Scientific Wonderland

The Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park just re-opened in September and it is simply spectacular! Within it is a planetarium, a rainforest biosphere, an aquarium, in addition to many displays. Get your planetarium pass as soon as you walk in the door with an assigned show time. The half hour show takes you around the world and out into space to other galaxies. You cannot help but be overwhelmed with the possibilities of space.

The roof is one of the special features of the building, over 2 acres of almost 2 million native species of plants. I thought it was fascinating.




Of course there is a heavy emphasis global warming and what we need to do to stop it, but it is the most pressing issue in science today, and they are on a mission of public education.

Also, we stumble upon a hidden feature, called the forum. This particular show was about Bugs!, a 3D show, very well done. Don't miss it, if you go.

We spent most of our time in the aquarium section, because I was having a blast taking photos of all the exhibits. Before we knew it, we had spent five hours in there!

Genoa Candy Dance

This is without a doubt the biggest craft fair that I've ever attended. We wisely went early Sunday morning. This is an important strategy to remember whenever you are going to a weekend long event. We realized just how crowded it had become as we were trying to leave.

Genoa itself is a true gem. The oldest town in Nevada, it was started by Mormons who found themselves up against the eastern Sierra in 1851 and decided to stay. Old barns, antiques stores, restaurants, and Nevada's Oldest Thirst Parlor.



I hate to say that we never saw any candy or any dancing. I saw the candy booth in the distance, but we didn't make it that far. And the dancing is a Saturday night thing. The endless booths just went on and on. If you love craft fairs, this is the place for you. I almost got that beautiful vase with the lilies above, but couldn't make myself pay $75 for it. After about three hours, we gave up and headed out.

Reno Roller Girls

The School of Hard Blocks aka Hardcore Roller Derby, The Miss Fits vs The School Girls, were mostly young girls, 18-25ish, who were trying real hard to be tough. It was fun and entertaining show, although they weren't nearly as leathery as they made out to be. I felt like I would have a chance if I was out there.



I learned how points are scored: there is a group of blockers from both sides that skate together in as two "jammers," one from each team skate through the group. Whichever jammer makes it through first becomes the lead jammer. She circles around again and makes her way through the block again. She earns a point for each blocker from the oppositing team that she makes it past. Of course the blockers are doing whatever they can to make sure that she doesn't pass at all. That's where the pushing, body checks, and tripping comes in.

They had a penelty box in the center with a big dunce cap. They also made two girls have a pillow fight. And a giant tug of war between both teams. Not sure how this came about, but it certainly added another dimension to the entertainment.

Three Rings of Joy

Yes, we were incredibly lucky to get to go to the REAL Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's circus. This is something we would have never done, except that our friends, Eddie and Cheri, insisted that we join them and bought the tickets.

Without a doubt, the best part, above the clowns, and the elephants, and the tigers, and the acrobats, above all of that, was the delighted shrieks of joy from the children! Oh, my goodness, they were overcome with happiness at the teeniest little thing, like singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star at the top of their lungs.

Like all these things you have to decide if you're going to take pictures or enjoy the show. So, I snapped a few, but kept it to a minimum so I could just absorb the atmosphere. This is the 138th show they've put on. There are actually two separate touring companies with different casts. You can get a great overview of the show we saw here.

Skydive!

Introducing guest blogger, my daughter, Amy Mills:

When I was in about 4^th or 5^th grade I remember watching a really awesome video in Ms. Urmston’s class room. It was just my Mom, Ms. Urmston and I sitting in front of the TV watching a video of Ms. Urmston going skydiving; from that day on I always knew I wanted to go skydiving. I fulfilled my dream of going skydiving on May 28 2008, my 21^st birthday. Most people want to go out and drink and party it up on their 21^st, but I had no desire to do so. I rounded up 8 crazy people, including myself, to jump 15,000 feet out of an airplane (California’s highest tandem jump). In order to achieve such a big accomplishment one needs to have the right mind state and do these 5 simple steps.

Step 1: Sign your life away. By this, I mean, when we got to the airport we had to fill out a whole bunch of paper work, initial about 20 different things, and handwrite: “I understand that the parachute may not open, and I can be seriously injured, and I’m putting my life in risk of death,” or something along those lines.

Step 2: Pair up with your tandem instructor. When I met Mike, my “jumpmaster”, I knew I was in for it. He kept on making dying jokes, and playing around. I asked him how many times he had been skydiving and he said 9 times, I knew he was joking by the way he was saying it, then I asked him again and he said over 9,000 times. I then felt safe. He put my harness on and that was it; no instructions, and no letting me know what to do if something were to go wrong.

