Happy Halloween

 I've been writing about how much I miss doing the Halloween Howl.  But when the date came around that we would have run it (last weekend) it was near 90 degrees - and I didn't miss getting into a hot costume and running around for several hours.  And I definitely don't miss the hours of taking everything down and cleaning up afterwards (one year, as I was setting out costumes, one of my actors asked "Do they ever wash all these costumes?"  And my answer was "if you spell "They" with "ANN" then the answer is yes.")

I enjoyed Halloween in my own low-key way. I've been watching old horror movies; really old ones, from the 1930s and '40s.  Overdone makeup, really artificial costumes and special effects - and they are so fun.  This morning  I had sweet bread for breakfast.  I finished reading "Pet Semetary."  I was looking at a list of top horror stories, and realized that I had never read it, even though it's one of Stephen King's most well-known ones.  It's also the one where he put it back in a drawer after he finished it, because he thought he had gone too far.  I think maybe he was right about that.

I carved a Jack O'Lantern in the traditional way.  Pumpkin is a New World vegetable.  The original lanterns were carved out of turnips.  Publix didn't have any turnips, but I got a rutabaga.  I don't know if turnips would  be any easier, but trying to hollow out that rutabaga was like trying to hollow out a rock.  But I eventually succeeded, and after the photoshoot it is now (minus the candle) presiding over my usual offerings of bread, milk, and whiskey (well, some  of that slivovitz that I've been trying to get rid of for a few decades).

I wanted something a bit barbaric for dinner, so I spatchcocked a Cornish game hen and then roasted it on a bed of sweet potato, potato, and the insides of that rutabaga.  I've written before that I used to hate it when Cornish hens were served at formal dinners.  Eaten nicely with a knife and fork, you can get about a half-dozen decent bites from those little carcasses.  They are best eaten in solitary splendor, when you can just tear them apart and eat them with your fingers.  Which I did.

All in all, a good Halloween.

Ode to A Truck

 Did I even think to take a picture of the truck???

This morning I took Hamish to the vet.  My plan after was to do a few chores, have lunch, and then go clean out the truck.  I was expecting to get a call from the tow company at some point to set a pickup time.

Instead I got a call to make sure I was at home because the tow truck was on the way.  I could have protested and put it off, but, to quote Lady Macbeth,"if tis done when tis done, twere well it were done quickly."  Or, in more modern terms, rip that band-aid off.

So I dashed out, cleaned it out (thank goodness out of guilt I had washed it recently), took off the license plate, then spent some time hacking at some of the underbrush to make a bit more space for the tow truck.  I tried jump starting the truck, but it wouldn't quite take, meaning that the tow truck would have to go to the back of the property where the truck was.

When they said "tow truck" I thought they meant one of those big trucks that pick up the front end of a car and drag it off.  I was not expecting the huge flatbed.  It was quite a marvel seeing the guy maneuver it back there.

It's gone.  In a few weeks, after it's sold (I donated it to the local PBS station) I'll get a receipt for tax purposes.

Truck memories.

Neither Bob nor I were ever really into cars.  If I count the mustang he got before we got married, we've had that, a Volkswagon, a Ford van, a GMC Jimmy (a real lemon), a Ford Explorer, a small Chevy pickup, a Honda CR-V, the Ford Truck, and my current Honda.  How many people can name every car they've had in the last 50 years?

When the Ford Explorer was starting to fall apart, it was time to go car shopping.  We were looking at more Explorers, or something like that, because from time to time we had to take the Jeep on a trailer to parades or shows.  But they were pretty expensive (we couldn't find a decent used one) and got pretty lousy gas mileage, and we were living out here by then with the daily 30 mile round trip commute.

One day, after doing more fruitless car shopping, we went out to dinner, and I broached a crazy idea to Bob.  I asked him how many times a week was he going to trailer that jeep, or have to make a big haul from the hardware store.   Of course - not that often.  My idea (wild for people who only bought cars when absolutely necessary) was to buy two: something smaller for everyday use, and then a truck for when we needed it (giving up the current explorer and the small Chevy truck)

It worked brilliantly, and we kept them both for 20+ years (I wrote about giving up the Honda a couple of years ago - and I still miss that car.)

