Arty arternoon

Well, an outing at last! She took me out to do art this afternoon. We learned about Polaroid Transfers. What fun! You take an image of a slide using a special Polaroid machine and then transfer the partly processed emulsion onto paper or fabric or somesuch to make a pretty groovy picture. Robyn used to do this with some of her amazing travel slides from around the world, and Miriam brought some old family photos to play with, as well as a Mt Isa shot from the sixties by her Grandma Cathy.
She took me out of the (damn) sock and let me help. Yaay! Our tutor for the afternoon was Wave. Cool name, eh! He let us do the workshop in his little place in the West End of Provincetown. It was set up like a little photographic laboratory! I got the job of checking the water in the plastic bucket. It had to be within a pretty strict range of temperatures.

MZ tried wet paper and dry paper. For the wet paper she had to put it in this container for a few seconds. And I had to supervise. After all, it's not as easy as it looks. Nothing is, really. And it is Miriam we're talking about. She needs constant watching.

Luckily Jim was there, taking care of the details. He's working here on one of the photographing machines... you put some Polaroid film in the bottom and a slide in the top, then push a few things in and pull a few things out and peel the thingy off the whatsit and roll the black thingy (face down) onto a sheet of paper. Easy!

The bit they let me help with, other than paper-wetting, was the rolling. Great. The roller is bigger than I am. "Press harder!" was all they could say. "Press harder! Work evenly! Don't let the Polaroid slip!" Ye gods. I did a great job and don't you let anyone tell you different. Here's proof.

Here are a couple of bits I did and really like - they are on silk.

Spring is sprung

Something she really loves about the USA is that they stick to the proper dates for the change of season. For example, Spring starts the day after the March equinox. Not on the first of the month!

She hates this thing that's happened in Australia where we start Autumn on 1st of March and Spring on 1st of September. It wasn't always this way. When she was in primary school, the seasons started on the old fashioned dates of 21/22 ish of March, June, September and December... around solstices and equinoxes.... But all that's changed now and she gets to grit her teeth four times a year when the 'seasons' change. Aaargh!!
Truth is, maybe those dates don't apply in Australia anyway, because apparently our seasons in Australia aren't the same as the four that exist in the northern hemisphere. But she's adamant (you know how she can get) that seasons are about the earth's cycle and not about the convenience of a calendar. And here, in Provincetown, there's no escaping the real seasons, so she gets to be right. Which can make her unbearable (you know how she can get)...

One piece of evidence that spring has sprung is that the crocuses are in bloom. They are a first sign of the new season; they are dotted in gardens all over Provincetown, and she loves 'em.

The Breakwater

The Breakwater is a long rocky wall that stretches across from the bottom end of Commercial Street across to Long Point. Yesterday she went for a walk across there - it's a great adventure... she checks the tides and then heads down there when the time is right; walks across the wall and then onto the other side. The last few times she's done it, it's been the other end of winter - with the town quiet and only the most foolhardy aliens making the treck across the slippery rocks.

This weekend was the first one of spring... and Sunday was warm. That's relative of course. It was 52 degrees F. That's about 11 or 12 degrees Celcius. Mmmmmm Toasty!!!

The trouble was, she turns into a bit of a loner when she's here and going walkies. Basically it's just her and the quiet. Clean air, bird song... the sound of her own breath. And me, of course. But I'm quiet most of the time. It's these ceramic vocal chords. And on Sunday, being so toasty, there were other people out walking and a few of them were on the breakwater. Mostly quiet but one couple came along and the guy was yelling and laughing... filling up the silence with what even she described as inane noise. At first Miriam thought he was laughing at her because she leaps from rock to rock with her hands out for balance and it seemed that the guy was imitating the way she did that. And you know how she is. Sometimes she just speaks when she shouldn't. She stopped and let him catch up and said how glad she was that she had managed to amuse him. She had that particularly sarcastic tone of voice that we all love so much.

"Oh, no," he said "I wasn't laughing at you! I was laughing at my wife. She's scared of heights and I was laughing at how she's walkin' with her arms out for balance."

"No, no", he went on, loud and blustery, "No, I would never laugh at someone I didn't know!"

