On Saturday, The Sister and I attended the Fall Art Walk downtown. They said costumes were encouraged and well, we have nothing else to do between now and Halloween, and I enjoy dressing up, so we featured a couples costume. Saw some friends. Fun was had. Let's read on, shall we? This is our gratuitous selfie. It's an odd photo, but I'll explain. So, sometimes we do frivolous costumes, like Sam and Dean Winchester as an example from two years ago, but lots of times I like to dress up as a person from history who is important and be all educational. That's what I chose this year. I am science! OK more specifically I'm an American Female Astrophysicist. I was born in 1929 and died two years ago in 2016. I pioneered the study on galaxy rotation rates and thus ended up discovering evidence on the existence of dark matter. I also provided evidence for galactic superclusters as well as heavily studying the then controversial thesis, The Rubin-Ford Effect (partially named after me, yes), pertaining to galaxy clusters, which later became known as large scale streaming. I never won the Nobel Peace Prize (which a lot of my coleagues felt was a huge oversight), but I did win several awards including The Bruce Medal, The Dicksons Prize in Science, The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, as well as The National Medal of Science. But, I have a ridge on Mars and an asteroid (5726) named after me, as well as two research and career fund awards for aspiring astronomers. I spent my life advocating for women in sciences, especially in the field of astronomy. When working at Carnegie Institute in 1965, I applied to the Palomar Observatory, though there were no facilities for women... I made my own! and was the first female astronomer to observe there. Obstacles schmockstacles! And because I am no longer alive, I like to think think I'm now part of the cosmos that I helped to discover. Who am I? Vera Florence Cooper Rubin, or simply Vera Rubin. Just one of many awesome female scientists of the world, let alone in the America's or simply pertaining to astronomy. The Sister? Oh, she's what I discovered. She's Dark Matter, of course! (she doesn't like dressing up in costume, but I finally landed on a suggestion she liked where she didn't have to do a lot of work. ha ha) You can not tell, but I was completely covered in glitter. Because spiral galaxies, of which there are a few on me, and those stars in the Hubble Telescope photos seem like glitter. My room's kind of dark and apparently that's not a place to apply body glitter, because when I got into the sun I looked like a disco ball! ha ha I also tried to affix my hair in the same style she had in her photo's from the 1960s and look a bit respectable 1960's. This was a costume on a budget, y'all. And that budget was zero dollars to be precise. The make-up used was real make-up because I have it and never use it except for fancy dress like this. Everything was drawn in this black cream eyeshadow that contains a bit of sparkle to it. I highlighted with two shimmery eyeshadows; light blue and copper. Then dusted my hair and all the drawn symbols of space with a small container of white body glitter. Only, it was everywhere. Funny, all the people we knew that we encountered, they insisted on hugging me and came away with a big smack of glitter on their faces. I had one person try to challenge my costume though, stating that the theory of dark matter is still unvalidated and seen as fringe basically. If that person had bothered attending the Starry Nights event at the zoo, where astronomers from the local university talked, they would have heard that dark matter is validated now. Also if they had attended the most recent astrophysics lecture at the university, where a renowned astrophysicist who worked for NASA and is on the national advisory council also validated dark matter. (Validated, as in this is a theory that is now readily accepted by a large majority of scientists and astronomers. It is no longer balked at nor dismissed). That person hasn't been keeping up with his astrophysics news, and I barely know anything about it and I knew more. But, then I always research an important and educational costume heavily before being that person. The first thing we did, however, was to hit up the cheese and wine sampling at a local cheesemongers that while they not only sell it by the pound or in small parcels, they also put together cheese boards for you to take away with you. Mississippi is a strange state. Which is a weird segue, but it always comes to mind. They won't allow real alcohol (I'll get to the whole real debate in a minute) to be sold in conjunction with foods. If you're in a dry county, a restaurant will not move in because they can't sell alcohol or wine. Beer in a dry country is apparently OK, but it is illegal to sell it on Sundays. This is why most of the city (who is not in a dry county) extended their domain along the main thoroughfaire so that restaurants would choose to open along that strip knowing they could also sell alcohol with the food. There's a business that just opened up on the road behind that one. A local business. They're still in the dry county and being residents of that dry country at least all their life they somehow didn't realize that they would be denied a liquor license. So you now have an Irish Pub that can't sell anything alcohol wise. It's why we don't have a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods, because it's not allowed to sell real wine along with grocery food (this might be a new and different thing in the state's capital, but it's still against the law for most of the state.) We used to visit family in Louisiana, just over the river from Mississippi and while they do have a drive through beer barn (you can take a frozen daquiri to go and drink it while driving! I did do that once for the experience. It was weird. It felt like I'd get caught. I only took baby sips while driving the short distance back to my uncle's house); their Walmart has a real for real wine section. Not the $4 bottles of 1% fruit wine or wine coolers, but real wine with an actual alcohol % count. (there's the real bit. It was only five or ten years ago that my state allowed this low % "wine" to be sold in grocery stores, and you might find ten bottles at the end of the isle) But a real wine section in a grocery store is against the law here. I'm getting to the point. The point is that this place up there, they're not allowed to sell wine and cheese together in the same building. So, they have one building, with two completely different entrances; one is the food side, the other is the wine side. You have to go outside to come back in again and have to make two separate transactions just to have cheese AND wine. Because that's how Mississippi rolls. I suppose they want to deter people from drinking? I have no idea. I don't even drink and I think it's archaic! I'm thoroughly surprised this state ever passed the bill that allowed small businesses to brew and bottle their own beer (which happened about five or so years ago). Not that I drink, so it effects me not at all either way, but we now have two pretty fab breweries