Doings

Back to school

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So I found out right after the New Year that the local university offered a class in Korean. Classes hadn’t started yet so I decided to go back to school, after all I had gone there previously, how hard could it be? As it turned out, it was a bit of work, my university said they had no record of me, yet I have a diploma, a ring and get the alumni magazine. Someone had merely typed in the wrong date of birth and if I show up with two forms of ID they will correct this. But I did eventually get enrolled and here I am a college student once again.

And here is the campus. The site was once home to a tuberculosis hospital back when there was only pure mountain air to breathe and with a lovely view of the mountain (the mountain is unchanged). There were also coal mines somewhere nearby, and the mine entrances are now gone (I hope).

This bit is the old TB sanitarium. The windows were formerly just screened in, so that one could have fresh air all year long on the theory that this could cure one. And sometimes it did.

Most of the newer buildings look something like this, rectangular boxes with lots of glass, stuffed with classrooms and faculty offices.

And this is what one can look at, if one is lucky enough to have a view. My classroom is in a small (I guess that administration didn’t think Korean would be this popular) interior room.

Oh yeah, there are all sorts of activities and clubs to keep students amused. And now that I have a student ID I can get a discount at the movies, etc,

I don’t think that these birds had bothered to register, but they were clearly in control of this patch of lawn, so I went the other way. (There’s always some sort of school bullies! Some things never change.) It’s an interesting adventure.

City

Cuppa

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I really don’t drink tea or coffee on a regular basis (I don’t like to make them for myself), but both are nice to have on a special occasion. And as I needed to plan a special event for my group, I decided to check out the new tea room in town.

A century ago, there were lots of tea rooms, because this was considered to be a suitable place for women to meet, tea was a the beverage of choice, and little cakes and sweets were always on the menu. This custom expired 50 years ago or so (which is before my time!). But I do enjoy a cup of tea every now and then.

The very best places to enjoy a nice cuppa are in London. This one is located at Foyles, a lovely bookshop that I always try to visit. One can eat and read or just look out over the masses of books and pick one for later.

I also like going to Peter Jones, a department store, for a cup of tea with a view over the city. And after all that shopping, one deserves a break.

So getting a cup of tea in London is no big deal, grab a tray, stand in line, and the tea comes out of a big urn. But it’s a different matter to have tea locally.

The group had previously scheduled tea at the former mansion of the town founder and it was quite elegant ($$), and featured all sorts of different teas. The founder had built this mansion to entice his missus to move here. She came out from back east and looked at it, then decided to go live in London instead (she probably moved there for the tea, or perhaps it was the shopping).

So this what is available at the new place ($). They do have all sorts of lovely china in floral patterns that marks this as a feminine space. The scones were a bit different than the ones in England and were quite sweet, rather like a soft cookie. There were a large number of different sorts of tea to choose from, but I had the plain one.

And it had an interesting decor, with sparkly chandeliers everywhere and old books glued to a wall. (I do think I like Foyles better, but it’s a long way for a cup of tea). At any rate, I think it will be popular with the group, and that is all I seek, along with a nice cuppa from a tea urn.

Ephemera

Ornaments

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Years ago I had the sort of standard Christmas tree as everyone else; glass balls, garlands, tinsel, etc. And then I started collecting odd ball ornaments that had a personal meaning to me, like a pink dragon (purchased in Berkeley), African lizard (purchased in San Antonio) or a wooden fox (purchased in St. Louis). So when I unwrap them, I also recall their acquisition, who I was with, and why we were there. And at some point I got rid of all the ordinary baubles and now my tree is just these personal trinkets. So this was this year’s addition to the collection.

I already have a number of dinosaurs for the tree as I love them and studied them in college. This and the following felt dinos are fair-trade ornaments from either Peter Jones or the Natural History Museum in London. They are rather adorable, aren’t they?

Besides dinos there was also these animal musicians, and well, they don’t really fit with any theme that I have so far, but, they were cute, so in the basket they went.

Dinosaurs are also available locally, these were the last two on the shelves, but there were plenty of ballerinas still available.

Oh yeah, this fancy dinosaur came from the Natural History Museum as well. I thought that the museum had dressed their animatronic T-Rex in a similar sweater last year, but maybe I only dreamed it.

I did tell you that I loved this tiny armadillo, and had to purchase one for myself, so here it is, hanging on my tree.

So now all of these ornaments have become part of my memories of this year. They will be appearing in my living room until January 1st. Then they shall join the others until next year, as part of the ghosts of Christmas past.

