Post-Publication Irregular Round-Up

Here is a round-up of my lousy smartphone pictures...

Jacques Torres and Leonard Lopate at WNYC

In early February, I went to a chocolate and wine tasting at a local radio station's performance space.  Torres was quite personable and a good raconteur; I could see how he made the jump from pastry chef to celebrity chocolatier.  (Although not everyone knows him.  Indeed, I first learned of him through a guy's very cute first date survival package - it included a small box of Jacques Torres chocolates, plus exact change for a payphone, which he explained was so I could either call a friend and say how great the date was or call a cab to make my getaway.)

Torres talked a little bit about his family.  His first-born child is almost 6 months old now, which apparently means monthly visits to the pediatrician for vaccinations etc.  Torres says he keeps asking the doctor "When can I give my son chocolate?"  To which the doctor will only reply, "Not yet!"  Torres expressed self-deprecating optimism that the upcoming appointment will be the turning point.   Surely six months is old enough for chocolate!!

Cthulhu and the MTA

I also had the occasion to see a performance of Twelfth Night recently.  The audience's favorite scene, by far, was the one where Sir Toby and his fellow conspirators lurk around to watch Malvolio find their letter and fall into their trap.  Young kids and others unfamiliar with Shakespeare could very much get the physical humor in the way this scene was staged: the conspirators are so badly hidden that anyone but a self-obsessed gullible fool would have noticed them.  They pop up to react in outrage to Malvolio's reactions, and their fellow conspirators have to pull them back down into hiding again.  (It is the same broadly comic approach to a merry conspiracy as seen in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing.)

Malvolio is slow to find the letter initially

(The boy in the homburg - Fabian? - had remarkable
comic timing throughout the play.)

Sir Toby is outraged by Malvolio's arrogance

Now Sir Andrew Aguecheek is exercised...

... and immediately suppressed. 

Lewis Carroll has a good explanation of the general concept in his well-known treatise, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.)"

The conspirators follow Malvolio and prepare to read over his shoulder

Olivia and her true love, Cesario (nee Viola)

Olivia and her other true love, Sebastian (Viola's twin)

The clown role was split and played by two actors, both of whom wore red noses.

Curtain Call

I also had the opportunity to observe an Introduction to Lacross session.  Apparently, girls are expected to play without body-checking their adversaries, and are therefore given much trickier lacrosse sticks (with virtually no basket).  Who knew?

Under the weather, but providing moral support

A few more highlights from Florida:

• Naples Zoo: primate cruise, where you get to tour around several small islands containing two primates each.  
• Also, the blind Florida panther, Uno, had memorized its landscape well enough to gracefully leap over the shrubbery to land near the keeper during her talk.  (Uno learned rather quickly that zookeeper = treat-bringer and planned accordingly.)
• Wildlife Refuge: we spent a lot of time watching an osprey feeding its young.  We had a great view, as the nest was essentially on the main drag, and we had our best binoculars and a scope.  There were four chicks in the nest, and we watched as the parent tore off bits of fish to feed whichever chick happened to be squawking the loudest. (We got distracted a bit with a pileated woodpecker that flew into the general scene, but it was relatively shy and soon fled from sight.)   

• Games of Cattan and Taboo
• The traditional bike rides for breakfast and ice cream (although we tried a much closer ice cream shop this time, a new place - I liked their espresso chip ice cream, but they unfortunately did not have the beloved "magic shell" chocolate)

As I was preparing this post, I went to look for some emails I sent to two individuals describing some of my recent activities -- in particular, I had a very clear memory of telling #2 all about the chocolate tasting --  but could not find any such emails.  I looked on all my devices, searching draft folders and sent folders, and started to wonder if this false recollection might be the first sign of insanity...  And then I remembered, I'd sent them e-cards with messages, not regular emails.  I went to the e-card site, and found the messages easily.  Phew!!!

Naples Zoo

I'd never been to the zoo in Naples, Florida before.  On the way, we read an excerpt from Henry V (the wonderful early scene with the French ambassador and his tun of treasure), and then the first few chapters of "A Study in Scarlet."

We mostly organized our visit to the zoo around the keepers' talks, which were interesting (with a strong pro-conservation bent).  We first met Uno, the blind Florida panther, and went on from there.

Leopard (NOT A RUG)

Ducks

Beaded Iguana - rendevous with reptiles / meet the keeper event

Branches of a possibly cauliflorous tree 

Ring-Tailed Lemurs on the Primate Cruise

I was impressed by the giraffe's long gray tongue, and the way it came out at an angle and swept around to corral the leaves the keeper gave it.

