Tales from the Shark Tank

It’s definitely high summer in Indiana. The temperature is ranging in the high 80′s, and the humidity is in the mid 90′s. You know you’re in trouble when it’s too hot to walk comfortably at dawn. It has come very close to my concept of hell, which I define as double 90′s. Ick.

The duck is still sitting back there. Incubation period is 28 days. We found her on June 1st. I have no idea how long she’ll sit if the eggs don’t hatch. I seriously doubt the short time we chased her away would have hurt them materially. She was gone for less than 5 minutes, and I’m fairly sure she would have to leave occasionally for food or a drink of water. I don’t know a whole lot about the nesting habits of ducks, though, so I couldn’t say with any certainty. And while I have seen her gulp a cicada, she did not compare it to chicken. Of course, there weren’t any smart-alec meerkats around for her to learn it from either.

But two of my fledglings and I went to the Talbot Street Art Fair yesterday. It’s three blocks long, and in the two hours we had, we only saw about half of it. That’s ok. It was horribly hot and humid, and the time limit of needing to get to Wick’s folk’s house for my mother in law’s birthday dinner was actually a blessing. Otherwise, as K. pointed out, we might have kept going and oohing until we fell over from the heat. Much better to find ourselves on our way out because I had to get home and I was the one driving.

I got a bowl with a dryad perched on the side of it. It’s a lovely piece of fantasy. She’s a girl, albeit with rather rough skin, until her calves and ankles shift gradually into roots that twine in the bowl’s bottom. It’s a very cool piece of work, and very original. There were several artists there whose work I’ve also seen at cons I’ve gone to. It was interesting. When I started going to this particular fair years ago, such fantasy work would have been in stark contrast to most of the things there. Now it is not. I find the trend intriguing. It may actually be that in some respects Indiana is becoming moderately less mundane. I certainly hope so.

Joseph and Sarah and I went to a house filk Saturday night, as well. I wasn’t altogether sure about taking the little guy, but I was pretty sure if he liked it, he would like it a whole lot. Well, he did. He got the plot of a bardic circle (go around and take a turn or pass) very quickly, and when his turn came, he by heaven walked to the middle of the circle and sang. I was so proud of him I could have popped, and the other adults gave him lots of enthusiastic encouragement. He wants to know when there will be another “music party”. I don’t know, but I suspect we’ll be there.

And I’m working, much to Joseph’s chagrin. He wants his Mommy home with him all the time, and is not shy about saying so. The child protection/ religious restriction case I took goes to the next stage before the court next Monday. I am decidedly *not* looking forward to it. But I’ll be ready and I’ll do my best. After that, it’s in the lap of the gods. I hope they’re paying attention.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2004 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Life as I know it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.