Three Stuffed Animals Visit the Field Museum

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may already be familiar with Stan, Rex, and Oscar, three stuffed animals we bring with us on trips, photograph in unusual locations, and give funny lines. Oscar, the orca, is the oldest; we got him on our honeymoon when we started this tradition. Stan (the green T-rex) and Rex (the brachiosaurus) were adopted from the Field Museum for Alex. The three stuffed animals got to come with us to Members' Night at the Field Museum, and they had a blast (or should I say we had a blast with them.) Here are a few highlights:

 Stan: "I am Stan, the God of carnivores! Hear me roar."

Rex: "Should we bow?"

Oscar: "Are you kidding? He's got a big enough head as it is!"

 Stan: "What? How could it go on without us?"

Rex: "It probably wasn't as fun."













Oscar: "Yes, I am a prime example!" 














  Stan: "NOT funny!"

Rex: "Not funny at all!"

Stan: Murderers!
Rex: Wrong meteorites, Stan.









Stan: Recognize anyone?
Rex: Nope.

 Stan "Hey! This wasn't on the agenda today!"

Oscar & Rex (laughter off screen)

Back on the Blog Chain: Quirks

Yep, once again I'm participating in a blog chain. We've had some changes in our membership since my last blog chain post; a couple of people left, but we had some more people join us. You can check out the links in my sidebar to find the blogs in the chain.

Mary chose the topic this time: What kind of quirky habits or rituals do you have regarding your writing? (or regarding anything else, if that is more fun.) We've had people discussing everything from Panera sandwiches to alphabetizing spices (the latter is courtesy of Michelle, my precedessor in this chain).

This is supposed to be a fun, "getting-to-know-you" topic, but in some ways it's more difficult for me than the previous topics. Yes, I'm a non-conformist in many ways, but they don't all translate into quirks. Perhaps I should translate them into quarks, but for some odd reason many people don't like to discuss quantum physics. Is that a quirk?

All kidding aside, one of the quirks I have is one I share with my husband. While on our honeymoon, we got the idea from a couple we met to take pictures of a stuffed animal. Since we were on an Alaskan cruise, we bought (on sale) a stuffed orca named Oscar. Since then, he's been joined by Big Oscar and Baby Oscar:




Oscar has his own page on my website to chronicle our travels. He's been to Canada, London, and Las Vegas, which is where we got Big Oscar. Baby Oscar came from The Soap Opera in Madison. (Baby Oscar is actually a bath toy and can squirt water, albeit not through a blowhole.)





During Alex's first year, Big Oscar and the original Oscar posed with him every month, even in the professional pictures.














As for writing quirks, it doesn't matter to me where I write or what my desk looks like. Most of my writing these days is done on my lunch hour at work, actually. The only quirk I could think of applies to the end of my projects, not to my daily writing. Every time I finish a draft, I type the following:

The End
The Very Very Very End!
Amen
A Book Report on Peter Rabbit


A kudo to the first person who can identify these lyrics and their source. And yes, they do come out during the editing stage.

My son just woke up, so it's time to end this post and pass the quirkiness to Abigail. Tune in again on October 19th (sooner if you wish) for another exciting post in our Blog Chain!

P.S. In response to Terri's request for me to show my true wierdness, I'll post a bit more on Thursday about another of my writing quirks--my muse, John Lennon.