A month or two ago ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger noticed something through pinball friend FAE, whose non-pinball interests run along the lines of ... well, it's right there in the high score initials. It was an upcoming event in Byron Center, a Grand Rapids-area town we know mainly because of the rumor it has an emergency vet clinic that's competent to handle rabbits. But someone-they were putting on a fairy ball, the name of which I never quite got straight. But, costumes? Music? A --- we'd learn shortly before the date --- real wedding? This may not be a furry convention, but it seemed likely to scratch a similar itch. FAE was attending; why not us, too?
bunnyhugger had an outstanding idea right away for a costume, too. She could make a jackalope outfit, using a masquerade ball-style partial face cover and affixing horns and fake fur and all. And then dress up the rest of herself with the sorts of things she'd done for her dragon/wyvern costumes in the past --- furry leggings, well-chosen outfits, the tail she always wears at furry events. It would be grand, if she could get it all together.
Despite summer seemingly offering no end of days to do things, the days ran out, not least because of Roger's shocking and sudden decline. The last days before the ball were a whirlwind of crafting and stress. Also visits to thrift stores to find outfits that went with the theme. Along the way she also discovered a film camera with a flash that might work on her better film camera. I don't yet know if that's panned out. Still, the all-nighters and the anxiety and the stress paid off in a jackalope mask that looks fantastic. Not quite experienced-professional-level good, but you can see experienced-professional from where she is. Combined with the rabbit tail and the sweater-vest and dress and leggings you have a really good suggestion of jackalope without something as involved (or heavy, or movement-complicating) as a fursuit. Furry cons should have more costumes like this.
For myself? I didn't have anything like that creative energy. I figured to use the coati tail and ears from every furry convention, trusting that there'd be woodland animals included in the fairy affairs. I did add a bit to it by wearing the werewolf-paw partial gloves that I keep forgetting to bring to furry cons, giving me that extra bit of animal look. And then bunnyhugger --- in trying to find the gloves --- found a raccoon masquerade-style face mask that I ended up wearing, so that I could go as a slightly confused blend of raccoon and coati. There were not many people going as outright woodland creatures --- I might have been the only one if you rule out a jackalope and some people who were kind of faun-ish --- but it would get a pretty good reception anyway. (Also I got the jolt that people outside the furry community haven't got the word about using ``racc'' as the one-syllable shorthand for raccoon.)
In any case we knew that whatever our outfits were they wouldn't come close to FAE's, whatever it was. But we wouldn't know what it was until we picked them up ... a story I hope to pick up Friday.
Back to the Wonderland of Lights, where you'll see only the ceiling lights inside one of the Potter Park Zoo's buildings:
More of the lemurs eating one another's tails.
And here they're just eating each other. Really you'd think someone would feed the poor creatures sometime.
Ah! Now here we are to ... uh ... I'm not sure. The Potter Park Zoo doesn't rate these guys as worth mentioning on their web site and just lists the Feline and Primate House as offering that ``animals can be viewed in their outdoor habitats''.
I'm thinking shrew? That seems plausible. But shrews are not felines and are not primates, so I don't know what they're doing in the Feline and Primate House.
The cape porcupines are easy to identify. We should come back sometime and see them when the weather is nice; we only ever see them in the Feline and Primate House despite their being rather famously rodents.
Lion pondering why the shrews and the porcupines are in the Feline and Primate House, too.
Trivia: Before the War with Mexico, what is now the state of New Mexico was the Mexican province of Nuevo Mejico. The only part of Nuevo Mejico's border this is still part of New Mexico's is a small segment of the Texas/New Mexico border just north of El Paso. Source: How The States Got Their Shapes, Mark Stein. That line of latitude between Texas and New Mexico preserves the old border; the parts east of the Rio Grande were (mostly) sold by Texas to pay off its quite large formerly-national debt.
Currently Reading: His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine, S C Gwynne. I should be honest here: while I have touched the book I haven't got any real reading done. It's just been too busy a week, between doing stuff all weekend and then having in-office days Tuesday and Wednesday, and other chores besides that.
