Day in the Life of an Idiot

Last week was really quite busy, and I failed to report any of it. Let me see what I can reconstruct from my memory.  

Last Monday, the big excitement was getting my Pfizer booster shot (along with the flu shot in the other arm.) Very unexpectedly, I got a strong reaction... kind of for the first time. I had a headache, muscle aches, chills, and a fever. While I was lying in bed complaining about the fact that no one warned me that this one could be tough, Shawn looked it up and the reason no one did is because only about 11% of people who get the booster have any sort of reaction at all, much less all of this. I had a bad roll of the dice.  However, like with previous doses, I tend to like having a strong reaction because then I know I got the shot? 

So, that wiped me out for a lot of Tuesday, too. 

I had my Loft class on Wednesday. My Loft class is going very well, I think. Though, I am a bit more disorganized this time than I normally am. I don't know why? My brain is fickle, I guess.  Plus, I started out with seven students and am now down to six.  I had a student in California who seemed to be under the impression that "workshopping" meant something a bit more like what you'd get from a writing coach, rather than rigorous critique. So that person was disappointed and bailed, which, you know happens from time to time. But, I do think that eroded my usual confidence a bit. 

On Wednesday night a friend came to deliver a new-to-us used car, which also sent my household into a small amount of decision anxiety. There is a used car shortage coming/happening, and so Shawn and I would like to be on top of that, since we only ever buy used cars. So, when our friends offered this one--a 2011 Toyota Camry--we were like, "yes, yes, YES!" but we hadn't previously thought through all the logistics. Where will we store it? How much will insurance cost? Should we immediately sell the older car? Or? Or....???  So, we had to work all that out, and, of course, do all the title transferring, etc. We are very happy with the results. 

Since we had part of the day before our friend had a flight back to Michigan, she wanted to see the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Normally, when she and her family visit, it's Thanksgiving, so a lot of the usual things are closed. I am always up for a trip to the MIA, so we went. We diverged early, her heading off to explore the third floor, and me revisiting the Chinese and Japanese collections. Since I've been recently reading The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Shi Zu,  I rather enjoyed pretending I was on the set of the live-action version "The Untamed," while checking out this "Chinese scholar's study" at MIA: https://new.artsmia.org/programs/teachers-and-students/teaching-the-arts/artwork-in-focus/chinese-scholars-study/



I hardly left this area the entire time I was there, because next door to Chinese antiquity, is the Japanese collection. I ended up live-tweeting (actually Discording) with a friend in Wales about the various cool objects we came across. 

For instance, I sent her this picture because we are both fans of Bleach and I said that I thought this was the kind of costuming worthy of the mangaka of that manga. Like, it looked like it should have a magical name and a super-power, possibly a personality.


Image: Dragonfly helmet, 17th century, Japan.

And because we were chatting back and forth, live, my friend in Wales was looking up information on this type of helmet, which is called kawari kabuto, or "strange helmet," which was apparently popular in the Momoyama Period to distinguish leaders or to give a battalion a symbolic motif. Some parts of the helmet are iron, but the fancy bits were made with lacquer over papier-mache. If you're curious about other designs, someone has a lovely Pinterst page that shows off a number of others: https://www.pinterest.com/dan_stiver/kawari-kabuto/

I also spent a long time in the calligraphy rooms, because I am/was a fan of an anime/manga called Barakamon, which is about a disgraced calligrapher trying to make his way back into the art world. 

Just I was leaving, I stumbled into the collection of anarchist zines. The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently acquired the Fly Zone Archive,https://new.artsmia.org/stories/rebel-voice-inside-the-fly-zine-archive-a-chronicle-of-punk-queer-and-diy-counterculture. 

Thursday night, I also had Wyrdsmiths, my writers group, which is still meeting via Zoom. We caught up with a member that has been on hiatus for some time, so that was very pleasant. 

The weekend was a lot of car stuff--Shawn wanted to take the new-to-us car to get the special cleaning treatment at a Mr. Car Wash--and we put on the new license plates, etc., etc.  We also had a movie night, where we re-watched Dr. Strange, and ate too much popcorn. On Sunday, yesterday, we spontaneously took another trip to Fort Snelling State Park. 

