12/27 - Jim visits the Dinosaur

This afternoon, Jim and I went with a friend of mine to the Everson Museum in Syracuse to see the Davies Collection. Super duper, but no pictures allowed.

While we were in Syracuse, we of course stopped to eat at the Dinosaur Barbecue. This was Jim's first time, and he really liked it, and insisted I take his picture cosied up to the BBQ sauce jars like one of the condiments.

Chester

Jim's relative Chester came to stay with us on November 27 and left a few days before Christmas. Jim was very excited and happy to have him come, as he hadn't heard from his family in quite some time. I suppose Jim's happiness was worth the trouble of wild and noisy parts til 3 am on work days, and having to scrub the strange stains from the tub after Chester showered, and having to pay the fair for Chester to travel via First Class mail to Michigan to see Jessa, as Jim had promised.

We got word on Christmas day that Chester had arrived safely and enjoyed a nice Christmas dinner with my family in Michigan. I even got a picture on my phone of Jessa and Chester. Very cute. I wonder if I should warn them about the stains?

12/25 - Christmas morning

On Christmas morning, Jim participated in the Willson family tradition of shrimp and croissants for breakfast, as well as present-opening and quality family time. He liked the shrimp a lot, and didn't mind that my Dad teased him by giving him extra antennae.

And, he especially enjoyed his new purple scarf. He immediately wanted to go out and make a snowman. When I explained that he couldn't because it was raining, he exclaimed, "Stupid earth weather!" and sulked until I told him the story of Mary and Joseph and a newborn baby who was Emmanuel, God with us, and he was so overcome with emotion and praise that he broke into song with "Joy to the world, . . . " and the day passed pleasantly away.

12/12 - Snow

It finally snowed a few weeks into December. I'd been telling Jim about this meteorological phenomenon for a while (ever since I found out he liked the cold), and he hadn't believed that such a wondrous thing could exist. Finally, it came. I sent Jim out to play, and he enjoyed it, but kept running back in to drag me out to take pictures of him. He liked that he was greener than the grass in the picture on the left. He was in the process of making a snow fort when I took the picture on the right.

When Jim came in from playing out side, he was actually so cold he requested a large mug of hot cocoa to dip his antennae in. He claimed the warm weather here is making him soft. But he enjoyed the snow and wanted to go out and play again. I suggested he ask for winter clothes from Santa for Christmas. He laughed at my "super-duper silly human notion of a man in a red suit who could travel faster than my awesome space vehicle," but then I found a tiny letter in the mailbox addressed to the North Pole, so I'm guessing the Christmas spirit got to him.

12/5 - The Crayola Factory

I have wanted to go to the Crayola Factory since I was a little girl and I saw an episode of Mister Rogers where Mr. McFeely brought Mr. Rogers a tape in the mail from the Crayola Factory that showed how crayons were made. I remember watching the TV screen in rapt attention, fascinated at the bright colors and cool machines (I just found out you can watch it on-line at pbskids.org!!). When I told Jim about it, he got really excited, because he likes bright colors and the smell of crayons as much as I do.

A friend of mine lives in NJ, and on a recent visit to her place, we stopped in Easton, PA at the Crayola Factory. Jim was excited about the stop mostly because I was so excited. It wasn't what I expected, but it was still pretty fun. They had different stations where kids of all ages (like Jim, Susie, and I) could paint with hot wax (it smelled AMAZING, but Jim was too worried about getting dirty to have too much fun at this one), draw with chalk (Jim liked that he could lie down for this picture), and use all of the various Crayola products.

11/23 - the art lesson

A friend of mine asked me to help him with an oil painting for his Mom. I am by no means an expert in oil painting, but I agreed to teach him what I knew. We met the day before I made the quick trip to Michigan, and Jim went with me. He enjoyed watching Dusty work, and was very careful to avoid the paints and the brush cleaner.

11/24-25 - Michigan, soda, and Chester

While I was on the trip to Philly with Jim, I found out that my grandma, my Dad's mom, died. The funeral was the next week, and Jim came along to console me and my family. He proved very useful in distracting my cousin's small daughter, Jessa, during the funeral. He bore the rough handling with strength and dignity, and never once mentioned how she kept dropping him on the ground.

There are, for obvious reasons, no pictures of Jim at the funeral, but we did go to the grocery store, which Jim enjoyed. He especially liked climbing in the cooler with the Sierra Mist cranberry splash. Evidently, his planet is cooler than ours and he's been super-duper hot this whole time. Also, he was very enthusiastic about the color of the labels on the bottles, for obvious reasons.

When it came time to leave Jessa, my niece, didn't want to part with Jim. Jim told me to tell her, as a consolation, that his relative, Chester, would soon be visiting and Jim would direct him on to Michigan to spend some time with Jessa. This was the first I'd heard of Chester, and I wasn't all that thrilled to be entertaining another house guest. One small alien was enough to handle.

more PMA/Philly

Jim and the Philadelphia skyline. It was a fairly windy day that day, so this picture was hard to take. Jim kept falling over and getting very frustrated. Still, he continued to smile.

Jim and Rodin's The Gates of Hell, at the entrance to the Rodin Museum.

Jim and Rocky. He's a big fan. He's seen all the movies. He especially likes the one with Dolph Lundgren, mostly because he likes how his name sounds. And he particularly wants me to write that he is a HUGE fan of Sylvester Stallone and finds it inspiring that he wrote, directed, and starred in all those movies.