Step 3: Getting onto the airplane. Since it was my birthday I got to decide when I wanted to go. I chose to go first because I didn’t want to watch somebody else fall out of an airplane. As we were climbing in altitude I realized what I was getting myself into. It all happened so fast, after about 5 minutes we reached 15,000 feet and the door opened.

Step 4: Jumping out of a perfect good airplane. My camera person got out of the airplane and held onto the side of it. I walked to the edge, with my right hand on my left shoulder and my left hand on my right shoulder. The noise was so loud from the wind. At this point I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything, kind of like out of the body sort of thing. Mike holds the edges of the door, I’m pretty much out of the airplane and he pushes off. He does a turn and I see the airplane fly away. I’m plummeting toward the ground at 120 m.p.h and I don’t feel like I’m moving at all, and the earth doesn’t look like it’s getting any closer. I’m smiling and taking in the scenery of Monterey Bay. After a 70 second free fall (it didn’t feel like 70 seconds), the parachute opens, and we glide down to the ground. The entire experience, from takeoff to reaching earth again, took total of about 10 minutes.

Step 5: Celebrate with a few bottles of champagne. When we all reached the ground we felt so relaxed (believe it or not). We were all thankful for the experience and wanted to do it again right away. As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “…and once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you long to return.” Our experience will always live on and I’m proud to say that I have been skydiving.

~Amy Mills

Frank Lloyd Wright

One of the gems of Reno is the Nevada Museum of Art. Right now they have a show about architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision. I have an interest in design, so I decided to go. Wow, oh WOW, was I impressed! They don’t allow photography, so you’ll have to visualize (or visit before July 20^th).

FLW was the first American architect to take the whole organic process of design and apply it to make comfortable living spaces. There is an underlying unity and order that bring harmony into the home. He created open spaces, took away walls, had large walls of glass windows to connect with nature outside. He pioneered the green practices of passive solar, radiant heat, recycled glass, and living roofs. He basically established the kind of houses we live in today, a hundred years later.

These are the things that impressed me the most:

A tall slender “weed holder” ~ a vase for holding garden cuttings.

Light screens ~ a light box “window” made of stained glass with an edgy design.

Extremely tall dining room chairs ~ the chair backs create an enclosure around the guests, making an intimate “room” within the room.

As a side note, his personal life was tragic, but fascinating: he moved to Chicago right after the Great Fire of 1871. After marrying and fathering 6 children, he fell in love with another man's wife, and they eloped to Europe. She was later ax-murdered along with two children and others on his estate while it burned. His next wife was a morphine addict. He fell in love with another woman, had a child, and was arrested for violating the Mann Act. His home burned again.

My favorite quote: I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

Movies

I know this is nothing new to most of you, but Netflix has been a wonderful thing in our lives lately; we've seen 3 or 4 movies a week. It's another way we get to spend time together. Brad has been quite generous about going along with my choices. Since I basically refuse to watch anything with gratuitous violence, that pretty much eliminates anything he would choose. My taste in movies is what you might call quirky. I avoid the big, popular movies and instead search out the oddball, but quality ones. You can specify categories of DVDs that you prefer, so I have films based on contemporary literature, documentaries, music, and independent; they give me suggestions based on those. RottenTomatoes.com is valuable for getting an good overview of the plot outline and a rating based on the opinions of hundreds of film critics. I won't watch anything with lower than 70% in general.

How many of these have you seen?

Death at a Funeral
2 Days in Paris
Rocket Science
Junebug
Once
The Darjeeling Limited
This is England
Across the Universe
Who Killed the Electric Car?
The Savages
The US vs. John Lennon
The Feast of Love

Here in California

Here in California,
Fruit hangs heavy on the vine,
There’s no gold, I thought I’d warn ya,
And the hills turn brown in the summertime.
' --Kate Wolf

The foothills of the Sacramento Valley actually turn a lovely golden color in the summer, which lasts until the winter rains start. When the first settlers started arriving and sent word home of the “golden hills of California” they were referring to the beautiful hills, not the real gold, which hadn’t been discovered yet.

The Solemates are a very active walking club in the Sacramento area. On Saturday they did a 6 mile hike through the 4100 acre conservatory, Deer Creek Hills, led by the knowledgeable and friendly docents, Roger, Joanne, Tom and Dave. My mother invited us to join them. Over the years, these walkers have become some of her best friends and now they are our friends too. The weather was perfect, right about 65 degrees, lovely cool breeze. Every mile or so we’d stop for a water break and a little pleasant conversation; then march on again, soaking in the scenery.

Everywhere on the hills, rocks thrust out of the ground in parallel lines that look like tombstones. The majestic valley oaks are impressive. In the springtime the creeks run full, the grass greens up, and the hills are covered with wildflowers. I’d love to re-visit then.