Even though I had walked Pike Island before, I had never officially logged my miles for the Minnesota Hiking Club, so we did the whole thing, collected the password and... saw this amazing white pelican preening itself on the backs of the Minnesota River.



This week, my plans include prepping for Wednesday class, and hopefully not too much else. It would be nice to have more time to write this week, as I'm starting to feel a bit behind. 

 That'll be Tuesday.

Let's see, going back in time.... Thursday night was Wyrdmiths. A good meeting, actually, as always, but, for me, the best part was the stranger coming into the coffee shop wondering if anyone had a jack. Their tire had gone flat and they had a spare, but no jack. I told my compatriots at the table that if I _didn't_ have a jack my lesbian badge my get revoked. Sure enough, I had one!  Alas, it was missing all the parts (the crowbar we had was, apparently, not the original and didn't fit.)  I plan to go get a replacement tomorrow at Menards, but I was pretty darned pleased that I had the TOOLS!!!

Friday, my Canadian pen pal was scheduled to arrive... I thought at 1 pm? But, it turned out 10 am.  Unfortunately, when I got the text that her plan had landed I had already coaxed Eleanor and pegkerr out to the coffee shop. So, we had a VERY SHORT get together before I ran off to Brooklyn Park to pick up my Canadian and together we went off to the Walker.




The sun was out, but the wind was cold, so we wandered the sculpture garden a bit before heading inside to look at the exhibits. Shawn was having a crisis at work (an unfortunate regular part of her job now that she's a director, but also "Senators Try to Slash Historical Society's Budget Over a Sign,") and Mason, being an independent 15 year old, agreed to take the bus/train home so that I could spend extra time with my international visitor.  So, from the Walker, we wandered over the poetry bridge and into Loring Park. It was cold enough that we quickly zipped into the nearby Dunn Brothers and relaxed for awhile until Shawn texted. We picked her up, got caught up on all the work drama, and then went out to Dinkytown for hot pot, as a place I've been trying to get my family to go for ages, "Tasty Pot: A Taiwanese Restaurant." Unlike the usual hot pot, the bowls are pre-filled with food and it just sits and boils at your table. I had a curry hot pot, which was quite amazing. After a leisurely meal, we took a stroll around the University of Minnesota's campus.  There was some kind of "battle of the bands" that was set-up outside of Coffman Union, but we missed the show. Though we did get to hear the winners! Yay?

While I was out to eat on Friday, I thought I was missing my monthly gaming group, but luckily that was planned for Saturday. So, I sent a stupid "Aaaah! I'm not there" message only to have to write back, five seconds later, "Oh. Today is Friday. Nevermind."

Saturday, after dropping Mason off at his work (again he agreed to train home), I headed out to pick up Anna and take her to dim sum at Yangtze in St. Lous Park, which is the restaurant near the new Minicon hotel. SO. GOOD.  I need to note that I have never HAD dim sum before, anywhere, ever, so this was particularly wonderful for me. I am now going to try to convince my family that this is what I need from now on for my birthday meals and whatnot.

After delivering the leftovers back to Anna's hotel, we went off to another museum, Mia (Minneapolis Institute of Arts.) 



We spent HOURS wandering around the third floor of the Mia, and I don't think we even saw half the things on that floor. I will say that i was surprised how BUSY the Mia is these days. Maybe they're always like this on a Saturday? But, it seemed like every gallery room was filled with people milling about, students hanging out chatting, and there was just a general air of activity--though not at all in a BAD way, at least not for _me._  Perhaps because it's free all the time now? I mean, if I lived closer, I might consider hanging out there on a regular basis. 

From the Mia, we went to a cat cafe... Cafe Meow on Hennipen.  



Because of health codes, the cats actually have to be in a room completely separated from the food and drink.  We ordered our drinks and hung out until our reservation was called. Yeah, that's the other thing. You have to pay to go into the room with the cats, by the hour.  So, I left my house with three cats I can hang out with for free, to hang out in a room with cats who don't know me and who basically ignored me the whole time.  Whatever. It was still fun, because I was hanging out with my friend with cats that ignored me.

Pretty darned cute cats, though:



Then, I rushed home for an excellent gaming session, which went until 11 pm. Many Borgs were blown up. My character ran like the chicken he is. All was good.

