Juliepede's Bug House

2009-03-07T11:24:00.004-05:00

For those wondering about the color scheme of our new car: These links should describe it pretty well.

Exterior
Interior

2009-01-26T21:59:00.003-05:00

I've just come back from seeing Frost/Nixon at the Little Theatre here in Rochester. I thought it was terrific, but there are plenty of online reviews available and I won't try to write one here.

And my opinion of the MPAA rating system has gone from the toilet into the sewer. They gave this film an R rating. I'm trying to understand the possible justifications.

* Language: Yup, there's some cursing. Nixon was famous for it, of course. It would have been considered mild among my none-too-wild high school crowd in the early 1970s. Just about any 12-year-old would be able to understand all of the words and use each one correctly in a sentence.

* Violence: A minute or two of footage of casualties from the Cambodia bombings -- pretty much at the level that used to be televised routinely during the Vietnam War.

* Sex: A telephone call awakens a character while he is in bed with his girl friend. Emphasis on "awakens" -- they were sleeping.

* Nudity: A minor character jumps nude into the California ocean. For a second or so, you can see his butt.

Now, I doubt very much that groups of giggling middle-school students are going to be interested in getting dropped off at the mall by Mom so that they can see Frost/Nixon. But it might interest, say, a high school junior who likes American history or media studies. In fact, it's the kind of film you would hope your 16-year-old is aware enough to want to see, whether or not you had time to tag along.

(Expletive deleted) the MPAA. Do they give a special Oscar for "stupidest film rating of the year?"

2009-01-10T13:54:00.003-05:00

I've been trolled again, so all comments will now be moderated.

2009-01-04T19:31:00.003-05:00

Comments have been turned on again, with some restrictions that should be transparent for most readers. If there's more abuse, I'll switch to a more stringent moderation policy.

2009-01-03T20:41:00.002-05:00

As The Earworm Turns

My relationship with music has been lifelong, intense, and bizarrely crankish. For example, I must be the only self-described rocker who has always been bored by both Elvis Presley and the Stones. An old friend sporadically runs a blog-based game called “Jukebox from Hell,” and although I concur with most other participants on what constitutes hell (“Butterfly Kisses”? “God Bless the U.S.A.”? The entire Neil Diamond catalog?) I was usually the most likely player to actually find some of my favorites on the list. (They’ll take away my “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes when they pry it out of my cold dead iPod.)

Sometimes a song just hits me so hard in such a negative way that I become allergic to it from the time of first exposure, and often it’s a song that most other people like. For example: “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Hated it on first hearing it at age six, and still do; that one and “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” can probably take credit for driving my lifelong loathing of folk music. “Stairway to Heaven” took two or three tries, but it’s still up there on my turn-that-damn-thing-down list. And I could probably lose my pinko cred for life for admitting this, but I feel exactly the same way about everything that Bob Dylan ever wrote.

But very few songs have ever irritated me as much from the get-go as one that I keep hearing lately when some of my co-workers crank up the radio in the lab; that follows me around in supermarkets and department stores for the express purpose of annoying me; that crawls into my head like the entomologically incorrect earwig that ate Laurence Harvey’s brain on Night Gallery . It makes me want to rip out my eardrums with a crochet hook, and then, immune to the sound at last, go hunting for the sadists who wrote and performed it, and strap them down and force them to listen to Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler covers performed by a bad Dead Kennedys tribute band and blasted at full volume through the speakers of a 1965-vintage transistor radio.

I’m talking about “Clocks”, by Coldplay.

Like most visceral reactions, this one defies logic; the song was highly acclaimed when it was first released, and has the sort of relentless minor-key drone that I used to think was the pinnacle of musical goodness when I was about twelve. But it still drives me nuts. For one thing, at least for the purposes of this song, Chris Martin seems to believe in his heart of hearts and uvula of uvulae that he is Sting. My personal opinion is that no one, not even Sting, should try to sound like Sting unless Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland are physically present to keep him in line. Second, I do have respect for a good keyboard riff, and I presume the one in “Clocks” is supposed to set up a mournful, introspective ambience. Play the riff a few times and you might inspire some mildly emo high school kids to write passable snippets of poetry. Play it as many times as Coldplay does, and it’s more suited to flushing the next Manuel Noriega out of his sanctuary. (Look out, Rod Blagojevich.)

But besides all that, there’s something about the song that just projects attitude. Not the punk attitude of the Ramones or the artistically raunchy attitude of Frank Zappa or the darkly ironic attitude of Smithereens, but something more like the whiny faux-suffering-artist attitude of David Gates and Bread. Now, if you are not between 45 and 55 and don’t understand why someone in that age range who was reading over your shoulder just covered his or her ears and ran out of the room whimpering, I can tell you why; it’s because that person remembers David Gates and Bread. Even their happy songs were depressing; their albums sometimes seemed to sneak unbidden onto turntables at parties in the seventies for the express purpose of killing the buzz.

And that’s how I feel about “Clocks”, by Coldplay.

Really, I don’t even hate all whiny sad music. I like Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” I’ve loved Ambrosia’s “Holding On to Yesterday” for upwards of thirty years. Good lord, my favorite piece of music at age four was the theme from Exodus.

But I still can’t stand “Clocks” by Coldplay. It irritated me on the first hearing, and progressively more on the second, and the seventeenth, and the hundred-and-sixty-first; a mewling and puking, wretchedly repetitive, musically maudlin, lyrically insipid, emotionally manipulative feline ear mite of a song. After being subjected to it one time too many today, I had to crank up some Donna Summer on the iPod to get it out of my head. Just picture this; a superannuated New Waver who used to wear her hair a half-inch long and brutally hennaed with one long skinny bleached wisp down the back, and who misses turquoise striped pants and Roland guitar synths and the none-too-soothing sounds of Tones On Tail and Romeo Void, had to blast herself through both ears with old disco hits just to keep “Clocks” by Coldplay from driving her six or seven votes shy of quorum.

And it’s still running through my head.

Why are all these radio stations playing it now, anyway? The damned song is several years old; there’s no reason for it to keep popping up in every public place that I've visited in the last month. Maybe this means something; maybe some unknown tormentor is trying to incite me to drop out of society, renounce the use of radio, and spend the remainder of my life in an underground bunker trying on boutique headwear by Monique of Reynoldswrap.

Have I mentioned that I dislike “Clocks,” by Coldplay?

Oh, well -- just a hint: “Hot Stuff” worked best.

2009-01-03T20:10:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

Since I've had to shut down comments here, I thought I'd try a new approach. I'm going to link to my blog posts from my Facebook account. That way, anyone can read the blog, but for the time being, only people I know can comment on it.

I have some ideas for future blogging projects, but haven't made up my mind how to make them real yet, so I'm going to remain here for now.

