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I am alive! ALIIIIIIVE!! And I pimped a painting.

Wednesday, October 12th, 2016

But very busy so I haven’t done anything bloggery in forever. However, I have returned! And I made a thing! Let’s look at it.

Okay, let’s not look at it yet. Let’s have some backstory. About two years ago, my co-worker Mad had this big thrift store painting in her office. I’m sure it was worth something when it was made, but by the time she inherited it the painting was completely faded and had a giant scratch on it and someone had smashed a centipede onto it and there was dried centipede juice in the middle. Not a stellar wall hanging by anyone’s standards. Mad wanted it gone and I said, “Maybe I can do something with it, lemme take a stab,” so I brought it home where it sat quietly for two years. In mid-September it was brought to my attention that the MTA Subway in New York was taking submissions to mosaic four subway stations. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but it is one of my lifelong dreams to mosaic a subway station in New York. I had to have a portfolio ready to go for this and the upcycle of the painting would be perfect for two reasons. One, it’s big, about two-and-a-half feet long, and that shows I can work on something other than the little drawings I normally do. Two, I’m taking something that already exists and is mediocre and making it special and beautiful using basic non-fancy items which is pretty much what I’d have to do if I got a subway station. So off to work I went. I came up with a concept and gosh darnit, I made the deadline. Mad LOVED it and got it approved by our agency’s Chief Creative Officer and it now hangs in what we call the Womb Room for everyone to see. Booyah. It’s nice when a plan comes together.

First, what the print is supposed to look like:

What it actually looked like:

And what I did to it.

I painted big splortches on the lower right corner and upper left corner in dark purple acrylic, sprayed some large swipes of glitter gold spray paint and then drew lots of cool critters on light blue-gray cardstock with red and black pen, highlighted with touches of white acrylic. Everyone is really happy with the final product. I love how the print is satin, the acrylic is glossy, the glittery is glittery and the drawn parts are matte. I love the marriage of textures.

Mad liked it so much she had an unveiling like it was in a fancy gallery. People came and drank wine and ate snacks and asked me questions, it was lovely.

Posted in Advertising, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature | No Comments »

The Internet is a gift.

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016

The Internet, which is often a treasure trove of debauchery and nightmares*, occasionally it coughs up something pleasant and entertaining. Like when people decided to rename animals with truthful and honest titles.

It was also brought to my attention that in addition to the tiny dinosaurs that are South African guinea fowl, there is an even more magical, more jacked-up-looking bird. Allow me to introduce… The Vulturine Guinea Fowl.

I could even buy a pair if I had fifteen hundred bucks to spend on birds for my apartment.

And finally, the only good thing about this election / news cycle which is frankly making me kinda nauseous is that Jezebel and Gawker and iO9 has loads of comments from people and their usernames delight me. I made a list of some of my faves.

*I’m not saying I don’t like debauchery and nightmares, I’m just sayin’ it’s a thing.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Chickens and Cookies.

Wednesday, June 29th, 2016

Two interesting things happened recently. First, I was hanging out with my sister K. near her apartment in upper Manhattan and we were taking her dog for a walk. Coming towards us was an older gentleman and his sweet dog who my sister of course knows because all the dog people in her neighborhood know all the other dog people. I ended up chatting with the gentleman for about 10 minutes while they walked their beasties and he informed me that he is an animal trainer and groomer. He said he’s trained all kinds of animals and goes to conferences regularly. Here’s where it got awesomely weird – he said, “I was in Reno recently training chickens using the clicking method. Chickens are tough, they get bored easily and run away and then you have to run around the room trying to catch them. I thought, since we were in Reno, that I would train my chicken using dice. I got one die and started by teaching the chicken to pick it up, then I taught it to drop it at my command. Basically by the end I had taught the chicken to play craps.”

So that conversation happened. I went on Facebook later that week and sure enough, there’s pictures of him training his chicken.

I didn’t ask his permission to use the images, therefore I blurred out the faces as a courtesy. Because I’m a nice person.

The second thing was cookies! Specifically, I painted cookies. Cricket’s sister was getting married and she was asking various friends and family to contribute their skills and talents. I figured I could paint the bride and groom’s initials on cookies and they could be given away as “thanks for coming” presents. So I was given cookies (I don’t bake so good) and I set up my icing and purple sugar crystals and got to work.

