Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

I sit on the lap of a statue my brother calls "The Naked Man" in Montpelier.

Day Seven: Birthday Bro (Friday, Sept. 26)

My dog, Una, hates it when you say "Staples." We discovered this by accident when my brother said it while describing some home improvements. When you say "Staples," she sneers and looks ready to bite somebody.

"She's an Office Depot girl," my brother said, and immediately she kissed him. "Office Depot, Office Depot," he sang, and she licked his face in an overabundance of joy.

Today was my brother's birthday, so we went to a science museum in Burlington, the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain. ECHO stands for Ecology Culture History Opportunity. My brother has always loved science museums, so we knew it would be perfect for his birthday.

Since the museum was busy when we arrived, with a school group touring the facility, we walked up to town to eat at NECI Commons, which is run by the New England Culinary Institute. The food was fantastic. I had an open-faced duck sandwich, believe it or not.

While we were downtown, we did a little shopping. I bought maple candies for my friends at a terrific confectioners, Lake Champlain Chocolates. We also bought some fudge to share. I left some Wild Violet post cards at a shop filled with imported and hippie type things.

The center, sponsored by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, makes it a mission to celebrate the ecology, culture and history of the Lake Champlain area, including live fish and turtles; a display on the legendary Lake Champlain "monster," Champ; and an exhibit about kids. At the bat exhibit, I made a rubbing of a long-nosed bat.

As part of the bat exhibit, you could hold up giant bat ears to look like a bat. We took pictures of ourselves. I think my face was the battiest (see bottom of page).

In the Champ exhibit was a box where you could drop a card containing a drawing and/or theory about Champ. I wrote, "My theory was that Champ is small at one end, much, much larger in the middle and small again at the other end. This is my theory, which is mine."

Other interesting exhibits included: a zebra mollusk encrusted bicycle, showing how quickly they grow; and listening booths with Native American stories. Also, they had a computer set up with live weather information.

At the museum store, I got a glow-in-the-dark bat shirt (naturally), as well as a plush bat.

We ate leftovers and then got some Ben and Jerry's ice cream (made in Vermont!) before we settled down to watch Bulletproof Monk, starring Chow Yun-Fat. It was a great action movie; it even had a plot.

I was trying to look like a bat about to eat some tropical fruit; I think I succeeded.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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