So Miriam just looked at him and let them pass. After they had gone, she took the photos in the previous post... and then walked quietly home. She'll go back on the breakwater again on a nice quiet weekday before she goes home. A cold grey day with nobody else around.

Here's the guy and his wife... in the distance, where they belong.

breakwater 360 degrees

Words coming later... but here's a 360 degree shot taken from halfway across the breakwater at the end of Commercial Street that goes out to Long Point.

Comments now anonymous

Hello! MZ has just changed the settings so you can post comments anonymously to the blog, without needing a google account... Hooray!

A little ray of sunshine...

Amazing eh! This is the picture she took in the sunshine, from the deck. Looks like a different place to the grey view a couple of days ago!

It may have been sunny today but the wind chill was vicious. Three hours of walking in the Beech Forest cleared the cobwebs...

She saw dunes:

And the Pilgrim Monument from a distance:

And Race Point and Provincetown Airport (airstrip):

All from the Visitor's centre, shown here on this handy map.

Oh, and by the way I only know any of this because she told me later. She forgot to take me. 'Forgot'. Huh! I bet she was just daydreaming about the quadruped. Shown here drinking water from the tap in the bathroom, the day before we left for America. At least she doesn't have to empty MY litter!

Lorraine's & Jim's

Lorraine's is a mexican restaurant that stays open in the off season and what a blessing that is! A slightly overcast night, the end of the week, and that's where we went! Margaritas! Chilli! Yaay! And yes, she took me, because... of course... there were going to be glasses for me to hang off and you know how much I love that. Love love love it! Not!

And then we went to Jim's where Easter decorations still linger.

Jane's for dinner

We went to Jane's for dinner. She showed us the crocuses that had come out just today - they're some of the crocuses that Ewa bought a few years ago to plant around town in memory of Robyn... They close up at night but I took a good look at them anyway!

Lunch and Extreme Sports

The best cure for not enough sleep - keep doing interesting things that don't require long periods of concentration. Lunch qualifies, particularly if you are peckish, which she was. I, on the other hand, just wanted a martini. She's been talking and thinking martini for weeks. So she's having lunch and ordering iced tea (!) and i just can't stay away from the martini menu.

Jim shared his lunch with me and we had a bit of a catch up.

It was really good to spend some time just talking about things in generally.

Later, when he and Miriam were catching up on some gossip, I checked out the view. Here's a shot of one of the locals in training for the Beijing Olympics. I think he's in with a chance! Go, Provincetown!

Home sweet home

The condo she stays in at Provincetown has a new bathroom. Noice. And the view from the deck is as good as it ever was. She took this shot with her phone. Late in the day. It's a teeny bit dark.

But still...

Update: She can now download from the camera... here's the condo from the outside...

"I'm sorry" & "You should be"

Ok, so her bag weighs 21.89 kg according to the check in scales. It's not got much in it but the bag itelf probably weighs a couple of kilos with its metal frame and wheely mechanism.

The flight to Provincetown from Boston was great. A cold day but not freezing. Hardly any wind. A bit of sunshine... a 7-seater plane that had 7 people in it. You feel like you're really flying in those things. There's air in there! Real air, from outside! The pilot's right in front of you, and turns around to tell you where the exits and the fire extinguisher are. And the view? Fantastic! Not that I could see much, of course. She kept me in the sock the whole time. And chatted to her fellow passengers. Chat chat... look at view.... chat chat... look at view. Hello!!! What about Noam?

But back to luggage...

If you take a laptop, it's got to be stored in the wing. There's a place for big bags too, but they're not really used to bags as big as mine is... apparently. I saw the lady at Provincetown airport was struggling a little with it. "I'm sorry", I said. "You should be," she retorted. And then added, a little sarcastically "But if you want to pack all those clothes, you can, I guess." We wondered if she knew how far we'd come or how long we were staying. But then we decided she probably didn't care. We'll be leaving by bus... no fuss bus. No grumpy comments either. Humph.

Here we are again

The wind is blowing outside her bedroom window. She's propped up in bed typing at 4:00 am. Yup, folks, it's jet lag. But today is a free day and it's raining outside, so yippee! A little bit of walkies planned later to find cable so that photos can be downloaded from camera (she always forgets something) and also to head into the Beech Forest and take some more pictures. Which will be uploaded onto some little bloggy posts later in the day.