I officially hate the letter “M.” “D” was so much easier to paint. From now on I will only do this for people who’s names start with “I.” All you Iagos out there, you want cookies? Gimme a call. When the icing was dry I put them in bags with Hershey’s Kisses and tied them with pretty ribbon that I curled myself. There were 42 bags. I curled so much ribbon, guys. Like all the ribbon on earth. I got real good at it too. I am a ribbon-curling master.

And as people were leaving they could get a bag of cookies and a bottle of wine the couple made themselves. It was a lovely parting gift.

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Mexico Part 2.

Sunday, May 8th, 2016

And now for your enjoyment, pictures of the pyramids we saw at the ancient site of Teotihuacan.

The pictures do the place precisely zero justice. This is not Snorth’s fault. The area is massive and when you get up close to something you can’t photograph it then either because it’s so freakin’ big. Wikipedia has a pretty good shot taken from the top of one of the pyramids that conveys the immensity of the place a bit better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan#/media/File:SSA41434.JPG

Similar shot, more biggerer:

http://theredlist.com/media/database/architecture/history/architecture-pre-colombienne/teotihuacan/cite-de-teotihuacan/007_cite-de-teotihuacan_theredlist.jpg

When we arrived we were standing in a little field in the upper left corner of that picture. The field was meh and the pyramids looked really small and I was thinking, “Okay, this is fine. I mean, after Machu Picchu you can’t expect to be blown away by all the ruins.” I was woefully incorrect. The guide said we had to climb one of those little flat pyramid things and both Snorth and I were like, “Pass.” I still remember the steps of Peru. They haunt me to this day. The guide said, “You really should because how you see the ruins now is not how they were back when the pre-Aztecs built these structures. They were covered with stucco that had paintings and there were carvings. If you climb those stairs you’ll be able to see some of those-” I was off and climbing. Badly. On all fours like a toddler. But I did it. And it was totally worth it.

Look at those giant weird heads! I thought the heads along the sides of the stairs (those stairs are enormous btw, around upper-shin-high) were jaguars but it turns out it is Quetzalcoatl the feathered snake, a very important deity in the pre-Aztec religion. The cube-shaped heads are crocodiles (the guide said you could tell by their “tusks” which delighted me no end) and the doughnut shapes are very sacred and represent water. Interesting fact: this whole giant religious place (no one lived here, it was just for ceremonies) was built without wheels and the thought is that the wheel shape was sacred and was not used in construction. I think they used logs, or possibly the same technique used to move large stones in Peru, which is covering the path with smooth cobblestones and sliding them. Nobody knows because this group of people had no written language. Another fun fact: they didn’t use any animals for labor. They didn’t have horses or cows or sheep yet, there are no llamas in this area and both deer and bunnies are notoriously bad at being pack animals so it was all man-strength. When you see how many buildings there are in this place you really appreciate how long it must have taken to build this.

In addition to the cool carvings the whole place was covered in stucco that was in turn painted with ground-up stone pigments. Bits of it remain but it is sparse and in poor condition as one could expect.

In addition you’ll notice that in the picture above there’s that pattern with the main stone put in the cement and then wee stones peppered around it. That is so you know it’s a rebuilt portion, not original. It makes seeing the original parts much easier. Apparently there was a lot of wear and tear from the elements. A good example of that is the next picture. The part above was exposed. The part below was not. Look at the differences in the faces of the critters on the side. They used to be the same.

I highly recommend if you’re in Mexico City you go to Teotihuacan. It is an amazing site and well-worth exploring. Bring walking sticks because if you go up and down the stairs there are no railings and the stairs are unforgiving.

After being there for several hours Snorth and I got back to the city and went on a city tour. This is where The Incident happened so I wasn’t paying the correct amount of attention because of the trauma of the theft and the hot booger sauce that had covered my forearm, but I absorbed some information. The first place we went was the parliament. Now, back here in the good ole U.S. of A. in a government building we would have murals of Washington crossing the Potomac or something, right? Not in Mexico, oh no. The government commissioned giant murals from Diego Rivera, a known Communist. And he painted what he wanted. As you come up the stairs you are greeted by the central part which is a giant battle between the indigenous people and the Spaniards.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/RiveraMuralNationalPalace.jpg

Okay, fine. However, the mural off to the left takes a whole different turn. At the top is Karl Marx like Jesus and if you look about halfway down you’ll see a woman with her boob exposed making out with a priest (representing the church) and he’s putting money and a cross into her hand. Did I mention this is in the main government building? And the stairs are the only way to get to the second floor?

https://ajshack.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mexico-city-6-san-angel-and-zocalo-with-ruth-073.jpg

Off to the side are several smaller murals depicting the life of the people up until the Spaniards arrived. They show how corn was turned into tortillas and how the food was grown and how the dentist worked, basic village life-stuff. But it was not all sunshine and rainbows. In one of the market scenes there was an Aztec prostitute with creepy red teeth being offered a human arm for her services. I would pay someone to take the human arm away, but that’s just me. Once again, main government building.

