Close Encounters with Palin Phreaks

Its FREEZING outside today! Well, not quite freezing, as in less than 32 degrees, but really, truly cold! Truth be told it was pretty chilly yesterday, too, and there was rain. The weather caused a funny moment at the museum yesterday. The very small city park located one block behind the museum was the site of a rally for John McCain, starring everyone's favorite Tina Fey impersonator - Sarah Palin!! My assumption is that the McCain/Palin camp knew they wouldn't be able to fill a huge stadium or any of the larger municipal parks in this town, so they chose a small patch of grass that would make the crowd that did show up look a bit bigger than it was. So all morning, we were subjected to blaring music (if I hear Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 one more time I might scream) being blasted from house-sized speakers, and a whole swarm of red-clothed rally-goers who wanted to use our bathroom. Then at almost the precise moment that Palin took the stage, the heavens opened up, and rain poured down, accompanied by gusting wind and those frigid temperatures. It was great! It felt like divine retribution. A few minutes later, the front door of the museum swung open and in walked a middle-aged woman wearing a red cowboy hat, red leather boots, and a T-shirt loudly proclaiming that she was a "Palin Phreak". Myself and the rest of my staff were all standing in the hallway chatting, as we had no other visitors. Our newly arrived Palin Phreak looked at us and said, "Well can I get a tour or what?" to which one of my more liberal tour guides immediately replied, "Absolutely ma'am, come right this way." Now, I knew right away this was a bad combination, but I let it go - maybe I was feeling a little devilish. Half an hour later, the visitor and my guide were heard arguing rather heatedly in one of the back exhibit galleries, and a minute later the cowboy hat came marching back into the hallway, its owner practically shouting about her pasionate devotion to McCain and Palin and all things Republican. My tour guide was close on her heels, and she asked the woman, "Then what are you doing in here - the rally's across the street!" The woman gave the guide a look like she had antenna growing out of her head or something and responded, "To hell with that - its raining out there!". So much for the dedication of Republicans to their candidate.

Thank God there are only 7 days left...

Return to the 21st Century

Well, its been a few days since I returned from my weekend trip to Williamsburg, and I think I've finally gotten back into the 21st century swing of things. The trip was fun - I think my parents really enjoyed themselves. But, I have to say that it was incredibly HOT! I mean, I know its Williamsburg, and its known for being hot, but geez!!! I thought by mid-September it would at least be slightly cooler, or at least less humid. Nope - we managed to go to Williamsburg on a record-breaking weather weekend. Saturday it was about 89 degrees, and a bagillion percent humidity. Sunday was worse. But we persevered. My father kept saying that we were getting a true 18th century experience - feeling what it was like to live without air conditioning. Truth be told, though, we mostly just ran from one air conditioned building to another - we didn't really soak up the atmosphere too much! Sadly, perhaps because it was so hot, I didn't think to pull out my camera all that often, so alas no pictures! Maybe my parents will figure out how to send pictures from their camera via email. I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you, though.

My return to the office offered a rude reminder of the 21st century. For some reason, my boss has taken to calling me on the phone when he has a question or needs something from me this week. You're probably thinking, "What's wrong with that? That's how lots of people communicate in the office environment." Well, my office environment at the museum is very, very SMALL. So small, in fact, that my boss's office is exactly 4 steps from my office. Its so close that I can hear him working his way through his post-lunch indigestion every day. For nearly 4 years he has simply shouted to me when he needs something. Now, all of the sudden, my phone rings every 5 minutes and its him asking me things - and I can hear his voice echoing in from the hallway, too. Super annoying. I don't understand it.

Today at the Museum

Collections inventory continued today at work, and as usual it was both horribly tedious and at times so ridiculous my intern and I were crying because we were laughing so hard. We didn't find any more explosives, sadly, but we did come across a few conundrums. Here's a few of my favorites:

1) Object ID # 1997.041, Object Name: Unknown, Object Description: Blank, Location: ?
However, whatever 1997.041 is, it was appraised in 2001 at a value of $250. Figure that one out!

2) Object ID # 1976.351, Object Name: Reel to reel film, Object Description: Blank, Location: ?
We searched and searched and searched for like an hour for this reel of film, and finally found a plastic bag containing a cardboard box on which someone had written "1976.351". "Finally!" my intern exclaimed, and we carried our find over to the computer in order to fill in the catalog record a bit more fully. When we opened the box - you guessed it - it was empty.

3) Archival Document # 1979.031, Letter dated 1824
This item actually had a location listed for it, but when we opened the appointed folder, there was a note inside saying that the document had been moved to another folder in 1984. So, we located that folder. Inside it was a note saying the document had been moved to the previous folder in 1984.

Thus endeth another day of inventory. My intern might quit in protest soon, so as a reward I'm taking her on a field trip this Thursday. I'm looking forward to it, too!

P.S. Can someone please explain to me how to change the time on my posts to this blog? I just ntoiced that the times of my posts are way off...

Here's a funny story...

