Happy Halloween

Munchkinhead and I started planning months ago.  When was that March? April?  We knew what we were going to be for Halloween, and as fall arrived, we started working on our fabulous costumes.

I’m a half-eaten Triceratops!

 

And Munchkinhead is a T-Rex.

 

Specifically, she’s the T-Rex that’s eating me!

We were inspired by the Milwaukee Public Museum dinosaur diorama. (re-enacted here)

We bought some very cheap sweats on sale at Target – actually, they were kinda free because I used a gift card I won at a State Bar of Wisconsin program.  Munchkinhead dyed hers to be the proper shade of red-brown.  Mine were good dark grey.  Both of our tails are made from an extra pant leg. 

Munchkinhead’s tail and back have a spine quilted in by Mommy.  My guts are also courtesy Mommy’s quilting.  They’re part of a down comforter that was lying around in her sewing closet.  Mommy also stitched Munchkinhead’s sleeves for her little arms.  Mommy originally said she wasn’t going to help us, but she got pretty into it with lots of great ideas.  She watched Dr. Who has half a triceratops so I could hand stitch the frill onto my costume.

My frill is made of fabric a scarp of stabilizer, which Cathy at JoAnn’s suggested.  She also suggested pleating it for the circular effect.  Mommy did the pleats; I cut the zig zag.  My top two horns are foam and my nose horn is felt, molded on Mommy’s felt carrot scissors keeper that I got her in Texas.  It’s held on with a strap of clear stretchy jewelry line.

Munchkinhead and I both have cardboard feet.  Hers aren’t on in the picture, but she has three front talons and one back talon on each foot.  I just have giant plodding triceratops feet, and I do have to plod in them because they make it very difficult to walk.  Our costumes are also both stuffed with pillows, which makes them quite warm.  They’d’ve been perfect for your standard put-your-costume-over-your-snowsuit Wisconsin Halloween, but it was 67 on Trick or Treat this year.  We felt like we really were in the late Crustaceous period!

Trick or treat was fun.  Have you ever seen a T-rex try to hand out candy?  Tiny arms!  The kids would have to get up really close and Munkchinhead would still need some oomf to throw the candy bar into their bag.  Several kids had to pick up the candy.

After trick or treat, we had fun running around Mommy and Daddy’s house taking pictures of “T-rex attempts to do” this and “Triceratops attempts to do” that.  It was really funny.  T-rex could hardly do anything.  She fell headfirst into a laundry basket attempting to get clothes out of it!  I kept getting stuck in doorways and other narrow areas around the house.

Tonight, we’re going to ballet.  It’s Don Quixote, and they said we could wear costumes since it’s Halloween.  I’ll have to take my top half off so the frill doesn’t block anyone’s view.  Hopefully the colored contacts we got won’t obstruct ours.

We’re also going to – and this was a surprise to us; we found out about it after we’d started our costumes – the museum!  It’s a members costume party night.  Should be great fun.  I wonder if anyone will recognize us.

(Since Mommy and Daddy weren’t home, we went across the street to one of the neighbors’ and asked them to take our photo together.)

Adventures with Ivory and Munchkinhead: Harley Museum

Back near the start of summer (when it was still cold), Milwaukee had a gallery night in which downtown galleries and museums were open for free to the public, including the Harley Davidson museum.  Munchkinhead and I didn’t actually know it was gallery night, we just knew the Harley museum was free that evening.  We both love Harleys – I mean, we are from Milwaukee – so we headed down to check it out.

The museum was really neat!  Munchkinhead had been to the Harley museum before, so she was sort of my tour guide.  We started upstairs, looking at the history of the company.  I was spent a bunch of time reading the old incorporation documents and board meeting minutes and such.  Munchkinhead liked the old pictures and history of how the bikes had changed.

We learned some neat stuff looking at the wall of gas tanks.  Neither of us realized AMF – as in the bowling company – had bought Harley at one point, or the fight that was put up to buy it back.  I also learned that Harleys used to be the racing bikes.  That surprised me a lot.  Munchkinhead already knew this because she’d seen the exhibit before.

There was a photo gallery that featured some pretty crazy people riding all over the place.  And an ears-on exhibit where you could test your knowledge of the classic Harley sound.  Telling a weedwacker from a Harley was easy; telling a crotch rocket from a Harley wasn’t too hard, but trying to tell one Harley engine from another, I had no idea.