I highly recommend seeing this in person, frankly it’s pretty great. I mean, it’s weird as hell, no doubt about it, but awesome.

We also saw the Building of Lies, also known as the big Beaux-Arts building in the center of town. Look at it, isn’t it gorgeous with its Art Nouveau and its roof and all that?

Inside should be similar. NO. LIES. The inside is Art Deco. Art Deco and dark. You can’t even see the ceiling from the inside. I was so bummed.

It was cool to see that outside there was a Metro station from Paris.

And gorgeous jacaranda trees all over the place.

I think it is a testament to Mexico City that even though my phone was stolen I would still totally go back. I loved it there and I need to see more of it.

Next entry: my beading workshop and some of my purchases.

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Stuff and things and also stuff.

Sunday, February 21st, 2016

1. What I might do if I had a kid. Hell, I might do it anyway, progeny or no.

http://itsfunnytomemke.tumblr.com/post/137895837383/theinturnetexplorer-this-awesome-dad-spent-over

2. Spencer Tunick takes photos of naked people in public places. I posed for him when he did Grand Central about ten years ago. If you ever come to my apartment I have a photo from the shoot in my bathroom. I recently saw a picture where Spencer has incorporated, I wouldn’t say “clothing,” but a covering of some kind. Sort of. Vaguely. Whatever, it’s beautiful.

3. It’s a boat that looks like it’s sinking! Ha ha! That amuses me.

4. Hamsters. So cute with their beady little eyes until you take all the red out of the picture and then suddenly it’s AHHHHH JESUS DEMON PUPILS WHY

5. This is the best picture from the most recent blizzard. It looks like an Impressionist painting. Wow. The photographer is Michelle Palazzo.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/eyeem-79952556.jpg

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Christmas: The Super-American All-Inclusive Deprogramming Holiday of I Think I’m Their Hostage Now.

Monday, January 4th, 2016

Christmas! A holiday I never really had much to do with. I mean, I watch the stuff on TV and the movies and I’ve seen what it’s like, but it’s never really been something I’ve been immersed in. I don’t even think we did Chinese food and movies as is the way of our people. We went one step lower, doing “whatever’s in the fridge” and “what’s on PBS today?” So when I decided to spend the holidays with my friend Ness in San Francisco I was excited to see what the other 97.8% of Americans do December 24th and 25th. I was not disappointed. Let me give you a bit of backstory. All the people in my family are very very smart and very very useless. My father is a rabbi with three doctorates all in cerebral pursuits like theology and Hebrew letters. My mother is an art historian who speaks three languages fluently and five more not fluently. Our dinner parties are not for the weak of spirit. You know how you are not supposed to talk about politics or religion in polite company? That’s ALL we talk about, and any religion or any country’s politics is up for debate. It’s not uncommon to hear someone say something like, “Yes, but that is due to the rift caused by the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913. If the Ottoman Empire had blabittyblah blah etc. and blah.” Lots of clever and intelligent. However, between both my parents they cannot manage to use a cell phone. They didn’t clean the filter of their household water supply thing in the basement for a decade. A DECADE. (It’s astonishingly easy to replace.) My father prefers a broom and dustpan to a vacuum because a vacuum is a bit too much technology for one man. My point is anything technological or manual labor-y is beyond them. When the apocalypse comes they will be the first to be eaten because they are the human equivalent of kobe beef. Ness’s family, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. They are all in law enforcement of some kind, except for the hair dresser/Zumba teacher. They drink alcohol for fun, not only for religious ceremonies. They can fix things. They like sports. They embrace technology. They don’t watch the news four times a day. I didn’t see them watch the news once, actually. They put those “Love, Laugh, Live” letter cutouts over their couches and have tons of pictures of their families on display. We are not the same. But I imagine the rest of the country is far more like them then they are like me, an effete New York Jew, so I relished the opportunity to experience what life is like for just about everyone else.

