Cultchah.

What better time than a staycation to brush up on my art? I spent an afternoon last week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which, despite its lying only six short blocks from my apartment, I had not visited in almost a year.

It was a gloomy day outside, and the sky was that bright white color you see on chilly afternoons. The stone glowed under the filtered light, and the ladies decorating the cornices looked a bit forboding.

The Met can seem imposing from certain angles, but I love that its sweep of stairs is so often - day or night - softened by the presence of pairs of friends sitting, chatting, and possibly enjoying a hot dog from the vendors that sell them (overpriced, of course, this is tourist central) down on the Fifth Avenue curb.

This is the Upper East Side at its finest, all neoclassical and proper. The area near the museum is well worth a wander, especially on a nice day. Me, I spent my time checking out the incredible exhibition of the Limbourg brothers' illuminated manuscript, Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. An incredibly tactile and awe-inspiring experience, if I do say so myself. You can get within inches of the folios and examine them with a museum-provided magnifying glass. I felt like a proper Sherlock Holmes, searching for meaning in the detailed borders, and gaping at the pin-pricked gold leaf that sparkled like the sun.

Maybe I shouldn't wait so long next time.