I hate clowns so a clown was out, as was that person who dances around in the sort of bird costume. McDonald’s was out, the organic farm where the kids can play in the dirt and pet the animals was too far away plus it was closed on the weekend I think. The Museum of Natural History wanted, what, way over two hundred Euro for seven kids or something like that. We did a pirate party last year, I think. At any rate, we’d done one already, with treasure map, treasure hunt, all that stuff.
Which left the art museum.
This is how I found myself sitting in front of The Two Fridas with my wife, a friend of ours kind enough to come along and help out, the tour guide and twelve 8-year old children: nine girls, Bill Gates, Hannibal Lector and Don Rickles. The sort of smart kids who are fine as long as you keep them occupied, which turns out to be impossible.
The guide was really good. She had been planning to show the kids a different picture, but they all sat down in front of this one so she explained it instead, off the top of her head, talking about Frida and the painting at a level the kids and I could understand. She told us how expensive it was, how it had traveled here with a courier who never let it out of his sight, as the boys swang pillows over their heads, sword-fight style, etc.
Alpha is a genius. We took the train to the museum, which fascinated the kids, some of whom had never been on one before. I had expected the kids to be rowdier. I even wore my steel-toed boots just in case, just to put a little fear in them. This is how scared the boys were: on the way to the restroom with them after the tour, Don Rickles asked me what my name is. I told him. “That’s a girl’s name,” he said.
Anyhow. The guide told us afterwards she had been surprised the kids were as well-behaved and attentive as they were. A previous group hadn’t been interested at all.
After the tour, they got to paint and we fed them and went back to the train. On the way we let them play in the creek, so they could fall in and catch colds. Hannibal Lector found a broken schnaps bottle and threw it back into the high grass. I went in looking for it so no one would step on it with his or her bare feet, and stepped in dog shit with my boots. It reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the big game hunter is taking aim at one dinosaur and the other one eats him. So I went wading in the creek for a while too until the sole of my boot was fairly clean again.
Amazingly, no one was injured the whole time. No paintings were damaged. No one cried. Bill Gates was thirsty, because we had none of the beverages he allowed himself to drink (i.e. tap water). Everyone else seemed to have a good time. We were still talking to each other after we arrived back at our train station and handed the kids back to their parents, who seemed equally surprised they all still had ten fingers and toes each.
We went into town, where I got Gamma an ice-cream cone. She climbed halfway up a tree and ate it while listening to a big band that was playing outside.
That was Saturday. Sunday some relatives came over. We fed them until they went home again. Gamma had a great time both days. She said it was her best birthday ever.