City, Doings

A Sunny Day

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So it was a sunny day, and I had gone to see a display of donated and decorated Christmas trees . This was for a charity, one buys tickets for the Christmas tree one wishes to win, and the money raised goes to a children’s charity. The trees are fully decorated and have presents under them and gift cards on them, but what I really wanted was the armadillo ornament on one of the trees.

And then as I was near the mountains it was onward to the overlook to admire the scenery with the tourists. They were freezing and I was wearing shorts.

On the other side of the road, there was a group of men dressed in identical camouflage hoodies with high powered binoculars and cameras looking at bighorn sheep that were on the mountain. Why bother, when there was this beautiful cement buffalo right here (and it’s not moving around).

So this was the view to the south, with the “secret” military base hidden inside the mountain (the Air Force does a broadcast from here every Christmas Eve that tracks “Santa” as he presumably flies over the country).

And as you look further to the north, why it’s a city park.

And a bit further is the classic postcard view of the city.

Yes, that armadillo was preying on my mind and I did not win the decorated tree, so I asked Mr. Google where this came from. Hooray, it was locally available and now I have one to call my very own.

Doings

Ladies Luncheon

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Let me state right off the bat that I am not really the ladies luncheon sort of person. I am not crazy about making small talk with people I don’t know well, and I have an idiosyncratic decorating style. The last one of these that I attended was years ago and I remember it as being no fun. So why was I here? A friend asked me to do a dinosaur themed table, and how could I refuse? What this meant was that we were to decorate a table in a festive manner for a Christmas luncheon and provide some sort of party favor.

This woman said it took her about 15 minutes to decorate from things that she had just laying about! (For some reason, I don’t have gold chargers and seasonal decorations to hand.) Those are little sewed pockets with candy to take home.

Here’s another person who just whipped out the seasonal decorations. It is optional, but encouraged to give everyone at the table a little present, so these people were getting a pumpkin.

This person chose to jump two holidays ahead to New Years Day, and again just happened to have gold and silver chargers to hand. But wait, what’s that in the background?

Why it’s the table for overthinkers/overachievers. Those are my personal dinosaurs. The fabric she chose had dinosaurs wearing hats and scarves and decorated with flowers. I will admit I did already have some tiny hats to hand, but for the rest I crocheted and knitted tiny hats and scarves. Under the nametag is a cinnamon dino ornament I baked and I provided a tiny dinosaur as a party favor. We baked and iced the cookies together and she made incomplete place mats from the dino fabric. The plates are paper. She forgot the Christmas tree and substituted a pineapple. The ornaments were from London.

This was massively stressful as I do not know the rules of ladies luncheons and I am disinclined to learn more about them. Instead I shall consider this as an anthropologic visit to another culture. And I shall endeavor to remember this and never ever repeat the experience.

However, I admit that the dinosaurs look splendid and they were fun to dress up. And I learned to make fancy cookies (special thanks to K for the lesson). And of course I think that our table was the finest, because the dinosaurs dressed for dinner.

City, Doings

A Saturday

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I do like to get out and about in the community. This community has lots of the same sorts of things that one might find anywhere, and then there are the bits that make us unique. So on a recent Saturday this is what I was up to.

So the city has a gorgeous and much photographed park that is a must for tourists and that is where the first event was taking place. And it was a beautiful day with perfect weather for an outdoor event.

This bunch of turkeys were not the least bit interested in the events of the day, and so they buggered off out of the park as soon as they could.

So there was a couple of vendors selling delicious fry bread tacos, an important part of every pow-wow.

Grand entry was at noon and there were a couple of special dances, like fancy dancers, shawl dances, honor dances, etc. But my favorite dance is always the potato dance, because it’s always funny to watch. They give a couple of people a potato and they have to put it between their foreheads and keep it somehow off the ground while they dance. Dancing slow will help to keep the potato in place, but when it gets down to the last few they start making the couples dance faster, etc. So these girls came in second which is pretty darn good. (No potatoes were harmed in the performance of this dance.)

And then it was on to the next event of the day, which was located by the jail, hidden down ( it really was hidden, they had closed the north part of the only road to the place) in the industrial part of town. They had moved up the time from 5 to 3, so I went there in my pow-wow outfit. And what was that event? It was a tour of the coroner’s office and I thankfully (for you) didn’t take any photos there. As it was for writers, he showed us lots of pictures of various kinds of fatal wounds, so that we could describe such things accurately and talked about what actually goes on there. It was interesting, but not nearly as much fun as the pow-wow. As this is the sort of writing that I do, it was not that useful, but who knows? Perhaps some day I shall write a novel. If nothing else it was an unusual way to spend the afternoon.

