Just my little corner of the Interweb
| The first done, the thumbprint cookies | Next, the Russian teacakes |
 |
 |
| Then the Nanaimo Bars | Finally, the Corn Flake Wreaths |
 |
 |
I also baked the Sugar Cookies, but haven’t gotten to decorate them — I’m too tired to stand. I’ll decorate them tomorrow.
Several years ago, I discovered that the best day of the year to visit the Smithsonian Museums is on Thanksgiving Day. Yup, they are open. In fact, the only day they are closed is Christmas Day. And, since everyone else is travelling or spending the day at Grandma’s house, the museums are relatively empty. No pushing, no shoving, minimal children running around unattended, and a great chance to see the exhibits.
This year we decided to go out to the Udvar-Hazy Center, an extension of the National Air and Space Museum near the Dulles Airport in Virginia. The Center is still somewhat under construction — there was a nice display of helicopters with no explanatory text for any of them. They opened the McDonnell Space Wing just a few weeks ago, so my Aunt and Uncle missed it (they went when they came up for the wedding in September).
A few pictures:
| Outside the museum — a sculpture and “wall of honor” | Lockheed Blackbird (Andrew’s favorite) |
 |
 |
| The model used for the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mother ship. This picture turned out really well — it’s actually not very well lit, especially considering the plaque invites visitors to look for the fun objects the makers put in, like an R2-D2, VW Beetle and submarie. | Me by the space shuttle Enterprise. This one was not actually flown in space, but designed to be tested in the upper atmosphere. It doesn’t have the heat tiles that the space-bound shuttles have, but still impressive. |
 |
 |
We’re back from MN and have a bunch of fun pictures. I’ll post more later…
After the reception, my mom and dad, their friends Dick and Sharon, Sweetie, Andrew and I ran around the museum and took pictures of Andrew and me still in our wedding clothes.
Our first stop was the IMAX theater — Dad was off packing up the car, so I hopped in line and got our tickets. Hee hee hee…I wish we could have gotten a picture of the face on the guy behind the counter when I first walked up. You’d think they never get brides in line.
I found out later from some of the other guests that they had caught the IMAX show that exited as we were milling aobut in the lobby. They heard a father telling his daughter, “You’ve seen the princess long enough. We need to go now.”
After the IMAX movie, we headed straight downstairs to the dinosaurs, catching a brilliant sunset on the way.
We ran around the rest of the museum, and got a whole bunch of great pictures. Here are a few.
Today we had our reception for my family and friends in Minnesota. We decided early on to have this reception for two reasons: first, we wanted a fairly intimate wedding and reception here with only close family and friends, and second we knew that many people wouldn’t be able to take the time and expense of travelling out for the wedding.
The reception was held in the Discovery Hall at the Science Museum of Minnesota. My family has been members of the museum for more than twenty years, plus, of course, I’m a scientist, so it seemed the perfect place for the reception. The Discovery Hall has a lovely view of the Mississippi River and a terrace that we were able to use for pictures.
We we arrived, some of the guests were already there, but Andrew and Dad had been there for a couple hours overseeing the set-up. It was a lot of fun to see some of my old friends who I only keep up with through Christmas cards. I also got to catch up with some of my parents’ friends who I haven’t seen since I played with their kids while our parents had silly parties.
Perhaps the most special guest, to me, was Greg Greer, the man responsible for getting me into physics. He was a physics instructor at Normandale Community College, and when I first took his class I was there only to fulfill the math/science requirements for an Associate of Arts degree. I took the second quarter physics class ‘just for fun’. Now, here I am, working toward my PhD in astronomy at NASA. I don’t know if either of us thought it would come to this!
Since we didn’t have the whole wedding party for a head table, we decided to modify the traditional head table. In addition to me, Andrew, and Sweetie, we had my parents and grandmothers…and two very special kids, my nephew and niece.
After dinner, Andrew and I walked around to the tables. I must confess that I didn’t know everyone there, especially members of my Mom’s extended family, but most of them knew that I might not remember them and introduced themselves to Andrew (and me…) They served the cake while we were walking around, and a couple kids gave us a gift from the kids’ table (a sand art picture of a rocket and astronaut — way cool).
Just after the cake, Dad started up a photo montage that they’d had made of me and Andrew from pictures of us throughout our childhoods. This might not have been so bad, but the Discovery Hall has a huge disco screen, so there I was in all my childish glory on a 20-foot by 15-foot (or so) screen. There isn’t much in life quite as humbling as that!
