Sphinx of Ramesses II in front of the Main Entrance of the Penn Museum, covered with snow. The Sphinx was moved into the building in 1916, and the Lower Egyptian Gallery was built around the sphinx in 1926. Penn Museum image 140759.
I just rubbed my hands together and blew into them to get them pliable enough to type this blog post. I’m at my desk in the IT Office in the subgarden. Yes, I said “sub-” as in “under.” My office is directly under the spot where this photo was taken about 100 years ago. (The Sphinx is now in the toasty warm Egyptian gallery which was actually constructed around him b/c he’s so darn big and heavy.) The refrain from “Baby it’s cold outside” keeps tearing through my head, replacing the word “outside” with “inside.”
There’s construction going on behind all four walls of our office and I think they are ventilating the newly-poured floors that apparently have to cure in open air. A chilly meeting this morning was intermittently interrupted by an oddly scatological-sounding drill of some kind that made everyone shift in their chairs and squint.
So it’s freezing here in the subgarden. The purple-fingers kind of freezing that makes you wonder how much damage it might inflict on your professionalism to wear a Snuggie to meetings. They should make a corporate Snuggie. I guess that would be called a poncho, which probably hovers on the cusp of the office-appropriate wardrobe.
This archival photo of our demi-mascot, the Sphinx, pretty much sums up how a lot of us are feeling these past fews days in the greater Philadelphia area, and quite possibly, the mid-Atlantic region, but most definitely those of us shivering and squinting in the subgarden.
Just for some Friday fun, here’s an excerpt from the Penn Museum’s Highlights of the Galleries Audio Tour.
The Sphinx sees all. And he tweets it! Follow the Sphinx.