City

Fiesta

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Well you already know that I love street festivals, etc. so here is yet another one. And how does one create such an event? One needs some sort of sponsoring organization to pay for permits and police, a reason to have this (in this case, a battle fought in Mexico) and vendors to pay for these booths. Et voila, a celebration.

The most important part of any street festival is grilled food on a stick, like corn covered in chili powder, cheese or both. It’s not the sort of everyday food, like the hotdog stand which was on the opposite side of the street, one can only find such special foods here.

The best festivals involve dressing up in some sort of symbolic outfit. These costumed dancers are walking past a wrestling ring, where masked and costumed wrestlers will shortly appear.

The cowboys outfits ranged from elaborate historical recreations to everyday work wear. I think that the gigantic rowels on the spurs are a bit of an overkill (and I feel bad for his horse).

This was not his horse, it was a horse of a different color.

In keeping with the vaquero tradition a mechanical bull was available to play on. As this is a replica, no spurs allowed. (Spurring a bull is a very bad idea.)

I must say the car show (the reason I came to this) was a bust, as there was another show going on at the same time. But there were also beer tents (mandatory for a proper festival), and various booths with social and health information (note to them: too much beer is bad). So it was identical to the many other festivals I have been to, but was a splendid way to spend a sunny afternoon (I did not have to wear spurs, either).

Doings

Fair

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I have a love of fairs and carnivals and I have been attending various ones for years and years. Yes, they are a commercial enterprise, and are often somewhat cheesy, but their reason for being is to entertain, and that can’t be all bad?

What is more fun or scarier than a mobile ride that was bolted together by an itinerant worker?

And where can one purchase such items except at a fair? Why one would purchase such items? Because one is at a fair!

And it is indeed a “fried fantasy” of food that is available at the fair. These vendors spend all winter during their off season to try and think of new things to dip in batter and fry. None of these offerings are noted for their nutritional value before being dunked in oil, but that is part of the appeal, I guess. Also available are unusual meats, like alligator on a stick. All of these things are best consumed with a group a friends who may or may not be sober.

This was my favorite booth, which was handing out free samples of roasted green chile wrapped in a flour tortilla (free being the best price to enjoyment ratio).

People have been holding fairs since the beginning of recorded time, usually to celebrate a harvest or some event. This fair has been in existence since 1872 and I hope that this sort of entertainment continues on into the unknown future. (Not pictured are bull riding, concerts, beauty contests for animals and sundry other events of the fair).

Art, Toys

Pteri Tales

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Oftentimes you buy something and it does not live up to your expectations. We’ve all been there. And sometimes we buy something and find that it is so wonderful and perfect for the job. Some years ago I was at the hardware shop, no doubt buying something extremely practical when I spotted a bin of plastic dinosaurs. So there was this little pterosaur with a happy expression and I instantly decided that I needed said dino, As I looked more closely, I decided that this dino was photogenic and we have since had a number of adventures. This is the most recent one.

I had gone out to get the newspaper and I noticed that due to the recent rains, some puffballs had sprung up. Pteri obliged the photo op.

The Archaeopteryx (also a possibly flying dinosaur) was available for posing too.

By the next day the puffball had opened and Pteri was a good sport about posing again.

The next day the puffball has fully opened and I imagined that Archy would come the rescue of Pteri. This little inexpensive pterosaur has once again been a source of amusement and art. I have held, that almost any picture is improved by adding a pterodactyl, and here is proof.

City, Ephemera

Clouds

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I grew up in a place where the clouds always seemed to be quite close, almost oppressively so. When I first moved to the West, the clouds and skies were so vast as to be almost frightening. But I grew to love this beautiful open sky (someone even wrote a song mentioning “the spacious skies” of this area) and clouds are what makes it so. So, I went to an outdoor art festival recently, and the thing the impressed me the most were the clouds on that day.

The clouds were teasing us with the possibility of rain, but didn’t really deliver.

This place is very near to the mountains and does get more rain than the plains, so the trees are taller and more imposing here.

The clouds were keeping the temperature down and it was a perfect summer day for strolling about.

Rain is pretty much always a localized event in the West, with rain alternating with innocent blue skies. If by chance one is rained on, just wait a minute and the weather will change.

Even the reflections of the clouds are beautiful. The windows doing the reflecting are part of a replica of a French palace (why build an ordinary mansion when one can have their very own palace?)

And another local-ish person was inspired (perhaps by these Western skies) to write a song that says “it’s clouds illusions I recall” and that was what I celebrated this day.

random bits of life