My mom got here around this time last Sunday- we had a blast and she's already home. Her visit went much too quickly. I'll have to wait until I'm back in the office to blog about tennis since I can't get the pictures from my camera onto my tablet, but I only got cell phone pics when we were out and about last weekend, so pull up a seat...
Mom got here early enough that we could go to lunch before wandering around town. I had a lot of possibilities for our agenda, but of course we didn't fit everything in. We started at Panera Bread, since I still had some $ left on a gift card. After a snack there, we decided to see the new Helen Mirren film,
The Hundred-Foot Journey. This is a lovely movie about food and family and overcoming the odds. I did get a little annoyed at the cliche that a person can't be happy in the big city and must return home to the small village in order to find true fulfillment. Sigh. But the acting was great, the cinematography was gorgeous and I recognized one of the locations from my long-ago trip to Paris, which is amazing to me, since I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday but a restaurant I ate in fourteen years ago was familiar.
After the movie, we walked around Astoria for a bit to stretch our legs, then we went to the Museum of the Moving Image. Mom and I had been there years ago, before their recent renovations, plus we wanted to see the current exhibit, What's Up, Doc: The Animation Art of Chuck Jones. This exhibit was fantastic - full of fun, laughter, craft and nostalgia. They were showing 23 of the animated films, plus had over 125 original drawings, sketches, storyboards, script pages, backgrounds and cels. They were also showing snippets of various cartoons throughout, to point out examples of various aspects of Jones' work. They were showing the genius
What's Opera, Doc? and
One Froggy Evening - it was fun to see them again. They just don't make cartoons lime that anymore. Where are the cartoons teaching kids about opera or American history? Sigh. I'm getting old...
I wish they would've allowed photos in that area, but I followed the rules and didn't take any. You could take pictures in the permanent exhibit, Behind the Screen, though, so I took a lot. There was so much great stuff, from 19th century kinescopes, props, costumes, wigs, interactive areas (I played in the background music area, changing around the score to
Vertigo, which was cool). Mom also enjoyed looking at old movies in the World Comes to Queens exhibit, where they were showing clips from the 1939 and 1964 World's Fair films. There were just lots of old-time equipment and just tons of interesting stuff about film/television. I'll have lots of photos after the post.
It was really touching that Robin Williams was everywhere around the museum, with tons of photos, his makeup model and a costume from
Mrs. Doubtfire, plus a costume from
Mork & Mindy, and even an audio clip from
Mrs. Doubtfire in the Chuck Jones exhibit, since there was a cartoon sequence in that film. It's amazing how I can't shake my sadness about his death and how he permeated so much of my life in entertainment. :(
Monday, Mom and I did more wandering. We were going to check out the Kitchen Arts bookstore, but there was a huge line to get in, so we opted to skip it. We walked over to Carl Schurz Park and had some quiet moments by the East River, then we took the crosstown bus to the other side of Manhattan. One of my mom's (and my) favorite movies is
You've Got Mail. We can practically quote the entire movie - and do quote it to each other all the time. For years, Mom has wanted to see the spot in Riverside Park where the movie ends. Usually, the weather is too hot to wander outside when she's here, so I was glad we had a beautiful day to finally get there. First, we actually went to the apartment building that was supposedly where Meg Ryan lived in the movie. So we got some photos there, then went to the 91st Street Garden. We had a seat, shared some noisier moments by the Hudson River, and just generally had a good time. We were also BEAT.
Oh, a couple of unpleasant moments that made Mom frown: we went into Bloomingdale's at the start of our day to get some birthday gift ideas for my dad, then we went upstairs to check out the kids clothes for my cousin's birthday. When we got off the escalator, two salesgirls checked us out, whispered, then followed us around. I mean, do my mom and I look like shoplifters?!?! My mom was so upset. Then, when we got on the bus to head uptown, a woman yelled at my mom for not getting out of her way fast enough. Ugh. Sometimes, New Yorkers can be a pain in the patootie. Good thing we had tennis coming up to put smiles back on our faces...
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