What I did on my "vacation"

I received a letter from my dad, and it was difficult to read being a staunch Democrat in a family of Republicans. He is a well-meaning, concerned citizen, which must explain why he is absolutely beside himself that Barack Obama won the election. He and my mother live in a Deep South state now, but I can’t blame this all on the fact that their friends and neighbors are probably all right-wing, Fox News-watching fanatics; some of this conspiracy stuff I was reading can only originate from the right-wing nut-jobs on the AM radio dial. Karl Rove continues to  insist that his (dirty) tricks in Ohio didn’t work because Democrats “stole” the state vote; at least Dick Morris sheepishly admitted that his “landslide Romney victory” prediction fell short because he believed that the minority and “young” vote would return to “normal” levels. And then there is the Obama/Susan Rice “conspiracy” in the Benghazi attack; isn’t it odd that Hillary Clinton—who as Secretary of State had the responsibility for insuring the safety of U.S. diplomats—is virtually the only person in the Obama administration to emerge unscathed and  reputation untarnished, even enhanced? 

Anyways, I didn’t really want to talk about any of that. I am currently on my one and only “vacation” of the year, since where I work there is no such thing as time off for holidays (only office people get those). I actually want to “enjoy” myself while I’m at it. I don’t go anywhere because I don’t have any money, but the extra sleep is “nice.” However, I thought I should at least take a day to do the touristy thing, since Seattle is supposedly a “tourist town.” I’ve already been to the zoo, the aquarium, the downtown art museum, the so-called “premier” natural history museum in the Northwest (the teeny-tiny Burke Museum) and the Space Needle; the latter was so forgettable that the one time I went up it was because my visiting brother wanted to. My reaction was as I expected it to be: “This is it?” I’ve been up the Eifel Tower; at least that was a real experience.

I was hard-pressed to figure out something to do until I found a book mark laying on the ground that also served as an advertisement for the “King Tut” exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. I remember now: This supposedly would be the last exhibition of Tut artifacts before they returned to the Cairo Museum for good. How could I pass-up history, I thought. So I got my fundament up early on Friday and tramped on down to the science center. I bought a ticket, and because I was an hour early for the next scheduled tour, I walked about the permanent “exhibits.” I had forgotten how this was all geared toward kids and I was stupefied at how very little of interest there was for adults—or frankly, how little of anything there was. I went to the gift shop; when I was there many, many moons ago, the gift shop actually sold interesting things, like fossils of trilobites. Now it was just books and toys. Very big deal. I ended-up purchasing a book on the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, because I thought I needed a “keepsake.” I always regretted that I didn’t waste $20 on a “Back in the USA” T-shirt when I went to the Paul McCartney concert 10 years ago at the Tacoma Dome; but at least I still have the ticket stubs to prove that I was actually there. 

Then it was time for my tour group to go to the exhibit. This is my review of the event: The highlight was the most well-known sculptural likeness of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, aka Akhenaten, who attempted to induce a monotheistic religion based on the Sun god in Egypt. And yes, most of the exhibit had nothing to do with Tutankhamen. At least this statue was “big” and gave a sense of the “majesty” of ancient Egypt. Most of the objects, however, were diminutive, and had only passing interest unless they had names attached to them like Thutmose, Hatshepsut or Ramses. The actual “Tut” exhibit was practically anti-climactic; there were gold trinkets and sandals, a few small likenesses, Tut’s “bed” and a miniature gold casket to hold one of his internal organs. But there was no inner or outer caskets, not the gold throne, not the gold reliefs that show a very dark-skinned pharaoh. Most egregious was the absence of the iconic gold mask; I made an inquiry in regard to it, and was told that if had been damaged in a previous exhibit, and it was decided that it would remain in Egypt. While it is true that the Egyptian government decided that it was too fragile for travel, it in fact has not been on international exhibit since 1981. 

Anyways, that was that and I decided to go down to the Public Market and see if there was any useless trinket I could waste money on, since it was the Christmas shopping season. I walked past one shop whose display window had some figurines and assorted oddments; there was a man behind the counter who appeared to be crafting some object, so I thought that maybe he had made all of these himself, which I thought was impressive on a certain level. There was one object that somewhat caught my interest, partly because it maintained the Egyptian theme of the day.  I walked into the shop and asked the proprietor what price it might be. The price quoted in a Slavic accent did not enhance my interest in buying it, so I left and strolled around the other establishments. I then returned to the shop, and the proprietor’s mannerism suggested that he knew that my intentions were more serious now that I had time to think things over. I told the proprietor that I had seen nothing else of interest and I was still interested in the aforementioned figurine. He stood on a stool and reached over for it, and informed me that it was actually $15 more than his previous quote.

As I was busy mulling it over, another customer came in and asked about the price of one of those Russian egg thingies. The price of that was even higher than for what I was thinking about buying, but the proprietor explained that it had taken him three days to fashion it. That customer passed on the purchase while I continued to mull over this Cleopatra reclining on a couch. I decided to buy it, and the proprietor shooed a couple a kids out of the cramped shop because he actually had a paying customer in the place. I’m not sure what motivated me; maybe it was because the figurine reminded me of Natalie Wood in “Sex and the Single Girl.” Or as Martin Short’s Ed Grimley would say, “I don’t know.” Well, maybe I do know, but I’m not saying. One thing I do know is that proprietor did not craft this particular object himself; attached to the bottom was a “Made in China” sticker. 

Thus in a matter of hours I managed to blow the remainder of this week’s and half of next week’s allotted budget. That reminds me of something else: My dad also said that the rich are becoming a “peasant” class under the Obama administration. Who did he get that from? The fact is that they are only making more money than they ever have—and paying less in taxes than ever before.