CHRISTMAS FUN.

Christmas every year looks almost the same at my house. Endless cards and games between gnoshing.  Theo, Cedric (hidden) Kristanne and Doug play 13, the national card game of Viet Nam while...

...while Mason and Virginia play cribbage at the other end of the table. People change places, step in and out of games and in general have a good time.

We chose a Mexican theme for this Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner was home-made chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice and pinto beans with a romaine salad. As the family members grow, it's tough to fit everyone in with one picture.

After dinner we took a walk into the night to look back at the lights and found our selves in awe of the starry, starry night. Stars so close we could see the constellations and Milky Way as though touchable. Virginia started a carol and we stood in the street and sang and gave thanks that light pollution has not blocked ancestral skies on our tiny portion of the planet.

Grandson, Stewart, home from Japan for Christmas, brought this sample of Japanese foods. He taught us how easy Japanese is to learn because the characters are so consistent. If a character means house, or rock or walk, it will always mean that no matter how many characters in a sentence.  His brother, Mason, easily picked up some Japanese words. Leave it to the young.

Christmas day was more of the same. My brother, Bill, left, joined us for the afternoon. We are playing elevator with Stewart, Virginia, Mason, Owen, Ken and myself. At the opposite end of the table, Theo, Doug, Kristanne and Laurie play RummiKub.

We played around with hats and I thought of some artists paintings as I looked at what the camera did to Mason's arm. One giant appendage and one shrunken.

I rarely wear this hat, but I love it.

It has seven watches glued on it, plus other fascinating pins, buttons, beads and junk.

I bought a Playboy jacket at a second hand store just for the buttons. (I'm a collector.)  We had great fun with it. I liked this picture of Owen, though a bit blurry and in a distracting background.

It's tough to get Owen to stand still for a picture, but I love this smile.

And Dad, too. I liked this one though the light wasn't quite right.

But he liked a different one. I think he was trying not to laugh.

Stewart said, no way. The hat was too small and he couldn't get the jacket on his second arm.

None of these pictures are in the correct order. I didn't remember to take a picture of our Christmas Day dinner, which was chili rellenos with an apple and cabbage pomegranate coleslaw, and home made-by Doug and Virginia- Chicken, Pork and chili cheese tamales. Goodt stuff.

Before we finished Christmas dinner, the desert table was almost bare.

We had our anonymous book trade, only three to open. And, all too soon, it was bedtime for me,  the picture taker. My ears picked up hushed conversation sliding under my bedroom door as I succumbed to sleep.

The next morning, everyone was up bright and early. Ken and Laurie's family drove back to Reno in time to put Stewart, Mason and Kristanne on an Airplane for Las Vegas. Home for Mace and Stan; Stewart will reconnect with his girlfriend before returning to Japan.
My cup runneth over.

Yesterday, I printed out all my paperwork associated with my trip. Copies of credit cards, insurance papers and so on. I make a copy of everything important for my grandson to carry with his things. The idea is if your suitcase gets lost, you have the numbers and information in his luggage. And, his information is in my luggage should his get lost. It is a precaution we hope we won't need, of course.

Then I read about the clothing requirements, or suggestions,  as I prepared to select what I would take with me.  In the country, men and women do not wear sleeveless shirts or shorts. Women cover their hair. In mosques, if you do not have proper attire, you must rent it or stay out of the mosque.

In the cities, one can get by with showing knees, or even a sleeveless shirt, but it is still considered rather impolite to go out in public "improperly" dressed. Boys do not typically wear shorts. They wear trousers. I'd forgotten how much importance is placed on what we wear.

It wasn't too long ago that women wore house dresses. The first time my mother came home with a pair of "slacks", it was war at her house. She wore her slacks until they were thin and then used them to make a rug which I still have. She wore house dresses most of her life and only rarely reverted to "pants."  For my generation it was giving up nylons at church and at work. I still had to wear a hat to church as a kid. Not until I met a firebrand teacher in fifth grade, was I allowed to wear anything but skirts and long stockings over long underwear to school. Boys had warm legs, we girls had to freeze. She let us wear "Jeans" which we did at home, by then, on the farm. Oh, how we adored her.

That was reversed when we moved back to Escanaba. We were required to wear long stockings, (no Jeans)  to school for seventh and eighth grades. By the time I arrived at school in the winter, my hands were so stiff with cold, I had to warm my hands before I could open my combination lock to my locker.

Now, though it is inconvenient and seems silly to me, I make it a point to obey the dress codes of the countries I travel in.  Each non-westernized country is so unique and interesting, I’m glad that I got to see the colorful clothing of the Inca peoples of Peru. And the folk music and dance costume of Costa Ricans, and that I learned to tie a piece of fabric that covers a man or a woman from head to toe without buttons to assist keeping it in place.

On our boat, we can only wear boat shoes or socks or bare feet. And, there is no electrical connections on the small boat we sail for a short time. I finally have taken the time to be excited about my upcoming trip, and can enjoy it through the printed word, first.

Today, Jim and I are going to go out and look for wildflowers in bloom and stop and take pictures.

PIONEER MUSEUM OF GLASGOW, MONTANA.

On entering the Glasgow Pioneer Museum, you are confronted with a full size tee pee, probably 12 feet at the base and 15 feet tall. It is made of sewn together elk skins and once belonged to an Assiniboine Chief, one of the major tribes in this area.

Chief First To Fly and many of his tribe's beautiful feathered headdresses, tools, clothing and pictures are gathered here in what I'd rate as an excellent museum.

