At the Art Institute

Terry's away at his institution's (&%@!*!) mandatory faculty retreat, so I'm on my own with Elliot and Astrid, who are out of school/summer camp during a pretty busy week at my workplace. This means that the two of them have to endure long stretches at my office. It's no fun for any of us (though my co-workers do seem to have fun trying to avoid their [ok, our] usual bad language when Astrid is sitting on the floor during a two-hour meeting....).

We were pretty fried by the time I was able to cut out of the office, but they said they'd like to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, and we had a free family pass, so we did it. Before we got there we stopped by an art supply store so that we'd have sketching materials--that's why Astrid wanted to go to the museum in the first place. We stayed just long enough for Astrid to complete several sketches, of 19th century American furniture, a Winslow Homer seascape, a Federalist portrait of a military leader, and a couple of pictures of Santa Claus (no model needed for these). She seemed blithely unaware of the museum visitors and security guards gathering around her to peek at her work. It was a somewhat strange experience for Elliot and me, I have to say. People were *very* curious about Astrid and her (apparently unusual) ability. Hmmm.