Of course, the best part of the museum was the seats-on part where we could sit on different Harleys.

Munchkinhead like the army bike, of course.

 

And then she made me get on the scooter because she thought it went well with my outfit.

There was also a stick-your-head-here place where you could pretend to be Evel Knievel.  The giant face-less photo had a platform behind it that made it rather difficult for me to be Evel.

 

I still tried though.

Adventures with Ivory: My Own Nation’s Capitol

It started as a trip to visit Mzzzz Jones (who’s no longer Mzzzzz Jones, but will stay so on here), and morphed into a giant adventure.

Mzzzz Jones is going to have a baby!  And the baby is due when Mzzzz Jones and I were going to be our 5 year law school reunion.  I clearly needed a new way to see her.  Add to that a sale on Amtrak, and a trip to DC was hatched.

The Capitol Limited from Chicago to DC feels super short after so many California Zephyr trips, less than 24 hours.  It was a pleasant ride and I was easily able to navigate my way from DC’s main train station to a park near Mzzzz Jones work.

(—> me on the train)

Mzzzz Jones and her husband graciously let me stay with them an entire week.  Originally, I was just going to visit for the weekend, but as I mentioned, my trip morphed. 

Soon after planning the trip, I noticed American University was offering a number of IP courses for lawyers and law students from around the world.  There was one that particularly caught my eye and it was to be held the week I was going to leave DC.  I decided to go out on a limb and apply for the course.  I got in!  And my weekend trip became a week trip.

Mzzzz Jones and I had lots of fun.  We went to (catered!) happy hour at her aunts’ house, sampled delicious foods from many restaurants, accidentally wandered into an African street festival where a steel drum band was playing “Moves like Jagger,”  checked out a new church in Maryland where they sat us in the handicap seats cuz Mzzzz Jones is expecting, and watched 3 movies.  I finally saw Coming to America.  We also watched the remake of About Last Night with Kevin Hart at her place and went to a cute little theater to see Belle.  I really liked all of them and am glad I went to Africa before seeing Coming to America.  I was shocked to learn that the lead actress in Belle, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is in one of my favorite movies, Lost in Austen.

Mzzzz Jones also sent me off exploring on my own.  I went to the Newseum, which is huge and pretty neat.  The Pulitzer Prize Photo exhibit is intense and very emotionally draining.  I checked out a few of the Smithsonian Art Museums (because I needed to use their restrooms) and walked, like a dumb-butt, from nearly-at-the-Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial because I didn’t know how far it was.  Then I had to get my tushie back to Chinatown for dinner with Mzzzz Jones and her husband.  (<—Canadian paper example at the Newseum)

I missed the MLK memorial on my long trek because I didn’t realize it was far from the paved path.  But, thanks to a very nice gentleman I was able to see it before I left.  Mzzzz Jones and her husband threw a BBQ while I was there and lots of their friends and people from their wedding who I had met but didn’t really know came, including the best man.  I met up with Best Man my last night in town and we went exploring.  He took me to see both the MLK and FDR monuments.  It was so, so, so awesome to see them at night under a full moon with the warm summer air and a light breeze.

(—> Back of MLK monument and the moon)

The whole trip was absolutely delightful and one of the few times I wasn’t ready to go home by the time it was time to go home.  Mzzzz Jones and I spent a lot of time hanging out in law school and it was wonderful to get to hang out like that again.  I also loved DC.  I’ve been there before but never this long and in a manner where I’m getting around by myself.  I realized one day as I was walking down the street in the downtown area that I’ve spent more time in both the capitols of Zambia and Nigeria (Lusaka and Abuja, respectively) than I have in the capitol of the US.  That struck me as very crazy.  I hope I get to go back soon and spend some more time in DC.

Me and Eleanor Roosevelt.  She makes me look so tiny!

Oh, and in case you were wondering – the class was excellent.

Adventures with Ivory: Iowa

It’s a common response when someone tells me where they grew up, “oh! I’ve been there on vacation.”  It seems to be especially true for random towns in Iowa.  This summer, my little vacation to Iowa was a tad less random.  I went to visit Orgfish, one of my dearest and bestest friends.

