a wedding and a drum circle

what happened

On Tuesday, I went to three Museums in Exposition Park. That night we went to Rudy’s wedding and wedding reception. The reception was fun, laughing and dancing with family and friends. I spent the night at my sibling’s tiny apartment. The next day, we spent the 4th of July at Venice Beach.

details

I had a long, heated conversation with Latifah and mom this morning. We started talking about science, theories, beliefs, and personality. It was the oldy-but-goody conversation: they think I’m closed minded and I think they aren’t critical enough. I should probably avoid that conversation with them. It doesn’t lead to much bonding or understanding. I will not retreat from my allegiance to critical thinking and reason. But my relationships are sometimes more important than ideas.

Latifah dropped me off at Exposition Park late in the morning. I’d been planning to visit a few museums since I got to L.A. I started out at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It is in a huge beautiful building, the walls are polished limestone, the floors are marble and stone, and the cases are built from hard woods. It is an old-fashioned museum, filled with dioramas and dinosaur skeletons. I was impressed by their exhibit on birds. They had tried harder to make the exhibit a better learning experience than the older halls filled with stuffed mammals. It was great fun.

I walked down past the rose gardens to the ScienCenter of California. Admission was free. The building was much more modern than the Natural History Museum and the museum was more lively and interesting. They had many of the familiar Exploratorium exhibits and a bunch of traveling shows. I was excited by the entrance to their exhibit on life – they’d constructed a very cool media experience that showed how much human life has in common with all other life. You stood in a hallway with seven large screens as images and videos flashed on each screen, telling the story of how all life is connected. Fascinating! This exhibit also featured a live action microscope magnified two-hundred times and projected on the floor. I didn’t want to see too much of the Museum, because I wanted to take Hanan there another day.

The last Museum I visited was the African-American Museum. It’s in a pretty building and it featured an exhibit about Architecture in Africa. I enjoyed this one as well, but I’d like to bring Dad back to it.

I came back to the house from Exposition Park on a bus. I got off two miles away and walked over to granddad’s house. I threw on my black slacks, black shirt, and white sport coat to go to the wedding. They held it a fancy church in Beverly Hills. There was a lot of tension and a lot of drama surrounding the wedding, but it was mostly just fun.

The reception happened at the Bel Aire country club, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. It was an elaborate affair, with dancing and toasts and fireworks. The DJ was pretty good and we all enjoyed the music he played. We did some group dances and I enjoyed the feeling of spinning and dancing in a crowd of my relatives. There was an awkward speech by the best friend of the bride. It sounded like she dated Rudy first, and introduced him to his wife. She sounded bitter about it, but it was hard to tell through all the tears. The mother of the bride gave another long speech about her relationship to her daughter (with little mention of Rudy). Rudy’s parents were barely included in the wedding and the reception. The bride didn’t throw her bouquet; instead she gave it to her best friend, her mom. A little strange, but we had fun. Rudy is such a romantic. He even ordered fireworks for his bride.

We got back to their apartment late Tuesday night. They all live in a ten by ten room behind some Mexican family’s house. It’s a shabby place with a tarp on the roof and no air conditioning. Arletta just got a call back with a job offer from a clothing store.

I had a long fight with Kim on the phone. She’s frustrated and I’m fed up. I’m thinking about just staying out here in California for a while. She’s tired of dealing with me and my moods. I guess I understand.

We spent the rest of the day at the beach. After a long nap, I wandered down and found the drum circle again. I played a cowbell, then I borrowed a djembe from this cool Hawaiian guy. I alternated between a tambourine and the cowbell. It was a lot of fun.

today I was awed by

the brilliant photos of interstellar objects, taken by the Hubble space telescope

dancing and playing in the drum circle again

today I was intrigued by

chaparral. I really want to do some hiking before we leave on Friday

the families of birds I saw at the Natural History museum. I’d like to learn all the families, and a bit of bird biology.

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