Magical Weekend Getaway in "The Valley"

What a week! I feel like I have so much to say I don't even know where to start.

On Tuesday, my aunt brought her dog, Luna, over to visit because she thought I wanted to see her before I left (she was right). She's only had Luna for about 3 months now and I've only met her once before. My mom always says that Luna's a really weird dog and honestly she's right. She was a stray dog for a while, but we're not really sure how long, and she doesn't have a lot of tendencies of stray, scavenger-type dogs - she doesn't dig through trash or have any aggressive tendencies or anything like that. She plays with other dogs and she's not scared of people like some rescue dogs, but she doesn't really show any affection to people either. Like, she doesn't really care either way if you pet her. And she pretty much never barks. My aunt tried to get her to play catch with a tennis ball but she can't really figure it out just yet.

Luna's very sweet though and it's funny to see her trying to figure stuff out. And she can do some basic tricks, like shaking or booping your hand with her nose and stuff. My aunt was trying to show a new one where she spins around but she can only do it in one direction. Then my mom and aunt started talking to her with southern accents because Luna's originally from Arkansas but it seemed to scare her. She never barks or growls if she's scared, she just moves her ears back to show she's nervous and whines a little.

look how pretty she is :-)

The highlight of this week was definitely visiting Smith this weekend! I got to catch up with a lot of people, including some that I was not expecting to, and honestly I just had a really lovely time.

Julianne very kindly hosted me in the extra bed she now has thanks to a certain Denmark-relocated individual (I'm no narc). I got to catch up with some Capenites and Smithsonian people on Friday, and then on Saturday Clara's parents were up visiting and I joined them for a trip to Mass MoCA. I'd never been before but I've always wanted to go. It's out in the Berkshires in North Adams, MA, about an hour from Northampton. The museum itself used to be this old factory that closed down in the 80s and then it was turned into a contemporary art museum at the turn of the millennium.

The museum had a ton of really cool stuff including a lot of Jenny Holzer (my favorite) and this cool James Turrell installation where you basically stand in this giant room and the walls change color around you. It starts to feel like you're totally surrounded by color, like the only thing you can see in front of your face is just the color blue, and then there were these strobe lights that made other stuff look different. Like if you turned around, the room outside the exhibit looked like it changed colors, and Meg was even wearing a green sweater that started to look orange. It was maybe one of the coolest museums I've been to, not just for the art itself - thought there were lots of cool pieces - but also because a lot of parts of the museum still look like an old factory. Anyway, I really want to go again and also the drive is very scenic so next year we are all going! I'll drive, buckle up ladies.

Jenny Holzer's "Inflammatory Essays" Meg pointed out that a lot of Holzer's stuff is pretty bleak/depressing, and I guess I never noticed it until I saw so many of her pieces side by side

This is what the Turrell piece looked like. You could see the screen at the back at first but then as the colors changed it seemed like it disappeared. It reminded me of the Hotline Bling music video a lot

This video is hard to see but basically they had these suspended glass platforms with a bunch of action figures on them! Also look at miss Clara's red coat :0

Also it's fun walking around places with Meg and Mo because they're both architects so they know a lot about buildings and stuff and sometimes they'll point out the tension in the ceiling or the kind of glass in a window and I never really think to look at stuff like that (plus I wouldn't even know what to look for) but I think it's super interesting. They also think there's no way Neilson will be finished before we graduate so pour one out for the class of '21 today chaps.

That evening, we went out to dinner with Clara's parents at this sushi place in South Hadley. There was a wait though, so we decided to go walk around Mount Holyoke's campus. I had never been there at night before (and I haven't been there much anyway) so it felt really huge. We trolled around their library a bit, and Julianne was singing that glee club song - "Moho says it was founded first, but Sophia built our school while they went to church" or something? Anyway, whatever it was I couldn't stop cracking up, it seemed so funny in the moment, even though now I don't know why exactly it was funny. That's kind of just how this whole weekend felt, like everything was so nice and funny even though nothing really extraordinary happened.

From a game of "Knuckle Tats" played with some Smithsonian people, it says "Muse Bone"

Then on Sunday, I just caught up with a bunch of people! I went down to Dobra for the first time with Emma and Laura, my friends from the DC semester, and then after Emma had to go to a lunch meeting, I hung out with Laura and we played cards. After that, I just talked to Clara, Madison, and Julianne for a while. At some point (I think this might be out of order because we did go to Herrell's on Saturday night too), we were talking about senior wine and cheese and how we'll get to do it next year. But we all realized we don't particularly like wine, and then we have vegan and lactose intolerant friends. So anyway long story short we decided Capen seniors will be doing "senior jello shot and gluten-free crackers" next year, buckle up folks.

Laura's cool banana (photo taken with permission), apparently it was a creative writing assignment!

My lovely host, appreciating some lovely flowers

Finally, this morning I just ate breakfast and lunch with my friends, caught up with a couple people last minute, and boarded a bus back to Boston. What a swell week. I'm so glad I could make it out there and that I have such great friends and just great people I know at Smith to spend a little time with.

It's crazy how short the time we have left in college is. Senior year's gonna be a good one, though, I'm gonna make sure of it.