2008-12-15T20:24:00.002-05:00

I've had to turn off comments on this blog, because a person who apparently holds a grudge against some of my friends has chosen to leave offensive messages for me via the comments feature. Since I haven't really been keeping the blog up, this shouldn't have much impact on friends.

More if anything changes.

2008-10-05T22:46:00.002-04:00

Something good will come of this ....

Last week, I was combing through some DNA sequences that had just returned from the core facility, assuming that the data would to confirm the success of an experiment that I've been working on for several months. What I found out was that -- well, the data sort of confirmed success. That is to say, some of the problems I'd been having with the procedure had been solved. The only thing was, I also found out from the sequences that I'd made a mistake a few months back that was not only annoying, but truly embarrassing. We are talking about a rookie mistake here, one that an undergrad working on a senior honors project should have been able to catch, and sure enough, I did it myself, and didn't catch it for several months. And I didn't make the mistake in haste -- I made it after great deliberation. Color me very, very severely pissed off.

Okay, in the big scheme of things, it's not that bad. It will cost one to two weeks of work, plus about $100 worth of lab reagents, to fix my screw-up. On the scale of time and money already invested in this project, this is small potatoes. And at least I caught it before compounding the error by introducing it into the next few steps of the experiment. But I do have to fix this as soon as possible, so I decided to haul my butt into the lab for as many hours over the weekend as it took me to make maximum progress. This worked out to about seven hours on Saturday and a couple of brief pop-ins today. But it was the Saturday effort that really paid off in an unexpected way.

Important piece of additional information: There are a lot of people who work in my lab, and on weekends, people are constantly in and out, feeding and breeding flies, running bench experiments, or catching up on their reading and writing. It's probably not unusual for each member of the lab to be in at least once over the weekend without actually seeing any of the others. My first Saturday spell in the lab started at around 10:45 AM and ran for about two hours, during which I retrieved some DNA from overnight cultures of bacteria and began the process of digesting it with enzymes. I then went home for lunch, goofed off with Rick for a few hours while the enzyme digestions incubated, and then returned to the lab for more bench work at around 3:15 PM.

When I walked into the lab, the first thing I heard was an alarm. We occasionally get weird alarms from the fume hood (which only rarely has to handle actual fumes,) and they never amount to much -- I think they're caused by drunken Drosophila from some ongoing ethanol-exposure experiments weaving in and out of the chamber. At least, that's what I first assumed was going on. But when I got to the hood, I realized the alarm was coming not from it, but from the -80ºC freezer in the next room. This is a very, very bad thing. Alarms coming from our "minus 80" mean that the temperature is higher than minus 80 -- in fact, it means that the temperature is -65ºC or above. Now, most of us humans cannot wrap our minds around the difference between minus 80 and minus 65; exposure to either temperature is remarkably effective at, for example, causing your skin to stick painfully to the shelf if you're distracted enough to reach into the freezer with wet ungloved hands. But some of the things that we keep in the minus 80 can most definitely tell the difference between minus 80 and minus 65. Like, for instance, the chemically treated E. coli that I have to use in some of my genetic experiments. These are not run-of-the-mill, sewer-dwelling E. coli. These are highly upscale, $200-per-box-of-25-tiny-tubes E. coli, and they become extremely petulant and refuse (permanently) to cooperate in experiments if kept at minus 65 instead of minus 80 for a prolonged period of time. And they really, really don't like minus 47, which is what the temperature display was reading by the time I got there. And it was reading minus 47 because someone who had been in between 12:45 and 3:15 PM had forgotten to fully latch the door after retrieving material from the freezer. (Wasn't me. I hadn't opened the freezer during my first trip to the lab. One rookie error per person per year is more than enough.)

Oh, and freezer alarms are supposed to go off in the facilities manager's office, as well as in a central facility in another part of campus. This one didn't. Our facilities manager, I think, lives in her office, and she is the kind of hyper-vigilant person who can probably hear a drunken Drosophila staggering into a fume hood from two floors down. Despite the fact that it was Saturday, she was there when I called to leave a message, and she'd heard nothing. The central facility, in fact, phoned me twenty minutes later to tell me that our freezer alarm was going off, by which time I'd closed the door, watched the temperature creep back below minus 60, and repeatedly re-set the alarm because if you hit the reset buttton to turn off the noise, the alarm only pauses for about five minutes. After that, if the temperature is still too high, it starts howling at you again. But it took, most likely, several hours for this whole mess to set off the remote alarms.

In other words, our freezer had failed to communicate with its minders.

And the next person to enter the lab didn't do so until around 7 PM. I know, because I was there until 8:30.

All because I messed up an experiment a few months back and had to come in on a Saturday to fix it.

And caught the open-freezer problem in some period of time that was less than or equal to two and a half hours, as opposed to six and a quarter hours.

Damned good thing I screwed up that procedure a while back, no? :-)

2008-09-04T12:48:00.001-04:00

I've thought long and hard about a potential post on this subject, but I don't need to take that much time, because it's already been summarized perfectly:

On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant.

-- Ted Anthony (Associated Press)

2008-09-02T19:08:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted here for some months, so just a quick placeholder:

* Yup, it is my birthday -- the first one I've actually spent in Rochester, in fact. Thanks to everyone for all the e-cards! Oh, and to the Drosophila Genomics Research Center for shipping my new plasmids. Couldn't have arrived at a better time!

* Yes, I've kept up the exercise program, although I haven't been doing it at the gym, because the apartment complex has a pool and during the summer I go there and swim and splash and generally jump around like a kindergartner. It just closed for the summer, but my bike should be out of the shop soon, and of course rainy days mean back to the gym.

More later. Rick and I are off to my favorite Italian(ish) restaurant for dinner.

2008-05-19T21:19:00.002-04:00

I haven't written about this before, but in early January, I started a pretty serious exercise program. And, honest to Zarquon, it wasn't even a freakin' New Year's resolution. That just happened to be when I got fired up to do it. Rick and I had been talking about how amazing it was that I lost weight on our trip to Italy, even though we indulged in plenty of great food. It's just that we walked a lot, climbed hills and steep trails, and often ate very little at lunch, preferring to pack down the calories at the end of the day when being energetic after eating wasn't a requirement.

By the way, I'm talking about serious exercise, not just a few genteel laps around the mall on Saturday afternoons. I mean, really hard exercise, 30 to 60 minutes at a pop, four or five times a week. Treadmills, elliptical trainers, weight machines, and -- on nice days -- my trusty bicycle have been doing the trick. I can't say that I've lost a huge amount of weight, but that wasn't the point. For one thing, I haven't been dieting, except to try to to plan my snacks to consist of caloric treats that I actually enjoy (high-cacao milk chocolate, Dubliner cheese) while avoiding the junk that I can really take or leave (French fries, doughnuts.) I have lost a noticeable amount of girth, though; for an investment of approximately $60, I had five pairs of jeans and crops taken in by a neighborhood tailor, and this was just like getting a new wardrobe that would have cost four times that much. And when I catch my reflection in the lab microwave, it looks better than it has in fifteen or sixteen years. (My reflection, I mean. I doubt the microwave is a day older than five.)

