Wisconsin Cheese

What do you do when you've got a state full of cows? You make cheese.

The picture for this one came out a bit dark, but the colors are quite lovely- lots of mellow blues and greens. There's a nice illusion of depth.














Floaty image: two mice creeping along on their hind legs, objective: get the cheese. The second mouse appears to be rubbing his little forepaws together in anticipation.

Stationary image: rolling green hills and glacial lakes. Foreground images of bushes (from whence the mice commence their creeping), and a nice wedge of cheese.

Reverse: "WISCONSIN" + image of the state capitol building in Madison and a sailboat with a city skyline in the background. (I assume this is meant to be the Milwaukee lakefront, but it could also refer to Madison).

Wisconsin cow

Wisconsin is home to a lot of cows, and they're not afraid to let you know it.

















Floaty image: two cows. (I don't think it's intentional, but the overall feeling conveyed by the float action is "STAMPEDE!!!!")

Stationary image: rolling green pastures full of cows, a red barn, and what looks to be a village church in the distance. Foreground images of little kids in overalls, one riding a tractor and the other feeding a calf from a bottle. (Up until the stampede, it had been a lovely day).

Reverse: "WISCONSIN" + a picture of three cows staring accusingly.

Alcatraz

I got this next one on a trip to San Francisco. We didn't visit Alcatraz, but the gift shop at Coit Tower had a variety of different floaties. And when given a choice between shark and non-shark related objects, I always choose shark.

I don't remember what other pens that were available. Given the same choice right now, I'd get more than one.













Floating image: 2 stripe-suited convicts followed by a shark.
Stationary image: San Francisco bay.

Reverse: "ALCATRAZ / Federal Penitentiary Swim Team" + picture of another convict shackled to an enormous 8-ball.

An 8-ball? What the heck? I didn't realize this pen was so odd.

Boston Baked Beans

This was my first floaty pen. It's still one of the weirdest in my collection. Beans.













Floating image: A pot of beans.
Stationary image: Boston skyline, flanked by more beans.

Reverse: "Boston Baked Beans"

Soon we'll move on to the pens, bur first another digression

Well, now that I'm back from my trip to Paris (where I found only one, decidedly sub-par floaty), I should get started on the business of writing about pens. Soon. Yes. In exhaustive detail. I promise. But first, a bit more about my problem with collecting.

When I started writing this I actually believed that I had very few current collections aside from the floaty pens. Honestly - I sat here at the computer, thinking: "Hey, I really don't collect anything other than pens anymore." This was a delusion, as I discovered when I went back downstairs and took another look around.

Here's a summary of what I found, with the definition of a collection as three or more items of the same type:

Books. Honestly, this isn't all my fault since my husband is worse about books than I am. Ditto for the CD collection. I can share the blame for the hundreds of books crowding our home..
Danish pottery. No good explanation for this one.
Norwegian pewter and metalware. My parents just keep sending me more. I never found out why.
Quilts. Again, not of my own volition. My mom just won't stop sewing.
Evil eye amulets. This collection is actually somewhat inactive at the moment because you just don't encounter many amulets in rural Ohio.
Maneki Neko (Beckoning cat) figurines. This is the only one that's really close to getting "out of hand." I blame the fact that I used to live just north of Chinatown in Toronto. Again, somewhat inactive now that we live in Ohio.
Sci-fi toys (emphasis on robots). Robots!
Paintings. (Painted 'em myself)
Sake sets.
Mahjongg sets.

I really get into trouble if you lose the "3 or more" clause. That opens up a truly terrifying netherworld where I also collect East German cameras, accordions, 60's era lamps, Japanese emperor dolls, and puppets (shudder).

Beginning

I have a small collection of floaty pens. I try to keep it small intentionally since I have a bad habit of accumulating stuff (interesting coins, ticket stubs, accordions...). What can I say? I come from a family of collectors. Dorks and collectors. It's not an ideal combination.

The whole pen thing actually began a few years ago with one of my coworkers, Ann. She collected pens from different cities, and she mentioned that sometimes people bring her pens when they come back from vacation. Weird hobby, but I remembered this while we were killing time in the Winnipeg airport and I got her a rainbow Winnipeg pen. At the time, my husband was traveling pretty frequently so I gave him standing instructions to buy a pen for Ann if he needed to kill time. He did buy a pen for Ann on his next trip. And it was not a simple pen with the name of a city on it. It was a freaking awesome floaty pen with the name of a city on it. I was insanely jealous.

This is a photo of the collection today, on its brand new display board.