Here's the Thing To Do: take a few days off and head for The Warmth of The South. For this getaway, may I suggest Houston, Texas. I have family in Houston, so I booked a flight for my son and I for a long weekend at this tail end of the New Year's Holiday. Yesterday, my brother and I loaded up his minivan with our sons and headed off to the Museum District of Houston.. First stop was the Menil Collection, probably my favorite museum in the world due to the very strong collection of Surrealist art. The Menil family were friends and patrons of Max Ernst, so there are always several examples of his work: paintings, collages, frottages and grattages. And there are always surprises: this time a marvelous dreamy canvas by Ernst's wife, Dorothea Tanning which was worthy of close inspection and rewarded by a panoply of images. All of us stood around, pointing our more and more surprise discoveries. "Wow! That looks like a bird guy with spectacles and see that's someone bending over in tight pants…." Then we stepped into the next room and it was filled with Magritte, as was the next room, the famous ones, too like the downpour of bowler-hatted men. Then more Ernst in the next and on that wall are four Joseph Cornell boxes, would you check out all those early Yves Tanguy canvases, never seen so many de Chirico works. The Menil collection is always free and its is not so vast as to punish you with Museum Fatigue. Next time you need a southbound getaway, forget about Florida (although the Dali Museum in St. Pete is none too shabby for Surrealist excitement. www.Menil.org