The truck was there when we needed it.  He did the weekly trash haul in it, just to be using it.  We dragged the jeep to parades.  We hauled lumber in it.  We hauled building materials for the Halloween Howl down on the trail with it (where it got its only injury, a long scrape down one side, which really pissed him off).  A sweet memory was a road trip with our great nephew, Dane, when Dane was seven.  For awhile it had been a plan of Bob's Dad to have he and Bob take Dane on a road trip - just a one-day drive to go have fun.  They would go do that as soon as Dad felt better.  Sadly, that trip never happened.  Some time after he passed, Bob decided that he had unfinished business, so he took that road trip with Dane.  I can't even remember where they went, but they ate ice cream and hamburgers, and at some point saw a carnival in a parking lot and Dane went on all the rides.  Dane was fascinated by the idea of manual roll-up windows - you just turned a handle, and you could roll the windows up and down even if the truck wasn't turned on.  Bob was always glad that they took that day, that road trip, that homage to the man who couldn't be there.

Letting the truck sit there and rot, just for sentimentality, is wrong.  There are only 60,000 miles on it.  It should be used.  So it's off to it's next life.

As the flatbed headed down the drive, the truck going down it for the last time, I saw that I had forgotten to take off the front tag.

Molon Labe:  Greek for "Come and take them"

The phrase is attributed to King Leonidas I of Sparta as a defiant response to the demand by Xerxes I, king of Persia, that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

A pang for just a moment.  Should I run yelling down the drive for him to stop, to take it off the truck, to keep it? But no - let the truck carry that last cry of defiance.  If you want something that's mine, come and take it.

It needed to be done, something else that I had to let go.  But, for this afternoon, I'm going to let it hurt.  I'm drinking rum from the lovely Russian tea glass that he gave me, and scarfing down the Halloween chocolates.  Tomorrow I will soldier on.

Unbugging

 Last post I wrote about things that were bugging me.  So, since then . . .

I got my car back!!  Whew!  For two months I've been listening to every rattle, hoping that my duct-tape and zip tie temporary repairs would hold up.  There were the two postponements because of the hurricane and their loss of a tech, the stress of getting a rental car, and, of course, wondering if/what extra damage they would find when they opened up the front of the car.  And driving the rental (honestly, though,  it was a Chevy Malibu and handled quite well).  So getting my own car back was a relief.

Nonetheless, I did skip the concert in the park.  A day after getting the car out of the shop, I didn't feel like fighting the congested traffic getting out of the parking lot.  And always in the back of my mind is that it seems that every time I do go out at night I see a freshly killed animal (dog, deer, or bear) on the way home, and there was that time that a couple of deer jumped out mere feet in front of me.

I managed to deal with the "almost finished" Anthea, and she crossed the finish line.  I do like her.

I don't know if/when she'll go out in public.  There was a daytime event at the Goodwood Plantation today.  I went last year with the dragon (and she was a hit) but somehow wasn't in the mood to go today.  Partly because it doesn't really feel like Halloween.  After a few days last week when the temperatures dropped - they came back up again.  We're hitting record highs for this time of year (90 degrees).  And last year - like many things I did - I thought if I Put Myself Out There, I would make connections and meet people.  And you do on occasions like this - people chat, and take pictures, and it can be fun, but I've learned that nothing comes of it afterwards. Maybe next year.

Other things on the list:  I've scheduled Hamish's vet appointment for tomorrow, and next week I'll take in River and RedBug, and then the cats will be caught up.  River had her bath yesterday, and will get one tomorrow (every other day for three baths, poor thing).

I'm way overdue (because of the car problems I was driving as little as possible ) for an appointment with my chiropractor, so I'll schedule that soon (after I'm through with the cats, and I also had to schedule routine maintenance on my AC system) - and he's next door to Home Depot, so I can pick up a light switch then and see if I can wire it (if not, I'll have to find an electrician, but at least on YouTube it doesn't look that difficult)

I've filled out the forms and talked to the people to have the truck hauled off.  I'm donating it to PBS for a tax break.  I can't bring myself to quibble with anyone over Bob's truck, and I don't want to deal with someone coming back after a sale to say there was something wrong I didn't know about and didn't tell them about.  This way, it will just go away.  Tomorrow I'll clean it out (I already did a lot this last spring, but there are still things in there - like his glasses tucked over the visor - that I need to get out.  Yes, there will be tears.)

