Busy June

 Realize that I'm sort of posting out of order here.  June has been a bit busy.

First - still reading.  Finished the Michael Pollan's "Second Nature" and the sheep history book.  Still doing the slow reads of "Witches and Pagans," "Dracula,"  and "Rumi."  Read two books (well, reread - I read and enjoyed both several years ago) which are novel-length developments of fairy tales:  "Daughter of the Forest" (based on the six swans) and "A Curse as Dark as Gold" (based on Rumplestiltskin).  Also re-reading Adam Savage's "Every Tool's a Hammer" which at least inspired me to go clean up Chez Wicca some today.  And listening to the audiobook of "The Hobbit" read by Andy Serkis (aka Gollum).

I had written about making the little dragon puppet for Zeke.  Rob and Zeke came up for the Infinity Con on June 4.  It was fun, but there didn't seem to be as much going on as there was last year.  Possibly that's because they got here early and a lot of people don't show up until later.  As it gets closer to the costume contest more people tend to come in (mainly because the better the costume, the more uncomfortable it is).  We got there at 11 and the contest wasn't until after 4 but we didn't stay that long.  But there were Robot Wars going on all day, so we watched a lot of that.  It was mini-robots, but even a couple of 3-pound robots can tear the heck out themselves and the arena.   And, of course, both dragons were a hit.

I've already written about making another deep dive into Bob's room - that was the week after the con.  I found out that a friend of ours has gotten into model making, so I invited him to come over and pick up any models and supplies he thought he could use, so figured I'd better make them accessible.  It was good to see Thomas again - I've known him since he was 17 (he's 34 now) and there's that lovely comfort level you can get with a long-term friend.  And he knew and liked Bob (I don't know anyone who didn't) and he said it was an honor to have and use some of his tools and models.

Even had a lunch date this week with one of my co-volunteers.  For some reason, Nolan and I have really hit it off.  We only are in on the same day once a week, but we try to get assigned together.  He's totally cute, totally sweet, and just fun to be around.  After we finished work last Tuesday we went to lunch together and talked about his plans (he wants to take advantage of opportunities to work in other countires - I'm sort of envious of the opportunities available now that weren't possible in my youth).  Alas - he will be going on his adventures, and therefore leaving Tallahassee soon, but I've enjoyed his company.

I even got some spinning and weaving samples done.  These are just samples to tell me what this particular wool can do (it was a fleece I got for free last year - free, but lovely.  Sometimes I score).  Eventually I'll actually make something out of it.

And after I posted a picture of the green tunnel that is the entrance to my driveway, Amanda said that it looks pretty but scrapes the car when they come visit (they drive a SUV the size of my first apartment.   I did get out a couple of mornings and got some of the driveway cleared (and even cut down three small trees with a handsaw).  But it order to do that I have to get up and out quite early because we're hitting the hot time of year (heat index up to 111) and somehow it's hard to discipline myself.  I'm sort of in the mood to let the woods take over and deal with it in the winter.

Finally, I have a new little friend.  The museum acquired a couple of baby opossums.  We only need one for an education animal, so I brought the other one home to raise and release.  He was 250 grams when I got him on the 13th and 400 now (almost 2 weeks later) so he's coming along nicely.  Hard to get a good picture because he's so active.  He's at the adorable stage where he hasn't caught up with his ears and looks like a cartoon.

Even had a cooking disaster last night.  Well, not much of a disaster - and it wasn't cooked.  More of a cooking mess.  I had roasted some acorn squash and turned some of it into gnocchi.  After I had them shaped, I cooked some for dinner and put the rest on a rack to dry a bit before I packed them for the freezer.  So that the cats wouldn't mess with them, I put the rack in the oven.  Normally what would happen at this point is that I would have turned the oven on to preheat for something else, forgetting they were in there.  This did not happen this time.  What happened is that I discovered that I hadn't worked quite enough flour into the mixture, so they softly oozed through the rack and I ended up with raw gnocchi blobs all over the floor of the oven.  Bit of a mess.

So despite the fact that I feel that I still spend way too much time looking at random stuff on the computer, and somehow just sitting and realizing that another day has gone by, at least I'm getting some stuff done.  Hope I can keep it up.