The iPod has been helpful. I often set it to shuffle, hop on the treadmill, and let the music direct my speed and elevation, but today I actually made an exercise playlist. Of course, I forgot to turn off the shuffle, so although I controlled the content, I didn't have much say over the order. It still worked out pretty well, though, so for fitness-oriented readers: I give you Today's Exercise.

I Predict, Sparks
(Lassie will prove that Elvis and her had a fleeting affair ....)

Goin' Southbound, Stan Ridgway

Der Kommissar, After the Fall

Go Forth and Die, Dethklok
(Hmmm, come to think of it, this probably isn't a great title for inspiring a workout. But it does have a good beat for the purpose.)

American Idiot, Green Day
(Thanks to my nephew, who gave me the album for my birthday last year.)

Loretta, Nervous Eaters
(Probably not one you've ever heard unless you spent the 1980s in Boston, but still....)

Flying North, Thomas Dolby

Satisfaction, Devo
(A way cool live version. Thanks, Greg!)

More later .....

2008-05-13T22:05:00.000-04:00

Earth to Bush:

Keep the golf. Give up the damned war.

2008-03-07T20:09:00.002-05:00

AVUNCULUS (abridged)
In memory of James Marino, 1925-2008

The boy tail gunner came home
with stories of fighting men and airplanes
and taking a dump over the English Channel;
taught his brothers and sisters the songs of soldiers,
and married a pretty girl before Thanksgiving dinner ....

He teases my mother,
who married a Polack, and won't buy junk food
Then he takes her shopping
and they talk basketball
the way she once did with my father.
And he sang to his dog in merry Italian
and mourned her for months when she died of old age
and he cried at my wedding,
and during taps at my father's funeral,
and he calls my husband nephew.

In the rain forest he would have fed us
brought my mother meat from the hunt
and eaten at her table
and raised a niece born with his temper
and the face of her father's sister
while his own children ran with their uncles.

After a thousand phone calls
and a hundred thousand irritations
my mother calls me by his name
then apologizes and laughs,
"Did I tell you what Jimmy said to me yesterday?"
and under the giggle I hear
the girl who sat with Mama and Papa
beside the old Philco
waiting for news of the war in Europe,
crying with fear for her little brother.

2008-02-22T20:18:00.001-05:00

And speaking of non sequiturs: This is my all-time favorite among David Letterman's Top Ten:

Top Ten Canine Disorders or Debutante Complaints

10. Distemper
9. Rabies
8. Broken heel
7. Wilted corsage
6. Mange
5. Out of shrimp
4. Heartworms
3. Warm Tab
2. Ticks
1. Kennel cough / Daddy's drunk (tie)

2008-02-14T21:17:00.004-05:00

I haven’t been updating this page much in the last few months, so one piece of news has fallen through the cracks: I switched labs at Rochester a few months ago. Funding for my original project ended, I haven’t yet lined up a longer-term job, and my husband is still a postdoc here. So, when I was fortunate enough to find another faculty member with research funding, I moved to my current lab.

The big change is that I’m actually doing Drosophila genetics now. Although I’ve been working for a few years with wild drosophilids and other small flies, I hadn’t actually done genetics experiments on the critters since around ninth grade. The lab’s main focus actually has an ecological component – we ‘re not interested in breeding flies that have legs where their antennae should be – but I’m definitely working a lot closer to the operating system, so to speak, than I ever have before.

D. melanogaster is a real workhorse, or maybe a workbug, in genetics labs, but the cultures still contain real insects with every instinct you’d expect from a critter that breeds in fermenting fruit and knows how to make lots more of itself. For instance, if you think you’re working with a purebred strain, but somewhere between the supplier and your benchtop some little dude from a different strain made his way into a vial and had his way with one or more of the pedigreed females, complications will ensue. And they won’t be hilarious. In fact, if Lothario introduced a rare allele into a population that has no business hosting it, your experiments will fail in ways that are not necessarily reproducible, and in fact look for all the world like a common type of PCR glitch. This will waste a lot of your time when you mistake the result of unplanned fly sex for that of a non-optimal bench protocol. In fact, every one of the humans involved in the effort will become at least somewhat irritable.

It’s not easy on the flies either. After throwing away a good week’s worth of work, I had to personally dispatch six thriving culture vials, and then put out a contract on any other subcultures of this strain that might happen to be in our incubators. Fortunately, this strain makes up only a minor fraction of our cultures, and weren’t being used in extensive breeding experiments. But I’m still sufficiently cheesed off to have sporadic fantasies involving very, very small flyswatters.

The other high point of my week was having to take my annual online lab-safety refresher course, and document this via a standard quiz. Now, I’m a big fan of safety training, and I think it’s reasonable to require lab personnel to understand safety regulations and regularly review the procedures to follow in case of lab accidents. The problem is that the quiz is made up primarily of questions like this:

Which common biological-lab items are safe to spill on your skin and clothing?

a. Burning ethanol
b. A live culture of transgenic bacteria
c. The contents of a container marked “CAUTION: HAZARDOUS WASTE”
d. Glacial acetic acid
e. None of the above

I’m sure I passed the test, but if I ever needed to dial the campus emergency number I’d probably still have to look it up. I have stories very much like this from a previous workplace, but will stop now. Readers with similar tales of training sessions that aren’t are invited to comment.

2008-01-19T22:46:00.000-05:00

I was saddened to find out yesterday that the extended quizbowl community has lost Albert Whited, one of its best and most original voices. I didn't really know Al from playing the game itself, but we participated in some of the same forums, discovered our common distress over the same political issues, and occasionally exchanged e-mail messages. Only a few months ago, we friended each other on Facebook. Albert died at his home recently, after an accidental fall that may have been the result of a heart attack. He was just 41, a big guy with a big heart and an incisive mind. I wish I'd had a chance to know him better.

On a happier note: I'm at the Ravenclaw Common Room in Ann Arbor (okay, Kevin's place) with a bunch of good friends, surfing, watching trash TV, and looking forward to tomorrow's even trashier tournament. Rick and I were in Kalamazoo last weekend, renewing old friendships, so I'm getting a good fix of Michigan this month. It really does still feel like home; I suppose we'll just have to watch this space.

2008-01-15T21:56:00.000-05:00

Where's Dennis?

2007-11-18T19:15:00.000-05:00

The food curmudgeon holds forth again

Yesterday, Rick and I went to the mall for a pre-Christmas scouting expedition. Because we were on a schedule due to other commitments, we wound up eating lunch at the food court.

