Attending a Renaissance Faire with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending a Renaissance Faire with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

During one of Laurent’s cruises, Florence and I headed out to the Renaissance Faire sponsored by the Norfolk Public Schools and the Hermitage Museum in Norfolk (Virginia).

Florence and I went through the Hermitage Museum twice before going out to the Renaissance Faire.

The three-way mirrors in the dressing room interested Florence.  I showed her the Chinese bronze vessels, but she asked, “Can we look at something more interesting?”

I showed her the Renaissance Museum’s Kuan Yin downstairs.  She recognized the goddess of mercy and said, “That’s like the statue I broke by mistake at home with my beach ball.”

Despite the remark, the tour guide let Florence handle the lacqueur boxes with fifty sons on them and some cloisonné birds.

Outside on the huge lawn, the Chrysler Museum set up an art activity for kids to make Chinese fans.  The children used popsicle sticks for the handles and inserted red tassels through a hole in the bottom of the popsicle stick.

Then, the children colored a round cardboard with Asian motifs and pasted this to the handle.  Florence chose a bamboo design that I liked, too.

More multicultural exhibits and events rounded out the fair.  On the outdoor stage, a group of children performed a healing dance from Ghana.

Another exhibit had imitation canopic jars from Egypt.

“In Egypt, they kept body parts like hearts in jars like this after a person died.  Their spirit called a “ka” was supposed to be in these body parts.  Doctors could also check if the person died of poison,” I told Florence.

“That’s gross,” Florence remarked.

We laughed about goopy guts all the way back to the car and went to air-conditioned Pizza Hut for lunch.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Attending a Virginia Opera Company Performance with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending a Virginia Opera Company Performance with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I read the Community Section of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper everyday to look for inexpensive or free things to do in the Hampton Roads area.

One day I found a free performance by the Virginia Opera Company of Little Red Riding Hood. 

“What is opera,” Florence asked.

“It is a sung play.  You will love it.  Really!”  I reassured Florence as we went to the show.

Florence sat transfixed through the performance and asked the singers afterwards during the question-and-answer period, “Do you get hot under the lights?”

“We forget about the heat when we sing,” one of the singers answered.

As we left the show, Florence remarked, “They really sang everything in the show.”

“That’s what they do in opera.  Maybe you could be an opera singer,” I said.

“I would rather sing like Selena,” she answered.  She loved seeing Jennifer Lopez sing like Selena in the movie about Selena’s life when we picked her daddy up from boot camp outside Chicago when he joined the Navy.

The following days, though, Florence sang out her favorite fairy tales despite saying that she wanted to be Selena rather than Carmen.

The kids’ opera was a fun outing with little Florence.  I think kids’ opera is the sort of thing you should have in a “village” to raise children as Hilary Clinton said in her book It Takes a Village.  (I do read a lot, including cereal ingredients on cereal boxes.)

Most of my blogs do have a back story in them of what I want in a "village" for raising children in the US.  Many of these activities require volunteer work and proven results before they can get funding, though.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On a free day at the Chrysler Museum in downtown Norfolk (Virginia), I took Florence to the Chrysler Museum after school for a field trip.

The Egyptian mummies intrigued Florence as usual.

“Why did the Egyptians write with pictures?” she asked, referring to ancient, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

“Lots of people wrote with pictures before they had alphabets,” I responded.

“People like the Chinese and Japanese still write with pictures,” I said.

We looked at several busts of Buddha, which made Florence ask, “Who was Buddha?”

“He is like Jesus for the Japanese and Tibetans,” I said.

We made an elderly lady’s day in the Neoclassical statue section.

“Do you see that?” Florence said as she pointed at several statues.

“They have statues of naked people in here!!!” she exclaimed.

The lady started laughing, and so did I.

We finished our visit by looking at student artwork.

Florence could not believe that children like her received display space in the museum.

We stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home for donuts, orange juice for Florence, and a big coffee for me with cream (pre-latte days).

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Hermitage Museum in Norfolk (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Hermitage Museum in Norfolk (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I were able to think about a little history as we dropped Florence off at school one day and went out on a date.

The two of us went to visit the Hermitage Museum House in a 1908 Tudor-style home built by William and Florence Sloane in Norfolk.

Florence’s nickname was Jack, which was slang for “money” at the time of the First World War.  In the carving inside the doorway, there is a motto that says, “The house that jack built.” Mr. Sloane made his fortune selling long johns (loose thermal underwear that fits under pants and shirts) to the Navy.

