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.