A local Indian restaurant has opened a stall in the food court. This is a welcome development. I'll preface my further remarks with two important statements. First, we understand that fast food is never going to be as good as either home-cooked food or the fare available in a good restaurant. Second, this food-court establishment is still a cut above the usual greaseburger-and-fries mall haunts.

But still ....

We've eaten at the parent restaurant several times, both on buffet nights and on occasions when we ordered off the menu. We like the place a lot. In fact, we went there with a friend from Delhi, who is a terrific cook herself and is totally unforgiving of mediocre Indian restaurants. She liked the buffet there. Enough said.

But the food court food is just -- blander, I guess. The curries weren't as spicy. The palak paneer was actually a bit sweet, as well as too milky. And the rice pudding was sorely lacking in cardamom.

Yup, we understand that food-court food has to be suitable for keeping on steam tables, and that the prices have to be held at least somewhat in check. But the parent restaurant provides a good, reasonably priced buffet that survives its spell on the steam table just fine, and ordering off the menu there is always enjoyable, and won't break the bank either. Have they been totally co-opted into the conventional wisdom that most Americans won't touch South Asian food unless it's laced with sugar and deprived of all of its spice and sass?

For a culture that's obsessed with food, that overeats junk while worrying constantly about diets, we don't seem to actually like food all that much. I couldn't help remembering the Indian-American family we knew during our days in Boston who invited us to a lavish dinner party. Some of the food was catered by an excellent local restaurant, and the rest was cooked by the hostess herself. It was amazingly wonderful. I still remember it sixteen or seventeen years later.

And one couple we knew were so afraid of Indian food that they ate at Burger King beforehand. I don't get it.

During our recent three-week trip to Italy, we noticed that we were in a culture that didn't fear food, and didn't have to disguise main dishes or coffee as dessert in order to get people to eat or drink them. If you order a salad at a restaurant in Italy, you'll be served a bowl of wonderfully fresh vegetables (probably only three or four kinds) with a bottle of balsamic vinegar, a bottle of olive oil, and salt and pepper on the side. If you want lemon instead of vinegar, you get nice freshly cut wedges. You season your own salad to taste, and it's great. No one pours glop loaded with sugar and squashed cheese on their radicchio in Tuscany or Liguria, and it doesn't matter whether you're eating at a tourist joint or a small, family-owned trattoria. If you go into a local bar (generally more like a coffee shop than an American tavern) for a snack and a drink, you'll find interesting munchies like little eggplant sandwiches that are actually made with freshly cooked vegetables and flavorful cheese. And people might lace their after-dinner espresso with a touch of liqueur, or top it with real whipped cream, but no one serves you a pint of coffee-spiked drink base that tastes like apple pie. (Nor, for that matter, like cannoli.)

I don't get it.

I'm not a food snob, but I really like food. I'm a little pudgy because of my too-sedentary lifestyle, but I don't intend to stop eating the things I like (most of which are reasonably healthful, anyway.) I even like real Southern and Midwestern U.S. home cooking, which is a far cry from Sicilian or Sichuan food but is still great when it's made from scratch. And I occasionally still eat fast food when I'm in a hurry. Really, I don't think I'm that much of a grouch where food is concerned.

But I can't imagine being so afraid of food that I want my palak paneer de-spiced and sweetened before I'm willing to eat it. And it seems like a great opportunity to introduce suburban kids to interesting food is being very badly missed here.

2007-11-07T20:08:00.001-05:00

I wish that I could have blogged about this before Election Day, but my four-year-old iBook developed a bad case of amnesia. Fortunately, I was able to fix this by replacing a dead 512 meg memory card with one of twice that capacity, and it looks like my main axe will last me a while longer.

The recent election here in Monroe County was colorful out of all proportion to its mere 35% voter turnout. Or maybe the turnout was down simply because some aspects of the campaign were just too damned colorful. The report in the local paper is deceptively low-key as well.

A bit of background for those not living in New York State: Our governor has proposed that illegal immigrants should be able to get driver licenses in New York, subject to certain limitations. This has become a contentious issue, but one that I won't address directly here. (Interested readers can Google for "Eliot Spitzer immigration driver license" sit back, and watch the fur fly. You might want to pop some popcorn first if you find this kind of thing entertaining.)

Nothing directly pertaining to this issue was on state or local ballots this year, nor was our governor up for re-election. Still, about a week before the election, Rick found this charming message in our mailbox:

If you click to enlarge the images, you'll notice the bold, decisive print and the striking photography. Also appreciate the single artful use of the words "welfare benefits" amidst the other sentiments expressed. Incidentally, if you click on the first photo for a closer look and try to make out the name on the license on top of the stack, you'll notice that the surly dude in the kaffiyeh is named Anthony. (Rick dubbed him "Tony the Sheikh".) Anthony's secret identity nonwithstanding, the mailing offended a large proportion of its recipients and precipitated many, many complaints to the Monroe County Republican headquarters. I mean, you'd think no one in the county had ever seen a racist caricature wrapped in a jingoistic screed before.

But -- wait, that's not all. Many households in the county received automatic phone calls from these clowns. Not once, not twice, but once a day for an entire week before the election. The 'bot calls pretty much repeated the sentiments expressed in the flyer, only in a variety of freakishly chirpy voices. One of those voices belonged to the current sheriff of Monroe County, and another to our county clerk. While you do have to give these elected officials style points for lending their own voices to the kind of dirty campaign trick usually delegated to the shadows, this really made me worry about how they would treat a citizen who required their official services while wearing a kaffiyeh. Or if his name was Anthony.

I actually own a kaffiyeh -- not as a political symbol, but simply because kaffiyehs make comfortable light scarves and were very much in fashion for that purpose about fifteen years ago. I thought about digging mine out of storage and wearing it to the polling place as a gesture of solidarity, but as it turned out Rick and I had some late work to do and there just wasn't time to change before voting. I wish I could tell you that the offending party lost its majority in the county legislature. Actually, its lead was merely cut from 17-12 to 15-14, but more than a few potential swing voters explained to exit pollsters that they made their choices after been put off by the ads. I suspect that more than a few Republicans stayed home because they didn't want to vote for non-Republicans but were offended by their own party's tactics. (I'd consider doing the same, or at least voting third-party, if the local Democrats ever pulled a cheap trick like this.)

Anyway, things have settled down here, and as far as I can tell, nothing much is going to change. If you're ever in the Rochester area and run into a guy named Anthony who wears a kaffiyeh, it's probably nothing to worry about; you probably won't have to frisk him for semiautomatic weapons. You might, however, find him a good resource if you want to find a place to buy wingtip shoes. He'll probably be able to warn you about which shoe shops hire illegal immigrants, too. And he's going to make damned sure that they keep on taking the bus to work.

2007-10-08T21:12:00.000-04:00

I've put a "magnetic words" application on my Facebook page if anyone wants to mess with it. (No links; feel free to "friend me" if you know me, but I'll accept only if I already know you.)

