Frankenstorm Sandy

Last night Carlos and I weathered the Frankenstorm known as Sandy.  It was really, really windy here (gusts topped 80 mph) and super rainy.  We had prepared ourselves well and because we are field biologists, have more than enough emergency supplies around as standard gear (e.g. three headlamps, tons of batteries, candles everywhere, lots of water bottles to fill).  Our power (and internet!) remained on through the storm, so we are very lucky.  Our old little apartment suffered a little water damage from the heavy rain being strongly blown into the windows.  We had to soak up the drips with towels and containers, but it wasn't that bad.  We also had a drip in our ceiling, which fell down while we were asleep (we didn't even hear it).  It looks worse than it is.  We will be going to talk to the managers here to get everything fixed, but I am sure they will be swamped with repairs.

 

 

Today was a pretty normal day.  It was chilly (the first day our radiators started squeaking!), but not uncharacteristically so.  Carlos and I wandered around the neighborhood for a while, but the damage to Capitol Hill was very minor/nonexistent.  We were lucky -- this was a very strong storm!

On another note, I spent some fun time carving our pumpkin for Halloween.  I saw a dachshund pumpkin picture and I thought that would be great.  We now have our very own little Salchichita in pumpkin form -- I think it turned out pretty great~

 

China trip planning

Carlos and I are really getting into planning the details of our trip to China.  We plan to travel from DC to Beijing some time around the 23-25 November and stay in the city for about a week seeing the sites and getting acclimated to a new country and time zone (to be coherent for our seminars and interviews).  From Beijing, we travel to Kunming and onward to Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical  Garden near Menglun. 

This weekend we picked up a couple of really nice travel guides (one for Beijing and another for southwestern China) and a little pocket guide to Mandarin.  I am excited to look through these books and make more solid travel plans.  We are also getting our visas in order and we should be booking our flights very soon -- things take a while dealing with administrators at XTBG!

Roy Lichtenstein exhibit

Yesterday, as a treat for finishing a really long and difficult job application, Carlos and I took a break to visit the recently-opened Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.

The exhibit is housed in the East building of the National Gallery and is really huge.  There were many, many paintings and sculptures from throughout his art career, but there was no photography allowed in the main exhibit.  I was able to take a few pictures outside the main exhibit: an abstract Lacoon, one of the artist's studio, a sculpture, and a painting of architectural elements.

 
I really like Lichtenstein's art, especially his comic-book panels and graphic images of objects (e.g. hot dogs, Alka-Seltzer, tires, notebooks).  I also really like the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic panel painting that started his comic-style of pop art.  I might have to come visit this exhibit again because I liked it so much!

Rock collection display

 

 

 

I have a few craft and DIY projects that I am working on -- one of which is creating a new display for my rock collection.  I picked up an old printer's drawer at Eastern Market a while back (only $10!) and plan to modify the little spaces to accommodate my rocks and minerals.  This will entail some sawing, sanding, and staining of this little drawer.  Once I fill all the spaces (I need to go rock hunting), I plan to find a nice piece of glass to attach over the top to protect everything from dust and debris.  I need to go to the hardware store to buy a little small-toothed saw so I can get started!

New MOO mini cards

I received my new set of MOO mini business cards in the mail the other day -- these will be great when Carlos and I head off to China at the end of November for interviews (and any other interviews that may pop up before we leave DC next summer/fall.  I have a new batch of 100 mini cards, which is great because I ran out of my last set in August!  I really like these mini cards and I think they are a fun way to give people my contact information and a little piece of my art.

PS. This is just a subset of the 100 cards I received, but covers all of the individual designs -- the rest are duplicates of what you see here.

Carnivorous plants exhibit

Last week, Carlos and I visited the carnivorous plants exhibit at the National Botanical Garden on the Mall.  I really like carnivorous plants (especially sundews) and this was a really nice exhibition of carnivorous plant diversity accompanied by larger-than-life sculptures. 

We started out front where we saw some tall, iridescent trumpet plant (Sarracenia flava) sculptures.  Underneath them there was a little swamp replica with real trumpet plants and venus flytraps -- so cute!

 

Inside, we found more sculptures and lots of live plants (fed with fruit flies!).  The round-leafed sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) was especially cute with little flies ensnared in its sticky hairs.

The venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) sculpture was interactive and with the press of a fly-shaped button, you could close the traps.

 
I really liked the fanged pitcher plant (Nepenthes bicalcarata) sculpture.  It really reminded me of a little house in the computer game Myst 3!  You could go inside the pitcher and see a large ant trapped in the floor and when you looked up, you could see the fanged opening of the pitcher.

Carlos brought his fancy camera so that he could take some good pictures of all the plants and he got some really great shots.  This was a very fun interactive exhibit about a group of plants that most people don't give much though to and I am glad we went to see it before it moves on to the next museum!