Sunday, I got up early and drove out with coffee from Claddaugh for Anna, and we hung out until she and her mom had to get on the shuttle bus to head to the airport, It was quite a lovely time. The only bummer was that my family and i had some miscommunication about lunch, and whether or not they should wait to eat, so I came home to some hangry folks who needed food ASAP. Alas, that interfered with my weekly video chat with my folks, but we did at least get to say hello/goodbye, so all was not lost.  

Mason then announced, "Fun fact: I agreed to go help R with some pre-Calc tonight, so we've been invited to dinner at the Randalls!" So, I quick made some M&M cookies and we spent the evening chatting with R's folks about politics, National Geographic, and a host of far ranging things. Her parents are currently fans of "Mayor Pete," and even went down to South Bend the day he announced his campaign. So, we heard about all that and chatted about the state of the world (grim) and the rest. Since Mason and R broke up, we haven't had much of a chance to spend time with her folks, whom we like tremendously, so we were very glad that Mason has figured out how to remain friends (something I'm not sure I have YET learned, though to be fair, I haven't had an "ex" in several decades, so maybe I'm better at it now? I'll never know.)

Today it is rainy and dark. My big plans are to get to the store so that we can have these new homemade fried chicken patties that I recently learned to make for dinner. They come with a spicy coleslaw topping and, weirdly, my family LOVES this addition, so I have to make sure I have the right cabbage, etc.  

Ugh! So VERY busy, but very fun. 

How was your weekend???

 That is a screen shot of a tweet that says something like, "The worst part of being an adult is that no one asks you what your favorite dinosaur is."

Mason has always been an odd one in this case. Even when he was in the "dinosaur phase," it was not dinosaurs that enchanted him, but pre-dinosaurs. This caused a lot of trauma for me, as a stay-at-home parent. Do you know how hard it is to find kid-friendly books about the Cambrian period?  THANK GOD FOR HANNAH BONNER.  She wrote When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Pre-History of Life Long Before Dinosaurs and When Bugs were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tatrapods Stalked the Earth: A Cartoon Pre-History of Life Before Dinosaurs. 

Between Hannah's books and BBC's "Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs," (which Mason watched continuously, with the subtitles on, so that he could learn how to spell the names of the various pre-dino creatures that he loved) Mason mostly got what he wanted.

When he was still in this phase, I took him to Chicago's Field Museum, during one of our annual trips down to see grandma Margaret in Indiana. I love to tell this story on him, because it was very typical of Mason.  I thought for sure that what Mason would want to see was Sue, the big T-Rex. They (Sue's preferred pronoun) were the subject of a musical 'documentary' that Mason listened to a lot. But, while he did run up to greet Sue, what Mason really fell in love with was the Cambrian Period room in the "Evolving Earth" exhibit. I could not get him to leave this room. Not that I tried terribly hard, but there he was, only three, maybe four years old, and he sat and watched the little Cambrian life animated movie that they had projected on the wall and then had me read EVERY SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT EVERY SINGLE FOSSIL/DISPLAY.  We watched tour groups come and go around us.  Eventually, a volunteer came over to excitedly show Mason even more cool things in the Cambrian room.  Finally, he moved on... only to get stuck in the Caboniferous Period for another hour.

The only section he ran through without looking at much? The Hall of Dinosaurs.

And, I'm proud to say, he hasn't changed ONE BIT.  We decided to take a day to go to the Field Museum and once again, I could not get my boy out of the pre-dinosaur section.




Actually, he remarked that the literature all said that it should take an hour to get from the dawn of time to the present, and he shook his head. "Who can see all this stuff in an hour?? It took us at least two!"  I did not point out that, almost no one else on the planet is as enchanted by small sea creatures from the extreme distant past nearly as much as he is, because somewhere out there, no doubt, is someone who loves pre-dinosaurs as much, if not more, than Mason does.

We really didn't actually do much else at the Field Museum. Mason, who is generally excited by sea life, including present-day animals, really wanted to hit the Shed Aquarium first, but we ran out of time.  We did check out the traveling exhibit from China. Mason showed me a number of Chinese characters that he recognized, and pointed out a few that I could also read (the Japanese Kanji for some numbers are the same as the Chinese Mandarin.)  