My father-in-law had a favorite saying:  "Every little bit helps" said the old lady as she peed in the sea.  I've done what I can.

Now it's just a matter of waiting.  We'll have a general idea of the results after Nov. 5 but it will probably be a few weeks before any real decision is made.

In general, I'm getting a handle on things, and feeling better.

I'm not doing anything major for Halloween, but I have been on a kick lately of watching old horror films - meaning ones from the 1940s.  There's a certain charm to them - the really artificial special effects, the rubber costumes and the masks that aren't nearly as good as anything you can now get from Spirit Halloween, and usually Doctor Somebody-or-Other in a lab coat spouting sciency words.

And some reading.  The Haunting of Hill House, followed by a couple of easy "palate cleansers" - A Night in Lonesome October, and The House With A Clock in the Walls.  Then I went cruising for something else, and thought to Google "top horror books."  I realized that I have read very little Stephen King, and opted for "Pet Semetary" - the one where King thought maybe he had gone too far.

That led to an enjoyable experience.  Like I usually do, I checked Libby (the online library) for the book.  It wasn't there.  How odd.  So I checked the regular library catalog, and there was a copy in the local branch library, only a couple of miles down the road.  I don't go there much, because I've gotten accustomed to downloading books.  When I walked in - it was on a display right up front.  I laughed, and mentioned this to the librarian, who didn't mind at all my taking his display.  I mentioned I was doing some Halloween reading,  and he suggested another book on the display, a follow-up to the Dracula story, written by Stoker's great grand nephew.  Then he mentioned another one of the genre that I might like ("Historian') - and looked it up.  It's in the library's collection, just not at this branch, but he said that he could order it and get it here.  Then we talked for awhile about other books and authors, and it was just plain nice, having someone to talk to about books.

I've also found that while I've gotten used to mostly reading e-books, either on my Kindle or my phone, there's a certain satisfaction to the weightiness and the page turning of a physical book.

So, in general, a good week.  I've been taking care of some stuff, and am looking forward to hopefully tackling the yard soon.  Not only has it been hot, but the mosquitoes are having a last hurrah and I get swarmed with I go outside.  My goal for this year is to get a path cut down to the creek.  I haven't been down there since the hurricane - Hurricane Michael in October 2018.  Shocking to think that it's been six years but . . . things happened.  I used to enjoy taking a book down to the creek and leaning against a tree to read.  Sometimes I would see a fox or a beaver.  One time I got a little sleepy and just lay down to bask in the sun - the looked over and realized that a water moccasin had the same idea about 8 feet away from me.  I think I preferred the fox.  At any rate - it would be nice to see the creek again.
 

Things That Are Bugging Me

 I haven't been able to get over this feeling of oppression lately, general depression.

What I do when I get like this is try to figure out exactly what is bothering me - drag it from the subconscious to the forebrain, where I can examine it and maybe do something about it.

First thing is the car.  It's hard not to beat myself up about it, feel stupid for damaging it.  Seriously - if you look at any parking lot, many of the cars will be overhanging the curb a little.  They just normally don't tear the hell out of the car.  If the curb had been a couple of inches lower - nothing would have happened.  If it had been an inch or two higher, I would have just bumped it.  But it was just wrong - so not only will that be a ding against my insurance, it's also going to cost me at least $1000 out of pocket for the deductible and the car rental.

As I've said before, I don't particularly like driving.  Some people do, and I just don't get it.  Like Jeff's last visit - he had driven here from Tennessee, and the day after we got together he was going to drive back to Tennessee, but after we visited for awhile he just wanted to get in his car and visit while we drove around.  My friend Kim loves nothing better than to get in her car and drive cross country.  Me?  I drive because I'm at Point A and there's something I need (or somewhere I need to be) at Point B.  I used to drive the 50 mile round trip to visit Dad four times a week (Bob would usually go with me once a week) but after he passed there was really no reason for me to drive myself anywhere (other than to work at the museum) because we went everywhere together.