My favorite piece in the Hermitage’s Chinese collection was a Chinese Kuan Yin statue carved in lindenwood from the Sung Dynasty (960 – 1279).  Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, was originally a male deity that the Chinese transformed into a female deity.

There were several figurines of horses and camels used to transverse the Silk Road and attendants in green ceramic and brown clay that were buried with the deceased.

The figurines took the place of living people and animals that used to be buried with their lords.  (Human burial with the pharaohs was also practiced in ancient Egypt.)

The Hermitage Museum had several Shang Dynasty (1523 – 1027 BC) bronze vessels with the characteristic symmetrical design on them called a taotie.  A statue of a Hindu goddess riding on the flayed skin of her ex-husband made me feel a little creepy.

Our tour guide did not like the exhibit with the three-inch shoes for Chinese ladies.  Doing away with binding women’s feet was one of the achievements of the Chinese Revolution of 1949 as far as I am concerned.

I liked the two Chinese cinnabar lacqueur boxes that the Sloanes owned as well.  Each box depicted fifty sons playing.

Families in China would give the fifty sons boxes to bridal couples and wish them to have 100 sons.  The lacqueur on these boxes was so deep that the artist was able to carve into the lacqueur and not into the wood.

Tobacco snuff bottles were all the rage in China and among collectors like the Sloanes.  To use the snuff, you would inhale it through your nose.

The more refined snuff boxes had little spoons, so you would not have to stick a bottleneck up your nostrils for the snuff.

One snuff bottle showed a reclining woman.  Her upturned, removable foot was the bottle opener.

I was impressed by this museum that reminded me of the Cernushi Museum in Paris (France) with its gem collection of Chinese artwork.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Living with Winter Hurricanes by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Living with Winter Hurricanes by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The damp weather in Norfolk certainly reminded me of Paris (France).  The weather was perfect for staying inside and writing.  Florence came out of her bedroom and told me stories from time to time.

Finally, she took out her colored pencils and worked on the Bellerophon Sleeping Beauty coloring book Laurent and I gave her.  I liked these books, because they gave the biography of Tchaikovsky as well as the storyline of the ballet.

I put on a CD of music from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet that my mom’s friend and one of my childhood mentors gave me for Christmas.

Florence liked the sinister witch’s music from Sleeping Beauty.  I also played the Nutcracker and Swan Lake for her, but Florence did not care for them as much.

I began looking through some French etiquette books that I owned.  One must know how to stir one’s coffee after all.

I read etiquette books as shortcuts to understanding foreign cultures.  Seating order is different in many cultures and reflects different interior design and social structure.

I did a lot more cleaning in February, a good month for nesting in Norfolk due to winter storms called “Nor’easters.”  A big Nor’Easter hit in the middle of the first week of February.

Tides were expected to be four to five feet above normal.  Florence told me when I picked her up, “School might close for rain.”

Children in Norfolk look forward to “flood days” like the kids in the Midwest look forward to “snow days.”  We lived right on the ocean, but were on high ground in a brick apartment building.

I could already see cars driving by that shot five-foot waves of water behind them.  Laurent had duty, so we did have to go out in foul weather on that day at least to pick him up at the port.

The deluge struck the next afternoon.  I felt like I was walking through a never-ending waterfall as I went to pick up Florence from school.

I could not understand why they just did not call off school in the morning.  Rivers of water ran in the street by Florence’s school.

I was waterlogged by the time I saw her.  Laurent was due to leave the ship that evening.  I wondered if he would stay on the ship or not.  I was afraid of flooding at the docks.

I put on Handel’s Water Music, which seemed appropriate for the weather.  Florence wrote out her Valentines.  She put a check next to the name of each person in her class. 

Every person in the class got a Valentine or the student could not pass out Valentines.  The teacher checked the Valentine bags.  I liked Florence’s school’s “No Child Left Behind” practices.

Florence finished and examined her cards and said, “The boys are not going to like the Anastasia cards.”

“No one will care about what’s on the card as long as they get one,” I said.

The rain continued to pour, making me want to cuddle up with a pot of hot tea beside me.  Laurent called at 1 p.m. and asked me to come and get him.

The rain soaked Florence and me just going out to the car.  Our umbrellas flew back in the wind, leaving us exposed to the elements.  The freeways drained well, but the surface streets resembled lakes.

Laurent was soaked when we got him.  I asked him to drive, since I was pretty frazzled by the blurred drive to the port.

“I predict flood day tomorrow,” I said to Florence, who was shivering.

She put her arms around me and smiled.  We stopped at the video store on the way home and we all felt great to walk inside our little apartment warm up.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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