Okay. It felt a bit like when someone gets out of a cult and they need to be reacclimated back into society and they have to be strapped to chair and immersed hard. First, Ness insisted on only Christmas music. I heard that epically crappy song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by BandAid about four times. Don’t ask me how many times I heard Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” A million, give or take. Then, Hallmark Christmas movies. Ness DVRed about ten of them. I watched five from beginning to end. I would like to deviate now from my trip to talk about the Hallmark Christmas movies if I may. They all have the same plot structure and here it is:

“Hi! I’m a woman, a single woman, and I have a promising career in medicine / dress design / business! Gosh, I’m well on my way! Reaching for the stars! Oh no, I’ve been stranded in Garland, Alaska on my way to my fellowship in Boston due to weather, or maybe my father passed and I need to return to the rinkydink town of my childhood from L.A to take care of my father’s affairs. Whatever reason, I have to leave whatever major city I was heading towards or living in, the major city where I’m going fulfill my potential. No biggie, I’ll only be here for a short while. But what’s this? This charming local man who is a woodworker / elementary school music teacher / fireman. His smile, it causes me to swoon and melt right into my mom jeans. What to do, what to do? Give up on all my career goals, ones I might have had since I was a child, to stay here with Mr. As Hunky As Hallmark Could Afford whom I barely know?”

Let me save you some time. They all stay in Flyover Town USA and devote their life to the dude. Each and every single one. I want to listen in to the Hallmark Christmas Movie meetings. I feel like they sound like this, “We must keep the women of America who got pregnant at 19 and couldn’t go to college placated, put out another movie that convinces them that careers are meh and true love is only found in rectangular states to keep them from poisoning the Sloppy Joes and fleeing to a coast. That should do it.”

Sorry about that. Back to the trip. Ness likes to plan lots of activities so on the first day I was in San Fran we did tourist stuff. I went to the Cable Car Museum. We walked around Little Italy. We met a former co-worker for dinner. Normal stuff. Day two is where things got fascinating. I was invited to an Oakland Raiders football game, complete with tailgating. I have been to one other NFL game (read this for a recap of that magical experience) and this time I was excited to have someone with me to explain the finer points of the sport. Ness and her aunt decked me out in appropriate regalia and I sat quietly in the parking lot and watched the other tailgaters do their thing.

Their thing is THOROUGH. I’ve been to weddings less organized than some of these camps. Giant tents. The most insane food being cooked – prime rib, lobster tails, king crab legs, deep-fried turkeys. Not only did people bring their own sound systems, they brought their own DJs to spin their desired tunes. All of this was happening in a parking lot. People brought entire bars. The smell of weed was pungent and copious. (Is nothing illegal in California? Where are your mothers?) I was told that since it was Christmas Eve there were far fewer people than usual, normally the whole giant parking lot is full.

Look, proof! Lobster tails:

A DJ for a group of about six people:

Lest we forget it’s San Francisco-adjacent, dirty hippies!

And some guy’s small school bus that he decorated both inside and out:

Finally after about four hours we wrapped up the light debauchery and headed into the stadium. I would like to say I watched the game with rapt attention and can tell you all about the different players and what they did. I wish I could say that. The truth is I only watched three things: the big screen (Kiss cam! Pop and lock dancing!), the cheerleaders (did you know they’re out the the entire game freezing their components off?) and the hover-camera. That hover-camera, which I originally thought was a drone, tapped into something really primal for me. It’s a camera that looks exactly like a A.I. version of a black shiny hornet and it zips around on three cables tethered to the top bits of the walls of the stadium. It zips extremely quickly and did I mention it looks like a giant robot wasp? We were right behind the goalposts so whenever it bzzzzzed with great alacrity over to the touchdown area I would scream. I could imagine it breaking free of its moorings and killing everyone. That’s it. That’s all I paid attention to the whole time. SPORTS!

I had heard the Oakland Raiders fans are the scariest in the NFL. They were fine. Charger fans would walk through the parking lot fully decked out and the Raiders fans would boo at them, then offer them snacks or wave goodnaturedly. There were 30,000 fans there and I saw one fight break out. It was quelled before I could even turn around and get a good look. Fine. Everything was fine.

The next day was Christmas. We watched the Warriors vs. the Cavaliers (basketball). We wore festive red and green garb. We ate cheesy potatoes and ham and green bean casserole. We opened seven thousand presents, four thousand of which were sports-related socks. This may not sound that thrilling for you, but I’ve never done these things. I must have looked completely daft watching Ness’s family like they were part of a scientific research project. I imagine this is what it must be like when people come to our house for Hanukkah. It’s neat to be on the other side.

