Made and Found: L A Natural History Museum

When Catherine was just here visiting we made our way down to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, where we explored North American Mammals, African Mammals, Minerals, Dinosaurs, and much more...

Good thinkin', Lincoln.

If you're out of the loop, I really love Abraham Lincoln. I mean really love him. This kind of love makes it mandatory to stop by Ford's Theatre while in DC. Granted, I had been there some 16 years earlier, but I had never been to the Peterson House (the house across from Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was taken after he was shot). This kind of love also gets me in trouble because I tend to buy way too much memorabilia and then I become the weirdo with too much Lincoln memorabilia. There's nowhere else to put it!

My love for Lincoln is a special elitist's type of love. This type of love meant that my mother and I ditched the lecture at Ford's Theatre and went on our own guided tour. You can't teach basic Lincoln assassination to Nicolai's--we already have that covered, trust me.

JWB's derringer

Mary Surratt...tsk tsk.

JWB's boot--Dr. Samuel Mudd had to cut it off in order to treat Booth's broken leg.

From Ford's Theatre looking into Peterson House.

Replica wall paper

Replica Lincoln death bed. Don't fret, I've seen the real one in Springfield!

All of the books ever written about Lincoln.
I heard somewhere that Lincoln is written about more than Jesus...?

 Happy Friday the 13th, may you have better luck than Lincoln!

instaweek

PROOF!

stone structure 

trains across Trent

Wendy by Jennifer Li

night at the Museum

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recently, in Spokane

Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist

Got an iPhone? Follow me on Instagram: christinesuzanne I'm totally boring. Guaranteed. 

 A sunny winter's day in downtown Spokane.

Full moon rising over Spokane, as seen from Cliff Drive.

Stone structure in Riverside State Park

T. J. Meenach Bridge

Dig It! has arrived at the Museum.

I made beer-batter apple rings. Divine.

Evidence of beer!

 A tiny drift begins to form. 

The Campbell House

I was stationed over at the Campbell House on Christmas Eve. We have an open house format around the holidays, with living history interpreters playing the parts of the house's inhabitants, circa 1910. I was playing the part of house security, and let me just say that I'm quite adept at smiling innocuously and keeping out of pictures. During the slow times, I wandered around the second floor and took some pictures. Without further adieu...

Wallpaper on the servants' side

Wallpaper on the family side

The linen and sewing room

The master bath

Helen Campbell's room

The yellow guest room

While the house is lovely and ornate, like something out of Masterpiece Theatre, I find it all a bit overwhelming. I mean, the place is gargantuan! I could never imagine living there: too much pressure. I can practically feel the residual Victorian constraints reaching out from the great beyond. 

super slackers

OK, it's almost been a week since I last posted and nothing is happening on the Monika and Catherine post end either. It's because we're all frantically crafting (or attending class, like Catherine). But expect some posts soon. We're celebrating our early Christmas on this coming Sunday, so we'll be free to reveal all the crafts and goings on directly after.

In the meantime, here's a little picture from the Museum. The sculpture, The Navigators, is by Brad Rude and it is more excellent in real life than in pictures, I assure you.

mural in the morning

Here are a few shots of Ric Gendron's recently completed mural at the Museum. 

Ric is one of our awesome Spokane artists. He likes to blend traditional images with American pop and rock culture, and you can find more of his work at the Tinman Gallery. He's pretty terrific, don't you agree? 

Make mine minerals.

I hope you're ready to accept the fact that you'll be forced to live parts of my trip to California for the next week or so. And a large part of that trip involves the Natural History Museum of LA County...what's cooler than science and history? Practically nothing.

Monika and I went insane over the mineral display at the Museum. I think we spent the most time there, and at the end of our visit, we were in agreement that the mineral hall was the awesomest part of the trip. The. Awesomest. 

Elbaite Tourmaline on Quartz

Okenite with Gyrolite and Calcite.
Eat fuzzy, get dizzy.

Kroehnkite

Inderite

Spinel on Calcite, like the caption says.

 The only thing that came close to the mineral room was probably the bird room. 

Because that's where we finally learned what birds are! Class: Aves

Monika makes the discovery!

And Science marches on. 

Hello, bordello.

Or more appropriately, bordello museum, which would make it, of course, a defunct bordello. Wow, those two words are super-depressing together. Not that an operating bordello is something to get ecstatic about, but what do you picture when you read defunct bordello? 


Something along these lines, perhaps?

The ladies stayed for four months at a time and then
moved to another brothel. A sex worker circuit, if you will.

I bet it is.

All this was left by the ladies. Not the mannequins and packing peanut- simulated bubble bath, but everything else. Yes, that includes sheets, Mr. Bubble, and lingerie, which the mannequins now wear. 

So, yeah. This is the Oasis Bordello Museum in Wallace, ID. Catherine and I went for a visit last Saturday. It was...creepy. Honestly, I don't know what I expected. Well, I think I expected it to be creepy in a way that didn't actually creep me out as much as it ended up creeping me out. Creepy-funny, not creepy-think-about-it-while-trying-to-fall-asleep-and-being-incredibly-disturbed. It was so very much the latter in this instance. 

The bordello operated until 1988--it stopped because the FBI set up shop in town to investigate the crooked sheriff. But before all that came to pass, the ladies of the evening made a tidy profit (around a 100K/year, according to our guide) serving up to 40 gents a night. All right, calling them gents is bit of a stretch. I believe Catherine called them dirty husbands...as in, "Can you imagine your dirty husband getting his paycheck and going there before coming home?" I think we all can. 

The dirty husbands entered through this door. 

While Catherine had the good sense to ask about condom usage--there were regulations in the 1980s, but they were not enforced--we really wanted to know about the doctoring. There was a weekly exam and blood work, but we were skeptical about the regulation of this, too. And what about the STDs and pregnancies from the unenforced condom policy? Good questions, which we did not ask. Not because we were shy (we did ask to have the sex menu decoded and now know what the half and half option entailed), but because we got the sense our lackadaisical guide would not know the answer. We preferred to come up with the answers on our own--our imaginations are quite thorough.  


However, we couldn't come up with an explanation for this. 

It's just an extra mannequin leg. Whatever. 

I can sum the experience up thusly: it was like going to the 4H tent at the county fair and seeing the cow with the visible stomach (You know, the window?). It's a learning experience, but it's also gross, and somehow sordid, and really doesn't seem as acceptable as it once was. 

Do not rent a room here. 

The term for cow windowing is cannulation, by the way. Did you think you were going to learn that today? I certainly didn't. You're welcome.