Neither card nor flowers

I guess it is a good thing the gardens I wanted to take my mom to for an early Mother's Day trip were closed for renovations. I planned a fun afternoon at the Baltimore Art Museum and it ended up being well-suited for yesterday's cold and rainy weather. Joe came, too! Now he is suggesting we take my mom to museums for Mother's Day every year, hee. We'll see.

The destination was a surprise from my mom... which meant that I didn't find out until we got there that she had actually been there before. But she and my dad had mostly taken in a special exhibit last time, which meant we could explore the permanent galleries. I appreciate whoever curated the European Art section, where we spent most of our time. There were the usual things -- religious art, portraits, landscapes -- but they were almost all fascinating, especially the portraits, which are usually a lowlight for me.

There were also nice, long descriptions with extra details accompanying the works, which meant I had interesting things to read and made it through the exhibit in about the usual time, instead of zipping through ahead of Joe, who studies things for longer. We also got to see old mosaics, elaborate quilts, and fancy furniture next to a chair made out of a few hundred number two pencils. No Sitting Allowed.

We scrapped my original plan of going out for ice cream afterwards and instead found a nice cafe where my mom got a coffee with whipped cream and biscotti, Joe got hot chocolate, and I had really great lentil soup that came (a surprise!) with bread and herby dipping-oil. We made it back to our parking meter with just five minutes to spare and then drove through the city's Druid Hill Park, which has a big lake and a nifty tower that looks like a castle. My mom and I talked so much on the way home that I missed my exit to get off of I-95 and we had to take a detour.