I spent most of my time chilling with the cat on the couch. I love that damn cat so much. SO. MUCH. I have spoken of this love before.

The last few days there we went to Muir Woods were there are old giant pine trees. It smelled amazing.

I must have said, “Look at that tree!” fifty times.

Not gonna lie: hugged a lot of trees.

There was a massive crack in one of the trees where people were taking pictures.

Here was our version.

On my insistence Ness also hugged a tree in her own way.

I highly recommend Muir Woods. Especially if you wish to protest something. They have an area for that.

It was a magnificent trip and Ness has already planned activities for my next visit. I’ve never been to Alcatraz and I want to ride on the double-decker bus, so we will do that.

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Internet Dribs and Drabs.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

Instead of getting anything done ever I am now watching these Vines and giggling at my desk. Did I mention I work in an open floor plan? My co-workers are very lucky to be in my presence.

https://vine.co/v/ejnMamutDAp

https://vine.co/v/eQvv79FP2nV

https://vine.co/v/eK3HUOue6B

https://vine.co/v/eBMZK0j1nLK

These.

Also these.

I think Buzzfeed has run out of ideas. Stop, Buzzfeed. Just stop.

Seriously, call it a day.

Look at this mesmerizing gif of someone pouring mercury into a martini glass.

And this amazing mural in an old church.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/12/skate-church-okuda-san-miguel/

And this jaunty festive caterpillar who turns into a slightly less festive but lovely nonetheless moth.

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South America Part 14 ‘n’ done.

Sunday, December 13th, 2015

The equator! What Ecuador is named after. The equator runs right through and I got to visit it. It was weirder than I expected. We did some scientific stuff standing on the actual line and things did not go how I anticipated. But first, some Quito pics.

A tree in the giant park in the middle of town. The parks were lovely. There are artists along one whole edge with all different styles of paintings for sale.

We went to a market that the locals shop at. It was intense. Everything was out and the meat and fish were fine (meaty and fishy, to be expected) but the vegetable and fruit section, I could have hung out there all day.

There were giant piles of fresh herbs. There was a lady who only sold potatoes. She must have had fifteen or twenty different kinds. And, as with most places in the world that are not the United States, you could bring your dog in with you.

We also went to a authentic sorbet maker. In the olden days a donkey would carry down ice from the tops of the mountains that would be put in a large tub with salt. Now they use regular freezer ice but the rest of the process remains the same. A big flat-bottomed bronze pan with two handles is placed on the ice and fruit juice mixed with sugar is poured in. The the sorbet-person uses the handles to spin spin spin the bronze pan and uses a wooden spoon to move the juice mixture around the bottom. Eventually all the juice freezes and boom, sorbet. The one we saw being made was from local blackberries. It was delicious.

Okay, the equator. It’s actually part of a whole teaching space sponsored by the Ecuadorian government. We learned about the cultures that lived around there. We saw a human shrunken head and a sloth’s shrunken head.

And in the same area was THE WORST TAXIDERMY I HAVE EVEN SEEN. EVER. I started laughing so hard, I felt bad for the guide. I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with him but I couldn’t breathe and had to go sit down for a minute. Here, allow me to share some of these magical creatures with you. The two most incorrect ones were the ocelot:

And the anaconda. Oh dear Lord, the anaconda. Are… are those eyes hot-glued on?

The sideshow creatures were the only sub-par element there. Everything else was beautiful. The landscaping was particularly lovely.

We were shown an ancient sundial which told you only three times a day – morning, midday and afternoon. It was scary how on point it was. It was almost exactly 4:00 in the afternoon and look, the shadow is right on the 4. Amazing.

I didn’t know much about the equator.

I’ve mentioned this before but in high school I took Biology for Football Players and Poets in my senior year. My STEM skills are weeeeeeak. So every experiment the guide did was like a miracle for me. For example, he had a sink that wasn’t hooked up to anything, it simply had a bucket underneath. When he positioned the sink and bucket six feet to the left of the equator (in this case it was in the Southern hemisphere) and poured water into it, the water swirled in one direction. Then he moved the bucket and sink six feet into the Northern Hemisphere, repoured the water and it swirled in the other direction. Finally, he positioned the sink and bucket directly on the equator and the water went straight down. The next experiment we did was balancing an egg on a nail head. You can do that on the equator you know. (I did not know.) My niece Drea was the only one with the steady hands to do it. We were all very proud.

