Now and Then

Lots of busy days recently, but oddly many moments in which to reflect on the passage of time.  Between remodeling the kitchen where we're trying to put in something new that reflects the past, and my oldest baby starting high school, I find myself thinking a lot about where we are now and how things used to be.

Last weekend I got to participate in a wonderful event organized through the VSA (Violin Society of America).  They have a large convention every year, and I will be returning to Cleveland next month for this year's gathering.  But lately they've also been doing smaller regional events.  This recent one happened to be in Detroit, so I jumped at the opportunity to go since I would also get to spend time with my mom.

The focus was the collection of instruments owned by Henry Ford.  Apparently he was a fiddler, and since he was also rich he decided to fiddle on incredibly valuable instruments, including two Strads.

We were allotted time to examine eight important violins.  There were armed guards and strict rules about not wearing any necklaces or rings while handing the instruments, and for some reason we couldn't take photographs, so I don't have any to share.  I did get a shot of where the violins are usually displayed, so there's that:

The closest we get to studying with the old masters is to look carefully at what they did and try to emulate it when we can.  It's always exciting to hold a Strad.  There was an Amati in the collection that was stunning, and a Guarneri, and a curious violin played by Maud Powell who was the first American woman to be a successful international violin soloist.  My favorite instrument at this viewing was the 1740 Carlo Bergonzi.  That's not a name people outside of luthier circles usually know, be he was kind of a violin maker's violin maker.  His work is beautiful and precise and rare.

Mold-A-Ramas at Maker Faire Detroit and the Toledo Zoo

After my week home alone while Ian took our kids and niece off to the cottage, we've switched places and now he's manning home and business while I'm on vacation.  I had a few lovely days up in the woods, and then we headed for Detroit to spend some fun time with my parents.

My brother, Arno, suggested we visit the Maker Faire event going on at the Henry Ford Museum.  It's a wacky sort of happening.  There was a cupcake zipping around that kept getting shot at by an air cannon full of stuffed animals.  There were all kinds of wheels to try.  Aden got a knitting lesson.  All my kids got to carve rubber stamps.  There were tons of 3D printers in action (one using Nutella instead of plastic).  

Following Uncle Arno anywhere....

This guy.

Quinn in a super big wheel

Motorized cupcake on the run!

Aden with 3D printed skull

Even though Mold-A-Ramas were not an official part of Maker Faire, the Henry Ford Museum has ten of them, including a new one we didn't get last year, so we were excited to pick it up.  And the really funny thing was that many people manning the high tech 3D printer booths wanted to ask us about the Mold-A-Ramas we were carrying around and thought they were incredibly cool.

Mold-A-Ramas at the Brookfield Zoo

For Mold-A-Rama collectors (which we have decided we are) there are three, big jackpot places to get Mold-A-Ramas: The Milwaukee County and Brookfield Zoos (each with thirteen machines) and the Henry Ford Museum (which has ten).

I don't think if our own local zoo here in Milwaukee had so many I would have paid much attention.  But being able to start our collection with that many Mold-A-Ramas so easily kind of got us hooked.  Getting all ten figures at the Henry Ford Museum when we were visiting Detroit was a great deal of fun.  Getting only two at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago was less exciting, but satisfying in a different way.  This weekend we finally hit the last of the big bonanza locations for Mold-A-Rama collectors: The Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.  (Which my GPS had never heard of, but since we had my husband along it didn't matter because he can find anything.)

We had the rare, free Sunday to do with whatever we liked, and seeing as the weather was cool and beautiful and we even got to turn the clocks back an hour to give us extra time, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to splurge on a trip down to Chicago for a Mold-A-Rama hunt at their zoo.

The Mold-A-Rama machines in the Brookfield Zoo are in beautiful shape.  Most of them are pristine.  (So far the ones we have at the Milwaukee County Zoo appear to be the shabbiest around, probably because so many of them suffer outside in all the Wisconsin weather.)  But the best part about the machines at the Brookfield Zoo is not only are there thirteen of them, but they have additional molds to go with them.  For Halloween they switched out six of their regular figures for "limited edition" Mold-A-Ramas, including a skull, a devil head, a Frakenstein's monster head, and a few dinosaurs.  Someday when they switch those six machines back to their regular molds we may visit again and collect those as well.

In the meantime we made quite a haul!  All the machines were working, and we managed to collect all thirteen over the course of our four hour visit.  (Supposedly our zoo has additional molds as well, but, aside from a few dinosaurs that were used during the traveling Dinosaurs Alive exhibit a few years back, we don't know what they are or on what occasions they get used.  But we're keeping an eye out!)

Most of the Mold-A-Ramas were new for us.  We now have doubles of the alligator and kangaroo, and our we're up to three waving gorillas in our collection, but the eagle is new, as are the grizzly, penguin, dolphin, stegosaurus, T-rex, apatosaurus, and the three Halloween heads.

New additions to the family collection.  (We're up to 38!)

Mona picked up an apatosaurus for her personal collection

Quinn couldn't resist getting an eagle

The zoo itself is quite nice.  It's not as big as we were expecting so it wasn't hard to get around.  It's a bit dated, and there are way too many gift shops to try to navigate with kids in tow.  They have a cassowary but it wasn't out, which deeply disappointed Aden so I promised her we could go back again one day and maybe catch it then.  We did see wombats, though.  And the bat display had you in the same room as the live bats which added an element of "danger" that was interesting (Mona hoped one would somehow land on her finger).

The highlights were the primate exhibit and the dolphins. The primate house was the best I've ever seen.  Very large rooms with tall, artificial trees and no glass or mesh between the visitors or the different groups of animals.  It's all cleverly spaced so it looks as if, for instance, the tamarins and the gibbons are in the same environment, but then you realize the gaps between their areas are too large for them to traverse.  (Though how one keeps a gibbon out of anywhere is beyond me.)  There were three such enormous rooms, the final one with gorillas where you could walk up and around their whole space to observe them.  There was an underwater viewing area for watching the dolphins be dolphins.  Mona was thrilled, saying she'd never seen a live dolphin before.  I keep thinking that can't be right, and yet, it's probably true.

In any case, the Mold-A-Rama hunts will continue, but the thrill will now come in procuring the obscure rather than the windfall.  Once we have exhausted the possibilities in nearby Chicago we will start planning treks a bit farther afield.  Can't wait!

Mold-A-Ramas at the Henry Ford Museum

The Mold-A-Rama collection is growing.  To the point where we've officially declared ourselves "Mold-A-Rama Collectors."

When I showed my kids the online map of all the Mold-A-Ramas in existence (which all apparently happen to be in this country) Quinn lit up and said, "We could get all the Mold-A-Ramas in the world."  So maybe we will.

After successfully obtaining the dozen Mold-A-Ramas from our zoo, plus the bonus Mold-A-Rama not on the map, we decided to take advantage of the fact that while we were in Detroit there were supposed to be more there.  Specifically at Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum.