Cricket

Mea culpa. Today I stepped on a cricket. I was trying to herd it out of the bedroom, at the same time as I was searching around for the glass jar I'd had in there in the night to try to catch the same creature, turned, lost my balance and the cricket lost its life. I really didn't mean to.

And yet I'm relieved. I was kept awake two nights in a row by the incessant chirping. Last night I was up for at least an hour, trying to figure out exactly where it was. I found a lot of dust and a couple of marbles (that's where I lost them!) under my dresser, but no cricket. I shined my flashlight behind a bookcase. No cricket. I checked the closet. No cricket. It had stopped chirping, so I went back to bed.

Chirp!

Again I searched. Again it stopped chirping. Back to bed.

Chirp!

After I got up for the fifth or sixth time I found some earplugs. I could still hear it, but it was muffled.

I took that blurry picture above not in the house but in the garage. I knew the crafty insect wouldn't come out for a photo op and I knew that crickets often scatter when I go in the garage. Ten minutes after I came back in the house I heard another chirp, this time the smoke alarm telling me it needed a new battery. Eerie.

A couple of hours later, I went into the bedroom and there it was, in its shiny glory. That's when I tried to herd it. Squish.

Dragonflies are so much quieter.

Who's going to Brazil with me?

That is, which of my puppets, not which of my friends, will stow away in my luggage next week?



Trixie, definitely. Certainly the baby (no, she still doesn't have a name). Mavis has been begging to be allowed. Those three are shoe-ins. Trixie will take her giant toothbrush and will brush her hair with it. The baby will pop her binky out of her mouth. Mavis will talk on her tail-aphone. The poor little bug on the wall travels well, so he'll join us.



Who else? Kay, a.k.a. the old lady who swallowed a fly? She would be good, but she's big and has lots of snacks in her lunchbag. It depends on how much space I have in my luggage.



The Gunniwolf has been feeling a bit left out (and also slightly out of frame). He'd like to go on the trip, I'm sure. He--and his story--is quite good with young children.


Maybe Stephanie, who is the puppet I use when I tell Robert Munsch's Stephanie's Ponytail. She doesn't look like Stephanie in the book, but she has great hair (ignore my finger in the photo).



Any opinions?

Dragonfly finger puppets

I spent a long time looking for dragonfly finger puppets to use in my upcoming residency for 2nd graders (age 7-8, for those of you outside the US). Folkmanis has one. I ordered this for myself, but I'm disappointed--the wings on each side are on top of each other and the eyes are too far apart. I tried a kirigami dragonfly pop-up card. It was pretty, but not what I needed.

Nothing for it. I was going to have to make one up myself. I started playing with a pipecleaner (now called chenille stems in the craft stores), wire-edged ribbon and beads. Here's what I came up with.


Here are a few of them in their, umm, wetland habitat (ignore that sofa in the background!)
One benefit of these finger puppets is that the kids can make them before I arrive for the first residency session. I was thrilled when the teachers offered to do that. Another benefit is that they're quite inexpensive to make--I bought supplies for about 175 of them for under $15.

Night-blooming cereus, part 3

Just a few more, I promise. There will be one more flower tomorrow, but this is it for the blog. This is the progression through the day.

Morning:

7:30 p.m:
About 9 p.m.:

10:00 p.m.:


This variety has no scent, unlike the other one I have. It will open some more, but I'm off to bed. Back to your regularly-scheduled show soon.