We met a long, long time ago.  My family had just moved to Cudahy and I was down at the park enjoying the giant swingset.  According to Orgfish, I was jumping off the swings, landing on my head, and going back to the swings to do it again; and she thought, “that’s great. I want to be her friend.”  And we’ve been friends ever since.

Orgfish and Mr. Orgfish welcomed me gladly to their awesome home and we spent the weekend relaxing and having fun.  There were two barbeque parties, a cute movie, some games, and plenty of exploring.  We did some antique store pursuing in Kalona, quilt capitol of Iowa.  The sidewalks are decorated with “quilt squares” made out of bricks.

We even checked out the African American Museum.  Now, you’re probably thinking what we were thinking, “An African American museum in the middle of Iowa?  How good can this be?”  Well, it turns out the answer is “very good.”

The museum was created by Cedar Rapids’ African American community to showcase the history of the local community.  It does this by placing the local history within the wider African American history and within the even wider African-rooted culture.  Half of the museum is the permanent exhibit that takes you from the slave trade through today.  The other half is temporary exhibits.  We were lucky enough that the temporary exhibit was on African American music.  (And the hip hop display featured lots of Creative Commons licensed photos!)

It’s very well done and very interactive.  You hear about how awful slave ships were and see illustrations of people crammed together, but it doesn’t really hit home until you lay down on the planks and realize the person above you is going to poo all over you, and you’re going to poo on you and the person below you, too.

In addition to laying on the slave ship, we played African drums, participated in a sit in, added graffiti to a wall, DJ’d, tried on football helmets, pretended to fly an airplane and plunked around  on the piano.  I had a little trouble getting out of the airplane.

 

(Orgfish is participating in the sit in. I’m the mean cafe worker refusing to serve her.)

It was a fabulous trip and a great time hanging out with great friends.

The Other Half of the Day

Has this really all been one day? I'm a lovely shade of tomato. I should know better, but I didn't pack sunscreen because I wanted to carry my bag on – which didn't get to happen anyway, on any of my 3 flights. Oh well, I have to spend the next 5 days inside, anyway.

My plan for the afternoon was to head into downtown, get a ticket for the Rocky Horror Picture Show performance and visit the District 6 museum. Well that didn't quite work out. It took me about 2 hours to walk to the theater. Tickets for tonight's performance were sold out. The museum was closed, it's Sunday. But I still had a great afternoon.  Downtown reminded me a lot of Amsterdam, with its brick-paved, car-less side streets and curvy roads.  I suppose that comparison probably makes sense.

I stumbled upon another Mandela tribute. The Cape Town city hall is the first place Mandela addressed the public after his release from prison. Across from city hall is a large plaza. There were police everywhere. The ends of city hall's street were barricaded off. Railings covered in flowers and signs lined the area in front of city hall. Large screens with massive speakers were set-up on the sides of the plaza. Current images from the front of city hall blazed on their screens. I stopped for a bit. It was hard not to be moved by the outpouring of expressions all around.

 

I also tried another strange new drink. This time, it was Frankie's Olde Soft Drink Co.'s Dandelion & Burdock soda. I have no idea what burdock is, so I can't tell you if the soda tasted like it. And, I don't eat dandelions, so come to think of it, I can't tell you if the soda tasted like those either. But, it was pretty good. A bit tangy. I'd put it in the cream and sasparilla family, though it's not the same as either of those.

The receptionist at the hostel had advised me to check out an open air market downtown. I hadn't really planned on it but found myself there. It was mostly curios and outfits. All the fun fabrics had already been made into things. I headed through, glancing at things as I went. After moseying through the market, I regained my bearings and followed the “V&A Waterfront” signs back to the waterfront. My feet ached, and my legs hurt. But it's hard to tell yourself you can't go on when you're surrounded by pictures of Nelson Mandela and all you're doing is walking around on a sunny afternoon.

By this point, I was considering going back to the lodge, just to sit down somewhere, but I didn't really want to spend the rest of the day waiting for bedtime. Instead, I found one of the City Tours hop-on-hop-off buses and hopped on. It was fun. First, we went back downtown. - I should have started with the bus. - As we wound out of downtown, we went through the area known as District 6. In some ways, it made up for not being able to go to the museum. The bus tour explained the history of the area. It had been Capet Town's most diverse area. When apartheid started, the government forced everyone out – every single person out of an entire neighborhood – and destroyed all the homes. Most of the district is still grass and weeds.