We walked a long loop around the property, over windswept rises, through heavily treed dells, and along a pretty lake. I felt like I’d had a good workout. All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday morning. Do you have a walking group in your area that you could join?

Football Saturday

Not that I ever have football fever, but my alma mater from the north were playing their arch rivals from the south in a sold out showdown. Who can resist? Our friends got to the parking lot at 7AM to hold a tailgating spot; we moseyed in about 10:30. Lots of Bloody Marys and Mimosas were served, followed by chili cheese dogs.

I learned several new things from the college boys there. First, how to break a beer bottle without hurting anyone. Should I give away the secret? OK, you put a dime in the bottom of the empty bottle, tap it against your heal until it breaks a hole through the side. Then when you hit it gently against something (like someone’s head?), it shatters dramatically.

Next, I learned how to play Ladder Golf. Entertaining as horseshoes, but less set up involved. Once you build a simple PVC 3-rung ladder, each player has three short ropes with golf balls tied on the ends to toss at it. The rules are easy: 1 point for the bottom rung, two for the middle, and three for the top. If you get them all on one, or one on each, you get an extra point. If you land on 13, you go back to zero. First team to 21 wins. That’s it, whole game. You can find the simple directions for making your own here.

The crisp autumn weather was perfect for game day. The stadium was packed with fans from both sides. Possession of the famous Fremont cannon was at stake. It was a pretty even match, low scoring game, until our side scored a touchdown with 27 seconds on the clock to win the game! Massive partying to follow.

Autumn List

Sunflower backlight, originally uploaded by c8mills.

Well, almost the end of September, and I’m finally getting to this. But what does it matter? I still have two months to fill up. I do it because I want to, so these are somethings I am looking forward to:

Music:
Devil Makes Three – Sept 28
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men – Oct 5
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival –Oct 6&7
Horsemans—Oct 28, Nov 11

Day Trips:
A Day in San Francisco with my book club friends—Nov 3
Canoe trip
Oakland Raiders Game—Nov 4 ?

Vacations:
Bodega Bay & Sebastopol – Oct 8-12

Projects:
Postcard Swap
Work on Christmas presents
Finish England scrapbook
Plans for the new back deck
Make orange wine

Read:
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris

Other:
UNR Football Game – Sept 29, Oct 27
Thanksgiving

What's on your list?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Glow!

Another wonderful weekend in my life of memories. For my mom’s birthday she wanted to come up to Reno and go to the Balloon Races with us. My sister and her family decided to come along too, so we had a chaotic, wonderful weekend full of family, food, and fun. Jeremy and Dawn came over, while Brad cooked a great dinner, then opening presents, and Black Forest cake.

We had to get up at 3:30 to heat the coffee and hot chocolate and drive over to the park for the festivities. Feeling very strange to be up in the middle of the night with so many people. I actually saw people ordering corndogs at 4AM.

They start the show with Morning Glow: 5 balloons stay on the ground to light up. Then Dawn Patrol: 5 different balloons, do the same thing in the sky. Finally, after an hour wait, Mass Assention: over 100 balloons, just at day break, all fill and fly at various times. They let people run all over the field while they do this, so of course, I went crazy with the camera. Never having seen it before, I loved it. They play funny games of dropping bean bags from the balloons and trying to hit marks, which was not as entertaining to me. We were home cooking breakfast at 9AM.

Ten minutes after everyone left, Amy called and said they were coming to spend the night. They had business to take care of in Truckee, so we got to have them for dinner. We called Dawn and Jeremy to come back over again for yet another family meal. They brought us apples from their new tree. What should I do with them? What a weekend!

Prrrrrs of Pleasure

Once, a very long time ago, a friend said to me, “I love it when you purr like that.” I was taken aback. “What do you mean?” He said, “You purr like a cat.” He smiled at my confusion.

About a year ago, Amy said, “You make a funny little noise sometimes.” Like what? “You sound like a cat.” Then Brad chimed in, “I know, you don’t even realize it, but when you’re happy, you purr.” Well, since three people have brought it up out of the blue, it must be true, at least sometimes. Now that I’m aware of it, I do catch myself murmuring little moans of pleasure when I’m feeling especially contented.

So when I go to a spa for a day of massage, facial, and manicure, I have to be particularly careful not to go around humming in my chest, because next thing you know I’ll be rubbing against the furniture and scratching behind my ears. They will think I’m wacky, or maybe lots of women do this and I don’t know it.

I had the full hot stone massage, which was a lovely experience. I got into a bed with sheets and a heavy blanket, none of this skimpy-towel-barely-covering-you. She warms the rocks in hot water, rubs them and me with oil and vigorously slides them all over my body. I like that the best. Sometimes, she would turn them on edge to work a stubborn muscle. She would leave the warmed rock in my palm, like a gift.

