Second Century

Blogger says this is my 200th posting. I'll use it to catch up on a few items that showed up recently as birthday "gifts". (Scare quotes used because this had been boxed away for decades in my parents' basement with other keepsakes like my baby book. These have all been rediscovered as Mom and Dad downsized. The mundane things were shipped; the cool stuff is being doled out as gifts, all nicely wrapped.)


This one is my first material possession. Explanation below the fold.

This toy was one of two gifts that my mom's best friend and Maid of Honor sent from Japan as a zeroth birthday present. (The other was a mobile that hung over my crib. I got that as a Christmas "gift" last year.) It is a windup kitten that chases a butterfly; the butterfly is on a piece of spring wire so it bounces as the kitten chases it. The kitten moves very slowly for a few steps, then takes a few quick ones to try to get the butterfly. I didn't remember it all that well until I saw it how it moved. "Oh, yeah!"

The picture below was taken while I was staying with my grandparents for a day or so when The Thomas came along to disrupt and enliven our lives. I was barely toddling, but clearly the visit was enough of an event to warrant a photograph. The dog had been my mother's, and here I am learning that I could amuse myself endlessly in the future by getting this dog to sit up just by pretending to have something in my hand.


I am pretty sure that the plants you can see on the far left side of this picture are one of the Rose of Sharon bushes that could be the source of the one shown yesterday.

Finally, on the theme of "century", is a wooden jigsaw puzzle from the 1933 Century of Progress exhibition / World's Fair in Chicago. It was a souvenir of my father's. (His father was deeply involved in managing the construction of a number of the structures that were part of the fair.)


If you know Chicago, you will recognize the Adler Planetarium on the far left side, the Shedd Aquarium at lower left, the Field Museum at center bottom (partly missing as one piece is missing its paper surface), and Soldier Field on the mid right. The bridge over to the planetarium is now a causeway, while the bridge under the Sky Ride has been removed along with all (?) of the temporary structures.