Monday, March 31, 2014

Dead Things, Hairballs, And Angels

Tuesday I was occupied with two of my very favorite things, holding a book and insuring that the couch didn't start floating around, when dw came up and said we needed to do something.

 "I am doing something." I said, using the book to gesture at the couch.

  "We need to do something besides being a lay-about. We can go for a drive or a walk or a bike ride."

Neither a walk nor a bike ride was truly compatible with a book and a couch so I opted for the drive. After all, since dw would be driving, I could still read and a reclining car seat is similar to a couch. The couch itself might ding up the walls or scare the cat but that rarely happens and we haven't  had an actual cat for several years.

   "OK, where do you want to go?"

And as it happened I knew exactly where I wanted to go: Mt. Angel Abbey in Mt. Angel (the town) to visit the museum and see the giant porcine hairball. --- Supposedly the biggest pig hairball in the world. dw was skeptical but willing, as long as we also visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn.

Following inane Google directions (to the Wooden Shoe) we drove 99E to Woodburn. The traffic treated us gently and it was a more interesting drive than the freeway would have been, but Google's directions were logically impaired.  The tulip farm was still in preparation for it's yearly tulip viewings. They were setting up booths and tents. Play equipment for the kiddies. Elevated viewing stands --- in full swing they put on quite an act. And the tulips are pretty. Thursday the flowers were only starting to bloom (there was one swatch of red) with the other colors being spotty and spread around, but in a week or so I think it will be spectacular. We looked at some of the sights and dw bought several bunches of flowers to bring home.

On to Mt. Angel. We had lunch at Der Glockenspiel. (dw: sausage dog, me: sausage and spaetzle) and we each had a Warsteiner Dunkel dark beer. It was very good, although I thought the portions were skimpy for the price. (note: with a splat of bratwurst and mustard we fell off the vegetarian wagon) And afterwards we walked around a bit. Watched the glockenspiel do it's thing (it doesn't compare with the European classic ones but it's not too bad), walked by the Drunken German bar but didn't go in, looked at the (turned off) fountain with the little boy and girl dancing. (It's rather saccharine but well done. dw looked and said the little girl was showing some panties. I would have taken a picture, but I didn't want to be taken for a pervert.)  And finally drove to the Abbey to see The Worlds Largest Pig Hairball.

The Mount Angel Abbey Museum has a small, but world class eccentric, collection of stuff. As advertised a football sized pig hairball, set beside four smaller (pool ball sized) hairballs -- one is cut in half so you can appreciate that it really is a hairball. Next to the balls are two stuffed calves, one with four extra legs, the other with two extras. They are as bizarre as they sound. Also collected and displayed:   Some expected pictures of previous abbots. / An assortment of liturgical vestments. / A model of a sailing ship. / A collection of minerals and rocks. / Assorted Indian and Pacifica native art work. / Some rosaries. / Old farm tools / Arrow heads and other Indian relics. /  A box of pebbles from Jerusalem / some "Bird-Skin Art" -- ? -- / Some fossils / A replica of Christ's Crown of Thorns. / In short, a whole bunch of stuff.

And the largest collection is the "Larry Epping Wildlife Exhibit". Larry was an early graduate of the Abbey college. He made good, made a lot of money, and spent much  of his life going around shooting things. Killing them and stuffing them. At some point he probably thought: "All these dead things are so cool, I'm going to share them with the world." so he donated them to the Abbey Museum (I'm guessing they came with a large pot of money) On exhibit is one or more samples of every large mammal (predator and prey) native to North America.  (Really odd: a bald eagle and a golden eagle and a screech owl.  I have no clue as to how they get away with that) 

The Museum is a great example of what used to be known as a "Wonder Room" -- a room with a bunch of odd things that caught some body's interest.

After, we drove to Silverton, got gas (for the car) and walked around until we found an example of another world class one of a kind:  (This is a real parking meter, however only a few are left)

And we looked at the shrine for Bobby, A Great Collie --- the real source of the "Lassie Come Home" book, movie and TV series.

And then we
 came home. I for one was entirely satisfied by the Great Swine
Hairball.

(N.B. dw, while editing this entry, said: "Oh, I forgot about the stuffed animals."
"Good lord," I said, "How could you forget all of that?"
"I think I was overwhelmed by the hairball." --- fair enough --- )

 My Word of the Day: Truncate --- to be sure, not an unusual word. To shorten, or cut off the top. A word we all ran into in math --- a truncated pyramid, or cone, or triangle --- My question is: did the Guillotine truncate Robespierre and Saint-Just -- If anyone deserved to be truncated, those two did.

What does a quantum duck say? ---- "Quark, quark"

So a priest, a buxom blond and a rabbi walked into a bar. The bartender said: "What is this, some kind of a joke?"

Natural History Lesson of the Day: Mourning doves are the pinheads of the bird world.

3 comments:

  1. Very Funny Dennis....
    I love going to Mt. Angel and the Abbey!!!!!
    Another bit of interesting info is that the library at the abbey was designed by Alvar Aalto world famous architect and it is his only commission in the U.S.

    I like odd tid bits of news nobody else is interested inI so enjoy your posts!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very Funny Dennis....
    I love going to Mt. Angel and the Abbey!!!!!
    Another bit of interesting info is that the library at the abbey was designed by Alvar Aalto world famous architect and it is his only commission in the U.S.

    I like odd tid bits of news nobody else is interested inI so enjoy your posts!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks TB. On a previous visit we looked at the library -- I agree it's well worth looking at. I was going to mention it in this post, but I got so caught up in hairballs and bizarre calves that I forgot. Thanks for the reminder.

    ReplyDelete