Summer Day of Fun 2014

Adventure attire: check. 

Elberon > Belmar: choo choo!

Kleins to watch the boats go by. 

Strollos for an ice cream cone with sprinkles!

And back again. 

Summer Day Of Fun 2013

We riffed on Smitten Kitchen's hand pies with peaches instead of rhubarb, our crust instead of hers, and circles instead of squares, with America's #1 Next Door Neighbor. Verdict? Very delicious but very labor intensive. Next time we'll make them bigger.

We went antiquing in our own neck of the woods and found a limited number of gems, but the upside was seeing the antique stores packed with customers on a summer Sunday. 

Then we went to The Annex for oysters, shrimp, and wine. We examined our purchases (JFK cards for my brother's bday) and my dad joined us for more apps and stimulating conversation. He is preaching at his church this Sunday and we were sharing thoughts on his scripture.

... I love that I just wrote that. We grew up "with morals," not religion, but I enjoy everyone in my family on a journey to find their own path to inner peace as we grow.

We couldn't remember what we did last year. I think we may have taken the year off, unadvisedly, in retrospect. But for the record, 2011, 2010.

Little Feet

Passed out in the car seat after a fun afternoon.

They might actually not be so little... Mr. SevPrez jokingly refers to me as Chief Big Toe (I do have a big big toe), so I dubbed the little one Chief Little Big Toe.

Funny names aside, she started walking on Monday, July 9th. Two steps at a time, a couple times. Now I believe she's up to 4. Very, very exciting.

My mom would also like me to add that she's signing "more" and "all done."

Today three generations of SevPrez women had an impromptu summer day of fun. Mom met me at the craft store where I was picking up dye for an upcoming project. Then we went shopping and had lunch. Chief Little Big Toe didn't sleep a wink. She was just too excited to miss a thing.


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Making A Pilgrimage To Maira

Crappy photos illicitly taken with my iPhone while trying to look like I was checking my email.

I was pleased as punch to discover that Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) was coming to The Jewish Museum in New York, having missed it by just hours when it was in Philadelphia last fall. My mom and I went for our annual Summer Day of Fun on Friday afternoon. For me, it was like snuggling up on the couch with the cats and a good book -- totally comfortable and reassuring. I have most of her books, and even purchased the companion book to the exhibition last year to console myself for missing it, so there wasn't much newness to be discovered. Nonetheless I really enjoyed seeing her originals, and being in a space carefully curated by the hands of Maira. And I really enjoyed hearing the sound of my mother's giggles from across the gallery as she watch Maira's TED talk with headphones on. 


I could go on and on and on about Maira's wit, wisdom, and talent, or my feeling of spiritual connection to her, or my profound admiration for the fact that she has made such an accomplished career for herself by plumbing the depths of herself and her life, but I won't, I don't have it in me today. It's too much to put into words. I would say just check out her work for yourself and you'll understand. 

A horizon of Maira. 

There were a several other great exhibits going on at the museum but we were unable to see them before the museum closed (at 4:45 on Friday, for the Sabbath). I suppose we had spent too long luxuriating over lunch and lemonade at Sarabeth's.  For the record, Sarabeth's is exactly the kind of restaurant I would have if I ever had a restaurant: brunch food and baked goods all day. I would eat breakfast for every meal if it was nutritiously acceptable, and I have always been this way. A few years ago I ran into my high school sweetheart after many years of radio silence, and as we were catching up he asked "Do you still love pancakes?" I suppose I do, I just hadn't realized quite how much it made an impression on others. 


After picking up some things at the gift shop, I made the executive decision that under no circumstances should we take the 6 train downtown and make the horrible transfer to the E at 51st Street. It was a nice day (after several days of sweltering weather and thunderstorms), so we dared cross Central Park in hopes that we would come out on the other side and take the A/C/E directly to Penn Station. I use dramatic language to describe this decision because, well, have you ever tried to cross Central Park in a straight line? It's not really designed to be transversed on foot in this way, so it took some extreme diligence on our part. We consulted a lot of maps, and finally, when leaving Belvedere Castle and having to decide which way to take through The Ramble, I busted out the GPS on my iPhone. After all, my mother was wearing wedges and I am extremely pregnant. I could not stand the idea of us walking far out of our way. But what do you know -- we made it from the Jewish Museum to the Museum of Natural History in record time (not counting our respite at the Turtle Pond, where mom read Maira's newest children's book, Thirteen Words, and I took pictures of all the turtles in the pond). Once we popped out on the West side of the park, I made another executive decision that I was done with the smelly, crowded subway for the week, so I raised my right arm, stuck my belly out, and hailed us a cab to Penn Station. 

Mom reads to the turtles.

All in all it was another wonderful Summer Day of Fun for the books. Mom got off the train with me and Mr. SevPrez picked us up at the station so Mom could come back and get a tour of our new house -- well, our newly beautiful house with new hardwood floors. Photos to come!

Summer Day of Fun 2010

My mother and I have a tradition going back to the mid 90s, the Summer (and Winter, which was added around 2003) Day of Fun, in which mother and daughter come together and take time out from their regularly scheduled lives to do something that they have always been meaning to do, or would do if they led lives of leisure, which they are destined not to because of their genetic makeup. (Mom is busy with exciting work opportunities, museum stewardship, and grammy-ship since she retired; I have a full time job in which I commute to, a personal blog in which to maintain, and a marathon to train for. It's who we are.)


This year Mom met me in midtown Manhattan and we had lunch at Sarabeth's on Central Park South before visiting the American Folk Art Museum. Originally the plan was to go to MoMA to see the Matisse exhibit, but we'd been to MoMA together before, and it promised to be packed. I just happened to read a great piece on the Folk Art Museum in the New Yorker, and had always admired the flag outside their building, so we changed plans. And boy were we glad we did. Here's a photo of part of the line (that went all the way around the block) to get into MoMA, taken from the top floor of the Folk Art Museum, which is right next door.

We saw some truly inspiring things. I'm still not quite sure what folk art is exactly, but I think it amounts to Art-by-artists-who-are-not-Artists, that is people who did not go to school to be artists. They can be artisans, or craftsman, or, in the 20th and 21st centuries, just plain crazy people who are compelled by their imprisonment or mental illness to make art. It's somewhat unclear. But I still enjoyed all the exhibits. 

We saw some stuff by Henry Darger, who was clearly mentally ill and made some disturbing art (which I did not take photos of). Sad thing is, the Henry Dargers of today are probably too overmedicated to make compelling art. 

I was tickled by his filing system for images he clipped out of magazines, coloring books, and other printed material — all clippings he used to teach himself how to illustrate his magnus opus. This file was called "Only Trees Trees Not Bees."


But by far my favorite thing in the place was the Pieties Quilt, made by Maria Cadman Hubbard, aged 79, and completed in 1848.


See for yourselves. 

Besides this amazing quilt, there were also excellent weathervanes, a braided rug made out of Wonder Bread bags, a cafe run by a very nice pastry chef who baked all the goods, and live music. 


If you are ever about to get in line for MoMA, I highly suggest finding respite in the AFAM.