As stated yesterday, our Saturday outing at Key Westconsin for dinner was preceded by a look-see at the ice sculptures performed on the sidewalks of downtown Waukesha as part of the annual Janboree winter events.
Above, an ice block chipping is in the foreground of the raccoon news in the aforementioned Putney Building. Out site is outlined in pink, with an orange arrow pointing to our three front windows. Hospitable candles glow in these openings pretty much day and night. Our friends doing drive-bys can spot where we are by those lights.
Dee was writing one of her numerous letters down in the living room before we went outside to look at the ice sculptures.
This view of the sculptor at work in front of our Five Point locus was shot from our loft office, with zoom. You can see the leaking thermopane window behind the 'matching' beveled-glass (icy) cross. It's a small diminishment of our otherwise mostly splendid living condition in this vintage 1882 one hundred and seventeen million year old limestone building. The windows and other features of the old Odd Fellows unit were updated about 17 years ago. The double glass is leaking between the panes of glass, not on the inside, unlike the Arcadian Avenue house where the wavy, original 1914 windows sometimes on super cold days had frost on the inside of their single panes.
The ice, never a problem here, would melt as the furnace eventually warmed the rooms. It was a lot ruggeder there.
Yesterday, we said that Dee had crab cakes at the restaurant but we failed to show them in the illustrations. Here she gets ready to mash her superb baked potato. The cakes were full of crab meat, not much filler.
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In 1972 I took a six month trip from Milwaukee up through Canada, down the west coast and eventually back to WI through New Mexico. (See http://raccoonnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/never-to-die-snapshots.html)
On that long journey I bought a bowl from the Pueblos in Taos. Have guarded and treasured it ever since. It is made of micaceous clay, a material plentiful to the NM aboriginals. I don't know how old the bowl is. It would date at least from 1972 which now is a long time ago. The natural, unpainted, unglazed surfaces of the bowl, inside and out, offer a visual and tactile treat for me. I cradle the bowl often, and to look into the many particles of the rough clay.
Touching this precious bowl is something for me like touching a mezuzah.
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Last week I took the opportunity of introducing two men who have both been pictured in the raccoon news but have never formally met. As a meetng ground we looked no further than Dave's watering hole across the street, a frequent topic in the SRN.
These chaps are like Dee, and I don't just mean they are friendly toward me. Like her, no matter how and when you point a camera at them the exposure is assured of being a winner. No second tries needed.
Waukeshans Hawk Mahoney and Joe Beringer
