Textiles and Bicycles

I went to the Museum of Natural History yesterday to see an exhibit of live butterflies. There are over 300 butterflies in a smallish room heated to 90 degrees. It was lovely.

However.

While I learned a lot about butterflies, bugs, and gems and minerals (and saw the Hope Diamond, which I didn’t find that impressive…but I can’t tell the difference between a diamond and glass), I learned even more about the blind consumerism taking over our world.

The thousands of people on the national mall in the summer months provides endless annoyance to DC residents. And since there are so many people, there’s a lot of opportunity to hear some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard a human utter. Though I’d like to wholly attribute these tokens of idiocy to tourists and suburbanites, I can’t be sure.

Quote 1, boy whining to dad in bug exhibit:

“Daaaaad, can we go buy something?”

Tim and I turn to each other jaws dropped in disbelief. This is not an exaggeration. I was stopped dead in my tracks. Um, say what? It’s a zombie child…must - buy - something - losing - will - to - live. Shopping is the new heroin.

Quote 2, young woman whining to boyfriend/husband/whatever in gems exhibit:

“I don’t want to look at anything I can’t afford”

Because if you can’t own it has no value to you and therefore not worth looking at. Zombie couple. Must - own - everything. One of my favorite things to do is go into all the fancy boutiques on 5th Avenue and treat them like museums. So I find it particularly amazing that someone could actually be IN a museum and still behave solely like a consumer. As if she couldn’t imagine an object being a source of inspiration or beauty, but rather only a possession to flaunt. When I’m socialist queen of the world…

Quote 3, on a fluorescent-colored t-shirt worn by one of those annoying t-shirt wearing groups sprinkled throughout DC everyday:

“Okay, if this is the national mall, then take me to the Abercrombie memorial”

I have a feeling they were annoyed that the national mall wasn’t climate controlled.

I leave you with some butterflies. While you can’t own these particular butterflies, I hope you’ll find them beautiful nonetheless. And, who knows? Since my dreams of being socialist queen will in all likelihood remain unfulfilled, maybe you can actually buy them and really have it all.

Owl butterfly that tried to “hitchhike” on my leg (and then later on Tim’s).

Don’t remember what kind of butterfly this one is.

This one I thought would make a great fabric pattern.

An effective reminder to store your yarn carefully.