Then, we went up to Table Mountain. I got off the bus there, but I didn't go up the mountain. It wasn't until we were leaving that I realized you could actually climb up and not just take the cable car.  The view was amazing even from the parking lot.

From there, we went around the back of Table Mountain, past the Twelve Apostles and down to the beach. What a beautiful beach! White sands, blue water. There were washed up oyster and sea shells everywhere. I've now touched both sides of the Atlantic. The only other body of water I can say that about is Lake Michigan. The bus tour wound around the coast and dropped us back at the Waterfront. I attempted to head back to the lodge.

Attempted is the key word there. I walked a bit down the road, paused, decided I was probably going the wrong way and turned around. Three steps back and I heard my name. It was my friend who's one of the main organizers for the conference that starts tomorrow! I was very happy to see him. One, because he's awesome, and two, because he was able to point me back towards the direction I was supposed to be going. There happened to be a massive craft shed between me and the road I needed, so I did a little shopping on the way. ;)

Half-a-Day in Cape Town

Nothing beats waking up to a sunrise and birds chirping – somethings are true no matter where you are in the world. I thrust my feet out from under the fluffy duvet to allow the soft breeze to waft over them. Ah, warm air and cool breezes; my favorite. After 30+ hours of traveling I was happy to be lying in bed and it hardly even bothered me that I was awake at 5am.

My first morning in Cape Town! I spent most of it down at the Waterfront, wandering around, exploring, shopping. It reminded me of both Venice and of Pier 39 in San Francisco. Boats, water, tourist shops, a movie being filmed, people, people and more people. People with cameras, people with strollers, people with smiles, and a lot of people in Nelson Mandela commemorative t-shirts of one sort or another.

After perusing a three-floor souvenir shop where I briefly contemplated buying Alfred a four foot tall, six foot long carved rhino statue, and even more briefly considered buying a Zebra skin rug, complete with head, for my and Munchkinhead's Africa room, I wandered over to the Nelson Mandela museum building. The building is the ticket station and launch port for ferries over to Robben Island, where Mandela was held in prison. It seems like the tours work a lot like Alcatrez: buy a ferry ticket, go over to the island, do a tour. At 9:30am, they were sold out for the entire day. Disappointed, but not surprised, I wandered off to explore more of the area.

A giant distance marker stood near the water along a boardwalk. Lots of arrows protruded from the post, proclaiming the distance and direction of major cities around the world. “San Francisco 16690 km,” “Chicago 13662 km.” Those numbers felt huge. I didn't even bother trying to compute them into miles.

There was a giant ferris wheel, which looked pretty fun. I thought I'd give that a try. A nice gentelman, originally from Cape Town but who has lived in Australia for the past 30 years offered to share a ferris wheel cab with me. That was fantastic, because he was able to tell me about what we saw out the windows. And from way up top, we could see a lot. There was Table Mountain behind us and Devil's Peak off to the side. One of the stadiums built for the World Cup 2010. An oil rig brought down from West Africa for repairs. Hotels and shops and docks. It was grand.

 

After some more window shopping, I headed back towards my hostel. I was getting very thirsty and knew I'd need lunch soon. I had hoped to find a grocery store, but while I found Pick and Pay signs, I could not locate the Pick and Pay. Then, as I neared the street leading to my hostel, I saw a familiar green tree down the street. Spar! Spar was one of the higher end grocery stores in Zambia. I figured it probably wasn't higher end here, comparatively, and headed over. My find of the day: cream soda flavored milk. That sounded so strange, how could I not try it?! And, it was bright green! It was ok. It didn't really taste like cream soda or milk. I don't know what it tasted like. Green stuff, I guess.

After a refreshing lunch of rolls, cheese and guava juice, I'm set for another adventure in a different direction.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 5

ohmygoodnesswhatacrazybusyday.  We had fun!

Munchkinhead and I took a day trip up to Sacramento today.  We took the choo choo train up, went to the Zoo, the Railroad Museum, the Historical Museum and the Capitol and met Mr. Trizzle for dinner.  According to Munchkinhead’s pedometer, we walked nearly 11 miles today.

Munchkinhead on the Capitol Cooridor with her train ticket, headed to Sacramento.

