My Mother Is Now A Woman

No no, this isn't some Jerry Springer story (see here @ 1:17). Yesterday my mom, along with the rest of the members of her adult B'nai Mitzvah class, had her Bat Mitzvah. She's from the generation where not too many girls had B'not Mitzvah, so she wanted to do it now. She had a great experience learning some Hebrew and learning more about the Torah, so she may continue to study. Plus, she was chosen from her whole class to read her d'var Torah (a sort of interpretive sermon) on the big day in front of the congregation. I did some editing of the d'var Torah, so in that way I got to be a part of the experience. And Natalie and I got her the bracelet that was a kind of standard Bat Mitzvah present when we were in middle school (Natalie's brilliant idea). Still, I wish I could have been there in person. It sounds like it was all very lovely.

So, I haven't written in a few days on the theory that I'd have more interesting things to tell you now, but Thursday's already a blur. I had the world's most overpriced Japanese food (€3,50 for a miso soup!) and a much better glass of wine, and I listened to a bit of the classical music playing in the Plaza. On Friday, I went to lunch with a coworker and ordered the fish. Apparently this is one of those countries where when you order the fish, you order the whole damn fish:

It was awfully bony, but besides that it was good. Friday afternoon was Marine happy hour, which was fine, but nothing too exciting. Yesterday I did some laundry—Claudio was around and generously cut short his dryer time so I could keep my cycles on schedule; no Roberto, though—finished my novel and started working on my paper. By "working on my paper," I of course mean rereading stuff I've already read and since forgotten about. I didn't make nearly enough headway on that this weekend, but what's new.

Today I wandered to the park where they had an exhibition of blown up Hubble photographs and some pictures taken by Slovenian astronomers. Generally, I enjoyed it, but then I came to this monstrosity:

What, don't see anything wrong with it? Allow me to zoom in.

Yes, that's right. An otherwise beautiful park and lovely educational exhibit has been tarnished by that typographical blasphemy, COMIC SANS. What were they thinking!?

Ah, me. Afterward I walked over to the National Gallery and, enticed by the prospect of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit, I bought a ticket. The in-museum portion of the Mapplethorpe exhibit featured his flower photographs (boo), so I went to their permanent collection. I saw lots of art by great Slovenian artists, including Jožef Tominc's portrait of famed 19th Century drag performer Leopold Liechtenberg Janežič:

Ok, I actually have no idea who Janežič was, but that seems to fit the picture best. After, I walked over to the second portion of the Mapplethorpe exhibit, which featured more of what I think of as Mapplethorpe, such as this fine photograph, on the right. (NB: If you couldn't guess, link is not even close to safe for work.)

Walking back from coffee, I was stopped by a bunch of drunk Slovenian students. I told them I only spoke English, to which they all responded "Oh! Perfect! We speak English!" They asked where I was from, and I told them New York, at which point the drunkest of them all broke out into her best Sinatra, "These vegetable shoes...!"

There's a lyric that will never die.