And I particularly don't like the responsibility of driving a car that doesn't belong to me.

This is having repercussions. On Saturday I was invited to join in an outdoor SCA event, with dancing, archery, and a feast.  But after socializing for 5-6 hours on Friday (and stressing a bit because I wasn't positive I was going to be able to get a car, reservation or no), I just wasn't up to dressing up and making the hour drive to get there.

The Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra is having a free outdoor concert next Saturday night - food trucks, some games, costumes encouraged.  Then I think about driving an unfamiliar car, at night, in quite a bit of traffic.  Sigh.  (There's also the side issue is that sometimes I get damned tired of doing things alone.  The Making Of New Friends is still not going well.  And it's lonelier being out in a crowd  - noticing that you seem to be the only person there by herself -  than it is being at home with the cats).

Speaking of the cats, while I'm usually a very conscientious pet owner, three of my cats are overdue for their shots.  I didn't schedule them because you're not supposed to smoke or have pets in a rental car.  If I had known that my repair was going to be rescheduled two times I would have done it by now.  As it is, I have to wait until my car is fixed (which might take a couple of weeks).  It's not terribly important, as they are all inside cats, but I still want to get it done. 

The car thing has also brought something else to a head.  Why am I going to the expense and bother of renting a car when I actually still have Bob's truck?  And I have to acknowledge that I dislike driving it - it's too big and feels awkward.  I had kept it in case of emergency, to be able to take the kayak to the lake, and to haul trash. Well, I did the kayak thing once; I discovered that while I can get the boat in and out of the truck at home, at the boat dock, with the truck on a slant, it was an incredible struggle.  Hauling trash?  I'm not tall enough to be able to reach over the sides to pick up the trash bags.  So I have to drop the tailgate, and if the bags have shifted at all I have to crawl up into the back of the truck.  That leaves emergency, where I am now.  Except that the truck has been driven only a few times in the last four-five years.  It hasn't had the oil changed.  I've remembered to put the trickle charger on it sometimes; a couple of weeks ago I checked to see if I could start it and had to jump-start it.  I'm not sure I trust the tires after them having sat in one position so long (I do check the tire pressure from time to time).  Long winded way of saying that I don't trust it.  It's time to let it go.  Like my old Honda, I'll probably donate it.  That will cause enough tears.  I don't think I have the emotional strength to sell it, to quibble with someone over Bob's truck.  So that goes on the "things to do" list.

Let me see.  RiverSong's skin condition is acting up again, so she's going to need a series of baths.  She's actually pretty good about it, for a cat, but it's a bother for both of us.

One of the light switches in the cottage has shorted out - it's the one that controls the overhead light over my workbench, and also the back porch.  Time to YouTube - I can probably do it myself; if not I'll have to find an electrician.  I postponed that until I got the puppet finished.  But she's being frustrating - the closer I get to being done, the more I find things that aren't quiet working.  Poor thing looks like she's on an operating table.

 

And against this is the background of the upcoming election.  Usually I pretty much ignore politics, but that's hard to do this year.  I'm still in disbelief that Trump was chosen as the candidate; he is simply a despicable person.  But at the election gets closer it's getting more and more frightening, because he has clearly gone off the deep end.  There are many things that would be funny at this point, except that there's still an even chance that he's going to be president again.

Just to remind 2025 self of some recent "highlights."  Half this country will vote for him (please God - make it less than half) because he's making great promises.  He's going to lower prices, reduce taxes, raise wages, and put a 20% tariff on imported goods (which somehow he thinks will lower prices instead of raising them).  Anyone who took economics in high school will know that this is simply impossible.  But people believe him.

He's starting to slur his speech.  Fall asleep in public.  Has lost whatever internal editor he ever had (he was yelling "Get your fat ass off the couch and vote!")  At one recent town hall, instead of ending with the expected question and answer period, he put on a playlist of 10 songs and just stood up there and danced for 40 solid minutes. Even crazier, a couple of days ago he started rambling about golfer Arnold Palmer (who retired 20 years ago and died 6 years ago), spending an inordinate amount of time on the size of his "manhood."  Seriously - does anyone really care about the size of a dead golfer's dick?