Tiger and Friends

Audience contestant gets instructions....

Four audience members were selected to compete against the animals.  This contestant was racing against a hornbill to collect worms. The hornbill used its beak, and the contestant used tongs.  Fortunatley, the hornbill won - I'm pretty sure the prize was getting to eat the worms!!

Racing against the hornbill!

Ranking of crimes in the U.S.A., by "popularity"

Wildlife Refuge

A few good sightings in the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge: two alligators, two yellow-crowned night herons, and a green heron.   One gator and one of the yellow-crowns were on the Indigo Trail (specifically at the observatory).  The remainder were on Wildlife Drive.

We watched the gator exit the water and pose in a J shape with cactus arms:

 

The left rear leg had a ragged chunk out of it, as if bitten.

Nearby, on the other side of the walkway, we saw a yellow-crowned night heron which was very busy preening.

Green Heron

Weekend Getaway

The gang had just returned from a three-day tour of some local theme parks when they picked me up from the airport, and the girls were bubbling over with enthusiasm.  It was fun to hear all the details, to see what had really caught their fancy.  

In addition to the usual complement of pelicans et al., we were treated to some visiting dignitaries.

A single woodpecker with a brilliant red crest took up residence on a palm tree, and we were able to take a few photos before it got a bit spooked.


But its courage soon returned on the wings of a friend, so to speak.  Safety in numbers, or some such.

A pair of woodpeckers flanked by pelicans

Moon over the Bailey Tract - once again, we did not see any bobcats

A rare sign of life on Wildlife Drive 

The other new visitor - or rather, visitors - of an evening were dragonflies.  Not the cute little Tinkerbell type, either, mind you, but built more along the lines of Chinooks for ruggedness.  They filled the air.

Huge dragonflies swarmed like a battalion of helicopters

All those specks in the sky? Dragonflies.

We mostly took it easy over the course of the weekend - went swimming, played Ticket to Ride, read "Hound of the Baskervilles," practiced playing bridge, and feasted on wonderful homemade meals.

The waters are very high now, even at low tide, and we'd seen practically nothing but ibises (and few enough of those) during our earlier drive through the refuge, but on the morning of my last day I thought we should go back once more to visit the Indigo Trail.

There was not much to see, initially.  There were some strange tracks across the path right by the entrance, and we tried to convince ourselves they were the marks of an alligator's tail, rather than lines drawn by kids with sticks.  We saw a few ibises flapping around near the observatory.  Then we crossed the bridge, and down to the right was - an alligator!  A fair sized one, not too hidden in the brush!

So that was cool.  Even though the gator was moderately close, we took turns with the binoculars to see the details close up.  It stayed quite still, except for the occasional eyelid blink, and the opening and closing of its nostrils into straight lines.

We watched it blink its eyes - an inner and outer eyelid - and examined its pearly whites

Down this waterway, as usual,
we saw two anhingas

We retraced our steps and turned the corner to head back to the start and saw - another alligator!  This one was even closer (maybe 3 or 4 yards away), in shallow water, with no fence between us.  It was seemingly smaller and younger than the first; my dad estimated it at about five feet.  Its head was out of the water, and it was watching us.

We took quite a few photographs here, staying respectfully and warily on the path.  We were a little nervous at how close it was.  Apparently, the gator was also nervous, for it suddenly lunged a few inches toward us with a fierce growl, then retreated to the reeds.  (I hadn't known alligators could growl - it was a little intimidating.)

A much safer location.  No one can see you there!!!

We walked back up onto the bridge for better viewing in its new location, and (while we were there) also checked out the first gator again.  It had moved almost 90 degrees from its original position and was now pointing away from us.

So we relished these views from the safety of the bridge and went back to the path, feeling quite pleased with ourselves.

And then something small, dark and furry darted across the path!

A river otter dashed down to the water on the left, but then came out again and cavorted on the bank amid the shrubbery as we watched from the trail.  The girls were thrilled!!!  (As we were all - this was only my third time seeing river otters in the wild.)

This otter was much darker than the others I'd seen, and perhaps a bit larger as well. It looked almost cat-like when it stood and hunched its back.

So this was a truly phenomenal way to end a lovely celebratory weekend with family.  (Oh, and we managed to reach the conclusion of the Holmes story as well - though we had to circle once around the airport to do it.  Luckily we still arrived in plenty of time.)