Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Bonzos in Red Wing

One last (long) weekend before the beginning of Spring term...

Today is the first day of class at BigU. To celebrate MLK day and mourn (just kidding) the start of class, Mr. and Mrs. Bonzo spent Sunday night in Red Wing at the St. James Hotel, a very interesting historic hotel. During the summer Red Wing is usually filled with turista in search of pottery and shoes, natch. But in the winter, surprisingly even over MLK weekend, there is not much business.

The Bonzos like the St. James (SJ) because it is clean and right in the middle of town, just across from an antique store. Mrs Bonzo, an art historian and curator, is into antique stores and museums. So Mr. Bonzo often gets dragged into such places and ususally learns something, particularly when Mrs. Bonzo goes into museum mode.

Anyway, the weather did not cooperate but we have no complaints. It started snowing on the way down Sunday evening, but the drive was not too bad, snowed all night, and the next day there was an accumulation of about six inches. Also it was cold. So we stayed in and had a very good dinner at the SJ followed by a reading unit with the NYT and some old stuff from the New Yorker about Peggy Guggenheim.

Next day good breakfast, there were so few people that it felt as if you were being waited on hand and foot. An antique store unit followed. By now Mr. Bonzo has no taste and would buy almost anything; he likes it all. Mrs. Bonzo, however, has decreed that nothing may be purchased unless something at home is ditched, as SmallHouse is already packed with junk, primarily due to Mr. Bonzo. We did, however, pick up a few items.

Art Notes by Mrs. Bonzo: Mr. B. mentioned that we picked up "a few items" at the antique store in Red Wing. These included a fabulous large glass pitcher made by Anchor Hocking in the 1940s. It has narrow stripes in multiple colors that will coordinate with our diner/dinnerware. It will be accessioned into the Utility Collection & will replace Plastic Water Pitcher acc. #2003.106, which will be disposed of. We can use it as a water pitcher for the table when we have guests for dinner. The Bonzos do not give "dinner parties". The Bonzos have "folks over for dinner". This is as it should be.

Mr. Bonzo also replaced his umpty-ump year old snow shovelling boots with Red Wings. They had plastic zippers - a good thing as the metal ones eventually corrode - and thick soles. Ten to fifteen years of use had killed them though. Then we headed home for the inevitable dig out to which Mr. Bonzo actually looked forward. Mr. Bonzo has a humongous snow blower that he has only used at SmallHouse once. He acquired it when he lived in ExtraLargeHouse in the 'burbs many years ago. Last September he actually had the tires pumped up and Blue Babe miraculously fired up. So he was looking forward to trying Babe under battle conditions. Ordinarily Mr. Bonzo would have simply shoveled because there really wasn't that much snow. But if we ever get a real Minnesota snow again, Mr. Bonzo may not be able to handle it without the snow blower as he is getting long in the tooth.

Long story short - Blue Babe worked fine. So the next snowfall Mr. Bonzo will be able to begin to repay his neighbors who have often in the past cleared snow from
his front walk.

Over the weekend the Bonzos also went to a local Jewish theater production of a one woman show about Peggy Guggenheim, the late eccentric modern art collector whose palazzo in Venice now houses her collection. It was a virtuoso performance by Sally Wingert of local and even national fame. Ms. Wingert has remained very active in local theater. Kudos for continuing to do great work. She is a real pro.

Speaking of work Mr. Bonzo has to get back to his. He promises that shortly some more serious material will appear concerning BigU's march to greatness as well as the coronation of new emperors in football and basketball at BigU.

Ciao.

bg

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Mr. Bonzo has inadvertently deleted Mrs. Bonzo's post but takes note of her comments. (He'd better...)