So I've decided that I'm OK (meaning that I can handle some things, rather than reaching for the happy pills).  Be patient and wait on my car repair (and stop beating myself up about it - many other people have told me their adventures with curbs).  Then take the cats to the vet.  Give RiverSong her baths (she needs a series of them). Finish the puppet and get the light switch repaired.

I'm going to vote tomorrow.  That's all I can do.  What will happen in the election will happen.

Take a deep breath and fill out the forms to donate the truck.

That should get me out from under all this.

Random: Beatles, Car, Puppet, Sheets, Squirrel

 I've been having a persistent earworm of the latest Beatles release.
Yes - I mean that.  A new song released by the Beatles.

Back story: Some time after Lennon's death (1980!) Yoko Ono found a cassette tape of a song that John had written and recorded, and sent it to Paul.  It was, of course, a bit scratchy and tinny, good for nostalgia's sake but not much more.  Now fast forward 40+ years; technical and film making genius, Peter Jackson, could separate and clarify John's voice on the tape.  He then made a video with the two remaining Beatles - Paul and Ringo, along with clips of all four of them at different stages of their careers.

Technically, it's brilliant.  I especially noted that Jackson was able to synch the strumming of the various avatars with the beat of the music.  And the avatars interact at times with the current Paul and Ringo (and I love the older George smiling at his younger self in Dr. Pepper regalia)

Emotionally, it packs a real wallop.  Especially when the current Paul and Ringo sing "Now and then, I miss you" and it cuts to a clip of George and John laughing together.  And, of course, the very lyrics of "Now and then, I miss you.  Now and then, I want you to return to me" hits home.

I've just been really feeling it lately.  One - it's October, that somehow mysterious month.  I miss being part of something so much bigger than myself, the Halloween Howl trail.  The weather has shifted - a bit dramatically.  It's been chugging right along at Florida normal - low temperatures in the mid 70's, high humidity.  Then suddenly the low temperature hit 42 - and what I have set aside to put on in the mornings is my usual shorts and tank top.  I had to put my fuzzy robe over all that while I dug through a storage box for sweatshirts (and for some reason all my sweatpants have disappeared.)  Bob loved this time of year, when suddenly you get a break from sweating.  And I feel like I'm waking up after surviving another summer - but with that comes the feeling of continued loss.  I'll be happily working on my puppet in the cottage, singing along to music, and realize that I also have tears streaming down my face because I can't show him my progress.  

And there's the "old habits die hard."  Things that you've done most of your life, and the habit won't go away.  Such as whenever I come into the house, I feel like I should go check the answering machine, even though I ditched that along with the land line over three years ago and usually have my phone with me.  So when the nights are chilly, and I'm mostly asleep, I automatically shift over to what was, for 48 years, the warm side of the bed, only to find my hand searching the cold empty sheets.

I also experienced some extreme frustration.  I was going to try my hand at airbrushing - something I wish I had taken more lessons from him.  But I got stumped at step one: attached the hose from the compressor to the airbrush.  Problem is that the fitting is wrong.  I dug through his airbrush parts box and couldn't find one that worked.  And I can't try to go to Lowe's to see if they have anything that works, because I don't know what it's called, or what size it has to be.  After some tears, I tabled airbrushing for now.  Eventually I'll figure it out (it doesn't help that the only hobby store in town that would have people who would know what I was talking about has gone out of business).

