Tennessee

My time in Chicago ended in a flurry of activity. I packed my bags and headed off to the Field Museum -- a little later than I intended. One last ride on the number 6 bus along LSD -- great views of the city by the way. I spent the day in the museum working on the zoology collection: cleaning bones, relabeling specimens. I actually got to end the day in the fluid range, which is where all the "wet" specimens are stored. Those animals that are not skinned or their skeletons cleaned (which is most of the collection) are stored in alcohol. Imagine the mad-scientist/science fiction-esque scene of jars of two headed pigs and albino snakes stacked on shelves in all directions and you get an idea of the collection. It is actually much tamer than that, but I thought that might be a semi-familiar image. I had lunch with another friend at the museum, and then dinner with a couple more, and was finally dropped of at a bar for one last hurrah of people gathering to see me off (for real this time), that included Chocolate Martinis (very good!) and half-price appetizers. Ironically, I bumped into a work colleague also celebrating at the bar! It was nice to see her and chat about NNMS.

Since then, I have spent the past long weekend visiting my Mother in TN. This trip, and time, are going to fast! I feel like I am rushing from place to place, never really being ready to move on to the next place. This happened again with Mom. Mostly I rested and visited. But on the last full day, Mom and I got to work! We burned the trash, we mowed the yard and chopped the leaves, and I even got up on the roof and cleaned out the gutters! I love being handy!

Speaking of time: there is a quote that has been running through my head a lot recently. When I was in Junior High School (or there abouts -- it might have been a year or so earlier, or later, I don't actually remember), I read a short story about a boy who goes to visit his grandmother. They get to talking and at one point she talks about time speeding up as you get older, "until one summer bumped into the next." That quote (it may actually be a paraphrase by now) has stuck with me for years. I love the idea of times remembered not as blurring together, but as bumping into each other. As if the time between didn't matter, and yet periods still remain distinct. Also the idea of remembering the warm, relaxed together time and not the cold, busy, time apart.