Tag Archives: MIM

A glorious visit

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A page from my parents wedding album given to me by my aunt who visited last week. Mom and Dad were 23!

A strange thing happened during my aunt’s visit. I glanced over at the sofa and Olive the cat was sitting next to my aunt licking her fingers! Now this is a first. Olive has never let a guest touch her or vice versa. Olive does sleep with my daughter, but that doesn’t count because she was my daughter’s cat until college took my daughter away.

My aunt and I did most of the things on my list and we found ourselves very compatible. We both got hungry at the same time, wanted quiet time in the afternoons to ourselves and went to bed early to read. Having a house guest doesn’t get much better than that!

It cooled down considerably, we lit the outdoor fireplace and cooked s’mores. We hiked in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. We went to the farmer’s market in Carefree and explored consignment stores in Cave Creek. We had some delicious lunches and dinners out, plus I cooked. We visited the Musical Instrument Museum and to my delight, they changed up a few exhibits so there were new things for me to enjoy.

You might wonder what would be exciting about visiting a museum of musical instruments.

From the MIM, here’s the Artists’s Gallery experience:

ARTIST GALLERY

Celebrate music’s most influential artists.

In every time and place, there are musicians whose art deeply touches the lives of many. MIM’s Artist Gallery highlights these personalities with ever-changing exhibits that span sound, style, and era. Through generous partnerships, MIM features historic instruments owned, played, and loved by the musicians who have created a shared soundtrack to our lives for generations.

Nearly 40 displays showcase instruments and artifacts from some of the greatest musicians in the world. See and hear instruments played by icons such as Elvis Presley®, Tito Puente, the Carter Family and Johnny Cash, Roberta Flack, Glen Campbell, Joan Baez, Maroon 5, and many others.

https://mim.org/artist-gallery/#

The exhibits not only have the artists’s grammy awards, gold records, costumes and instruments, they have a large screen that plays selections of their songs on the headsets you wear. I think my favorite was “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. On display is his hand written lyrics on a yellow legal pad. So not only do you get to sing along with Roy, you get to see how he wrote it, along with a photo of him and his pretty woman. There are many other galleries from all over the world. I haven’t touched the whole of MIM yet.

Here are a few photos from my aunt’s visit:

What is your idea of a perfect house guest? What do you like to do when entertaining company?

A welcome visit

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Two pages about Mom from my aunt’s scrapbook. My mom is on the right with her little sister, my aunt.

Today we pick up my aunt from the airport. She’s coming to visit us for the first time in Arizona. I have all sorts of fun things planned including visiting the MIM, the Musical Instrument Museum, where they have an Elvis exhibit (My aunt is a big Elvis fan.) We’ll have time to sit and talk. Also, go out to lunch, drive to the nearby lake and explore the tiny towns close to where I live. I’m also hoping it will be cool enough at night to light the outdoor fireplace and make s’mores. I’ve been all set since my kids visited a few weeks ago, but we had a heat wave!

Here they are years later in 2015 at our family reunion at our riverfront property in Robe, Washington. The fireplace in the background is what remains of our cabin that my parents built more than 65 years ago.

brother with two sisters
Mom, her older brother and my aunt who my mom practically raised.

I am so looking forward to spending a few days with my aunt. It certainly helps that she’s my closest connection to Mom, who passed away from COVID this year. Also, that she is the kindest, sweetest person I know.

Who are visitors that you welcome with open arms?

The world came crashing down

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ping pong table in backyard
Right where the crash happened.

We played a lot of ping pong this past weekend. Perhaps too much. We also ran errands like going to Costco, looked at art galleries and planned a trip to the Musical Instrument Museum.

It was Sunday afternoon when we really got into ping pong and didn’t stop playing. We had completed three matches, where someone needs to win three out of five games. We were pretty much tied on each game and the matches went all five games.

So that was a total of `15 games played when we decided to play a fourth match. All of a sudden the world came crashing down and I was laying on the concrete.

It scared me so badly. My right hand and knee took the brunt of the fall. I literally was trying to return the ball to the right of me when I fell. I think what happened was my shoe got stuck in a space between concrete tiles. The patio is very bumpy and uneven.

Sitting on the sofa with my knee wrapped in a cold compress and my hand clutching a ziploc bag of ice, I was trembling.

If this is what getting old is going to be like, no thank you! I don’t want to be afraid of falling while playing a game of ping pong! I know I need to get back out there and play. But maybe be more aware of my feet or wear different shoes. Do they make ping pong shoes?

Have you ever had an experience where you got injured or fell unexpectantly? What happened? Did you feel unnerved?

When guests know more than you

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Saguaro cactus with arms
A saguaro we encountered on our hike in the preserve with guests. It must be at least 200 years old.

Leave it to out-of-town guests to show us what’s what in our new area. This past weekend we had friends, who are also former work associates of my husband’s, stay with us for the weekend. They insisted we go with them to the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM.)

This was after a big hike in our preserve and me preparing my spinach avocado quesadillas because we were famished.

Our guests wanted five hours in the museum. My husband said two hours tops. He thought he’d get bored and he couldn’t stand for much longer than that. It turned out to be amazing. It’s the number one attraction in the Phoenix area and one of the top 15 museums in the country. And I had never heard of it.

It turned out that in two hours we didn’t complete two galleries. My husband picked up a brochure to become members! We’ll be taking guests to MIM and spend countless hours there on our own. There is so much more to explore. Unfortunately, I left my phone at home, so I’ll put up some links instead of photos.

Here’s a short video showing the Artist Gallery that we spent the most time in. It gives a good idea of how the exhibits are set up.

You wear a headset and it automatically plays music when you stand in front of a screen at displays. For example, at Woodstock I listened to Joan Baez and Carlos Santana. The exhibits had original instruments played by the artists, gold records, grammy’s, costumes, hand written lyrics or music. Fascinating stuff.

A list of displays in the MIM Artist Gallery.
From the MIM website: a list of displays in the Artist Gallery.
This is from the visitor’s brochure to give you an idea of the exhibitis.

They also have concerts. I am so thrilled to learn of this place, even though my husband cut our visit short. At least we can go back whenever we want and it was our guests third or fourth visit there.

What are your favorite places to visit where you live? Have guests helped you explore your area? What artists on the list above are your favorites?