My friend Gail keeps actual, tangible Magnetic Poetry words on her fridge for visitors to play with, and records the special ones in a notebook for posterity. When I visited her at her former home in Georgia some years back, I was proud to score an entry in the big book with this creation:

the puppy is an ugly drunk
I have to spring her out of the pound
mother will scream and shake her finger
but it will be no use

2007-10-06T09:09:00.001-04:00

I'm going straight to hell for finding this amusing, so why not share it with my friends?

Readers of the online New York Times know that paging through their articles will sometimes take you to an ad. Today's ad, sponsored by "Parents -- The Anti-Drug" showed a photo of a sweet-faced high schooler (funny how they're always blonde and female in these ads), accompanied by a properly ditzy website profile ("I love McDreamy!"). And, of course, the usual dire warning that your kid can meet up with even more sexual predators, drug dealers, drunks, and all-around churls via the web than (s)he can by hanging around the mall parking lot after closing time in your home town.

Okay, so you're supposed to mouse over some part of the photo to see the creeps who are talking to your kids, and I presume that this is supposed to reveal an image of some nasty-looking fortysomething dude with biker tats and a roomful of bondage gear. Or maybe even a shot of Kevin Federline, if you're not scared enough already. (Oops, sorry, Kev's been ruled a fit parent. Never mind.) The problem is, either there's something malfunctioning on the web page, or else it's just not compatible with my browser, so instead, when out of curiosity I rolled my cursor over the photo, all that popped up was the next page of the article I was trying to read.

Which was about Blackwater.

Uh-oh. What if this WASN'T a browser incompatibility?

Omigod, Internet predators are trying to recruit your kids to become mercenaries! Your cheerleader daughter or Eagle Scout son is just one ill-advised mouse click away from being seduced into a life of corporate-financed, no-strings-attached gunplay!

Hell, I'd lock up the kid's computer in an instant after seeing that. Who wants to be in the position of saying, "How could you do this to me, Caitlyn? Why couldn't you have run off with a nice ex-con pedophile like your little sister did? He makes a good living, after all ... owns his own meth lab, and ... wait a minute, HOW much did you say Blackwater offered you to start?"

I suppose I should be taking this more seriously. After all, kids (and adults) do get victimized by web scams. But I never could resist a good absurdity. Besides, I'm a grownup, and can take care of myself, so I'm going to sign off and start constructing a page on MySpace. How does "SexyGirlNRA" sound? I figure the job offers should be pouring in soon. No strings attached, and the money would finance my research for years. And if it works, I'd be glad to write a glowing testimonial ad for the New York Times.

2007-10-04T10:59:00.000-04:00

We're back from Italy, which was an amazing experience. Having been awake for 24 hours and now trying to get awake again for at least a half-day of work, I'll have more to say later ....

2007-09-12T09:40:00.000-04:00

With luck, we'll be updating the blog from Italy for a while. The trip (which starts today) has multiple layers of meaning for me, but since we're leaving in two hours and I haven't finished packing, I'll save the philosophizing for later.

2007-09-02T18:24:00.000-04:00

Mmmmmmm....

Rebecca, Mom and I are in the process of cooking my birthday dinner. Roast herbed chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and shortcakes with peach-plum compote and whipped cream. Oh, and my favorite Chardonnay.

A nice way to celebrate my entrance into Area 51!

2007-08-26T13:28:00.000-04:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything going on right now, either in my life or in the world at large, but if I try to put off posting it until December, I know I'll forget about it. Back story: Just before Christmas of 2002, Rick and I hosted a small get-together for like-minded friends and family at our Kalamazoo home. We designed this poster as one of our festive seasonal decorations, and taped up copies of it in various rooms of the house. Rick just found the original while re-organizing his old files, so I figured I'd share it with anyone who might enjoy it.

2007-08-23T12:35:00.000-04:00

Well, the repairs are supposedly complete, and they were indeed minor. And my doctor says that if I feel okay I can go back to swimming in three or four days, although not at my usual high-energy level. He did tell me to not make any major decisions or take on any work that required concentration for the first day, which I'm taking to mean that I probably shouldn't submit anything to GenBank either.

So the work I took home (being off until Monday) can wait. Today it's all Bookworm, web-surfing, and comedy CDs. Wheeee!

2007-08-21T20:32:00.000-04:00

Just trying to get back into the swing of things ....

Ups and downs for now. I'm scheduled for minor surgery on Thursday -- nothing at all serious, and it should resolve a nuisance condition that has annoyed me for a long time -- but it'll end my outdoor swim season a week early, which is especially maddening since we're going to get summer weather back for a few days right around then.

Actually, it's mostly ups. Rebecca will probably accompany Rick and me to my mother's place for my upcoming birthday, which will be fun for all involved. Also, Rick and I are almost done planning a major vacation, and several things are looking up in the job department as well.

And Deuterium Cupcake hasn't escaped since my last post.

2007-08-20T17:17:00.000-04:00

The spider has been named Deuterium Cupcake. We're still not sure of its sex, but also still think it's probably female. As for the name: She just looked enough like a Deuterium Cupcake that we all agreed on the name. Some of the other labfolks call her "Deuter" for short, but I prefer "Cupcake" or "D.C.".

This morning, I came into the lab to discover that our little Cupcake had gone on walkabout. She was not in the terrarium, and the cover of same did appear suspiciously loose. This could have been a doubleplus bummer if she'd really taken a hike, but fortunately she hadn't gone far -- she just found a nice warm corner behind one of the Macs, not at all far from where she was supposed to be. With only minor assistance from one of the undergrads, I coaxed Cupcake back into her cage. One of the grad students brought her a grasshopper later, but we're not sure yet whether she's interested in it.

Rule #1: Never trust a bug.

2007-07-06T23:03:00.000-04:00

This little sweetie joined our lab today. She doesn't have a name yet, but she certainly has a fan club.

Nice to feel the pitter patter of little feet. All eight of them ....

2007-04-14T18:48:00.000-04:00

In the summer of 1977, my parents' car was rear-ended on a suburban street in Connecticut. Fortunately for everyone involved, the accident happened at low speed. However, not only were my parents not wearing their seat belts, but my father, whose war against the mechanical world was lifelong and unrelenting, had for some reason removed the front-seat headrests. Both of my parents ended up with classic whiplash injuries, and my mother had pain in her back and neck for months. The other driver, also unbelted, was painfully banged up when he collided with his dashboard.

A bit less than a year later, a couple of guys from my dorm were in a car accident in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The driver, who had worn his seat belt, was unhurt. The unbelted passenger had the presence of mind to wedge his leg against the dash at the moment of impact, which saved his head and face. Of course, it didn’t do much good for his leg, which broke in several places. While his friends had fun at the beach that summer, he sat around in a cast instead.