Meanwhile, the trip over was long. I had a house key stuck in my eye all the way over. My sock this time was black, ribbed and pretty clean. I dare you to tell me to be grateful!

How is it that when her Qantas Frequent Flyer profile clearly says that she prefers an aisle seat that she managed to get squashed between two long-legged blokes on the flight over. How the hell does that happen? She checked in nice and early and her profile says aisle seat. Not only does she not get an aisle seat, but she gets a middle seat between two blokes... Ugggh. One of them was nice though. Sean, who had been in Australia covering the surfing thingies at Bells Beach etc and was heading home to Los Angeles to edit the pieces for broadcast on a special exterme sports television network. Pretty cool, eh! She managed to make some stuff up to make herself sound almost as interesting as her travelling companion and they got along fine.

At Los Angeles, the wait was supposed to be 6 hours. About an hour of that was spent in a queue, while she chatted to Gary, spouse of friend in Melbourne who happened spookily to be travelling to the you ess of ay on the same flight! And then the inevitable happened, and there were delays. She ended up being at LAX for 8 and a half hours. I was there too, being jostled and x-rayed. Oh what fun.

Since 5:30 am in the morning

She decided to do interesting and exciting things like drink coffee, drink water, visit the ladies' room and then drink more water. She also had a salad. At one of her coffee stops, she encountered a young lady who said (loudly and often) that she had been at the airport since 5:30 am in the morning. A quick calculation by her nibs confirmed that we had been travelling and miserable since waaaay before the young lady, but we didn't say anything. Nor did we comment that we were fairly sure that 5:30 am cannot be at any time of day other than the morning, but there you go. Life's mysteries are never-ending. This young lady was desperate to start a conversation so finally paid MZ a compliment, so being polite and tired, MZ responded and then... well then it started.

And this is the story that was told, which seemed to encapsulate some of the madness that is life in the 21st century!

1. I love your jewellery *(though she said it with an American accent so it's probly spelt jewelry)
2. I have been here since 5:30 am this morning
3. My car was stolen
4. I am flying to [i forget the state] to stay with my mother
5. I have nothing. I had to buy 2 days' worth of clothes and this duffel bag to put them in
6. It is cheaper for me to buy 2 days' worth of clothes and a ticket to my mother's house in [i forget the state] than it is to get a new car
7. I will stay with my mother and get a job there. And it's the best thing to do because my mother is the same size as me.

Team this tech-writer style narrative wtih the information that the young lady looked to be about the same age as MZ and you might get a glimpse of how odd the story sounded.

We had a chat about it afterwards and MZ thinks that maybe the young lady was homeless and living in her car...

The last straw

See that? That's me on my side, in the garden, neglected. That's a shot she took yesterday. Today I'm resting on top of a pile of stuff (there's no other word for it) in the big red thing she fills up, zips and takes on trips to Provincetown with her.

I gather we're going again. It's been a while so it's probably time. Oh Joy. 14 hours in a sock to Los Angeles. And then a flight to the East Coast. This time it's Boston. What's that... let me think... another 6 hours. In a sock.

At least the quadruped will be at home and is not coming with us. The quadruped has a name: 'Mikki'. It is completely crazy. I have never seen anything in all my years that ran around and around in completely pointless circles like the quadruped does. Here's a picture of her mauling me. I'm not doing this for sympathy, but I think you ought to know. People invite these things into their homes and the next thing they know, the garden gnomes are being mauled. You be the judge. I'm ceramic, and have been set in this weird leg-cocked position that doesn't allow me to stand up straight for any length of time... so how is it right to sool something like the quadruped onto me. In the shot she took here, you can see me begging for mercy and the quadruped with its paw raised ready to strike. The agression in the picture speaks for itself. And the quadruped is bigger now. About ten times bigger. So... if you're wondering whether I mind getting in the sock, I say yes. I will always mind that. But when she puts me in there as part of the final preparation for a trip to Provincetown, I'll just have to breathe an enormous sigh of relief. Good bye, quadruped. I'm gonna miss you... NOT!!!