the powers that be

after our fantastic weekend of berry picking & museum hopping we were ready for our next installment of rhode island and off to visit our online friends, the powers'. the youngest power spent some time visiting us a-go-gos three or so years ago and we were looking forward to seeing her sparkly face again.

my allergies were still acting up along with our sad little powerbook so we headed off once again to the apple store in search of a wizard or genius or something. sadly there was no ruby red heel clicking and we had to take the book (aka Daisy) out to another small rhode island town to see what they could do there. while we waited, we met with the young ivy and swept her off for a lunch for yummy sandwiches and italian desserts. we had hiked back and forth on federal hill (in the summer hot) for the deed and i found myself more wheezy than ever. since we do not have back seats in Rodney we weren't able to whisk her away for any added fun so we parted for a couple of hours to recoup and hide from the icky hot.as the mister and i began our drive to their home the craziest of rain storms slapped us up silly but we managed to make it the colorful house with the crystal chandelier on the front porch full of happy friends and kooky animals. hiding out from the rain we hung out and chatted as the mama powers dazzled us with her plans for our visit. the rain had put a slight damper on it all so for the first night we chattered ourselves silly and hit a local spot for burgers and wings and beer and things. we crawled into our makeshift beds with full bellies and smiles. fun was in store!

well...sort of. i suppose me dry heat west coast sensibilities had finally had their fill of all the humidity and pollen that my body had been collecting since south carolina and i had the mother of all asthma attacks (for me at least). even with the puff puff puffing of my beloved red rescue inhaler i was still miss wheezy and my ears had clogged up to boot and i felt like someone had pulled my batteries out. i really was in need of a recharge. i was out of commission. no ifs ands or buts. simply out. poor mr. a-go-go, the worry on his face made me want to cry if i had any energy for it i would have. the adventuring plans the powers had made were dashed and we spent a good, if not snazzy, day hanging out in some delicious tea shops with our gracious hosts. after much battling with various doctors' offices, i was able to finagle some antibiotics and icky toxic other stuff to put me back on the healing path. and if yer wondering how i could diagnose myself this way i will tell ya that this happens every year and this is what does the trick. seriously folks i was OUT OF COMMISSION. not as bad as the month before we left but oh so close. so close. asthma and menopause do NOT mix. aack! sadly our stay was cut short both by my allergies and our dead powerbook. i recouped a wee bit camping out in a motel room watching the food network and taking the mother of all naps. after a hot breakfast of motel waffles and a trek to target for my antibiotics we made our way for one last hurrah with ivy and family. we did manage to squeeze in a photobooth strip and a jump shot (as high as my meager breathing would allow) and another hug and a couple of squeezes.so my lovely hosts were unable to show me their beloved rhode island and i feel awful for that but at the same time, my goal for this trip isn't the places i've been it's the people i've seen and hugged and squeezed so i hope they do forgive me my sad allergies and shoddy immune system. we'll be back for a true rhode island tour we will. after all there was a lot to see and i didn't even get to take pictures and you know that if i failed to photograph all the good stuff i MUST have been sick. i'm already mourning the pretty pretty row houses and colorful gingerbread details...sigh.

lampwork botany and diorama o'rama

6/27 Harvard Natural History Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and those mad-crazy Boston streets, Rhode Island, part two (but mostly in Boston, MA)

Yes sir, for our second Rhode Island day we left the state to see two museums in Boston. Admission to the Harvard Natural History Museum will get you into the Peabody so they make for a whole day of gazing at fantastic objects. I had heard tell of the wonders contained in the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants and seeing this collection became the official reason for the visit to the Harvard museums. It took a while to get to the glass flowers as the museum is full of other wonders. We were detoured for a bit by the minerals and gems; case after case of colorful, spiky, crumbly, crystally, shiny, and dazzling samples. These included some impressively large geodes full of amethyst and a giant bouquet of silvery gypsum crystals that could have served as inspiration for the planet Krypton.Then we stepped into the dimly lit Ware Collection gallery. That cactus... all glass, every last bit. The collection was intended to act as an aid to the study of botany and contains examples representing the diverse phyla of plants. Most of the displays include cross sections of stems, dissections of flowers, and reproductive parts of the plants in greatly magnified models... all in lamp work glass. The colors and fidelity to the living plants is remarkable. There are places where the models fail slightly in living sheen or color, but overall the cases appear to contain plants just unearthed with intact carefully washed root tangles, and branches of just-clipped leaves. The models were created by the glass artisans, Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolph, with 50 years of careful work beginning in 1886. Don't miss this gallery if you're in Boston and you're the sort to geek out on carefully made pretty things.

