From a Bee to Zinburger

My grandparents and Griff at Tohono Chul

Oops. There are three days left. Eh heh.

Well, on the 10th we had brunch at Tohono Chul. It was sunny and nice so I thought it'd be a good idea to sit outside. Ha ha ha. No. See, I forgot about bees. There was one in particular that wouldn't leave our table alone. We kept waving our arms at it and ducking and it kept coming back.

Tiny cactus with eyes! It's so cute!

It got it's comeuppance though. It flew into the spilled yolk from my egg-over-medium and got stuck. So I trapped it with the rest of my egg. We told the waitress so she could warn the dishwasher and she jumped backwards and made the bus boy take my plate.

We saw a hawk! 

Any ways, we wandered through the shops and then into the park. I had fun taking pictures of the plants and animals I got to see. I've barely gotten to play with my new camera so it was really nice to be able to play around with it.

Some of the Oaxacan wood carvings we saw. 

There was a sale going on of woven rugs, Oaxacan carvings, and Mata Ortiz pottery that Nana wanted to go to, so we made our way towards it. The carvings were cool.  Some, like the lion I took a picture of, were very cute. Griff actually ended up getting a spikey blue hedghog type thingy.

Some more pottery. Also a picture
I found on the internet. 

The Mata Ortiz pottery was amazing. Three of the artists were there showing off their stuff. They make the pots first (they're mostly ornamental pots). Then they take these metal tools that look kind of like dentist's pokey things and they slowly paint on these incredibly intricate designs. From the works in progress that I saw, I don't think they even sketch out what they're going to paint beforehand. Which is even more impressive when you see the geometric shapes they make. Sometimes there are stylized animals or scenes too, depending on the size of the pot. They said it can take a week just to do one. I'm not surprised, but I am seriously impressed with the steadiness of their hands and their patience.

Mata Ortiz pottery
Not a picture I took. One I found on
the internet. 

After Tohono Chul, we went out to La Encantada, the fancy pants upscale mall, for the express purpose of me getting to take Griff in Tiffany's. He'd never been in one before so he didn't understand why Tiffany's diamonds are special. Now I think he does. While we were there, I also wandered through Anthropologie really quick because it's a fun store and I never make it in when we're in Portland.

We were out of time after that so we hustled off to the grocery store and a pizza place. We grabbed our pizzas and salad making and hurried back to my grandparents' house to tidy up and make the food.

See, I'd realized a few days prior that I knew almost nothing about my maternal grandmother (I never got to meet her. She died before I was born). I know it seems like kind of a weird thing to just realize, I mean, how can you not realize you don't know anything about a family member? But... she doesn't come up very often. I don't think my dad knew her well and Nana and Bompa were only able to tell me a little bit. They did however, know that the DeByles, old family friends on both sides, were in town and that Mary De Byle knew Leah (my grandmother) when they were kids. So I asked if we could maybe call Mary and Norb and see if they were interested in meeting up so I could ask some questions. They were interested, and they were coming for dinner that night, hence the pizza and the salad.

So, Mary and Norb got there and we all sat down to eat. Mostly my grandparents and Mary and Norb talked during dinner. I did my best to be a good hostess and serve food, clear plates, etc. After dinner, Mary and I sat down on the couch, and I got out my laptop to take notes. I asked about everything I could think of, which, unfortunately wasn't as much as I had hoped I'd come up with. But... where do you start with something like that? After family names and dates and some basic biographical information, what do you ask to get a sense of a person? Mary was really nice and answered all my questions as best she could though. She also said she'd try to get me contact information for Leah's siblings that are still alive. All of which was really nice of her.

The 11th was our last full day in Tucson, and after some discussion it was decided that a bunch of short stops were our best bet for squeezing lots of things in. We started with the post office so I could mail the 17 postcards (I kid you not, there were actually 17) I had written the night before. We tried to go to a charity shop, Butterfly, that Nana likes, but they were closed. :/

The JC Penney's edition of
Dress Up Griff.

We headed to JC Penney's instead. Nana worked at JC Penney for a long time and so she has a permanent 20% discount there, which has made it a favorite place to shop over the years. I didn't have as much luck at this Penney's but I did get a black belt to go with my yellow dress. ^_^ I also played dress up with Griff. Basically you put random girl's accessories on him, like hats and scarves and purses and belts. The shoes on his hands were his idea though.

St. Augustine Cathedral

After a brief foray into the mall for chocolates from See's, we headed downtown for lunch at El Charro. It's a historic restaurant actually. Their website says they're the "Nation's Oldest Mexican Restaurant in continuous operation by the same family." Mexican food isn't my favorite, but this was pretty good actually. Griff definitely liked it (he likes Mexican food and doesn't get as many opportunities to have it as he'd like). 

It's so intricate and colorful! 

We tried to go to Flanagan's Celtic Corner next, but they were also closed  because it was Monday so we skipped to St. Augustine's Cathedral. As some of you probably know, I love stained glass windows. (Not really into those little scenes of things like hummingbirds and flowers you can hang in your window though) I have lots and lots of pictures of stained glass windows and am always happy to take more. The outside of St. Augustine's is pretty cool and the stained glass definitely didn't disappoint. The vibrant colors were wonderful. :D

Dress Up Griff in
men's accessories

Dress Up Griff in
girl's accessories

Our next stop was H&M in yet another mall. Nothing there fits me, so we were really just there for Griff. He's hard to find clothes for sometimes but since H&M seems to design almost exclusively for tall and skinny, their stuff actually fits him. Since we weren't looking for anything in particular though, it devolved into another couple rounds of dress up. Griff is remarkably patient with me sometimes. 

I bought this notebook because
it makes me smile. 

On the way out of the mall I saw a place called Typo that I just had to step inside (how can you not with a name like that?). It was mostly a stationery store. They had cards and stamps and pens and recipe boxes and all kinds of neat things. I got a notebook that says, "Some people just need a high five to the face with a chair." Griff got some pens that say, "This is the only weapon I need" and "My  pen is  huge." I kinda wish we had a Typo in Bend...

And then it was back to Bookman's! Yay! As we walked in a bluegrass trio was rehearsing so Griff and I dropped everything and danced around for a couple minutes. It was really fun. Then I showed Griff all the cool things I found. We got his mom a present. I got Griff a second Riker (this one is in the middle of beaming somewhere so his pants are sparkly :D) and myself a Guinan. (It's all Griff's fault I'm a Trekkie now. No really!) Griff also bought a Nintendo 64. There were like 5 of them when we were in the before Griff got there, but there was only one left by the time I got Griff in the store. But, he got it and two games and we've tested it and it seems to work well, so all is good. 

The Dusty River Boys at Bookman's

Bompa was starving after we finished at Bookman's so we stopped at Zinburger on the way back to Nana and Bompa's house. We all got hamburgers (their specialty) and milkshakes. It was actually really good (by which I mean that often a burger is just a burger, but occasionally you run across one that's exceptionally good, and this was one of those times). 

We made it back to my grandparents' house with half an hour before the pool closed so Griff and I switched into swimsuits and Nana drove us over. We only got to swim for about 20 minutes before we got kicked out, but it was still really nice. I'm glad we got to go at least once. 

Griff helped me pack my stuff and then headed off to bed. I stayed up a bit longer to at least get some of the stuff I'd collected glued into the Adventure Book before finally going to bed.