serving our area; a Hattiesburg based one, and a Laurel based one; though there are several others elsewhere in the state. Also, a package store may open in the same strip mall as a grocery store, but on the opposite end, so you have to really want to visit it. However, a grocery store is expanding and moved from their small spot at the end of a strip mall to the larger spot in the middle. A liquor store has opened just before them right next door. I haven't seen it, but The Sister says that it's so close it looks like it's part of the grocery store, even though it isn't. "I don't know how they managed that, but that's huge!" I suppose it's how this cheese and wine place downtown managed it. So we walked around and looked at art, which is what one does at an Art Walk. There was also Trick or Treating at specific places. It was for kids, but for some reason this Art Walk was kind of a flop and hardly anyone came out for it, also The Sister is charming and we were able to trick or treat and get candy everywhere. Huzzah! We also saw and talked with several people we knew. And we were meeting our friend there. He's really The Sisters' friend from Uni, but we know each other and are friendly and get on, so I'll say he's my friend too. He's a photographer and was here to photograph the event. We were also going to give him our dad's military service & utility uniforms from his time in the Marine Reserves during the early 1970s. Our friend will use them for photo shoots or pass them on to other people who would be interested once he no longer as need of them. I mailed everyone from local military museums and theatre companies (community, university, and high school). No one was interested. The military museums, there are three here, but only two of which I mailed (one is specifically dedicated to African Americans in the military and dad is white, so...) are too full of military stuff that it just sits in storage. Plus, dad never saw war, so his clothing isn't special nor is he in the realm of military, which I get. He wasn't some local hero or won a zillion medals or fought in WWII (because that seems to be the only war they're interested in), so they only need one non-descript uniform from that era and they have at least thirty. We'd have kept them, but we can't fit them and dad doesn't want them anymore. Though The Sister did keep the jacket from his utility uniform because she can fit it and she can use it as a work jacket. I, of course, kept his military issue combat boots because of course I did. Anyway, so our friend took a few pictures of us that he's put up and he got to meet one of his photography idols. There's this lady in town that everyone loves. I just thought she was some older lady from here who took pictures and people liked them, so in essence she was just locally famous. Turns out she's a pretty world famous photographer. This is one of the people that The Sister housesat for earlier in the summer. Little by little The Sister kept finding out information about her by happenstance. The first was that art of hers that had been exhibited was being shipped back and The Sister was to open it and make sure the glass wasn't broken. This lady usually ships out items with plexi-glass because it happens so often, but she was rushed for time and didn't with this one. It was broken if you wanted to know. OK, so constantly being asked to exhibit her work all over the place. Well, that's pretty big, right? So next The Sister was just flipping through a coffee table book in this lady's home because it was about a celebrity that we both like. The celebrities son compiled the book, sent one to this lady and wrote in it. Why? Because some of her photos are featured. When The Sister got to those photos she was like, "Oh my god! I remember these photos from a few decades ago. Everyone knows these photos!" And she showed me the next time I came over to hang out with the ladies adorable elderly cat. I'd never heard of her before though I had seen that work that I just referenced. Of course I'd seen her photos scattered all over town, featured in art shows or hanging on peoples walls, but none of them were from the time she lived on an entirely different continent, of which those photos are why she is now so famous now. She's not Annie Leibowitz famous I'm sure, but her work is in pretty hot demand and she's not from here originally, so it's not just my little area where she's famous. You have to be kind of famous to be on NPR, right? You can judge for yourself. Perhaps you have heard of her. I don't really know her though I'd met her a few times around town. I even had her in one of my blog posts and really had no idea why the person I knew was so excited about her when I was taking the photo. She probably thought I was a super fan. I was just documenting my random day to be honest; another art walk downtown. It's quite evident that I didn't know who she was when I was taking the photo, as I've written as much since she's just "the lady that took the photos for the book" not "holy cow, the world renowned photographer!" I do know her cats pretty well. OC (short for Orange Cat) and Paka (pronounced pah-kuh - which is Swahili for cat). Of course I'd visit The Sister this summer and we'd hang out. And I adore cats, so I would say hello and pet them. Well you can't pet Paka, as she's just a stray they take care of. But OC insists on being groomed while she eats and I was more than happy to take up that task when I would visit. So our friend got to meet one of his photography idols and he took pictures of us which was fun. This photo was taken by our mutual friend, Jason Mills.
Also, while heading down there, we noticed that the midtown Domino's was having a $4 special on pizza "Today only!". The Sister and I saw that and day dreamed of pizza the entire time at Art Walk, so on our way home we got a medium pepperoni pizza to share, and then we came home and watched The Sixth Sense. Oh, and while I love putting on make-up for dress up purposes, I detest having to take it all off, which the bit on my arm came off easy peasy during my shower, as did most of the glitter. (Which why is that? Why is it such a bitch to remove from your face, but not when I removed it from my arm? Ugh, make-up...) I'm not even kidding y'all. You can't see it at all, but each arm from shoulder to elbow bend had huge blotches of glitter, as did the area where my neck meets my body. It's a shame you can't see just how much glitter I was covered in. Anyways, I had a sample of Make-up Eraser, some cloth that just takes off make-up with water and you can wash it out and re-use it for up to five years. It worked really well. My only problem was that the sample piece was only 2" x 3" so was difficult to work with because there wasn't enough to hold onto really, but honestly if I was a big make-up wearer, I'd spring for one of the full size ones. It was pretty nice. And it felt nice to get the make-up off too. And this post got all weird with eating pizza and an unintentioned boost for a make-up removing product, so I'll end here.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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