In 1984, an affable fortyish engineer in my department walked into the office a bit stiffly one morning. The previous evening, he’d been driving through an intersection in a Boston suburb when another driver had run a light and smacked into his car. The seat belt restrained the engineer as he flew forward in his seat, leaving a bruise that ran from left shoulder to right hip. But my co-worker was in reasonably good humor about the whole thing; a bruised torso was a lot less of an inconvenience than a fractured skull would have been.

A few days before Christmas that same year, my seat belt kept me from bouncing around the inside of my car when a careless driver cut in front of me on the Masspike, the car ahead of him had to brake for traffic, and when I slammed on my own brakes to avoid what would have been a hard rear-end collision, my own subcompact whirled around several times in the left lane and then flew off the road and onto the median. My only injury was the bloody scratch I got on my thumb when, pumped with post-spinout adrenaline, I ripped the keys out of the ignition. With the help of the tow truck that pulled me out of the mud, I got home a bit late and under my own power, rather than as the worse-for-wear guest of a Sturbridge-area ambulance service.

And, several years ago, my father-in-law and nephew, securely belted into the front seat of my father-in-law’s beloved old Chevy, completely escaped injury when a distracted driver ran into them in suburban Indianapolis.

Astute readers by now have figured out that this post was inspired by what happened to Governor Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey on Thursday night. My personal hope is that Gov. Corzine recovers swiftly and completely from his injuries. I’d wish him the same even if he weren’t a member of the political party for which I normally cast my votes. But I suspect that the guy is a real piece of work to have for a boss. You have to wonder about someone – even a successful politician – who lives with such an illusion of control that he not only doesn’t normally comply with his own state’s seat belt laws, but has been known to chew out the state trooper on his guard detail for gently suggesting that he buckle up.

This is past being a mere technicality of law in New Jersey, where seat belt scofflaws are subject to a $20 fine. The problem is that if you’re driving or riding around unbuckled when your car has a close encounter with another solid object, you’re going to have to answer to a higher power. You know which one I mean – it’s the one normally expressed as F = ma. What you want to do is prevent your m from undergoing a lot of a, because that great big F on the left side of the equation is not your friend, no matter by how much you outrank the state trooper sitting beside you in the vehicle.

An accident of that severity is every driver’s nightmare, and no one “deserves” to be severely injured because of willful carelessness, but I think that an example still needs to be made of Gov. Corzine, and the suggestion that he be subjected to the customary fine doesn’t go far enough. I think he should be sentenced to a very specific kind of community service, preferably to be served as soon as he’s sufficiently recovered to speak in front of a camera, but well before he’s released from the hospital. And, it should go something like this:

I’m Governor Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, and I’m here to tell you to wear your seat belt. I didn’t wear mine, and now I’m in the hospital recovering from multiple internal injuries and at least sixteen broken bones. And I was lucky, because when the accident happened, I had an entourage of police officers who were all trained in advanced first aid and were able to get an ambulance to the scene right away. If I’d been driving alone, as many of you frequently do, I might have bled to death before help reached me.

I’m a tough old ex-Marine, a wealthy businessman, and an elected official with a lot of clout. I’m about as powerful a man as you’ll find in politics. But I made a mistake that is completely beyond my power to take back, and it was worse than just violating the New Jersey seat belt law. That alone will get you a $20 fine, and some embarrassment if you’re a public figure. But I scoffed at the laws of physics, and now it’ll take months of therapy before I can walk without crutches. I scared my kids half to death. And I’ll probably have to live with some physical effects of this accident for the rest of my life.

One of the people in the car with me was only slightly injured, and the other was completely unhurt. Don’t do what I did – do what they did. Buckle up.

He’d save some lives, for sure. At a time when we need political figures to bring us back to a reality-based world, things don’t get much more reality-based than this.

(Crossposted to Stridulations)

2007-03-19T20:30:00.000-04:00

Some really weird things about me – most people do 10, but my list gives you 50% more.

1. I don’t like gadgets. Cameras, cell phones, cutesy kitchen appliances – they all wear out their welcome within minutes of appearing in my presence.

2. Ditto for most crafts and hobbies. If you handed me a scrapbooking kit, I wouldn’t know whether to set it on fire or eat it.

3. I was the only grandchild on my father’s side of the family, even though Dad had four siblings. On Mom’s side, I had 18 first cousins, and only one is younger than me.

4. I’ve always disliked Oreo cookies, walnuts, and Tootsie rolls, but even as a small child I loved seafood, spinach, broccoli, and garlic.

5. I have an occasional problem with laryngospasm, and it’s usually triggered by a droplet of water or an air bubble. (But, hey, if you attended a NAQT members’ meeting with me a few years back, you knew this already).

6. I became an atheist when I was around 12 or 13, as a direct result of reading stories from Greek and Roman mythology for the first time.

7. I have difficulty understanding pictures unless they’re accompanied by lots of words.

8. From age 18 through age 30, I didn’t own a TV. For the next four or five years, the only one I owned was a little black-and-white portable that was probably turned on less than 10 times.

9, I married the first man I ever dated who was older (7 weeks!) than me.

10. I try to avoid eating appetizers in restaurants, because even small doses of appetizers usually completely ruin my appetite.

11. My mother claims I was reading before my third birthday. I can’t tell you whether that’s true, but I do know that I don’t remember ever not knowing how to read.

12. Although I’ve never given up meat, I’m much, much better at cooking vegetarian meals.

13. When I get bored, I start anagramming street signs, product labels, or anything else in print that happens to be lying around.

14. I can tolerate ant and wasp stings with no worse reaction than mild profanity, but I’m severely allergic to Drosophila cultures.

15. Since I didn’t figure out what I wanted to do until I was past 35, I don’t ever want to retire.

2007-02-22T18:32:00.000-05:00

Another interview coming up, this time from Mark.

1. I see from your Science Scout badges that you've cloned something. What was it, and when can we look forward to you heading up an army of your clones?

I've cloned fragments of wasp DNA into bacterial colonies. (As you may have guessed, "cloning" in a real molecular lab is a lot less spectacular than it sounds, and usually doesn't imply that one has produced a Dolly.) The wasp in question was Euodynerus foraminatus, a relatively mellow little solitary huntress, and I needed multiple copies of the DNA fragments in a hurry.

If I were really going to head up an army of clones for nefarious purposes, I might pick something like the aforementioned tarantula hawk, but they're solitary too, so it would probably be a lot like herding cats. Y'know, shiny little flying orange and blue cats with big stings.

2. What one food item have you either found the hardest to replace or miss the most as you've gotten away from processed foods?

While I haven't totally given up processed foods, I've definitely cut way back, and I think I miss the low-cal cranberry juice the most. I'm still slowly using up the stock of Splenda, which I'm currently not planning to replenish, but when I think about it, my extra avoirdupois probably stems more from second and third helpings of dinner than it does from eating or drinking sugary things. So, instead of obsessing about sugar, I just cut real juice with water or seltzer, and it's sweet enough for me.

