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.

Museum Exhibit

I've always loved museums.  I love the past, the present, the concepts for the future.  I love wandering around displays.

And, as has been seen in some previous blog posts, sometimes I get to do displays.  So when I heard that an art history student was planning on doing a display of pre-Columbian Peruvian pottery I contacted her with "y'know--I've got some pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles in my collection."  Sort of elbowed my way into her project.

The project had that rare things going for it--a perfect committee.  The whole thing was Liz's idea, and she designed it, chose the pottery, and did the pictures and text panels for the walls. (this was part of her program for her Master's degree).  We had the help of Wayne, the museum preparator, who knows how to arrange cases, do lighting, and, in general, how to make things look good.   I supplied the textiles and a pair of objective eyes for the arrangement of the pieces.


If I may say so myself--the display is lovely.  It's actually difficult to get some good pictures, as the overall effect is soft and serene.  In a serene
way--it was very exciting to work on this, mainly because of the age of the objects.  As "Pre-Columbian Peruvian" covers a *lot* of geography and time, Liz decided to narrow the focus down to the Nazca era--which meant that the pieces we were handling were 1500 to 2000 years old.  It makes you be very very careful.

 

It's also exciting that this is a bona-fide, accredited fine arts museum--and my name is on the wall as a co-curator of a display.  I feel like I've arrived.

Big Brother, Little Brother

Have to continue to indulge in being a proud great-aunt.  Here's Dane with his new little brother Zeke.

Even though Dane had ordered a little sister, I think he'll do just fine with a brother.  He'd better be satisfied--I don't think we'll talk Amanda into doing this again!


Keeping up with my reading list--recently read:
"Hallucinations" by Oliver Sacks.  Sacks is a neurologist with an easy-to-read writing style.  While he usually writes on neurology, I noticed that he had also written a "Oaxaca Journal" about his trip to that lovely Mexican state. Because of my own fondness for Oaxaca I read that one as well.
"Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen.  Funny snarky parody of the romance novels of Austen's time.
"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"   One of those classics that I had never read (or even seen the movie even though I'm I big Maggie Smith fan.  Heard it mentioned on NPR and decided to read it.  It's a hard book to categorize--almost the opposite of a coming-of-age story.

That puts me between books at the moment (I caught a cold this weekend so finished Jean Brodie faster than intended).  Back to Project Gutenberg.

And the Wait Is Over!

Meet the newest member of the family, our great-nephew Zeke Duncan Welsh .  At 8 pounds 11 ounces, he's almost 7 pounds more than his big brother Dane was a birth.  And we can only hope that he'll be as great a person as Dane is!

Waiting . . .

This slightly smashed-up-looking individual is getting a little crowded where he is, and should be entering the world any minute now (in fact, he might already be here--we're waiting for the call/email).

This was the totally unexpected Christmas gift niece Amanda got in her stocking last Christmas.  Good luck, guys!

Forty Years

"Dear Diary,

August 25, 1973.   On this day---I settled."

OK--he was teasing me when he said that, and I hit him.  But there it is:  We've been married forty years.  How the heck did that happen?  (Not the marriage--that's been fine--but where the heck did forty years go?????)

I should let Bob write this post--or the next one.  He's far more poetic than I (but I write more often).  Failing poetry, I can only say that the secret to a long and happy marriage is to marry Bob.

So--a celebration is in order.  Once again, Rob and Jeff came to babysit the critters and we went to Jacksonville to spend a day at the zoo.   So to relax, we went the day before to spend the evening on the beach.   The nice thing about the beach on a Saturday night is that all of the other tourists are off hitting the bars.

Late lunch/early dinner was at Joe's Crab Shack.  Don't know what possessed us to order the Seafood Dinner for Two when we normally just split a dinner when we go out.  It had been a long time since breakfast, and we were hungry, but this was a bit much.

Fortunately we had walked there and the walk back helped.  We got in my "glam" shot at the beach, and the obligatory "selfie" (name for holding the camera up for a self portrait).  To be a true 'selfie' it's supposed to be taken with your cell phone and promptly sent to friends, but we did it the quaint old-fashioned way with a (digital) camera.

 

Rather than stay at a chain motel, Bob had found the Casa Marina, which was built around the 1920's in the Spanish Mission style and had an old-world elegant charm.  This is the dining room, set for the huge Sunday brunch (which we didn't have because we wanted to get to the zoo).

And off to the zoo!  We may be old enough to have been married for 40 years, but we're a couple of eight-year-old kids at the zoo (especially Bob).  We visited every animal, rode the little train, and scattered extra dollar bills around buying treats for everything we were allowed to feed.  Although we could have saved our dollar on the cup of nectar for the lorikeets--they seemed to be more interested in savory than sweet and were ignoring the proffered cups and licking Bob instead.

 

 

We fed the giraffes (with their weird foot-long tongues that wrap around the leaves), watched the baby jaguar on his nest-box video, and even went for the 4D Ice Age Ride (mainly because there was a cloudburst and it was inside--but it was fun).

 



Then we found the stingray petting pool.  It was a good thing that we found it later, because I think we would have missed the rest of the zoo if Bob had found it earlier.  He was getting down on his knees so he could reach way over and pat the strange smooth slippery rays as they swam by.   I was fascinated by one that would not only come up to us, but would even stick his head out of the water to explore my hand.  They have weird rubbery lips and it was only a bit later that I realized that letting a member of the shark family snuffle up your arm might not be a good idea.

 

 

Yep--that mark is where she bit me.  Fortunately, their teeth aren't sharp--more like flat molars-- so all I got was a pinch--but they're designed to be able to crush clam shells so it was a pretty good pinch!

 

They have scheduled feeding times at the pool, and as it got closer the rays were getting more excited and more interested in snuffling around our hands (we kept clear of the mouths).  Finally we were able to buy our little bits of fish and let them suction the snacks out of our hands.

 

We hit a barbecue place on the way home, and as I had mentioned to the waitress that we were celebrating our anniversary we were treated to a song and a dish of banana/nilla wafer pudding by the staff.

 

 



A trip to the zoo, and banana pudding--what more could one ask?

Maybe for another forty years.

Halloween Howl--the Beginning

After two years of "retirement", the Sick Puppies (Rob, Jeff, Bob, and myself) got talked into doing the Haunted Trail again this yeaer.

And the imagination stirs . . .

Some people down the road were throwing out some furniture--putting it out by the road with a "free" sign.  Bob dragged home a headboard.

Some sawing, making a shadow box, cutting out some flames (from the blades of a discarded ceiling fan), and applying the weathering skills that he has honed on his scale models--and he has a very creepy altar  (more altered dolls will be added).

All from discarded materials (even the doll was found at the dump--he added the eyeliner)