After two months and three postponements, my car is finally in the shop to get the bumper replaces (repairing things is a thing of the past now).  That ended up taking most of the day.  I had to turn the car in at 8:00.  Fortunately for me, Gill was kind enough to offer to come give me a ride to Hertz (their courtesy driver doesn't start until 10 so I was going to Uber over).  Fortunate, because when I reserved the car, the default time was noon and it wouldn't change.  She dropped me off and waited while I checked.  Yep - wouldn't be able to get a car until noon, so she took me home for tea and chat.  She also had a baking order to deliver, which happened to be to a woman who was a student assistant in my office in the early 90's (we've seen each other a couple of times since then).  I did have to check out my gray hairs, because it's weird for someone that you knew when they were barely out of their teens to be talking about nearing retirement.  Then Gill dropped me off (promising to come get me if I still couldn't get a car).  I could - but it took another hour or so.  And now, since I don't like driving in the first place, and I definitely don't like driving a car that doesn't belong to me, anything that I was going to do for the next couple of weeks (because the shop is short handed and it might take that long) will be cancelled.  Sigh.

I did have a cute moment with nature.  With the weather being tolerable again, I can resume my coffee/reading afternoon break on the back deck.  This normally entails having a handful of peanuts handy because Crazy Ass squirrel is still around.  I had put a few peanuts on the porch railing.  Crazy picked one up, and then just sat up, little paws clutching the peanut to his white tummy, looking at me.  After a few moments, I toasted him with my coffee mug and took a bite of my cookie, whereupon he started nibbling his peanut and we had a nice little moment together.

And I got to experience some puppy love - literally.  Last week Christy and Rik's lab popped out a litter of  eight puppies.  Fortunately Roux is a very sweet girl who didn't mine me cuddling her puppies.

I think I might finish the new puppet tomorrow, who Ebaida has named "Anthea" after the Greek goddess of swamps (those people had gods/goddesses for everything).  I need to get a better picture of her - despite not being able to try using an airbrush, I like the paint job.  It took a few days; one thing that I've learned is that you can't just give something a coat of paint and call it done.  You have to paint it, and paint over that, and maybe again.  Then give it a dark wash and wipe it off, then go back and dry brush to bring out the highlights.  I think she has four layers of paint.  I used to tease Bob that he would do at least 12 layers of paint - maybe not that many, but close, which is why his models look so good.  Her pool noodle body has been swathed in cheesecloth, and I started giving her cheesecloth "hair" today.  Tomorrow I'll add more of that, finish doing the mouth mechanism, tie her static arm in position and put the control rod on the other one.  And then likely have the post-product letdown (I don't even know if she's going out anywhere).  But I can extend it a bit because I'll need something to wear with her..

  

With the cooler weather (I hope it holds) I can start cleaning up the yard again (although, ironically after all the storms, at the moment there's a no-burn notice because of the dry, low humidity weather and a bit too breezy).  In 6 weeks it will be the end of hurricane season and I'll remove the charming display of water buckets from the front deck (it just didn't seem worth cleaning them up and putting them away when who knows?  We might get another storm)

Another Hurricane; Widow Bonding; Swamp Puppet

 I can't believe that less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene struck - while huge areas are still trying to recover - another big storm brewed  up in the Gulf.  At one point Milton was a strong Cat 5, but fortunately *only* a Cat 3 when it struck central Florida and cut across the state.  There were areas that were still trying to recover from Helene.  I wasn't personally afraid of this one - but I just felt heartsick knowing what people were going to go through.

And yet there are many who still don't believe in global climate change.

In other news, I dipped my toe in the waters that is the Weaver's Guild again.  I've been lurking in this group for 25-30 years, poking my nose in once in awhile.  This time I went to the meeting because the woman that I gave the loom to a few months ago was going to show us the studio that she had set up.  And, shockingly, it's more on my side of town, so less than a 30 minute drive instead of the usual hour.

It didn't take me long to remember why I'm a lurker, because after the tour, they had the usual business meeting which, as usual, dragged on for two hours (did they really need to have a 20 minute discussion about T-shirts?)

But I did have one nice connection.  In the minutes of the last few meetings, I recognized the name of a new person - Deb - who used to volunteer at the museum.  She's one of those people that I might see only every few months or years, but we genuinely like each other.  She also loved the hawk Ella - I was the one who trained her how to handle that lovely bird.  I've only seen her briefly once since Covid/Bob's passing.  She was at the museum with another woman, an archetypal Southerner who at the moment I said something like "Deb!  haven't seen you in forever" had to chirp in "did you hear that her husband died?"  But at the time we didn't have time to talk.

