Happy Birthday Sean: 08/20/05
It's hard to believe, but today is Sean's third birthday. He was very thrilled to have his birthday finally arrive though for a while he was pretending to be four, rather than three. Mom arrived early which gave us lots of time to chat and for her to watch Sean play and be his usual delightful and goofy self. Charlie barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers. After lunch Sean opened his presents, though he did ask me to help for most of them. His immediate favorites were the Batman action figure from Judy and Charlie, the watercolor paint set from Eddie and the penguin shirt from us. After our traditional birthday cake (which I had baked the night before and frosted in the morning) Sean painted pictures of the totoros growing the camphor tree for an hour.

Ancient Egypt:
After Sean's party, Ian and I spent a long and wonderful afternoon at LACMA, seeing the Tutankhamen exhibit. Realistically it should be called the 18th Dynasty exhibit as only a few items from his tomb bookmark the rest of the exhibit. I had not expected to see the balustrade from Armana (the one with the rays of Aten holding the ankhs) or the bust of Akhenaten or so many of the other items. They were an added treat.

I must admit to being thrilled to see my absolute favorite item of Tutankhamen's—the mannequin bust which is often shown being carried out of the tomb by an Egyptian worker giving the appearance in the black and white photograph that Tutankhamen is walking out of the tomb himself. This bust was the first item we got to see. It stands in a room by itself right after a quick movie is shown to give the different crowds of people time to disperse.

Later in the exhibit, there is one wonderful photograph of Howard Carter with an "Oh shit; what have we found?" look on his face. I wish more information had been given about the various Egyptologists who through the years have found and preserved these amazing pieces of history but I suppose they don't have the celebrity status of the pharaohs and queens they find and research.

As expected the biggest and most famous pieces of Tutankhamen's tomb were not included in the exhibit. They would have been too awkward to ship and I sincerely doubt Egypt is letting any of them out of the country any time soon (nor do I blame them!). I will just have to get myself to Egypt some day.

Comments (0)

Permalink