Finally, the guide asked us to walk heel to toe along the red line. None of us could go more than three steps. Apparently that is because when you are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere and you walk like that, you only get pulled in one direction so you can self-correct. One the equator you are being pulled very gently in both directions, enough so that your balance is quite compromised. Science!

There you go, the end of my trip. It was scary and exciting and thrilling and wonderful and I’m glad I went. If you wish to do the same trip, here is the company I went with.

https://www.oattravel.com/trips/small-ship-adventures/south-america/machu-picchu-and-the-galapagos/2016?icid=global:ouradventures:southamerica:mpg2016

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South America 2015, Part 13.

Saturday, November 28th, 2015

The rest of the Galapagos! Predominantly sea-dwellers! But first, other stuff.

Our guide Luis removing a bee stinger from a fellow traveler’s arm. Her arm was swelling up and Luis calmly plucked a giant thorn off of a bush and picked out the stinger. Then he pulled a different leaf off of a different bush and squeezed the leaf contents on the wound. By that night the swelling was gone and the little booboo was almost completely healed. It was amazing.

A photo of the big yacht we were on during our time in the Galapagos.

The trail left by a marine iguana on his way to the ocean.

Some dead marine iguanas. As tempted as I was I did not take home their skin or bones. You need to respect the nature there and I did even though it was a struggle.

A stunning cliffside. Many of the animals we saw were clinging or perching on this cliffside.

A small grotto where pirates would hide their booze and other plunderings.

A rock formation that looks like an elephant’s head.

A plant making an effort to grow in the lava field. Nature is so great that way, always trying to shove life into inhospitable places.

Remember when planes had the “no smoking” light-up sign. I noticed that there is a new message in its place. The times, they are a-changin’. Not that that’s a bad thing, just a thing.

Okay, back to the animals I encountered. We came across a small island that that had masked boobies on a tiny blob of an island in the middle of the sea. There were other birds hanging out on Wee Blob Island but they all flew away in a panic as soon as a hawk landed. The boobies went nowhere, I guess because they were so much larger than the hawk. He was no threat to them. My niece Drea got some terrific shots of the boobies and the hawk existing in each others’ spaces.

Frigatebirds! You’ve seen pictures of the male frigatebird a bunch of times. It’s got a big red air sack on its chest that it puffs up to attract the ladeez. I also learned that the frigatebird doesn’t really hunt for its food, it hassles other seabirds until they barf up the fish they just caught and the frigatebird eats that. Frigatebirds are douches.

A shark! I saw several sharks on this trip but they were while I was snorkeling so I couldn’t take pictures of them. The only one I could get a photo of was this guy. They were all small white-tipped reef sharks. Very cool.

Booby sex! That sounds faaaaaar more interesting than you would think. We went to a plateau where blue-footed boobies were dancing and mating. They didn’t seem to mind that we were there. (Don’t tell the boobies I said this, but I don’t think they are super-bright.)

Crabs! That are not Sally Lightfoot crabs! We saw a hermit crab who I loved.

And some ghost crabs who I also loved. I love crabs, I really do. I love how delicately they eat and how they scuttle and their weird eyestalks that look like exclamation points. They are great.

Swallow-tailes gulls! They are like the tuxedo seagull to our jeans-and-a-tshirt-seagulls we have back here. I thought they looked beautiful. Luis told us that they are the only nocturnal seagull.

Galapagos fur sea lions! You may think I am repeating myself, but these guys are different from regular fur sea lions. They are smaller and they have a shorter, pointier snoot. They were almost hunted to extinction because they are so so soft and furry, but thankfully they are coming back. They still don’t like people, so they basked far away from us instead of coming up close and being all inquisitive like the fur sea lion.

An oyster-catcher! We saw one on a beach. They look like they have not slept in quite some time.

And the brown noddy! It’s a small, rather plain bird, but I liked it. It had subtle color changes that the camera couldn’t seem to catch.

Those are all my Galapagos pictures. Here are three to close out this truly magical experience.

Next entry: the last few days in Ecuador and then… done.

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South America 2015, Part 12.

Tuesday, November 24th, 2015

Sea and sea-adjacent creatures! But let us begin with a random selection of Galapagos pics.

