Perfect liberty

I somehow managed not to connect the dots and conclude that I had today off until a couple days ago. We had no invitations for the Fourth, so on a whim I suggested a trip to the AI to see the Magritte exhibit. If you have any interest in his work or Surrealism in general, I highly recommend it. Really nicely mounted, with many works I've never seen before in addition to his most iconic. I recalled seeing an exhibition several years back with princeofcairo and others, but it wasn't this extensive.

We got lunch beforehand at Cafecito, which monshu had never been in before, even though he'd eaten their Cuban once. He had the special of the day, the "Española". I wanted the Choripan, but it happened to be the one they were out of for some reason, so I knew I couldn't go wrong with the Lechón and I didn't. I fleshed it out with some caldo gallego (not the saltiest I've had by far, but still more sodium than I like to ingest), a guava turnover, and a mamey shake. I'm not the biggest fan of guava, but I liked this a lot.

At my request, we left the museum through the modern wing so I could check out the Lurie Garden. It looks fantastic right now with purple coneflowers in bloom everywhere. But the Old Man was more taken with the Japanese knotweed and the sea holly, so much so that we're going to look for them next time we visit Gethsemane. The rest of the park was mobbed, so we moved through it as quickly as we could on our way to Trader Joe's to get some sausages for dinner.

Of course, Scooter was on the deck, too, with his gaggle of women. Fortunately, they're all cold-blooded and it was a little cool today, so they retreated inside leaving us to enjoy our gourmet franks and two types of potato salad in peace and quiet--at least until the fireworks started in the alley.