Adventures of a Maude in Training

Photo of the Day: In late December of 2010 we finally made it out to the Sunol Water Temple. The grounds are only open short-ish hours on weekdays so we had not managed it before. Peter had some time off of work and we all went to check it out. The temple itself is quite beautiful, as are the grounds. This photo doesn't necessarily reflect that beauty, but I thought it was interesting. I shot it while looking down into the interior of the temple, where the water rushes down. It is loud and full of echoes. Info about the water temple can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunol_Water_Temple

Photo of the day for today: Macro photo of a paper wasp. I shot this last February on a morning when I was playing outside with L. This wasp was just poking around and I had my camera outside with me so I decided to get some shots. This was the best I got, and I am happy with the level of detail. I shot this at 50mm, and yes, someday I will get stung. I realized last night that I had posted this before, but I have since processed it better so I am still counting it as "new" in terms of being posted (I am trying to cull from my unposted, somewhat ignored photos for this project).

S. is on spring break this week and it has been a busy one. Lots to say about so many things, but not focused enough to say much of it all right now. For now, here are some recent photos of mine.

Pigeons can be unexpectedly amazing


Raptors are lovely


Spring has sprung, which means new goats...triplets in this case at Ardenwood Farm


It also means fresh lambs


( A few more here )

For those of you in need of a cute break, I give you....

Baby goats.

Frolicking.





Enjoy

Today we took a somewhat last minute trip to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in the city to see the exhibit Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margaret and H.A. Rey. I had been planning to see the exhibit but it hadn't happened and today was the last day of it so off we went. I had talked with S. about before and he kept asking about going to the "George Jewish Museum" which, although it sounded weird, apparently differentiated it for him from the CG exhibit at the Children's Discovery Museum a couple a year or so ago. We fortunate to have an easy drive in despite the rain and the lot under the museum had plenty of parking spaces. Apparently, rainy Sunday afternoons are a good time to drive into San Francisco.

Anyhow, as many of you many know, I am a HUGE Curious George fan. And I am talking old-school, pipe-smoking, ether-sniffing Curious George, not whatever that irritating creature is on that horrid PBS cartoon. I have collected CG stuff for years and S.'s room has been done in a CG theme since before he was born (we've since added truck and owl stuff to it, but he loves his George stuff still). We have all the CG books (originals and new stories with original drawings and stuff done "in the style" of the Reys), as well as some of their lesser-known works. S. has always loved the books, especially "Curious George Gets a Medal" because that is the book where George spills the ink then fills the house up with soap lather and anything where someone makes a big mess is welcome by him.

I was hoping the exhibit wouldn't disappoint and it certainly did not. It was wonderful, fun, touching, and informative. There were so many original drawings, paintings, and sketches of Curious George material as well as the Reys' other works. There was quite a bit detailing their escape via bicycle from Nazi forces in Paris, some of which I already knew from the CDM exhibit and some of which was new to me. It tickled me to no end to some of the dummy books of the Curious George series and to see unused George illustrations. I was particularly amused by the one of George piling boxes atop a rocking chair and climbing up it and the falling off. That is pretty much L. in a nutshell, right there. It was also fascinating to see the Reys' hand drawn wedding announcement and New Year's cards.

S. really enjoyed the whole exhibit, but preferred anything that showed scenes he was already familiar with from the books. He narrated a number of the books as well. It was quite happy-making for all of us. L. got a bit fussy because he couldn't really run around there, but ptor pushed him around the museum and he managed.

We poked around the rest of the museum a bit as well, and saw an interesting exhibit documenting one woman who transcribed the Torah under public view at the museum. It is now complete and being proofed, so there was video of her describing the process. Fascinating and so very far from my own experience.

After the museum we stopped for an early dinner at California Pizza Kitchen as that was the closest kid-friendly place we saw and had a good meal. S. enthusiastically announced "I WANT DESSERT!" when our server asked if we wanted it, so we did in fact also have dessert. L. was asleep before we made it back on the Bay Bridge and S. fell asleep by the time we hit the eastern span.

