The Stars and the Cookie Jar

Thought for the day: Ethnic tensions in small nations whose names end in --istan will ease up faster than that sourdough starter you spilled on the kitchen countertop and overlooked.

***
Today we went to the Bureau of Holocaust and Engraving**. I accidentally met the head of collections, who is a very nice, sociable, friendly person who knows my wife. I think I refrained from being bitter. We then walked through the collections, and I'm disappointed to say that damn, I wish they'd change up their exhibits occasionally. The whole museum is distant, static and flat. I know what they're aiming for, but it's just pictures on a wall and text on a screen, for the most part. I think they fail nobly and admirably and miserably, as far as, and speaking strictly of, the exhibit halls. There is a wealth of three-dimensional objects that could be used respectfully, could provoke thought and be more damn engaging than royalty-free images from the 1930's blown up to grainy-size. They're just... not in the museum.

But I was walking with my wife through the little corner devoted to armed resistance and it came to my mind, a moydl mit a sametenem ponim.../ Mit shney-girlandn oyf di hor, gemutikt fun kleyninkn n'tsochn fur undzer nayem, frayen dor. And I just. I looked at my wife and I thought about the things worth fighting and dying for, if you have to; and there was the woman with the samite face holding my hand and walking next to me, which is a small victory; and I wonder if we as a people have gotten around to building ourselves that new, free world yet.

Later on, while we were sitting in the lobby, we had a curious and hilarious encounter. A busload of high school students was milling around, and two girls dressed in stock mod ortho -- denim skirts, turtleneck sweaters, thick opaque stockings, little millefiori mogen Davids -- began to approach my wife, dressed in stock married mod ortho, modest black with her hair covered by a lovely gold-shot scarf whose ends trailed in front of her shoulders.

They were opening their mouths to speak to her, to ask directions/opinions from a person who no doubt looked reassuringly like their married older sisters. They were walking right toward us and they were smiling and about to engage. "I wonder if she --"

They saw my hand on my wife's knee and they stopped, absolutely froze, and got these marvellously puckered, prunish, horrified faces. They veered.

" --Let's see what's in the gift shop."

And then they scampered away. Yes. I don't believe I've ever seen a scamper before, but that was it.

*brushes hands together neatly*
Selkie and wife, 1; status quo, 0.



**When I interviewed there, the friendly staff informed me that occasionally I would have to re-direct tourists who just wondered where the money was printed. The Bureau of Engraving is just over the way.