A drink consisting of coconut water in said coconut with rum in it. You would think it would be delightful. You would be wrong. It tastes like something a doctor would make you drink before a procedure so your liver will glow or something. No delicioso. Unpleasant and medicinal. Take a pass on it.

The sign in the airport bathroom. Short version: the toilet water is recycled so it’s a weird color but that’s totally normal.

Our phenomenal guide Luis with a ginormous cricket on him.

He wore the equivalent of a balaclava while we were traveling around because he is very concerned about sun damage. We looked like hostages being taken around by a terrorist. See for yourself: here’s a picture of us in front of one of those “Yorkshire pudding” islands I mentioned.

Okay, sea creatures. First, one of my favorite creatures, one I was very excited to see, the Sally Lightfoot crab. Another name for them is “abuete negro” which I originally thought meant “black grandma” (I do not know Spanish) but when I looked up the definition of “abuete” I got a website that asked me what it meant to abide in Christ so I gave up. Sally Lightfoot crabs are vibrantly colored and I took about 700 pictures of them. I am a bit obsessed. Here’s what the famous author John Steinbeck had to say about them (from Wikipedia):

Many people have spoken at length of the Sally Lightfoots. In fact, everyone who has seen them has been delighted with them. The very name they are called by reflects the delight of the name. These little crabs, with brilliant cloisonné carapaces, walk on their tiptoes, They have remarkable eyes and an extremely fast reaction time. In spite of the fact that they swarm on the rocks at the Cape [San Lucas], and to a less degree inside the Gulf [of California], they are exceedingly hard to catch. They seem to be able to run in any of four directions; but more than this, perhaps because of their rapid reaction time, they appear to read the mind of their hunter. They escape the long-handled net, anticipating from what direction it is coming. If you walk slowly, they move slowly ahead of you in droves. If you hurry, they hurry. When you plunge at them, they seem to disappear in a puff of blue smoke—at any rate, they disappear. It is impossible to creep up on them. They are very beautiful, with clear brilliant colors, red and blues and warm browns.
…

Man reacts peculiarly but consistently in his relationship with Sally Lightfoot. His tendency eventually is to scream curses, to hurl himself at them, and to come up foaming with rage and bruised all over his chest. Thus, Tiny, leaping forward, slipped and fell and hurt his arm. He never forgot nor forgave his enemy. From then on he attacked Lightfoots by every foul means he could contrive and a training in Monterey street fighting has equipped him well for this kind of battle). He hurled rocks at them; he smashed at them with boards; and he even considered poisoning them. Eventually we did catch a few Sallys, but we think they were the halt and the blind, the simpletons of their species. With reasonably well-balanced and non-neurotic Lightfoots we stood no chance.

Look! Little brown youngins!

We got to witness the congress of two crabs. They approached either other and very slowly the female slid upside-down under the male where they hung out for a while. I have to say I may be pushing anthropomorphic qualities onto this but it totally looked like the female didn’t want to go through with it and the male was pressing down hard on her shoulders like, “Shhh, you’ll like it, get down there, don’t be a prude.” I was considering pulling the female out from under him and then chastising him (“No means no, Crab!”) but I decided not to meddle in the affairs of the Grapsus grapsus.

Sea birds! Specifically pelicans and boobies. I learned that they plow into the surface of the water at crazy speeds because they dive-bomb into it. They have a gasket around their eyeballs to prevent damage from this intense impact and when those gaskets eventually fail, the bird goes blind and dies of starvation. Because Mother Nature is a mean beeyotch in case you had forgotten (see above crab rape).

One of our first stops was a small blob of lava where a school of sardines had swum by so everybody was hanging out there. By everybody, I mean egrets, cranes, blue-footed boobies, pelicans, penguins and fur sea lions. It was amazing.

Another place all the sea creatures were hanging out was at the small fish market on the main island. This poor woman was trying to run a business and she has this big furry sea lion begging like a dog and a group of giant demonic-looking pelicans watching her every move. Other sea lions hung out nearby but took the opportunity to nap at the feet of other tourists.

Fur sea lions! They swam around us all over the place. They are actually light blonde but look dark brown when they are wet. You can tell how long they’ve been sitting on the beach sunbathing by how much of them is blonde. They are charming but judgmental. I was snorkeling at one point and a fur sea lion swum up to me, looked at me, made a gesture like, “Nah,” and swam away. I was like, “Hey, you don’t know me, I have many redeeming qualities if only you’d get to know me nevemind you’re gone.”