Good day for all of us. One picture to share (now photography allowed in the museum galleries):

Checking out new building kit In plaza in front of Contemporary Jewish Museum, across from Yerba Buena Center, checking out new building kit purchased in the museum store.

We attended Maker Faire yesterday and it was mostly fun. S. had a rough start but warmed up and had fun after a couple of hours. He is terrified of fire so we had to steer clear of the fire-producing installations and everything around them, so we mostly had to pass on the art cars which was too bad. He was mostly happy doing craft projects, building with the LEGOS, looking at the odd vehicles, and poking around the craft bazaar. He came home with a set of hairpins with felted wool adornments (he wanted them "for decorations"), a couple of fabric craft projects, a bar of soap he made with a toy dinosaur inside, two new building kits (from a toy tore vendor), and an owl amigurimi doll from a vendor in the bazaar (I decided it was easier to fork over the cash for the "owl yarn monster" he became obsessed with than making one myself). I enjoyed just looking at everything and ptor liked the electronics stuff and purchased a microcontroller kit he wanted. I got myself the Port of Oakland cranes/At-At t-shirt and got one for L. as well. Too cute. One of the cooler things at the Faire was a teletype machine rigged to print messages sent via text. I sent one to Matilda who tried to retrieve it but the distributors couldn't find it (boo!) and we forgot the pick up the one I sent ptor. Oh well...it was still fun doing it. I also took lots of pictures. Below is a link to the set of non-kiddo-containing ones:

I am not having a good day. So here is a ridiculously cute otter I took a picture of at the zoo yesterday (not a bad shot for shooting through glass either)

We went to Maker Faire yesterday and spent a good six hours wandering the scene. It was fun but really, really crowded. When we showed up a little after noon there was no more paid parking and the free lots we tried were full already. We eventually found street parking about .75 miles from the Expo Center. Next year we will take the train. S. was a trooper and walked to and from the Faire and all day at the Faire without complaining. I mostly enjoyed the sculptures, art cars and large-scale mechanics (like the life-size mousetrap and mechanical giraffe). Peter liked the machines, weird bikes and other vehicles, and electronics. S. was in love with all the ROBOTS!!!!!, the LEGO jeep and the odd cars, especially the car in the shape of a giant snail which we had to literally tear him away from. He was also thrilled to see a large traction engine just like Trevor on Thomas. We poked around the crafts bazaar a bit but it was so crowded in there we were feeling really clasuterphobic. Plus, there wasn't anything we were really dying to buy, though I still want the Oakland/Imperial Walker shirt which probably only makes sense if you are familiar with the Oakland ports. I have always thought those big cranes looked like Imperial Walkers. There was lots of cool stuff at the bazaar, but nothing that really screamed BUY ME!!! People watching was fun and S. liked looking at people riding the rides, especially the self-powered ferris wheel. He rode the little-kid bike-powered merry-go-round, but he was a bit too short to reach the pedals so he just hung on while the other kids pedaled--he enjoyed it all the same. Overall it was a great day if a bit tiring. The lack of parking was a minus as was the fact they don't allow food or drink in so we had to spend even more money to feed and water ourselves--that always makes me pissy. I hate being forced to purchase a venue's food and drink. Other than those annoyances we had plenty of fun. The weather was perfect as well--a great day to spend outside.

And I leave you with motorized cupcakes and the obligatory R2D2 shot:




More photos when you click through at any of the links. Full set is here.

klwaton, this one's for you!


I noticed today there are three of these misspelled signs within fifty feet of each other. Bugs the crap out of me.

On our last full day in Florida we visited Fern Forest Nature Center in Coconut Creek. We all enjoyed it and were tickled to see armadillos, a burrowing tortoise and an alligator snapping turtle, as well as some really large spiders.


They look like leathery rabbits to me.

( more here )

Full set (including spider pictures) here.