That was a couple of years ago.  But when I walked up and saw her, she gave me a big long hug, then looked me in the eye and said "how are you?"  It was not the usual perfunctory question, but serious.  I knew what she meant, and looked back at her and said "you know how it is."  And she does - her husband David died about seven years ago.

And that's when I said "I was just thinking about Dave the other day."  And she made a tiny sound - somewhere between an "ahhh" and "ohhh."  I understood the feeling.  So much of the time, no one wants to mention the person you lost, because they're afraid that it might hurt you.  But it's the opposite - you crave those moments when you realize that he really existed for someone else, that they also remember him.

So I said I was thinking of him because it's the time of year when we would have been building the haunted trail, and that's how I met him, well before I met her. I was in charge that year - we were out building, and the volunteer coordinator came out to see me, because she had a person in her office who was rather upset.  It seems that he had been doing a study on the harvester ants out on the nature trail (where we were building) and came out to find our stuff piled on/near one of his ant nests, and the tracks of our wagon over it.  I walked back with her to meet him and apologize.

David was expecting, at most a conciliatory apology, with a hidden eye roll of someone who really had better things to do than deal with ants.  What David didn't realize was that we were also all nature lovers.  So I apologized, then asked him to walk back with me to the trail and point out the ant nests that he was studying.  We then grabbed some of our building materials and made low barriers around them so that we wouldn't disturb them any more.  He later told the volunteer coordinator that he was very impressed and touched that we had been sincerely apologetic and helpful, and we all became friends after that.

I laughed when I was recounting this to Deb (and she remembered him talking about it) because how often do you become friends with someone because you really screwed up their work?

She also made me feel better because 7 years later she's still dealing with his stuff - so I don't feel to bad that I'm not done with Bob's stuff yet (I have no idea what to do with a lot of it)

But other than that - it might be another year before I poke my nose into another Guild meeting.

For the last month or two, I've been getting the urge to build another puppet.  But "build a puppet" is rather abstract; you sort of have to have an idea of what to make, and no ideas were forthcoming.  Then a couple of weeks ago, cruising the web, I came up on this oddly attractive creature.

That head shape is weird.  Usually, I start with a purchased skull pattern (yes, there are places to get such things) but nothing was close to this.  I was going to have to make my own pattern.  The way to do this is to sculpt it first, then take the pattern off the sculpt.  Sounds good if you say it fast, but I'm no sculptor.  But all I needed was the basic outline and proportions; I could add the details as I built it.  Surprisingly, an excellent sculpting medium in aluminum foil: you make loose balls of it and stick them together with hot glue.  Then you mush them into shape, gluing on more as you need it.  Eventually I had this - pretty much did just one side - which doesn't look like much but told me what I needed to know.

The finished side was covered with plastic wrap and a layer of masking tape.  I could then pull that off and cut it up into pattern pieces.  I cut them out of EVA foam and I had the start of the head.

I glued on some details.

Then came the fun part, using a material that I had heard about but never used - EVA foam clay.  It's pretty much what it sounds like - a soft clay that hardens into EVA foam.  Let me tell you - it's *really* fun stuff to work with.  And now it's looking like something.

She's almost ready for her paint job.

Of course, she needs a body.  This started off looking even sillier; I wanted it to be lightweight, and preferably use materials that I already had.  In this case, pool noodles (I can't resist - they're actually a common thing to use for Halloween props, so old war horse than I am, when they go on sale I have to get an armful). Here it's at the silly looking stage.

She now has legs, and a coat of paint, and today I started going over it with latex and dyed cheesecloth.  But I ran out of latex - more should be arriving tomorrow (thank you, Amazon).

I like the way this one is going, and it's going pretty fast for me.  The dragon and the griffin took a month or two.  I've been working on this one for less than two weeks.  Admittedly, I am slow.  Some people can work on a project for hours on end; I'm good for a couple of hours and then I have to walk away for a bit - stretch, walk, have a cup of coffee, whatever.  But things do get done.

And now I'm caught up.  Let's hope that we're done with hurricanes for a bit - they can be so distracting.