The Sacramento Zoo was pretty nice.  It felt fairly small, although it was much bigger than the Oakland Zoo, which Munchkinhead and I visited last time she was here.  Maybe the Milwaukee Zoo is just an outlier and we never realized it.  The Zoo had lots of African animals, which made me happy.  I love seeing Zebras (pronounced zed-bras) and giraffes.  And much to Munchkinhead’s delight, the Zoo had white-handed gibbons, just like her Gibby! 

The white-handed gibbon.

Much to Munchkinhead’s chagrin, the zoo also had its share of unenlightened parents.  There was the school group chaperone who, standing at the gibbon exhibit, told the school children to “look at the monkey.”  That sent Munchkinhead into quite a mumble for a good five minutes.  And there was the mother who failed to correct the small group of four-year olds who insisted the black and white lemurs were pandas.  After all this, and attempting to avoid stepping on the massive amounts of little people, Munchkinhead was so annoyed, she wouldn’t even play in the stick-your-head-here things with me.

Me as a butterfly.  This one would be great if the zoo map weren’t in the picture.

After the zoo, we got on the bus and headed back towards downtown to visit the State Railroad Museum.  It was awesome.  There was a huge display about the building of the transcontinental railroad, including letters, artifacts and dioramas reproducing some of the original equipment like snowsheds. 

It also had a large number of engines and cars on display, several of them open for walk-through.  I especially liked the displays about how the long-distance cars have changed over the years.  One exhibit features seats from different eras that guests can try out.   Munchkinhead also got to sit in the engineer’s seat of one of the last engines built by Rosie the Riveters.  The docent was such a sweetie (or off his rocker), telling us it may have been built by one of our great-grandmothers.

Munchkinhead and me in front of one of the display engines.

He may have been off about our great-grandmother’s building  trains.  But, the museum did have an artifact just like something our grandpa had.  In the model train display, there was a little man in a little shed with a little red door.  Grandpa had the same little man on his special train set that he’d put around the tree at Christmas.  We were very excited.

We discovered another museum next to the Railroad Museum, the Sacramento Historical Museum.  Admission was only $6, so we had to check that out, too.  It was about the founding of Sacramento, which was pretty much all about the gold rush.

When we finished up in Old Sacramento, we walked into the main downtown area to visit the State Capitol.  It’s a very beautiful and impressive building.  Munchkinhead loved the architectural and design details and kept taking pictures of banisters and lamps and such.

Munchkinhead in front of the Capitol. 

Behind the Capitol is an extensive garden area with a lot of memorials.  There’s a memorial garden that was started in the late 1800s to honor the Civil War soldiers.  Many of the trees in that grove were brought to California as saplings from Civil War battlefields.  There was memorial to all the firefighters from across the state who have died in the line of duty.  A memorial for Vietnam casualties.  A memorial for the first priest in the area.  And many, many more.  We took in our fill of memorials and monuments and then met Mr. Trizzle for our fill of food.

It was a wonderful and fun-filled day.  And now, we both dearly need some sleep. ;)

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 1

Today, I picked Munchkinhead up from the airport.  I had a special sign for her and a nice little welcome packet with all her necessities, or at least most of them.  She’s borrowing Daddy Bunny’s Clipper card so she can ride BART and MUNI easily.  Her packet also has a BART schedule, an Amtrak schedule, Amtrak tickets, tickets to the museum and an itinerary for the week.

She brought me cheese curds! Yay!!!! They even have Bucky Badger on the package, which is so cute.

We tried to stop at Top Dog in Berkeley on the way home from SFO, but it had just closed.  So we opted for the taco truck down the street from me.  Yummy late night snack.  I was surprised she ordered pork tacos and didn’t say anything about them not looking like the tacos we grew up with.  They weren’t very spicy this time; perhaps the lady gringo-fied them for us.

Now it’s time for bed.  Foo Foo’s come along for the visit, too.  I’m sure Daddy Bunny will be very excited to see him!

The World (or at least the Museum) is Our Playground!

Long-time readers of this blog, and people who know my family a little too well, know that we love a good trip to a museum, especially the museum.  One museum tradition of ours is to visit the museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum, during the Christmas holidays. 

