s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Thursday was fun. In the evening we first attended a regular Science Talk at Te Papa, led by Steve O’Shea to give us his sleep-deprived rambling descriptions of the squid dissection and what they had learned, followed by questions from the audience. The whole squid-team was there, so sometimes questions got answered by different experts. Very fun. I think the organizers were very surprised by the size and enthusiasm of the audience.

Afterwards we headed over to the Paramount theater for the yearly “Heavenly Burlesque” show. There was a variety of entertainments on offer. The MC was a competent stage magician, and his patter throughout the show was quite amusing. There was a fan dance, a couple of spastic modern dances, a weird 50’s-housewife-geek-show which involved nails and screwdrivers in the sinus cavities, and there were the acrobats. The most striking were two very strong men who did a variety of rope and trapeze acts. They were very good, and funny comedians too!

The only down side was that the show started at 9:30, so we were not home until midnight. My biological clock is still playing catch up!

Oh, and in the required alpaca-related-news, one of Bruce’s girls (Cotton) unpacked Friday morning. A little white girl (which makes 3-for3 girls for him, lucky guy!) Friday was a lovely day- until the afternoon when the clouds rolled in, the southerly started to howl, and the temperature plunged. So all of Bruce’s animals spent the night in the shed (so we could sleep, knowing the baby was safe, dry and warm). To prevent Cotton from being remated we are moving her in with our girls tomorrow (as this is a bad time of year to be dropping cria). We will put her back in with Zeus to be mated in the Spring.