Seahorse with Shells, 20.5" tall, hand made, ceramic wall sculpture by Tammy Vitale

(One)  We (Daughter, Grandson, Husband and I) went to the Marine Museum yesterday for a visit.  We are all members.  We saw, yes, seahorses which weren’t hiding in the grasses as usual, petted a terrapin, and saw a baby snapping turtle among other things.  It is about 5 minutes from home and we go often, as members, because Grandson enjoys it for 5 minutes.  Okay, longer now that he is 5…10 minutes.  They also have otters which are delightful to watch and the weather was gorgeous – not too hot.  So it was fun.

(Two)  When we went home, Husband took Grandson for a short ride on the motorcycle and what should they spot on the side of the road?  A very large wild snapping turtle.  So they stopped and looked (but didn’t get too close.  One does not mess with very large snapping turtles, wild or otherwise.  Rather like tweaking the tail of a dragon).  It made me happy to hear this story and to realize that we live in a place where this kind of close up and real life viewing can happen.

(Three)  After Daughter went home, Husband, who was supposed to ride to the Beach House his work gets every year, decided not to leave until this morning, so we rode (motorcycle) up to our favorite dining place (The Dry Dock) and had fancy coffee and dessert at the bar, waited upon by our very favorite waiter there, Dwayne who has been there as long as we’ve been going there – 12 or 13 years.  We have looked around and never found a better place to eat and we think it’s as much that everyone there knows our name as anything else.  It was very good.  We did not make it to watch the movie we get weekly from Netflex (weekly if we watch weekly.  Lucky them sometimes we don’t get around to it for a few weeks – but we still see more movies this way than we normally would).

(Four) Saturday Husband spoke to a class at George Washington University and then went to work but was leaving early because it was an all nighter and he was just loading in.  So I rode along (motorcycle again) to get out of the house and see different sights and also to ride the motorcycle which, after all these years, I still enjoy.  And read.  I finished Nick Hornby’s book, How to Be Good.  He wrote High Fidelity, one of my favorite movies and when I read that book I found the movie tracked right along.  He also wrote About a Boy but I didn’t know that and haven’t either read the book or seen the movie.  Then I read one of Alic Hoffman’s book.  She wrote Practical Magic, made into a movie which I loved, but I haven’t read the book.  I like her books as they often have a dark underside to them, and are sometimes surrealistic, but this one was pretty straight forward – more like an Anne Tyler book than an Alice Hoffman book.  I’m hoping that’s not a trend. And no, I can’t remember the title (how soon we forget).

So I’ve been, again, avoiding the studio, although today I was thinking of a ceramic mural tile to put behind the little fountain by our pond – we hardly ever use the little fountain because there is a leak somewhere and the little fountain will drain the pond very low if we forget to turn it off. 

(Five)  I had my picture taken with Chesapeake (that’s me installing i to the right here) this morning in North Beach for an upcoming issue of Southern Maryland This Is Living article on public art in Southern Maryland – we  have it!  Well, the photographer was traveling down to my end of the county next to take pictures of the murals inside the Marine Museum, but I don’t think of that as public art because you have to pay to get in the museum if you aren’t a member:  $7!  which is a bit pricey, I think, for what you get.  Which is why we joined.  So we can go and not care if Grandson really only wants 10 minutes for that particular day.

Thought for the day:  Society has a game going.  Like it or not you were recruited into this game.  Every game needs ends, goals, outcomes, prizes.  In other words, it needs a way of separating winners from losers…the game is based on winning models…Conforming to the winning models and proper title acquisitions makes you a "winner."…Society does…entice you with rewards and chasten you with ridicule into accepting the winning model as the only game in town…the irony of the game – the key to its drama:  We choose to forget that we have a choice, that we have chosen the game that runs our lives  Societies arrange their games to give the appearance that things have to be a certain way – the way they are…The powers-that-be, meaning those who hold the most property and the "best" titles, have the most to lose by people not taking all this seriously…when you observe people playing a destructive game, you have a number of options:  You can try to oppose them.  You can start another game and try to get them interested in playing.  you can remind them of the indefinite game possibilities and the fact that they are always the choosers, and that in this sense, there are no winners and losers.  Laurence G. Boldt, Zen and the Art of Making a Living