Why goldenrail, don’t you get board going to the same museum all the time; don’t you have all the exhibits memorized by now?  Never!  and, yes, sort of.  This year, Munchkinhead, her boyfriend and I visited the museum together.  There was a great traveling exhibit on Pirates.  Munchkinhead loves pirates, so we had to check that out.

When done arrrr-ing and checking out booty, we frolicked off to the rest of the museum for our usual antics.  We got to be lots of animals:

Deer! or antelope, or something like that…

…Bears…

… a Sloth (I’m the sloth’s branch)…

… Fish (I do a great sea bass impression)…

…even Dinosaurs…

…and of course, the howler monkey.

 

We also had fun being a few inanimate objects and people.

A Munchkinhead-Munchkinhead’s Boyfriend Totem Pole

Munchkinhead makes a great 9-yr old pirate boy

 

And we couldn’t pass up our absolute favorite photo op exhibit in the museum!  We got this shot with a whole lot of combinations of people playing the different roles.  This year, Munchkinhead’s boyfriend got to catch Munchkinhead.

2008 museum antics

2011 zoo antics

Spring Break Day #8: Almost Like a Real Vacation (or Help, I'm Turning into Daddy!)

I wanted to go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for my last Saturday in the Yay. But, with a forecast of high of 58 and the boardwalk being on the ocean and stuff, that idea was vetoed. So, I told Mr. Trizzle he had to come up with something fun that he hadn't shown me yet. He did a great job! We went to the Tech Museum in San Jose and then to the Oakland Carnival. (Even Daddy would have had a tough time planning a better day.)

The Tech museum in San Jose was not at all what either of us expected. Based on the on-line information, we both expected a museum about tech. Here's an old computer, here's how technology has advanced, here's where we're headed - that sort of thing. Nope, it was basically a hands-on science museum, aka full of kids.

The line to get tickets was super long, and there was one person working the counter. The membership line was non-existent, but there were two people at that counter. Since the line was so long, I said to Mr. Trizzle, "can I just run into the gift shop really quick to look for something?"

"What?"

"A thimble for my mommy. She collects them, so every time we go somewhere, we get one for her."

"What's a thimble?"

"(suppressing giggle) A thimble is something you put on your finger when sewing so you don't prick yourself."

"Oh! The Monopoly piece."

"(failing to suppress giggle) Yes, like the Monopoly piece."

"Why would they have a thimble there?"

"Because people collect them. It's one of those random collectors items. Most museums have them."

Mr. Trizzle continued to assert that he thought it was ridiculous that I would look for a thimble in a tech museum and that he strongly believed I would not find one. I came back about two minutes later with this:

All he could say was "w-o-w." Hee hee. Point for goldenrail! Mommy, you'll get your thimble as soon as I mail it.

The museum itself was pretty cool. I would have had a lot of fun there with my sisters, especially in the giant Tinker Toys playroom. But Mr. Trizzle was some fun, too. He played a quiz game with me (and won) and he took a picture of me as a hockey goalie.

Museum admission also came with an Imax ticket. We saw a film narrated by Robert Redford about the saving the Colorado River. At one point in the film, they're touring these old Native American ruins and this lady says, "you have to admire the Anasazi for building their homes where there wasn't any water." And, true to what Daddy would do, I thought, "no you don't! That's stupid; that's why they all died when there was a drought and now it's just ruins!" The movie was a bit annoying because it's Berkeley-ness was a little over the top. I also found it kind of ironic in an amusing sort of way that this movie was being shown at the tech museum because it kept talking about how bad all these technological developments were for the river.

After finishing up the museum, Mr. Trizzle was given an opportunity to one of the things he likes best - jam sticks in The System's spokes. He was given this opportunity in the form of a parking ticket. The ticket was for an expired parking meter. But see, here's the thing: the meter wasn't expired, it was broken. They didn't ticket him for parking at a broken meter, or for being parked there too long (there was a two-hour time limit, but the ticket was given an hour and a half after we parked). So what did Mr. Trizzle do? He took my camera and took pictures of the area and the broken meter and he's going to send them with a letter in that little ticket envelope.

The freeway was gridlock at some point on the way back, so we got off and took a nice tour of Hayward and Oakland until we got to the Oakland Carnival. We had seen the carnival on the way out to San Jose, so Mr. Trizzle said we could go if the lights were on when we came back. They were!