Really, although I'm capable of putting away a half-can of Pringles at my in-laws' house or munching through a box of Pop-Tarts with my nephew, I've never regularly kept that kind of stuff in my own kitchen, so it's not like I'm giving up favorite foods. In fact, our biggest offenders are really alleged "health foods" that aren't -- you know, like veggie sausage patties that had their origins in real vegetable material that's now full of chemicals and processed past recognition. Also, if one really craves snack foods, it's possible to find things like organic tortilla chips that contain only corn, salt, and oil. They're not low-fat and they're not cheap, but then again who needs to eat a pillowcase full of chips at one sitting?

3. What's the one thing you did while at MIT that, looking back, you realize could have gotten you in the hottest water with administrators?

Hoo boy. I did a few foolish-adolescent things that probably should not appear on a family blog :-), so instead, I'll tell a story about something did get me into slightly warm water.

The light posts on the west campus of MIT, at least when I was there, were built so that if you shook or struck the post really hard, the light would go out for about five minutes. Some engineers will tell you that this was done so that if a car hit the post, the power would cut out long enough for people to clear the area without being exposed to an electrocution hazard. However, more cynical MIT students usually insisted that the real reason was this: When drunken students tried to vandalize the lamps by shaking them, the light would go out, and the would-be vandals would think they were successful and leave.

My boyfriend and I were explaining this legend to a visiting friend, complete with a hands-on demonstration, and just as we put out maybe the fifth light, a Campus Patrol officer showed up yelling his head off. He confiscated our IDs, and my boyfriend and I had to go to the CP office the next morning and listen to a stern lecture before getting our photo cards back.

The sad thing was: When we did this, we were dead sober. :-)

4. Have you ever worked on a political campaign, and if so for who and how'd it go?

I did some volunteer work on the John Anderson campaign in 1980, and I delivered yard signs for the Kerry campaign (and other local Dems) in 2004. We know how those went. :-) Rick has been more active in politics, especially for local candidates in Kalamazoo, and I've been as helpful as possible there. One of our good friends has been elected to the city commission three or four times -- our one big win!

5. Who is your favorite fictional bug-o-phile?

Probably Michael Palin as Bugsy, the zoo entomologist in Fierce Creatures. Yeah, the character was kind of a nerd, but it was Michael Palin, for crying out loud.

2007-02-19T20:52:00.000-05:00

My earned Science Scout badges are now on display at Stridulations. Comments and questions may be left there!

2007-02-14T20:55:00.000-05:00

Got this meme via Greg. If you'd like to keep the meme going, leave a comment here and I'll interview you as well. Anyway, here's Greg's interview of yours truly:

1. in the layest of layman's terms: fave bug and why?

The answer to this one changes frequently, since I like so many of them and have been fortunate to meet new and different ones in Australia and Panama. So, I'll just pick the first two species that come to mind. One is the tarantula hawk wasp of the southwestern U.S., one (actually several species) of the most magnificent predators ever to stalk the planet. The other is the Allegheny mound ant, Formica exsectoides, because of its amazing tenacity. If you don't believe me, try standing on one of their mounds. You have been warned.

2. Has there been a political cause/candidate you've supported only to later have some voter's remorse?

Maybe, to some extent, John Anderson in 1980. It's not anything to do with the candidate himself; it's just that in later years my estimation of Jimmy Carter went up exponentially.

3. IIRC, you've read and endorse(d) Your Money or Your Life. How closely do/did you follow it?

Rick followed it more closely than I did, but even in my half-arsed way, I have an attitude towards money that's reasonably close to those of Dominguez and Robin. On the one hand, I don't mind spending it on things I really, really want, like a spontaneous weekend in Niagara Falls with friends. On the other, I'm really not turned on by the idea of acquiring lots and lots of stuff. I don't want a big house. I don't notice other people's expensive cars, and find them uninteresting. I have a few beloved gadgets, like my laptop and my espresso maker, and that's it. Rick and I share a cell phone, and it usually winds up left in a drawer.

4. While you aren't the biggest moviegoer, what actor/actress do you extend the most cinematic goodwill toward?

Believe it or not, I actually like a lot of actors and actresses. I like Gary Sinise even though he is a Republican. I think George Clooney is a genius. I like Jason Bateman, David Strathairn, Paul Dano, Denzel Washington, and Paul Giamatti. On the distaff side: Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin, Dame Judi Dench, and Stephanie Cole.

5. Were you a sports fan ever? Of what team(s)?

Sure was. Baseball, baseball, and baseball. My dad liked the Red Sox. He was kind of an introverted guy, and when I was about 13, I figured out that the way to bond with him was for us to watch baseball together. Later, when I moved to the Boston area, I'd occasionally go to a game at Fenway. Kind of got out of the habit of following baseball, though, about the time I started grad school. I could probably learn to like hockey if I worked at it, but that's about it. Then again, my mom became a fanatic fan of UConn basketball when she was past 70, after never caring a bit about sports before!

2007-02-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

More on the food beat:

I bought this cookbook last week. Also bought this by the same author. I'm sure I won't use the latter as much as the former, since unlimited sweets are clearly not my friend. However, this does mean that my dairy-allergic spousal unit will actually be able to have desserts now and then. I can vouch for the fact that the vegan vanilla cupcakes really do work. Next stop: Chocolate.

So far I've only made two dishes from Vegan with a Vengeance, but they were both awesome. One was a beet soup with barley and black soybeans, and the other, which I made tonight, was a casserole of seitan and bell peppers with a spicy Ethiopian-style sauce. Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbooks contain hints for "veganizing" dishes made with meat, eggs, or dairy. Since Rick and I are most accurately described as flexitarians, I'm thinking about adapting the seitan sauce for use on chicken. The nice thing about the vegan version, though, is that none of the ingredients require precooking (I used packaged seitan instead of making it myself), so it took about 10 minutes to throw it together, followed by 40 low-maintenance minutes in the oven. It was really wonderful with sides of rice and beet greens. Of course, we already like seitan and tofu and beans and beets and all those things that the fast food ads would lead us to believe are yucky.

Although I've always had semi-revolutionary food preferences, I'm finding myself becoming more and more radicalized on the subject. I'm finally realizing how strange it is that, in a country with an abundant food supply, it's become something of an exception to prepare and eat real food. Long ago, I stopped clipping coupons from newspapers because they were invariably inducements to buy canned and boxed things that were much, much better when prepared fresh. (I certainly don't have the time to make my pasta from scratch. Boxed spaghetti is a reasonable indulgence. But boxed spaghetti dinners? With one unit of packaging per component per dinner per person? Why feed just yourself when you can also feed a landfill?)

I don't expect to become a total crank who refuses to ever eat a candy bar, or to keep a jar of Ragu in the kitchen cabinet for those days when one is really too tired to cook. But I'm becoming more and more aware of the inversely proportional correspondence between the level of processing and packaging applied to my food and the actual pleasure I take in eating it.