Jim said he liked this painting because he felt like he could just walk through the frame into the scene and the world would be just the right size for him.

Jim proudly displaying his entrance pin for the Museum.

11/21 - Jim visits the City of Brotherly Love

Because Jim so liked the art at the church art show (even though he called it "primitive" and inferior to art on his planet), I decided to allow him to come along on a school trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He thoroughly enjoyed himself.

We spent most of our time inside the Museum, but we also walked to the Rodin Museum, and hung out on the huge steps, made famous in the Rocky movies.

Mostly, he behaved himself, except for with the older iconic European art. He kept begging me to let him snuggle with the various Madonna and Child statues in that area. I explained over and over that they are very old and fragile, and besides, that would be a bit inappropriate. He kept saying that they looked so inviting and that he'd be super-duper careful.

10/24 - Jim attends an art show

In October, Jim acompanied me to an art show at my church which included two of my pieces. Jim enjoyed all the art, but especially liked this piece of mine, and asked to have our pictures taken by it. He said he liked it because it was small, like him, and not overwhelming to him like some of the others. Jim is very sensitive about being short.

10/6 - Jim gets his name

Since our return to the US, Jim has been my almost constant companion. He tags along everywhere I go, making new friends, gaining new experiences, and generally having a grand old time.

I realized early that we'd somehow have to come up with something to call him. You see, Jim is not his real name. Jim informed me when I met him that his given name was not going to work for us. Evidently, not unlike the mermaid "Madison" in Splash, his language is made up of sounds difficult for humans to replicate, hear, and interpret. On a visit to my class (I'm taking college classes part time and Jim finds the lectures to be "enlightening, though far inferior to the knowledge of my race."), Jim and I were discussing this name dilemma, and some of my classmates overheard. They joined in the discussion, offering up various alternatives, some of which sounded like that tribe in Africa that communicates with clicks. We all agreed, though, that it had to be something simple and normal and easy to say. Thus, "Jim" came to be.

9/29 - back to the US

When it was time for me to leave China, Jim came with me. Rather early into our stay in China, Jim declared that he would "forsake, abandon, renounce, and otherwise throw off my ridiculously important, highly dangerous, totally amazing, mind-alteringly cool, and super-duper secret mission" so that I didn't have to travel home alone. He explained further, saying that he saw the number of creatures that were already staying with my sister, and wanted to lessen the burden of so many house guests. Both decent reasons, I suppose, as I'm not the biggest fan of traveling alone internationally and I did transport 12 creatures who would be taking up permanent residence with my sister. But, I'm pretty sure Jim was just nervous that he'd eventually get eaten if he stayed in China too long. He made his declaration the night after we'd gone to eat street food, some of which he'd said, in quiet and somber tones, looked like a few of his relatives, friends, and beloved pets back home. I didn't try to correct him, as the truth is that I'd grown rather fond of the little guy.

Jim proved to be a decent traveling companion, although he did hog all the pretzels.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, he hasn't since mentioned the "super-duper secret mission." I think the reason it's such a super-duper secret is because it doesn't actually exist.

9/28 - Jim and Chairman Mao

Jim was very excited about his audience with Chairman Mao at the Forbidden City. We tried to explain to him that the Chairman has been dead for several years, and he would only be seeing a picture of the man. His enthusiasm could not to be suppressed. He insisted that we take several pictures of the two of them together. When Jim saw them, he was disappointed that the Chairman did not smile as widely as Jim would have liked.

Jim was also disappointed that the Forbidden City was, ironically, closed due to the upcoming 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

9/27 - Jim acts as a goodwill ambassador

During the last part of our trip to China, we spent some time in Beijing. Shopping was, of course, on the agenda. Jim didn't need to buy anything, but he was helpful in picking things out. He especially enjoyed the pearl market.

Our transactions with the seller were serious and business-like until Jim decided to make an appearance. Then, flirting, cuddling and other such nonsense ensued. Jim explained later that this was all part of his duties as goodwill ambassador for his planet. As he has never once mentioned the name of his planet, this excuse seems suspect. Also the seller blowing kisses to Jim and yelling out, "Call me!" in tearful, longing Mandarin as we walked away.

Jim is a ladies' man...er...alien.

9/??-?? - The Great Wall

When we all got to China, Jim asked to tour with my sister and I, as she speaks Mandarin quite well, and he thought she would make an excellent tour guide. He was right, of course.

Jim felt nervous about climbing on the great wall, so he stayed in the hotel room. As you can see, he missed out on an amazingly beautiful experience.

He did, however, participate in card playing the next day. War is definitely his game.

introductions

I first met Jim on June 21, 2009. He came with the intention of staying with me for a little while and hitching a ride to China, as he heard I'd be going there to visit my sister and was planning to take several other creatures along with me. I reluctantly agreed to house and transport him, not knowing what I'd be getting myself into. Because, if I have learned nothing else from pursuing an interest in all things sci-fi, I have certainly learned that alien life forms are unpredictable. Even very small green ones with slightly disconcerting red eyes. Surprisingly, Jim has been a delightful house guest and traveling companion, but that's getting ahead of myself.

These photos were taken on 6/22, when he came to work with me to have his picture taken for his passport. He had already gotten chummy with another hitcher, a shy little brown bear.