It was the most ghetto carnival I've ever seen. The scariest people were the ones working there. (Who, incidentally, were also the only white people there.) They had messy hair, scrunched up faces and, for the women, too much bad make-up. The scariest was the guy with three teeth and a beer in his hand, he was running this one ride that flips upside-down.

We had a lot of fun. We both went on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the pendulum-thingy that they called 1001Nachts (there was this girl that sat next to us and kicked two little kids off - who had, in all fairness, just ridden - so that her boyfriend could get on the ride. He had some nice shiny grills in his mouth; I was a little jealous.), and that ride that flipped upside-down; it's called the Energy Storm. That ride was terrifying! I was slipping all over the seat, my head flew out sideways and I couldn't bring it back in. And to make it worse, being upside down that long made my head start to itch. Can't scratch it - still have cornrows! Mr. Trizzle also went on the Gravitron to use up the last four tickets, while I got a snow cone.

For dinner, we headed to one of Mr. Trizzle's fav Chinese places (one we hadn't been to yet), the Pink Place. I felt so awful that I could hardly eat anything. I had half a little dish of vegetable soup. Mr. Trizzle managed to eat the rest of it, but he wasn't feeling great either. I was so sad. When I was a little kid, we used to go on all the rides all day long, and spin around in the living room for fun. Now, like Daddy, everything makes me sick. It sucks! We paid for our very small dinner and headed back to the hotel. I was in bed by 8:30 on my last Saturday night in the Yay. :( At least the day had been a lot of fun.

A Milwaukee Favorite

Yesterday, I went with Munchkinhead, Alfred and Nathy-Boo to the Milwaukee Public Museum.  We love the museum and have been going regularly since we were little.  Well, not Nathy-Boo, he's from Nebraska, not Milwaukee.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

We saw the traveling Titanic exhibit with real artifacts from the Titanic.  It was kinda freaky in some places, especially where it made it seem like we were under water.  When we entered the exhibit, we each got a card with a real passenger on it and at the end got to see if we survived or not.  I didn't; Nathy-Boo didn't; but Alfred and Munchkinhead did.

We also went to a planetarium show about the Christmas Star.  It was really interesting.  Before the movie, a guy comes out and does a planetarium show with stars on the IMAX dome.  I was super excited because Orion is currently visible late at night.  That's my favorite constellation and he isn't always visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

We all have our favorite parts of the museum.  I love the Streets of Old Milwaukee, though we got there 15 minutes after the little candy shop closed.  (That's ok though because St. Nick brought us Violets, Necco Waffers and popcorn balls!  And Mommy has clove and cinnamon ribbon candy already.)  Wendy loves the European Village,  which is currently decorated for the holidays, including the spinning Polish Christmas tree hanging high up in the town square.  (It's upside-down.)  Katrina loves seeing the monkeys, sloths and bats in the Rainforest.  Sadly, the Howler Monkey wasn't working. :(   (Those pics are from last year's visit.)

Other favorites include the T-Rex eating the Triceratops, the walk-in igloo and of course the movies: How to Dig a Hole To the Other Side of the World and the Dinosaurs movie. 

Another, recently fun addition to the museum is listening to Alfred tell us what's wrong with exhibits.  She is, as she put it when saying perhaps we shouldn't put our glasses on those skulls, an emerging museum professional.  She'll graduate in May with a masters in Museum-something-or-other.  I know she hates the errors in the 28 year old claymation dinosaur video, but what really irks her is the prehistoric mammal collection.  Apparently,  there isn't much right in that exhibit and it needs to be updated based on some "new" discoveries that were made in 1992.  She gets especially annoyed when they mess up things on the prehistoric rhinos and other creatures she knows a lot about.  Oh well, I still like the museum.  (Although, I'd like it better if the gift store still sold Astronaut ice cream!)

So what do you do at a museum you've gone to so often you notice when something's been moved?  Well, besides visiting all your favorite places, looking for what's changed, and, if your Wendy, pointing out what's wrong, you act out the exhibits!

Totem pole at the top of the now down (once up) escalator to the second floor.

 

Skulls at the entrance to Latin America.

 

Big bird catching a beaver in North America.

 

1950s Museum curator.

 

Mask, I think in Latin America exhibit.

 

Cactus.

 

Poor baby bear is being attacked by bees!