Yesterday my kid needed an escort to a summer camp reunion in Central Park. So we hopped on MegaBus and I faded away once she found her peers at Columbus Circle.

Columbus Circle is also home to the Museum of Arts and Design. Which is home to all sorts of things.

High points for me included Orly Cogan's "bittersweet obsession," an embroidery piece exploring the relationship between food and drug addiction. There is something compelling about edgy work in this medium.

Similarly, Stephen Dixon's "21 countries" is a series of dinner plates, each of which "commemorates" an invasion carried out by the United States in the 20th century. When I look at these, I see the ceramic tiles of the stations of the cross that hung in our kitchen when I was growing up. It's hard to look away.

The museum also currently features the "MAD Biennial," in which several floors display the works of "makers" from all over the city. I found a lot of that work less than intriguing, with some notable exceptions, particularly the musical instruments and turntables, most of which were intended to be played as well as seen. I would have loved to stumble upon a concert.

Probably the biggest clinker for me is Rafael de Cárdenas' "nightclub" that took up much of a floor. It's a nightclub with deep blue lighting and terrariums full of fake plants. Okay, I guess I get it, but the trouble for me is that I already know a nightclub with nobody in it and the lights on is just a cave. I've stayed until last call before, after all.

Apparently there are performances in the nightclub at certain times, and maybe it takes on a whole new aspect then.

After the museum I rented myself a bike and orbited Central Park. I attempted to rent a CitiBike; the kiosk took several minutes to walk me through the process, then rejected me with no explanation. I wound up renting from the more traditional place just inside the park. Which gave me a bike whose right-hand gearshift didn't work at all. Which I figured out while climbing hills to get back again, through the north woods. But I still had a blast.