Next time we go to Indiana to visit grandma, we're going to be sure to get up extra early one day in order to do the Shed Aquarium.... and, you know, maybe go back and just spend a little time with anomalocaris.


 

 Our trip to Chi-Town was successful.  Mason got to see "Sue," as well as fall deeply in love with the "Evolving World" exhibit in the Natural History Museum.  I had to laugh.  Whereas I was very much conscious of the fact that we only had an hour until we were going to meet up with Susan and Zoe (the most adorable baby in the world), Mason just wanted to watch the prehistoric ocean video over and over.  It was fairly awesome.  I was completely animated, but it looked real.  It showed various prehistoric arthropods and triobites and other weird creatures -- some of which, we learned from a volunteer, they couldn't animate eating because they still hadn't discovered where the mouth of the animal was located.  I shot some video of the video, so that Mason would always have a little taste of that exhibit.  Anyway, Mason was much less impressed with the hall of the dinosaurs (which I have fond memories of tearing through with Maureen McHugh's husband, Bob, at the Chicago Worldcon.  I really wanted Mason to see the underground exhibit that Bob and I loved best, but, alas there was no time.  Next year.)  

My favorite part of the trip happened while we were waiting for Susan and Zoe to find us.  Right on the lawn between the Field Museum and the Shedd, a hawk came swooping down and landed in the grass -- which is quite unusual for them.  I thought it looked like it might have captured something like a songbird, so Mason and I crept closer to investigate.  It took off with a pigeon in its claws and dragged it into the underbrush.  Then all of a sudden -- whoosh!!! -- out flies the pigeon in one last daring attempt at an escape!!  Mason and I are watching this drama with our mouths open.  I'm shouting, "Go!  Pigeon!"  But, the hawk won the day.  She nabbed that pigeon right out of the air and slammed it into the ground again.  This time opting for cover right away.  A couple of other women passing by watched with a lot less enthusiasm.  I think they thought we were pretty insane to be so enraptured with this gruemsome display of the natural food chain in action.  Anyway, with the excitement over, Mason and I noticed Susan coming, and we all exchanged hellos and greetings and oohing over the baby.  Then as we were heading in the stroller-friendly entrance to the Shedd, who should hop up out of the bushes but the well-fed and satisfied hawk!  It sat there digesting for some time.  I got a great photo of it, which I hope to put up here sometime soon.

The jaded Chicagoians mostly ignored the hawk.  I mean, here was this amazing and magestic wild animal sitting less than a foot from the entrance to the Aquarium and most people just walked by it, as if were a common sight.  If I hadn't been "oohing" and "ahhing" and shouting my excitment to Susan, Zoe, and Mason, I think most people wouldn't even have stopped.  Which seems wierd to me, since they were all headed in to "view" animals.   The experience reminded me of what Mrs. R. said about Mason at our parent/teacher conference.  She seemed genuinely impressed at how engaged he is in his environment.  At the time, I mentally chalked it up to our lack of TV obsession, but I think that it's all down to grandma and grandpa Morehouse in the end.  My dad was notorious for slowing the car to a crawl the moment we spotted an egeret in the marsh between the north and south side of LaCrosse, my hometown.  My mother could identify most species of wildflowers, even when we were passing clumps of them at highway speed.  My folks would have been just like me -- shouting "Holy cow!  Would you look at that hawk?!!!"  

The Shedd was amazing as usual, though as Susan said at one point, "And now we're viewing the exhibit: Sea of Humanity!"  There were a LOT of people there -- of course it was a Friday, so I should have figured, but it made the experience a lot less personal than say the one we'd just had with the hawk.  Mason's favorite part was seeing the baby hammerhead (shovelnose?) sharks, and the blue monitor lizards in the new lizard exhibit.  Again, most people just took a look to see if they could spot the animal and then moved one like a scavenger hunt, while Mason sat and watched those blue monitor lizards for ten or fifteen minutes.  They were very active and... uh, playful.  They laid on each other, as, I told Mason, ima and mama do.  

It was a good time, and I'm very glad to have met little Zoe and had a chance to hang out with Susan, even though it was classic parent with children chat -- a few minutes of "oh, yeah, the baby" and "hey, Mason, don't get lost!"