd rather lose the coupon than go back there and give her any of my money. Only in Pennsylvania.
And on a random side note, let's discuss something that has nothing to do with anything. I don't know how many of you have seen the show Ghost Adventures, but I'm openly afraid of Zak Bagans. That doesn't stop me from watching the show, however. It's not that I think Zak is particularly mean, but damn, he gets scary when he's yelling at all those dead people, and he's a big guy. I just would never want to meet him and risk ever getting in an argument with him. He strikes me as the type of guy who is more likely to protect someone than hurt them or cause a fight with them, but I'm still a little scared of him. Not because he's mean, just because I'm me. Yes, I know. I can be quite "special."
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