Thursday, April 29, 2010
It's blasted hard to write Ginger Outing Reports when I'm so tired. You sort of need to be able to think straight. Okay, notes, so I'll remember what to include. [I expanded the notes on Sunday.]
Posted at 11:44:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday:
It was overcast and cold, so the Gs and I went to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. First we looked at the paintings in the Krieble Gallery, which was pretty fun. I like looking at paintings with the Gs. While we were in there, it started pouring rain! The FGM also has a very entertaining gift shop (best parts were the crocheted animal finger puppets and the great but too-expensive letterpressed legendary sea creature notecards). My fav part in the museum was the visitor comment book, though. I loved this comment SO much! "When I look at the pai[n]ting I feel like i'm thair." Wow. Then we walked over to the actual Florence Griswold House, which belonged to Miss Griswold, who took in American Impressionist painters as borders to make ends meet and ended up fostering a flourishing artists' colony. The house is restored to its appearance circa 1910, the height of its artists' boarding house days. I kept noticing all these weird little details about the furniture, belongings, etc., and asking the docent about them, but half the time she didn't know the answer because I guess no one else ever focuses in on that kind of stuff. I always do that... I'm more into appreciating small details than caring about the big picture.
Speaking of which, before we actually entered the house I got totally sidetracked and failed to follow the Gs inside because I was too interested in this tree. It's an American Elm! The sign speaks for itself (I also love all the subtlety different colors in the bark). It was beautiful. I love how you can see the structure of the branches, with the spring leaves still not yet mature.
After that we stopped at Ye Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe, and I checked the ALB archives using Palma so I'd know what to order. Last year I wrote, "I got strawberry, which was definitely the best strawberry ice cream I've ever had. I wish their servings were a bit smaller, though!" so I ordered a kiddie-sized dish of strawberry, and it was perfect! Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe's strawberry is really good. It's massively homemade tasting. My M was even kind of jealous, because her fav blueberry was slightly downhill (not as much blueberry as last year). Afterwards, we had a big hang-around-and-chat at their timeshare, which was really nice.
Wednesday:
Sunny, but windy. The ocean near the Gs' timeshare at Water's Edge was wonderfully texturey and four distinct shades: brown, gray, blue and white. We went to The Book Barn in Niantic... first the main branch (got a new Golden Guide for my collection and a fantastic Richard Scarry book with Brambles in it!), then the Book Barn Downtown AND the new branch (can't remember what it's called), which is 147 steps away from downtown branch, according to the directions given to us by the lady at the main branch. The M counted her steps and it was exactly right! I counted my steps on the way back and it was only 109 steps, but I took really GIANT steps! :-) Heeee. It was perfect Book Barn weather--not freezing cold or boiling hot like it usually is when I go there. When we were at the main branch with all the separate outbuildings, the G and I sat on a bench for a while, admiring details about the trees and sky. It was nice. We also stopped at the Bowerbird to kill time, and then it was SHAD TIME!!!!!
It was SO good! And it looked just like my drawing. I'd brought the drawing for the Gs' refrigerator, so it was hanging right near the real thing when I unwrapped it, and I was amazed that it actually looked like it! Orangey-pink highlights and wavy scales and the four/five dark spots. But the real shad is more silvery. So so so beautiful. I should try to do a picture but it's probably impossible. Best shad ever! Alosa sapidissima!!! Also, insanely good asparagus! With lemon. They had roe at Atlantic Seafood, but no milt, and the store girl didn't know what milt was... I had to tell her. The boned shad cost $1 less this year! (!!) $8.99/lb vs. $9.99/lb. After dinner we all looked at the great pictures in my Richard Scarry book!
I love Rt. 9 south. Hardly any other traffic, pretty, and speedy speedy speedy. Like 80 mph+ almost the whole way! (Also, no cops.)
Leaving for the Gingers' now, but before I go:
Posted at 12:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
1) My black eye is starting to develop. B) Today is SHAD DAY!!!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Posted at 11:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Fish of the Week #2! I figured, since I'm in the mood, and I'm not realistically going to do this every week, I'd get a jump on the project and draw two this week. It was really hard to figure out how to make him look silvery, but I'm pleased with how he turned out. My favorite part is the tail.
I'm not sure if we've ever seen a barracuda in Hawaii; we usually see them in St. John and Grand Cayman (and I definitely recognize them when we do!). Just about every time I write about seeing a barracuda on ALB, I mention its mean mouth, so I hope I did the mean mouth justice! He kinda looks more anxious than mean, but this is a Laura fish, so what can I do? They always seem to turn out with a personality.
Bleah, it's so windy today! I don't want to go outside. Must write about Ginger outing yesterday. I'm going back down to Westbrook tomorrow and Friday, but staying home today. Trying to wake up for NEAC. Made a cup of Kona Mountain for breakfast (!). I used a teacup instead of a mug, since it's smaller.
Posted at 12:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
That was a good Chuck! Chuck is redeeming itself! Chuck and Sarah are going to wear out their lips with all that smooching, though. I agree with Casey: "Eeuck." Also, we need more Jeffster!
Posted at 1:33:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Posted at 10:06:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I did my first Fish of the Week! It's Potter's Angelfish. The first chapter in the fish book is about angelfish, and the only commonly-seen angelfish in Hawaii is Potter's Angelfish. Definitely not a fish I would have known by name, so this will be a good test to see if drawing it makes me learn it!
The only other angelfish I am likely to see in Hawaii is the Flame Angelfish. It's uncommon in Hawaii, but more common on the Kona coast of the Big Island. It has the same shape, but a bright red body with 4-6 dark vertical bars and blue trim on the rear fins. That would have been a lot easier to draw!
I have no idea why, but I am in an insanely good mood today.
Posted at 5:35:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Live from East Berlin, it's Anti-Linear Brain! Check it out: it's April 26th and this post is dated April 26th! I am officially all caught up with my draft entries. No more time warp!
Posted at 3:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Good swim, but I clonked my left eye socket on the sticky-out-lock-thing on the locker next to mine when I bent down to undo my lock afterwards. OW. I hope I don't get a black eye. (Well, okay, a little one would be kind of cool I guess.) I got some ice from the front desk and put it on my eye while I dried my hair in the sauna. They even put it in a ziplock bag for me!
Posted at 2:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
100% chance of rain, so I'm going to do my grocery shopping today and visit the Gingers down in Westbrook tomorrow. Ha, I magneted that weird shad drawing I did to the front of my slidy-doors filing cabinet, so I get to see it all the time. I really like it!
!! I almost forgot to post our card collection from Hawaii! :-)
Posted at 12:46:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Fish of the week! I'm gonna do it. There are only 54 different types of fish in my new ultimate fish book.
Posted at 9:42:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Getting soooooooooooooooooooo much work done now that I abandoned trying to publish with Blogger!! Worked pretty much nonstop all afternoon and I'm all caught up to April 20th! That's last Tuesday! I've finished from March 25 to April 20 in just the past few days. Also, sleeping until 2:20 this morning really helped. I was so tired yesterday, I felt like I needed to catch up on about three days of rest. Would be working on it longer, but we need to eat supper. (Dara's! Dean actually brought it up before I did!)
Posted at 6:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 2:17:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Um. I made another shad. This is a Caran d'Ache shad from someone's Rangpur Shochu dream.
Here's a large version.
Posted at 2:03:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
My mind is melting from editing too many blog posts, so I decided to take a break and do one of my annual shad drawings. I used iNapkin on Dean's iPad! It was kind of hard, but he's pretty cute anyway. :) I did a better shad first, but I messed it up by trying to color it, and since there's no undo, I was screwed.
