Cetaceous Dirigible

Cranberry juice jug, blowdryer handle, orange juice pulltab, gypsum board anchors, clothespin, a few turkey bones. I found the teddybear eyes in my mother's sewing stash years ago, finally put 'em to use.

Plastic Bottle #1

 More budget modeling. Plastic spray bottle, don't remember when I saved it, but the shape reminded me of a bird taking off from water. BIC BBQ lighter for the head. Turkey bones. Other bits from the junkbox. Continuing the bird theme, I added old stork decals from Academy's kit of WWI-ace Georges Guynemer's Nieuport.

Sailplane...thing

The usual stuff: turkey bones, mylar, hors d'oeuvre toothpicks, balsa, disposable wooden utensils, rubberband, coffee stirrer.

P-51 Red-tail

Revell's 1969 1/32 scale P-51B Mustang. Red, yellow, and silver hardware store spraypaints. Canopy frame made from painted strips of electrical tape. Minimal decals. Didn't paint the propeller tips yellow, I thought they'd detract from the yellow wing stripes.

Living small

 Landowners and informal dwellers along Rio Tarqui are being moved out so the city can expand greenspace along the river, and add land to the Botanical Gardens to the east. In addition to the tire shop and stucco contractor in the photos, people raise animals and grow crops. Some of these families have lived here for at least 70 years. This used to be out of town, but no longer. The gov't paid out $550,000 for the land, and to relocate people.

Amor

 I got dis runnin' joke wit' my wife, who's 73. If we're going outta da house for whatever reason, I'll say "Oh man baby you're gonna make me look good today." And then we're out and running an errand and it's, "You makin' me look really good right now." And of course she scoffs at my enthusiasm. So today we're doing our weekly food charity thing in Centro. We come upon a coupla regulars, one who plays ukelele, and the other a shoe-shiner. I say "how y'all doin' Master of Music, and Master of Shine?" They say they're doing fine, and, "Izzat ya wife? She's muy guapa (very nice-looking)." I say, she is! Every day I tell God muchas gracias que ella es mi esposa/ thank you God that she's my wife! She made those sandwiches. They are so fine, you can't eat them, you hafta jus' admire 'em. And they are laughing, and saying oh no we got it! So my point is, from now on if wife discounts my indirect compliments, I can say, "What about those guys in Parque Calderon? They're objective; you should trust their opinion, since they are not blinded by love."

P-40

Revell's 50+ year-old 1/32 P-40 kit. New decals. Handpainted w/ craftstore acrylics, topped with pastels in assorted shades of green, brown & tan. I thought the kit exhausts were too understated, and replaced them with bits of plastic straw. Left off all the little pieces: pitot tube, tailwheel doors, antenna, gunsight, etc. Canopy framing made with strips of electrical tape.