How I Spent My Fourth of July Holiday

So this is the second year that I spent the Fourth of July holiday in the Coronavirus pandemic. Compared to last year, where most official observances were cancelled and I basically shot some extra fireworks I happened to have lying around in my home in order to get rid of them, I had a slightly better time this year. I did a series of parody short videos for YouTube and TikTok involving my Disney Nuimos, which I wrote about on July 4. But I did a few more things after finishing that blog post.

I decided to head to Third Eye Comics in Annapolis since I hadn’t been there in a while. That store is located next to a printing and framing shop known as Wimsey Cove, which has this new wall mural that I haven’t noticed before.

I checked out Third Eye’s huge inventory of Funko Pops where I saw one that’s based on filmmaker John Waters and he’s clutching a pink flamingo (an obvious reference to his most notorious movie Pink Flamingos).

There was also a Funko Pop based on Furby, which brought back memories of the time when I once had a Furby fan site and I got overwhelmed by the unexpected attention that it received.

Unlike last year, when most Fourth of July events were canceled, this year saw the return of some of these celebrations but they were definitely modified. I went to the fireworks show at Greenbelt Lake where I read in the local newspaper that the officials were urging people to please wear masks and practice social distancing, especially if they hadn’t been vaccinated yet. As you can see in the next two photos, those pleas went largely unheeded.

Even though I’m now fully vaccinated, I decided to wear a mask anyway because I’ve heard plenty about this Delta variant of the Coronavirus and I don’t want to risk getting it. (Basically vaccinated people have became sick with that variant but they managed to survive due to the vaccine. It’s the unvaccinated who have ended up dead.) At least I could show off my patriotic American flag mask.

There were a few other differences this year compared with other years. There was no band playing patriotic music nor were there any drumming circles. People basically just arrived and watched the fireworks, which were pretty good this year. I took a few shots but not as many as other years because, for once, I just wanted to enjoy the show.

I also did something a bit silly. I’ve seen pictures of Disney Nuimos that looks like they are enjoying the fireworks at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. You can tell from the promo photos (such as this one) that they look staged. I decided to just take Mickey and Minnie to the fireworks and film a short video that makes it look like they are seeing real fireworks. I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube and I got pretty good responses on both platforms.

After the fireworks ended I made the walk back to my car where I saw this woman who had carried her pet boa constrictor to the fireworks. She definitely got a lot of attention from other people, especially the children who wanted to pet it.

A Snake in My Front Yard, October 28, 2020

A few weeks ago I found this snake hanging around in my front yard just chilling out.

Washington, DC, February 9, 2019

I celebrated the fact that I had been employed at a day job for the past month by doing something fun. A few days earlier the weather was getting warmer and the temperature had even reached 60 degrees on some days. Sadly the sudden burst of warm weather was only temporary and it was bitter cold outside the day I went to DC. But I was determined to have fun since it had been a long time since I had done something totally fun and I wasn’t going to let something like weather stop me.

So I took the Metro bus to the nearest Metro station and traveled to the Chinatown area of Washington, DC. When I arrived in Chinatown I saw some people taking photos of each other by the Friendship Archway. (I was there doing the Lunar New Year period where most Asians were ushering in the Year of the Pig. The annual Chinese New Year’s parade was scheduled for the following day but I didn’t go because I felt that walking around the streets of Chinatown in very cold weather for one day was enough for me. If I hadn’t gone to Chinatown the day before, I would have considered going to that parade since it has been at least 10 years since I made my one and only attendance at that parade.)

I walked around a few places that I thought about eating lunch at. I read that many of these places had discount rates only to find out that these discounts are only available from Monday-Friday. I wasn’t into paying an extravagant price for a lunch so I ended up eating at the Corner Bakery where I had a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich at an affordable price. After lunch I walked over to It’s Sugar where I saw these items, starting with a long gummy rattlesnake.

The biggest surprise I found in that store was the numerous consumer products based on the late Bob Ross, whose Joy of Painting show I used to watch on PBS from time to time. I saw socks, mints, and even energy drinks dedicated to the guy who made “happy little trees” his catchphrase.

I bought some candy at It’s Sugar, which I ate after I returned home. I eventually made it to the place that served as the main reason why I wanted to go to Chinatown on that day. The German-American Heritage Museum had a special exhibit on German-made toys which started prior to Christmas and I thought it sounded potentially interesting. The only thing is that even though the museum is open from Monday-Friday, it is only open on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month (while it is completely closed on Sundays). When I was still underemployed I was struggling too much financially to even consider making the trip during the weekday. Now that I’m working again I find that I can only go to this museum on the weekends but I have to go only on the Saturday when it is actually opened. (Life is full of ironies at times. LOL!) The exhibit is scheduled to close at the end of next month, which was why I made an effort to get to that museum before it was too late.

The museum admission was $10, which wasn’t so bad. (There are other museums, such as the Newseum and the Spy Museum that charges around $20 per person.) The museum is small and I found the special exhibition to be smaller than I expected. But what they had on display was pretty good. They gave out this pamphlet that explained the history of German toys, how they were made, how they reflected the culture of the times in which they were made, the notable German toy companies, and how some of these toys were also popular in the U.S.

The one thing I learned from that pamphlet is that German toys were originally homemade until the Industrial Revolution, when they were mass-produced in factories. The rise in the toy industry also coincided with worker exploitation, especially among women and children who were employed making these toys. The workers were paid less, which was how toys became cheaper to buy and why many German imported toys were so cheap in the U.S. during the late-19th century to early-20th century. (It’s no different from today where toys and many other consumer products are made in China, Vietnam, and so many other Third World countries so that cheap goods would flood the U.S. while corporate executives keep the lion’s share of the profits.)

There were plenty of dolls made mainly because they were supposed to prepare young girls for the day when they will become mothers themselves. The museum had dolls, tea party sets, and doll furniture that were on display (along with the occasional nutcracker).

There were also plenty of toy soldiers, which were made because they were supposed to prepare young boys for the day when they will join the military and possibly fight on behalf of Germany.

There were also toys based on the American Wild West featuring cowboys and Indians (who are now referred as Native Americans). It was kind of wild seeing German-made toys reflecting U.S. history like that and it showed that the German toy industry were definitely eying the foreign markets.

Seeing these metal toys brought back memories of seeing similar toy soldiers dressed like British soldiers displayed on a shelf that my ex-husband’s stepfather had owned since his childhood. These toy soldiers were very tiny, made from metal, and they looked very exquisite. My ex-husband’s mother died in 2010, his stepfather passed away last year, and I am no longer on speaking terms with my ex so I have no idea whatever became of those toy soldiers or who owns them now.

There were plenty of Steiff stuffed animals on display. I used to see them on sale at FAO Schwarz in New York City and I remember they were pretty expensive. I’ve also seen them in other high-end stores also being sold at high prices. (Which probably explains why my parents never gave me a Steiff toy when I was a child. LOL!) They definitely look cute and cuddly.

The museum had a hands-on area where people of all ages could touch and play with some of these toys. The only thing I touched was this children’s book written by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann called Der Struwwelpeter. I briefly thumbed through it and took a couple of pictures.

There were a few other odds and ends at that exhibit, including some toy cars and chickens, a couple of trays, and a snowglobe.

Like I wrote earlier, the museum was relatively small so I was able to finish with viewing the exhibit in an hour. Afterwards I decided to go back home. On my way back to the Metro station I stopped at Walgreens because I wanted to pick up some cold medicine. (I had been struggling with a cold at the same time as trying to learn the ropes of my new day job. Yeah, it sucked big time but what else could I do?) I saw that this particular Walgreens location had an area that sold packaged sushi, just like its Union Station location. In fact, this Walgreens sold a variety of packaged food ranging from sandwiches to salads that I’ve never seen in any of the suburban Walgreens stores in the DC area. There were a couple of sushi places in Chinatown that I attempted to eat lunch at until I saw the menus posted outside and found that the bargain meals were only from Monday-Friday and I ended up eating at the Corner Bakery instead. So, in order to compensate for not eating sushi for lunch, I picked up one of the sushi packs from Walgreens, took it home with me, and ate it for dinner. (I ate a a salmon and avocado roll.) I found it to be pretty tasty and it was at a reasonable price.

So somethings didn’t turn out the way I expected (such as the weather and eating lunch at the Corner Bakery instead of at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant in Chinatown) but I still had fun anyway.

ZooLights at the National Zoo, Washington, DC, December 30, 2012

For the past few weeks I had seen ads for a special winter holiday light show at the National Zoo known as ZooLights. I became more interested when I learned that the admission was free and it had been a few years since I last visited the National Zoo. I originally planned on visiting on Christmas Eve but that plan got scuttled when it rained that day. (I did indoor activities in downtown DC on that day instead.) I finally decided to go on the day before New Year’s Eve when the weather was cold but it wasn’t raining at all.

The ZooLights exhibit is pretty impressive. The next couple of photos show the Connecticut Avenue entrance gate.

And the next photo is the back entrance gate that faces Rock Creek Park.

Since I hadn’t been to the National Zoo in a few years I decided to arrive about an hour and a half before sunset in the hopes of seeing some animals, especially the world-famous panda bears. The bad news was that most of the animals were either in hiding or were in indoor enclosures. I also discovered that many of the indoor enclosures tended to close at 4:30 p.m. during the winter—including the panda house. So the giant panda bears were indoors after 4:30 p.m. by the time I got to the panda area. The only panda I saw outside was the smaller red panda that was sleeping in a tree. Sadly my photo of that red panda didn’t turn out too well. However I took a lot of photos of the few animals who were actually outside. Here are the best of those photos.

During the nighttime ZooLights event, some of the indoor enclosures were opened to the general public. (Sadly the panda house wasn’t among them.) The only opened indoor enclosure I visited was the Small Mammal House. Most of the small mammals were in hiding, with a few exceptions.

When I first got my pet hedgehog Spike, I learned that hedgehogs were classified as members of the shrew family. During my time at the Small Mammal House, I saw this shrew who was busy climbing around on the tree branches in its enclosure and its nose twitched just as much as Spike’s nose when he is awake. Its face reminded me of Spike’s face so much that I realized why hedgehogs were classified with shrews. This shrew could’ve passed as one of Spike’s distant cousins. The only difference is that this shrew doesn’t have spikes and its tail is longer an bushier. (This shrew’s tail reminded me of a squirrel’s tail.)

I saw an actual hegehog in the Small Mammal House known as the Greater Madagascar Hedgehog Tenrec. As you can guess from its name, it’s indigenous to Madagascar, which is an island nation located off the coast of Africa.

I saw the Greater Madagascar Hedgehog Tenrec but, as you can see in the photo below, this critter was curled up into a spikey ball and was sleeping in a hollowed-out log. This reminded me of Spike when he’s asleep. (He can usually be found in the pink plastic igloo where he is curled up into a spikey ball.)

I spent most of the evening looking at and photographing the amazing lights. There were lights in tree branches and on the sides of buildings. There were even some lights that were illuminated on the brick walkway. The whole display was really amazing to see.

There was a train ride that provided a tour of the entire zoo and the ZooLights. I wanted to ride it but the line was so long that I guessed that I would’ve have had to wait at least a half-an-hour (if not more) just to board a train. Instead I just toured the ZooLights on foot.

Towards the end of my time at the zoo, I went to the Visitors Center, which had this really neat indoor exhibit that also provided a respite from the cold. There was a display of gingerbread houses that were entered in a contest called "The Gin-GRR-bread Habitat Competition". The creativity of these pieces were astounding. Unfortunately I was starting to run out of battery power in my camera so I wasn’t able to take as many pictures as I wanted. But some of these pieces should provide an idea as to how impressive some of the gingerbread pieces really were.

There was a model of the Smithsonian Castle (located on the Mall) that someone constructed completely out of Legos.

There were also two model train layouts where all the buildings were made from Legos.

Scenes From Last Weekend’s Greenbelt Green Man Festival

Last Saturday I had an afternoon outing with my pet hedgehog, Spike. We initially arrived at the Greenbelt Pet Expo but I found that the expo is pretty small and it catered mostly to dogs and cats. So I decided to take Spike and walk over to the nearby Greenbelt Green Man Festival, which was being held at the same time as the expo.

Spike was pretty oblivious about being at the festival but I managed to do some shopping among the local vendors and say hello to some of my friends who were also at the event. We stayed at the festival for a couple of hours until Spike began to frantically claw and scratch at the sides of his pet traveler bag and I had a feeling that Spike wanted out of the bag. (When I returned Spike back to his cage at home, the first thing he did was hide inside his pink plastic igloo that he normally uses as his bedroom but he also uses it as a safe place if he becomes upset or gets in a foul mood.)

On the following day, Mother’s Day, I made an emergency run back to the Greenbelt Green Man Festival when my original idea of giving my mother special home-baked cookies turned into a total disaster and purchased some bars of goat’s milk soap from one of the vendors (who runs the websites Natural Image Botanicals and Crystal Sage) as an alternate present. (The soap was a hit with my mom by the way.) I didn’t stay as long on the second day because I was literally on my way to visit my mom.

During my time at the festival I took a few photos of the festival with my smartphone camera. It was a pretty fun event and the weather was perfect both days. I’ll admit that of all the wonderful crafts that were available for sale, the one that caught my eye the most was this Day of the Dead themed chair that was made by BoxBoy. I wished I had extra money available because I definitely would’ve bought that chair.

Here are some more photos of the festival. If you weren’t there, you missed a fun event.