A sample of their beauty.

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The museum is good about telling stories of some of the people's experiences. This is an artist rendering of Pigeon's Egg Head, a warrior who went to Washington and then what he looked like when he returned with his head full of grand ideas and impractical clothing.

Cases of buffalo bones as well as an almost complete dinosaur vertebrae are displayed here.

Remembering my history of how white hunters set out to obliterate the plains Indian's food supply by savagely slaughtering every buffalo they could is such a sad and cruel part of our history. But when you see the pictures it is a sickening tragedy made real.

At one time, Eastern Montana prairie was white with bleached buffalo bones where ever you walked or rode.

Pioneers trucked millions of bones to the Great Northwestern Railroad where Charles Aubrey of Missouri turned them into fertilize. He paid scavengers $24 a ton for the bones. Before he quit in 1886, he paid out $40,000,000 to scavengers for his fertilizer plant. When I think how many millions of dollars go to Africa for tourists to see the amazing animal migrations, and to think we had the same type of migration right here from Southern Canada to South Texas, the loss is compounded.

Stan's Bar found its way into the museum.

As in old western movies, men stepped up to the bar, one foot on a rail. No classy seating arrangements. You drank your whiskey standing up.

The bar came with two walls of stuffed trophies. Whenever anyone new entered the bar, Stan would say, "Did you bring your checkbook?"  He had many offers to sell parts of his collection, but he wanted it to stay together and he'd say, "It all goes as one, the bar, the animals and my 70 rentals. You better have a deep pocketbook." Whoever did his taxidermy was very talented.

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A scarce wolverine. Stan's collection has two of them.

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An albino white tailed deer.
Unfortunately, a huge collection of hats that belonged to Dazee Kellerher, are behind glass, almost impossible to photograph.
Newspapers found her hats newsworthy as she aged, about every ten years, they'd do another pictorial on her hats. Her reputation was that she never went anywhere without a hat. What a character.

Trying on a few old hats and viewing yourself in a mirror was such a hoot. A drawer held about 25 hats, some were stunningly ugly but I gave it a go.
The Pioneer Museum takes you through several layers of history. The Indians, the cowboys, the sheepherders, the settlers-all well done. So much to see here, to do it right, you need a full day. The Museum, some outdoor exhibits and a nearby house are all part of the Museum Complex. The sheep herders camper depicted  an era when Montana's economy depended more on sheep than cattle.

Some interesting paintings and western artists are featured here.

Outside, a windmill typical of those used on the plains. This one was donated by the Docent's family. Thoroughly enjoyable, not to miss if you pass this way.

GULF COAST CITIES.

Galveston’s  wharf  reminds  me of San Francisco’s wharf. We went to see the Elissa, an old masted sail boat with a crew that sails her regularly. They are beautiful, no doubt about it. When we got there, you can pay to board her and walk around.
If you’ve never done it, it’s worth the price, $6 and $8 dollars, senior/ student and adult prices. We visited one  in New Bedford, MA. and watched the crew prepare for sail and make a staged water rescue in  2010.  I  visited a tall ship in Boston Harbor and another in San Francisco, so we passed and just took pictures. The seafood restaurants smelled tempting. We watched a guy unload gunny sacks filled with  oysters. It was way to early for us to eat.

Then I saw something I knew would make my youngest son drool. Beautiful Doug Fir, from old growth trees. 6 X 12′s about 35 to 40 feet long.
This pile and a couple more like it are $250,000 dollars worth, we were told. I have to cry for the old growth forest, while I admire a beautiful piece of lumber.  I wish I could bring the smell home to my carpenter son.

We walked around town again today. I took pictures of things you don’t often see. Like this cigar store wooden Indian.

This is a solar parking meter. We laughed, but it is very effective.

The entrance to this store has a painted-on rug. What a hoot!

The businesses  are getting all gussied up for Mardi Gras.

A  27 inch tall. Wow!

Decadent, velvet and old wood. The city placed a huge banner across one of the major streets. Everybody is talking about Mardi Gras.

This is Jonnie Cooks who made a charming ceramic for her Uncle Fred. For Mardi Gras she makes fantastic costume heads out of cardboard of her own invention. (I only got to see a picture.) Her method is original and well crafted. She may be selling them at Mardi Gras this year. It is the biggest event of the year. A half-million people come to Galveston for Mardi Gras.

When visiting the seaside, the general wisdom is to eat seafood. Some woman coming out of The Gumbo Bar shoved a couple of coupons in my hands and mumbled something about the best gumbo she ever tasted and I was intrigued. Jim had chicken and sausage and I had Shrimp, oyster and crab gumbo. It was a huge bowl. Plus I got my first decent beer since arriving in Texas, an Abita Turbo Dog.  The woman was right. Mine had huge shrimp. There was a shrimp in every bite, down to the last spoonful in the bowl. Gumbo heaven!!

From the day previous, a Rene Wiley painting. Rene’s husband, Ben, told me she paints about 50 hours a week and she has a huge following and sells about 300 paintings a year. This one is from her Galveston Alley series.

Hibiscus blooming  in January?  I think of all the gulf cities we’ve visited, Galveston has the most to offer as a vacation spot, or a place to live, at least in winter. It may be hot and muggy in summer.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit here. I think Galveston is the star of the coast cities. They’ve wrested the best from their stormy spot on the coast and have it pretty well protected, a great arts community, friendly people, vibrant economy, great food, tourism and a decent beer.