After the glass flowers we toured the wealth of taxidermied critters from birds to bandicoots, skeletons of giant mammals, and exhibits about natural selection and the head gear of horn and antler sprouting animals. The collection of jewel like beetles, above, was displayed to highlight the diversity in appearance and adaptation among individuals of a species or closely related group. It was joined by candy like snail shells and iridescent butterflies. The menagerie kept us busy for quite a while and I was reminded of many critters that I have never seen and are rarely featured on nature shows. Who thinks much about the slow lorus? or the odd scale covered pangolin? Some of the best displays contained parallel skeletons and taxidermied animals to show what the bones would carry.

Somewhere in there we took a break for a picnic lunch and some requisite jumping for the camera.

Next we had a go at the Peabody Museum. Here I got my dose of diorama glee. Above is a large diorama of a Hopi ritual dance with a wide southwest vista. Man, I love dioramas. As a kid I tried many times to make my own versions of these things, putting clay woolly mammoths in cardboard boxes with painted back drops to mimic what I had seen at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. The Peabody has much to offer beyond dioramas, so don't go thinking it's just a mess of models (though if your a model geek don't miss it). The Peabody is a museum of archaeology and ethnology so they make an effort to include the contemporary with the historical. The galleries of mesoamerican antiquities also contained a large Dia de los Muertos shrine and didactics pointing out the links between the contemporary and the ancient. Downstairs, we toured the North American Galleries to see the installation Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West, a collection of historic and contemporary Plains art displayed with nineteenth century Lakota drawings of the Little Bighorn battlefield. Super cool and quite effective at bringing the subject to life.

To round out the day we visited Harvard Square, had some cupcakes and tried like the dickens to find a place to park for a slice of pizza in Boston's North End (we knew it was a fool's errand). Never did get to park but we did see the land of capillary streets and tiny doors.

beavertail lighthouse, rocky rocks, and big berries

6/26 Jamestown, Newport, and Bristol, Rhode Island, part one

After making our way across Connecticut on Friday we planned to spend the weekend visiting Paul and Anne in Providence, RI. Saturday morning with a packed lunch, we made for the bridges and islands of Narragansett Bay. Just passed the bridge to Jamestown we spotted some yard sale signs and being junk hounds, we couldn't resist investigating. Two yard sales, one moving sale, and one church sale later we had collected only some books, a map, and a few small odds and ends... and only one of those things was coming home with us (Rodney is already over-full). The rest would stay in Rhode Island with Paul and Anne.


At the southern tip of Jamestown Island we visited Beavertail Lighthouse and the rocky shore line. We perused the exhibits in the lighthouse museum, its tiny aquarium (housing among other things an enormous snapping turtle), witnessed a small wedding party making vows to the tune of a guitar and crooning, and took some time to look for critters and balls of clay in the rocks.

After lunch we continued East across another bridge to Newport. Here we had a driving tour of the mansions along Bellevue Ave. and made a detour for strawberries.At first we thought we'd just buy some ready filled strawberry baskets but when we laid eyes on the fat brilliant red berries in the field we had to pick our own. We did our best to comply with the "please only taste a few" sign. It was hard to resist eating as many as we picked. Five full baskets made it to the car, but at least a quarter of these were swallowed by dinner time.

Next we headed north to Bristol where the 4th of July is the big event of the year and the outdoor concerts start a week early. There we had a fine seafood dinner at Quito's running the gambit of the non-fish including oysters, clams, squid, and lobster. Yum. Over stuffed with Neptune's palls we sat for a while on the grass waiting for the "British Invasion" part of the evening's concert (as advertised on a stage banner). The opening act was a seniors' choral group. They were doing alright and it was entertaining for about six or seven numbers but we got too antsy to stick around. We never did find out what the british invasion would bring to Bristol.