After I had my back surgery, I realized that I had a lot of work to do to get my body into some kind of shape. I had to strengthen my back muscles, my core, my quads, my hamstrings and probably a lot of things I don’t even know about. Then all that was delayed because the incision took a very long time to heal. To add to that, I developed bursitis in my left hip. By the time November came around, I was feeling pretty down. My internist suggested, rather strongly, that I don’t travel (my favorite pastime) for a year and spend that time getting myself healthier. After thinking it over, I agreed and have no plans for travel until possibly November/December. Bonnie and I talked this over and decided that we could still travel – take day trips and see things we haven’t seen.
Today was a beautiful day in Southern California with temperatures in the upper 60’s, low 70’s, and, although it was very windy in parts of the city, there was hardly a breeze in Studio City or in Pasadena. And today in Milwaukee, they had their first winter storm warning. How great it is to live in LA!!! Because the weather was great and my hip was feeling good due to still feeling the effects of lidocaine after having a cortisone shot yesterday, we decided to go to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. On January 2, we sat directly across from the museum while watching the Rose Bowl parade and talked about the fact that we had never been there. So, today was the day.
The Norton Simon Museum is very nicely located and it has a large, free parking lot. The museum opens at noon and we got there about five minutes before they opened. We immediately noticed the beautiful grounds. Because it is still winter, there were only a few things blooming but it was still lovely. It cost us $7 (seniors as we are) for admission which is really a bargain. Being that it was Bonnie and me who were there, we headed immediately for the café which is run by the Patina Group. This is a soup, sandwich, salad kind of place where you go up and place your order and they bring it to the table which is situated outside near the water lily pond. The pond is without the water lilies since it is winter but I saw some buds on the green pads. There were many sculptures all around the pond. We decided to share a turkey melt (turkey, brie cheese, cheddar cheese, cranberry/orange aioli) which was done perfectly. Better yet, the person, who took our order, divided the sandwich and put it on two plates. We also shared a small bag of potato chips and Bonnie had a Diet Coke while I had a Diet Snapple. This is not a cheap place for lunch since my 99 cent bag of chips cost $2 and our total bill was $17.93. However, we were sitting outside around the pond and it was beautiful.
We decided to walk around the outside first and look at all the sculptures. I find the Rodin’s to be the most spectacular. To me, once you look at his sculptures which are in the front of the building as you walk up to the doors, nothing else can compare. I saw many more in Paris at Rodin’s house and have never forgotten how moved I was. Then we went in to see a movie about the museum that was actually an old TV PBS show starring Sister Wendy. Do any of you remember Sister Wendy? I use to watch her all the time back so many years ago and learned a lot about art. She explained some of the most famous art and now I find I sometimes disagree with her. How we interpret art is so individual. Later in the day we also saw a movie about Norton Simon which was also interesting.
The coolest thing that we did was use our cell phones to find out more about these pieces of art. The Norton Simon Museum has a free app which works as a guided tour when at the museum. All you do is put in the numbers and your phone tells you what you are looking at. It was suggested that we download this at home since it can take some time so we did that. It turned out to be so convenient. If you don’t have an iPhone or another phone that can get that app, you can rent an audio tour ($3) and I highly recommend either one.
Norton Simon was a very good business man and made lots and lots of money. After the age of 40, he took an interest in art and started buying lots of it ranging from the old masters to the most modern. I have seen private collections that have been turned into museums or have been on special display but I have never seen such an eclectic and immense grouping. It was absolutely amazing. I am posting pictures on Facebook that just give a smattering of what we saw in the 5 hours we spent there. When we left, they gave us a gift – a picture of Monet’s “The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil.”
If you live or visit Los Angeles and are not too far from Pasadena and you have any interest in art at all, I definitely suggest you spend some time at the Norton Simon Museum. www.nortonsimon.org
No comments:
Post a Comment