Andrew and I grabbed our cake after that (with Sweetie yelling at me to eat and shooing people away — I love Sweetie!), and then we went out on the terrace to take a few pictures. It was a lovely day outside, and with the view of the Mississippi it was the perfect place for some pictures.
It was a very nice reception, and I can highly recommend the Science Museum for anyone thinking about it. Dad actually did all the planning and coordinating, but he was very happy with the people at the museum. Another plus of having a function there is that all of the guests get wristbands to see the exhibit free. And, if that’s not enough, they can get tickets for the IMAX show for just $4.50, the price of adding the show on to an already paid-for museum admission.
This is the hutch we bought with the wedding gift money and some of the remainder of our wedding savings. We’ll be using it to store some of our linens and the small appliances we don’t use terribly often so that we can free up some counter and cupboard space.
We had about 75 kids last night, which a few more than my estimate for last year, but the traffic felt slower. We had a couple big rushes just after 8 PM — the last kids of the evening — but no steady stream of kids earlier. Maybe this is a symptom of the kids in the neighborhood getting older, since the older kids usually come out a bit later.
I also had books this year. Last year I only had five books to give out, and I wasn’t sure how/if they would go, but they went with the first four trick-or-treaters old enough to enjoy them. This year Andrew and I collected books at garage sales throughout the summer, and I had about 30 books for older kids and another 5 or so for the younger kids. I wasn’t sure that they would all go, but the baskets were empty by 7:30 PM. They were a big hit with the kids — I could hear the kids approach the door, but would wait until they knocked so they had a chance to look at the books (the couple times I opened the door while they were looking at the books, it distracted them away from the books, which defeated the purpose of having them out). Through the door I heard many kids say things like, “Cool, books”, and several even thanked me specifically for the books when I gave out their candy. We’ll have more books next year!
Yay! Thanks Crash and Mushi! They’re going to be even more beautiful tomorrow when a few of the blooms open up.
Andrew and I went downtown for the National Book Festival organized by the Library of Congress.
This event has been happening annually for the past three years (this is the fourth festival), and each year more authors and a greater variety of genres are added to the schedule. This is the first year that there has been a Science Fiction & Fantasy Pavilion, with eight featured authors. This might explain why this is the first year Andrew and I have gone.
We started the day by buying copies of Frederik Pohl’s newest book (not even available on Amazon last weekend), and then made our way to the Teens & Children Pavilion, where E. L. Konigsburg was giving a reading.
I remember reading Konigsburg’s Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth when I was in grade school, and I absolutely loved it! I re-read it last year before releasing another copy through Bookcrossing on Halloween. She read from her latest book, The Outcast of 19 Schuyler Place. From the two excerpts she read, I’m very much looking forward to reading it! She also relayed a touching account of having lost both her editor of thirty years and her husband of fouty-five years within a year of each other, both from pancreatic cancer. This is the first book that she’s published that neither of them saw the finished copy.
We left Konigsburg’s Q&A session a bit early to line up for her signing. That was an affair! She was scheduled to sign from 11 AM – Noon. We were in line at about 10:45 AM. My book was signed at about 12:10 PM. Andrew left a bit early to catch Frederik Pohl’s reading. (I was bummed to miss part of it, but I’d been in line so long, it was becoming a moral imperative to get my book signed.)
I missed out on Pohl’s reading, but Andrew said that it was a bit stilted. However, I did make it for most of his Q&A session, which was quite good. At 84 he’s a lively guest, if not entirely optimistic about the future of the human race.
Next, Neil Gaiman read from a work-in-progress, Anansi Boys. I don’t know if I’m a Gaiman fan or not, but Andrew is, so we stayed for the reading. The only thing I’ve read by Gaiman was Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett. I hated, hated, hated that book, but it’s hard to know if it was because of either of the authors or if I just didn’t like the way they worked together. I’ve since read more of Pratchett and have enjoyed some of it. But, Gaiman’s reading was quite fun, and Anansi Boys is comedic, at least the portions he read (not his normal style, according to Andrew), and sounded like something I might want to read. We’ll see.
I left while Gaiman was reading a second excerpt so that I could line up for Frederik Pohl’s signing. This line went faster than Konigsburg’s line, though I’m not sure why — perhaps there was less chit-chat, and there certainly seemed to be fewer people slowing down the line with pictures. I had Andrew snap one while Pohl was signing my books.
Copyright © 2025 My Silly Life All rights reserved. Theme by Laptop Geek.
