Our friend -e- has come into town with her daughter -r-. I must say that eight year old -r- is all that is delightful in a child. She is charming, well-mannered and can amuse herself. I met them on Thursday at the Natural History museum which was, oddly, the first time I’d been in. Though I shouldn’t need to state it, whales are big.

After the museum, we wandered in Central Park for a while. The weather was unbelievable after a season of gray, winter blahs. Warm, with flowers blooming everywhere, it felt like Spring had truly arrived.

In the middle of the lake, a mass of turtles crowded on the only available rock to sun themselves. It was like watching New York’s housing crisis repeat in the animal kingdom.

If you want to have conversations with your neighbors, a good way to do it is to walk down the street with a cart of taxidermy. They might start conversations with such openers as”

“My god!”

“What is it?”

“Are they real?”

“May I touch your dead animal heads?”

I’m doing props for Bully Pulpit, a show about Teddy Roosevelt, who was a big hunter. The whole thing is set in the North Room at Sagamore Hill which was decorated with… yes, taxidermy. I found these heads on Craig’s List and they were only ten blocks from my house. Clearly, I was not going to pass up a chance to interact with my fellow New Yorkers.

One poor woman, who must have been a serious vegan, had a look of absolute horror on her face while her son was totally fascinated. Her husband stopped with their daughter so I could explain about taxidermy and theater. She stood behind them looking like she wanted to throw up.

I’ll bet they have a very interesting conversation when they get home.

Everyone else I passed seemed either completely indifferent or amused.

I added a link over in the sidebar for “Random page” which will take you to a different random post every time you click on it. I thought it might make an easy way to browse.