We're in Doylestown, PA and it's a long day. Despite the major protestations of Theo, we decide to go to the Michener Art Museum. We explain that Michener, a well-known novelist and short story writer (famous for writing epic stories of foreign lands) purchased local art in the Doylestown area and then built a museum to house it. Ah, the lives of the rich and famous.
But Michener didn't start out as a rich dude. He was a foundling who was adopted and raised as a Quaker. He then made his own fortune. The stuff of novels.
Theo has a ho hum attitude. How much fun can a museum possibly be? I have to agree. I've been to museums that were not impressive.
Why I like the Michener Museum:
There is a lovely courtyard filled with statues where you can eat your lunch.
Inside the museum, I spy paintings that make you long for the good old days--fill you with nostalgia.
In one of their many rooms, there's a lovely mural, framed like a window with a view, that tricks you into thinking you are looking at a real view.
Theo stares and doesn't stare. He looks but does he see? Finally, as we're walking through a deserted part of the collection, we let him down to stretch his cat legs. This is our big mistake. One minute he's looking bored, but harmless; the next, he jumps up onto a display. But not any display. A giant cat perches there. Bigger than life-size.
Now Theo is interested. Unfortunately, he's in a museum where there's a firm look but don't touch policy.
"Theo. Get down from there."
He doesn't.
"Theo. Don't touch that statue."
He is only sniffing.
"Theo, if you knock down that statue . . ." The threat hangs in the air.
Finally he jumps down and looks at me as if I'm the crazy one.
"You are exhausting," I tell him.
He wanders away from me and ends up, exhausted himself, on a bench. I join him. There is a lovely face of a sunflower. I can't resist the urge to pose. Yes, this is my exhausted face.
Dan poses next to a most unusual door.
All in all, the museum is pretty cool. My opinion, not Theo's.