Facials please me too. It is more massage than facial. The best part here is when she puts the hot towel on my face before gently wiping off whatever goop she put there. I think she did about twenty different levels of treatment. Once in awhile, she’d leave a layer on and go away for ten minutes, leaving me in the dim room with soft music and sweet smells. It’s a wonder that I didn’t fall asleep. But it really does make a difference in the quality of my skin, since I’m not very diligent in my skin care routine.

OK, last is the manicure, which I confess is the only one I’ve ever had. Not my wedding, not my son’s wedding, not a vacation, nor a retreat. Never! Because my nails suck. That’s it, plain and simple. So I choose the lightest pink I could find. It took her less than 10 minutes to fix the cuticles, shape and polish them. It took me about one minute to ruin the finish by bumping them on the door on the way out and one full day to totally trash them.

Once I was home, I found myself purring a day long.

Artist Date: Nursery

Ever since I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron several years ago, I try to remember to take myself on an artist date now and then, as she recommends. This time it was a high quality garden nursery here in town: Moana Nursery. I just wandered through their outdoor garden center, greenhouse, and indoor shop, looking for unusual views. I found a few. In addition to the flowers and plants, there are working fountains, gazebos, arbors, scenic little vignettes of tables and chairs or benches, metal sculptures. If you’re taking photos, just try not to get the price tags and plastic pots (or your own foot) in the pictures.

The canopies fascinated me, because I have been considering building an arbor over our deck, but wouldn’t these be cool instead?

When you try to be creative, sometimes it works and sometimes it just isn’t there. If you can feel the magic, all of a sudden, everything seems so clear. At these times, I feel myself opening up to anything that crosses my path. If I have a camera with me, so much the better. If I don’t have a camera, I try to write all the ideas down as fast as possible. By giving yourself time to go out and really search for beauty and joy, you at least double the possibility that they will find their way to you.

Tail Fins & Suicide Doors

Hot August Nights, originally uploaded by c8mills.

Good old-fashioned fun! Sitting on the side walk, watching the cars roll on by. Hot August Nights is one of the biggest vintage car rallies in the US. Full of nostalgia for hot rods, drag racing, and rock-n-roll, for those of us who are old enough to have "cruised." My car for 14 years was a classic white 65 Mustang with pony interior. My husband had a 65 Chevy Step-side truck. We were definitely "too cool."

Weekend Recap

So, now, I have a dilemma. I had another fabulous weekend, the kind that leaves you on Sunday evening with your heart expanded, all full and warm, resting comfortably against your rib cage. Yes, it truly was that good. So, do I tell you all about it, like I seem to do every Monday morning? Going on and on about where we went and who we saw and what we ate…blah, blah, blah.

When I started this blog, I specifically wanted it to be about YOU, not me. And it’s turned into too much about me. I am hoping that by telling you what we do, you’ll get inspired to do similar things too.

When I tell you about the fun we had at a spontaneous BBQ at Mike and Margie’s house (we sort of called them up and invited ourselves and friends), I hope that you’ll think about a few people you know that you could call for next Friday. If I tell you about a gorgeous outdoor wedding on a balmy Saturday afternoon, I wish that you would look for joy and the wonder of love at the next wedding you go to. If you look around you might even find something exceptional like the Drum, Dance and Didgeridoo Festival that we went to on Saturday night. And dancing barefoot in the grass on the shores of Lake Tahoe to Chris Cain is the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon that I can imagine. When was the last time that you danced, free and happy?

Make a promise to yourself to buy the local Friday paper and cruise around for unique things happening in your hometown. Does the museum have a new exhibit? Is the garden center giving free demonstrations? Is there an unusual festival happening in the next town? How about an antique show or flea market? There is always live music somewhere, often for free in a park. Just make an effort and plan some merriment into your life, don’t let the summer slip by, doing yard work and watching tv, get out there and make something fun happen before summer’s gone.

What is Burning Man?

I get this question all the time and there is simply no way I can answer succinctly...30,000 people on the hot, dusty, windy, flat Black Rock Desert of Nevada…dressed or undressed in strange costumes…greeters…theme camps of assorted oddballs to visit...center camp with coffee and ice for sale, nothing else…pack everything in, pack everything out… leave no trace…massive, bizarre, art…fire dancers…drum circles…playa…sky divers…giant black smoke rings in the sky…dr. megavolt…bikes everywhere...goggles…face masks…pagan rituals…public massages…critical tits parade…thunderdome…radical self reliance…creativity…participation…large sound…wild art cars…the department of mutant vehicles…body paint…piss clear…swirling dust storms...

…and then they burn this giant wooden man.

Go to burningman.com and click on current tv to see it. I got my tickets already. Do you have yours? The man burns in 44 days.