la vie en rose

I recently took a trip to see my sister Allie and her family in Dallas. Allie is the closest in age to me, so even though we're 6 years apart, we did spend most of our growing up time together. As much as I was looking forward to spending time with Allie Pallie, I was also looking forward to seeing her kids (I hadn't even met her daughter Caroline yet! And she's almost 2!) and seeing the sites of Dallas.

Highlights of the trip included:

Spending time with this daring girl and this dangerous boy.

Going to the JFK museum. It's in the former Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald "allegedly" (check out the underlined text on the plaque below. Some conspiracies never die) shot and killed our president.

The museum itself is on the 6th floor of the building, with the corner window (1 floor down from the top) refurbished to appear open, as it was found that day.

They have painted X's on the road below to show the spots where Kennedy was hit.

The infamous grassy knoll (not looking so grassy in January).

One of the theories is that there was a 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll. Allie took me to the spot where it is thought that he may have been. It's a perfect view of the 2nd spot where Kennedy was shot and the railroad tracks are right behind you, making for a quick getaway.

Very good museum. Goes through his life and presidency, as well as a little history on the 1960's. Looking down over the street, across the boxes laid out just as they were, was poignant. The legacy section needs to be updated to include Obama.

We ate some real Texas barbecue. It's served by the pound on wax paper sheets, using a crate as your tray. The meat and sauce were good, but the real star was the amazing creamed corn.

We visited Bonnie's grave (of Bonnie and Clyde fame (Clyde's is located in an extremely dangerous neighborhood, so we didn't go to that one)). The cemetery was rundown and desolate. The mausoleum in the middle was locked, but it's probably haunted anyway. The Art Deco doors on it, however, were beautiful.

Allie's kids came with us to see it. They asked about her story. Here's how the conversation went:

Rachel: So why are we going to see this place?

Me: Bonnie Parker was a famous person during the Great Depression. Do you know what the Great Depression is?

Ryan: Yeah, it's when lots of people lost their jobs and the economy was real bad. So what did she do?

Me: Do you know the story of Robin Hood?

Rachel and Ryan: Yeah! (chatter about Sherwood Forest and the Merry Men and such)

Me: That's right! So back in the Great Depression the banks were considered the enemy of the people because they would close and take people's money.

Ryan: But that won't happen now, right?

Me: No, that's one of the things the New Deal changed.

Allie: So you guys don't have to worry about that.

Rachel and Ryan: Oh, okay.

Me: So Bonnie and Clyde were seen as Robin Hoods at first because they robbed the banks. People saw that as revenge for the banks being bad. And the police couldn't catch them.

Rachel: That made the police mad.

Me: Yes it did. And then some policemen were killed. (as an aside to Allie: How far should I go with this?)

Allie: It's fine.

Me: So the police did a stakeout and waited for Bonnie and Clyde to go visit Clyde's parents. Then they killed them.

Rachel: They killed them?

Allie: Yes. They were so angry that they just kept shooting and shooting.

-Later, next to Bonnie's grave site-

Ryan: But Bonnie didn't kill people, right? It was Clyde, right?

Me: Right.

Ryan: So Bonnie's not going to end up in the same place that Clyde is, right?

Allie: No, she'll be held accountable for her own actions, but not for Clyde's.

These kids are awesome.

Bonnie was a poet and one of her poems is her inscription on her grave.

We went to see the King Tut exhibit at the museum downtown.

And now for a moment of complete honesty - we were a little disappointed. We both truly expected that the final room of the exhibit, the big climax, would be something remarkable. Tut's gold mask or a replica of the sarcophagus or a mummy (not his, but at least someones). It was a projected image onto a large box representing the stone boxes he was found in. Basically they wanted you to use your imagination. Well, King Tut exhibit-makers, let me tell you, I can use my imagination sitting right here in Seattle. I want tangible history. However, the coolest thing to see (for me at least) was a ceremonial rattle used in the temples. It was a 2 foot tall wooden ankh, with metal rattle in the middle, sort of like an abacus. (No pictures allowed in the museum, sorry, but this is what it looked like).

The handle of the rattle was worn from use. So much of what was placed in the tombs was made just for that purpose, but here was something that was used in everyday life. Looking at it I could imagine the priests, standing in the doorway of the temple, incense swirling around them, chanting and shaking these rattles as part of some ritual.

We took Caroline with us that day and afterwards went to a Mexican restaurant. That little one likes spicy food! A girl after my own heart.

If I thought I could get away with it, I would have taken her home with me.

Other highlights included seeing Caroline take 7 unaided steps, seeing Rachel give a talk in Primary, going to a lecture with Allie's husband Austin (and thinking at first that I was walking into the most embarrassing moment of my life, for when we went into the room the lecturer was talking about sex. Explicitly. I said to myself, "I thought this was supposed to be about evolution and choosing mates. If he's going to talk about sex and I'm sitting here with my brother-in-law, oh my goodness, this is going to be so awkward. What did I get myself into?!" Thankfully, he did actually talk about evolution and it was a very interesting lecture.), staying up way too late with Allie and eating chocolate cake...

But no, I didn't throw a shoe at George Bush's house and I didn't come home with a cowboy hat and an oil lease. Oh well, there's always next time.