Ah, its that time of year again in the museum world! That time when curators everywhere spend hour upon tedious hour conducting that all important Collections Management procedure - a comprehensive collections inventory. Now, if you're not a museum curator, this phrase probably means nothing to you, and furthermore it doesn't sound like it would produce a funny story. Ah, but there you would be wrong - especially when it comes to my museum and its whackadoodle existence. A collections inventory (which in all honesty is not performed every year - maybe every 5 years or so, if you're lucky) is when the staff of a museum visually accounts for every single item in its historical collection. Every plate, every chair, every painting, every fragment of something that might have once been attached to something more important - if its been accessioned into the collection, we (and by "we", I mean "I") have to track it down, verify that its where we thought it was, and make note of the confirmation in a computer database of some sort. If a museum has been professionally run for a number of years, this process isn't too bad - you generally know where your stuff is. When you work at my museum you have a different situation. Since the early 20th century, my museum has collected stuff - lots and lots of stuff. Most of it was squirreled away in drawers and closets and put in boxes without labels. An entire generation of professional curators has spent the last 2 decades trying to rectify the situation, and I swear I'm so close to finally getting the place ship-shape! Then comprehensive collections inventory comes along and totally bursts that bubble. Just to give you a taste of what inventory season is like at my museum, here's a story from my last inventory project in 2005:

My interns and I were climbing around in a small cave-like storage room in the basement of the museum building. When I say "climbing around" I literally mean climbing over huge mountains of wooden crates, and hanging perilously from the edge of old steel shelving units. If I remember correctly, we were looking for a Revolutionary War-era button, which we believed might be in a box labeled "Miscellaneous" (that's a whole other story). One of the interns found a box that was about the size of a shoe box, which looked like a good candidate. We opened it and found a plastic bag containing a large quantity of a powdery substance and several fragments of what looked like old waxed paper. Clearly not a button. However, this new find presented a problem. Not being a historical munitions expert, I couldn't be sure, but the substance in the bag sure looked like gunpowder, and the waxed paper bits sure looked like the remnants of old gun cartridges. The question then arose, how does one responsibly deal with or dispose of old explosives? My interns and I just looked at eachother for a while - this was a new one, even for my museum. So, thinking that the stuff in the bag surely wasn't dangerous anymore (it was obviously old, and it would have exploded by now if it was going to, right?) I tossed the onto my desk, where it sat for several days until I had a chance to make some calls to the local fire department. Apparently my phone calls put the fear of God into the firemen. "You did what with it?!?!?!" they exclaimed, "Its sitting on your desk?!?!?! Get it outside NOW!!!!" Okay, so I ran that baby out the door, down the stairs and into our historic rose garden as fast as I could. Within minutes a fireman showed up and put the bag in a bucket and covered it with sand, then strung up caution tape all around it. Next, in rolls the bomb squad - THE FREAKIN' BOMB SQUAD!! And they're wearing all that gear you see on TV, too! I have to admit it was kinda cool. Anyway, the bomb squad people put the "ordnance" in an iron box, which they would then take to a firing range and blow up. Luckily, it made it out of the museum without blowing up prematurely.

Needless to say, that was one of my more memorable days on the job. And it was all because of the collections inventory. Can't wait to see what I find this year!

The Great Olive Oil Debacle of '08

So, friend GG wanted to know why I was slacking on my blog postings - I did not post anything for June 30th - and I began to tell her about my adventure last night that prevented me from posting. Both GG and friend MC felt the story would make a great blog posting, so since I did not a) get around to finalizing my financial plan, or b) have a particularly exciting day at work, I will oblige and tell the true and honest events of last evening...

I was making pesto pasta for dinner last night. As I think I've already mentioned, I am not much of a cook, but pesto pasta is something I can whip up fairly quickly and it always tastes good. I had decided to add low-fat feta to the mix last night, so I was feeling rather good about my kitchen skills. Briefly. Have you ever had a run of days when you swear you're more clumsy than usual? Well, I have been a total clutz for the last few days, and it culminated in my kitchen last night, just after the addition of the feta. I had left a bottle of olive oil open on the counter while I was putting things back in my fridge. As I was reaching across the counter for something, I elbowed the bottle and it spilled. Normally, not a huge deal. But the way in which the bottle spilled made it an absolute disaster. Half of the spill flowed onto my stove top. I have a gas stove, which means open burners, so the oil flowed INTO the burners. It also ran like a waterfall down the front of the stove and onto the floor. In addition to being very tiny, my house also kinda tilts to the left a bit, and so upon hitting the floor the oil slick flowed UNDER the stove. If my stove were movable, again this would not be terrible. But being a gas stove, it is permanently in place. I swear, it really was like watching a disaster unfold in slow motion. Within the blink of an eye, the ENTIRE contents of the bottle was on the loose. So, I immediately dove to the floor with wads of paper towels and laid on my stomach and tried to scoop the oil out from underneath. This attempt succeeded only in using up EVERY PAPER TOWEL in the house, and coated my entire front in oil. I moved on to regular towels, which I used to soak up what had spilled into the burners. I sacrificed some really, really cute kitchen towels - I started to cry a little. At this point, in what I believe was an attempt to make me feel better, both my cats (Pepper you know - Bailey is her brother) entered the fray and began walking through the oil that was still on the floor. They soon had oil all over themselves, too, and started jumping up on the countertops to get away from the ooze. I lost my temper and swore pretty loudly, and both the cats went running from the room - tracking pretty little paw-prints in oil down the hallway. I did apologize to them later on, as I tried to wipe the oil from their fur (eventually gave up on that - they'll lick it off, right?). Anyway, what seemed like many hours later, the situation was under control. Every surface in the kitchen had been swabbed down with soap and water, and the stove doesn't seem to be a fire hazard. Casualties included a favorite old, broken-in T-shirt, a pair of shorts, 4 kitchen towels and most of the trees in the Amazon rain forest. And because I'm trying to be more optimistic, I must say that the floor around the stove does have a nice sheen to it now.

So that's why I didn't post anything last night...