Missouri: Springfield: WOW Aquarium and Wildlife Museum, Part 1

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017

My two sisters, one of their friends, and I visited the new Wonders of Wildlife (WOW) Museums, the aquarium and the Wildlife National Museum.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

The visit ain't cheap. And, really, visiting both exhibits in one day is a challenge, especially for minors and for the most senior among us. Not just because it might be tiring, but because of the sensory overload, exacerbated by the hum and movement of the other visitors.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

If I lived close by, then I'd just buy the ticket for one of the two exhibits and return another day for the second exhibit. If I'm staying overnight, then I'd forego the savings of buying both tickets together and buy the tickets separately so I can go to one exhibit the first day and the second exhibit the next day.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

In this article, I'll focus on the Aquarium, and tomorrow, the Wildlife Museum. 

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

At first, I was pretty underwhelmed by the Aquarium. In the beginning, the traffic path isn't clear and I thought perhaps there were only two floors of the museum, one of which was consumed by award-winning fisherfolk. Which I didn't care about one whit. But one of my sisters noted there was a third floor, which I went to and that's when I began the long journey through the quite large Aquarium.

Three standouts for me:

• Two jellyfish tanks
• The darling, charming, personable sea snakes (who knew?!)
• The flirting or fighting Caribbean spiny lobsters

I had fun putting music to the jellyfish videos I took here and here (with one embedded below).

And here's a slide show of my jellyfish photos:

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

The sea snakes reminded me of the gladness of watching prairie dogs and meerkats.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

And below is a video. Enjoy:

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And here's a video of two Caribbean spiny lobsters conducting a dance or a battle.


If you'd like some gentle moments of serenity, I invite you to sink softly into a cloud of Pachelbel in blue below:

A deep breath.

Ferguson: Our Lady of Guadalupe and One of Her Stolen Sons

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017

Beauty, sadness, membership, anger, quiet, fear, song, powerlessness, power.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

All of these wavelets lapped around me at the Spanish Mass I attended at Ferguson's Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Forefront in my mind was the St. Louis Public Radio story I'd read the day before about a parishioner, Jose Garcia. In November, the United States of America deported him to Mexico, yanking him from the arms of his wife, Ana, and his three little girls - Amanda, Julissa, and Dana.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Who benefited from this action?

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

No one, other than a pyramid scheme of ICE operatives to whom a man is a commodity for meeting quotas and adding ticks to a quarterly report.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

A tiny little stat thrown into a virtual mass grave of thousands of other data blips, all denuded of their names, ties to families and communities - their very humanity.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Marks on a report that will be covered by a fresh sediment layer when government operatives dump new nameless, faceless expendables into the ditch.


'tis the season.

St. Louis: Art Museum: Cell

Cell, by Louise Bourgeois, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017


I met an acquaintance for coffee at the St. Louis Art Museum. 

Cell, by Louise Bourgeois, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. December 2017.

It's probably a sin, but I didn't look at much except for this exhibit, practically at the entrance.

Cell, by Louise Bourgeois, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. December 2017.

  I figure I'll make up for it later.

Cell, by Louise Bourgeois, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. December 2017.

 And the gods will forgive me.

Ferguson: The Christmas Home Tour

A house on Ferguson's Christmas Home Tour, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017

Ferguson's annual Christmas Home Tour is a fundraiser for the Caring League.

I've never been much excited about home tours.

"Home tour" at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey. June 2012.

But my mother likes them, and I martyred myself for her by buying tickets to the Ferguson event.

But what was this?! At the very first house, I saw what I may have been missing all of my adult years: Vodka, wine, schnapps, and many sweets. And a repeat at the second house.

If this is the norm, no wonder such tours are so popular!

Disclosure: My mom is 88 years old, and schlepping into two houses maxed her limit, so we spent the next hour just driving around Ferguson neighborhoods and admiring the town's charming architecture and the yellow, green, and gold beauty of its mature trees.

In one of the neighborhoods, we stopped the car to watch a dancing blanket of sparrows swirling up and over and around a house and tree.