Playin' at the Hookey Again!

*I* wasn't playing hookey.  I was merely taking a day off.  My job curating the historic clothing collection is a 10-hour a week position--I did that Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday I worked at the Museum.   So I figured take a home day while I can (because I've just accepted a *third* part-time job that starts this coming week, which will cut into home days).

So my day off was legit.  Bob's--not so much.  But he really hoofed it and got two day's worth work done on Wednesday and just called in Thursday for a mental health day.  And whisked me away!

My plan for my day had been fairly prosaic--sew some Halloween costumes and get some chores done.  Instead, being as it was a beautiful day, not too hot, he took me down to Bald Point (one of the beaches on the gulf).  It's the off-season, so we had it to ourselves.  We didn't swim (the Gulf water tends to be a bit warm, murky, and uninviting this time of year) but had a long leisurely walk.  More and more we find ourselves taking pictures of things just for the patterns on them.  Bob uses them as inspiration when painting his models--he's on a dinosaur kick now and who knows what colors they really were?

One of the miracles of fall is beginning--we saw monarch butterflies fluttering about.  It's migration time, and they'll be heading across the gulf to Mexico.  It's hard to grasp that these tiny bits of color, that can get tossed in any breeze, can somehow make it across the wide expanse of the gulf.  All you can do is wish them luck.

All that looking at the ocean put us in the mood for seafood, so we headed to a small town with a
smaller restaurant where Bob dove into the fried shrimp and I made do with a grilled platter of shrimp, scallops ,grouper, crab claws, and devilled crab.  But first, after all that walking, large quantities of iced tea were needed.  Down here in the South we don't use small glasses.

Bob was the one who chose the restaurant (The Coastal if you happen to be in the neighborhood), and it just "happened" to be next to the Gulf Coast Marine specimens lab--a small research aquarium.  No stingrays to pat here, but a number of smaller tanks--shallow trays of various sea life that you can pick up and study (good thing I'd had that dinner or the scallops might have gone home with me).  Larger pools with sharks and sea turtles--no patting there lest you lose a finger or hand.  Some interesting research on octopi--who are both intelligent and curious.  We watched one video of a researcher who offered a toy to an octopus.  She reached out a tentacle and took the toy, then carefully looked at it and tasted it.  That part didn't surprise me--they will interact with humans and they study things.  What startled me was than when she finished she extended the tentacle again and handed it back to the man. 

 

And thence home for a nap.   Work can wait for tomorrow.