2007-02-04T17:44:00.000-05:00

For the first time in approximately 25 years, I’m attempting to go on a diet.

It’s not what you think. For instance, it’s not necessarily a low-calorie diet, although I expect it to do good things for my weight. It’s not a low-fat or a low-carb diet, although I’m sure I’ll consume less sugar and grease in the process. It’s not a vegetarian diet, although it will be primarily plant-based. And, it’s not tied to a specific religious or ethnic culture, although it would probably not be alien to any of my ancestors.

In short: I’m going to make the attempt, as much as is humanly possible, to eat food and only food.

If you follow the above link to a New York Times essay by Michael Pollan, you’ll learn exactly what I mean. (Free registration may be required, and the essay’s a bit long, but it’s an easy read as well as a refreshing one.) For those who don’t have the time to follow the link, it can be paraphrased as follows: If a supposedly edible item is extensively processed, extruded, colored, flavored, laced with alleged “nutritional supplements”, and heavily promoted as a novel high-tech invention, it’s probably not food.

In other words: Before you start counting fats, carbs, calories, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and claims of disease prevention, try losing the medicated corn chips and the space-shuttle-ready cereal bars in favor of real vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. If you eat animal products (I do), go for the ones that contain the fewest medicines and additives, and exercise moderation. If you must occasionally eat refined and processed foods, stick with the ones that have a tradition that goes back at least a few generations before your own. At least they have a track record of not killing people.

We still have some items in our house that don’t qualify as food under the above definition. We’re finishing them off, although whenever we read the labels on the frozen prefabricated veggie burgers and the shiny wrapped energy bars, we’ve been gleefully exclaiming “It’s not food!” The soy milk will undoubtedly stay; soy beverages have been around for centuries, and soy milk is easier than real dairy on Rick’s allergies and my lactase-deficient digestive tract. I’ve actually found a recipe for a meatless sausage-like patty that’s made out of real food – tempeh, beans, and natural herbs and spices – and plan to give it a try in the near future. For those carnivorous mornings, I’ve found a naturally low-fat turkey bacon produced without nitrites or drug-laced feed.

So, watch this space. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I tend to be a sucker for weird food, whether it’s real food or not, so the big difficulty for me won’t be resisting the reconstituted potato-flake chips or the omega-enhanced eggs. Those things are old hat. The problem is that whenever someone introduces a rice-syrup sweetened vitamin-enhanced celery-derived toaster pastry that supposedly cures the common cold and tastes exactly like rhubarb pie, I’m the kind of person who has to try it at least once. With luck I’ll break that habit. Pass the real rhubarb pie, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy a moderately-sized piece, guilt-free.

(Crossposted to Stridulations.)

2006-12-05T22:18:00.000-05:00

The Cranky 'Flixer Speaks Up:

I just finished posting a review of this film on Netflix. Since it won't be posted for a while, here's my review, verbatim:

After eagerly anticipating this film, I gave up on it after 30 minutes -- and not because of the plot or the acting. My problem with it: The thrown-food theme would have been an amusing aside to the plot had it not become one big advertisement for various fast-food joints and convenience stores -- accompanied by a detailed description of each product, and where to buy it, spoken at great length by the character who was scraping the stuff off his clothes and the inside of his car! Media-studies classes might find this film useful as a bagged specimen of product placement disguised as dialogue.

Eeeewwww. I was really prepared to like this film. But within that first half hour, I was ready to track down Nicolas Cage, wherever he might be, and personally hit him in the mug with a Fr*sty (as he lovingly pointed out in detail, in character and within the dialogue itself, a shake from W**dy's). Of course, the screenwriter would get the real brunt of my displeasure -- tw* *ll-b**f p*att**s, sp*ci*l s**ce, l*tt*ce, ch**se, p*ckles, o*i*ns, on a s*same-s**d b*n -- POW, right in the kisser.

And then I'd go out and get the bad taste out of my mind's mouth by watching Fast Food Nation again.

2006-11-30T17:49:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I've been in diapause for a while (both on this blog and at Stridulations). Things are very busy right now, but I'd just like to wish everyone a happy TrashMasters weekend. If you're going to be in Chattanooga, I'll see ya there!

2006-09-10T16:23:00.000-04:00

Wow. Try this.

Mix about 3 ounces of this with a 10-ounce bottle of this.

I'm trying to avoid sugary soft drinks, so I haven't tried it with the full sugar version, which tastes slightly different. Also haven't tried it with alcohol, but I bet it'd be nice mixed with vodka or gin.

With or without alcohol, I would not recommend having more than one. Bzzzzzz!

2006-09-02T08:28:00.000-04:00

2006-08-28T20:05:00.000-04:00

I appreciate graphics the most when they're taken completely out of context.

For instance, the one below. I first saw it this way because of an occasion of scrollus interruptus, and didn't realize right away that there was more to the graphic. The full version contained a clickable, fairly inoffensive, easy-to-ignore opinion poll, but when I saw only part of it, it really jolted me to attention.

(Click all you want. It will do you no good.)

2006-08-27T20:15:00.000-04:00

In those occasionally obligatory mall situations, I used to like to shop here. For one thing, they always carried clothes that actually fit me. I'm becoming less and less fond of the place, especially of the store at our local mall. The petites department seems to have shrunk, the store has downsized their dressing rooms (leading to occasional half-hour waits in line), and all checkouts get funneled through backed-up "customer service" desks that also contribute to long lines. (I can understand not wanting to keep a dozen extra checkouts open. But it's the first department store I've ever been in where the jewelry clerks, who already have their own register and staff, won't check you out if what you're buying is not jewelry.)

In short, the place is clearly dumping more and more work onto fewer and fewer people, probably in hopes that more of its business can be done online or through phone orders. In fact, many of the clothes I used to reliably buy there are now only available online. So, when I found myself having to shop there today, and was crammed into a long line at one of the customer disservice desks, I began to get more than a little grouchy. Fortunately, I found some unintentional comic relief.

Behind the desk was a promotional banner for this new line of clothing for the teen market. I've managed to screen-capture this logo, which is a bit small, so my apologies if it causes eyestrain:

It definitely cheered me up, to the point where I had a hard time avoiding hysterics while checking out. I'll close with two questions for my readers:

1. Did anyone else besides me mistake the final "u" for an "n"?

2. Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight?

2006-08-21T22:35:00.000-04:00

Rick and I, along with Rebecca (who was visiting from Toledo), went to see Little Miss Sunshine this weekend. Must thank Joe for the hot tip. I haven't laughed such a significant proportion of my arse off in a movie theater since Monty Python films were in their first run. Of course, I'm old enough to have always really, really loved Alan Arkin.

There was a certain omigod-this-is-terrible twinge involved in watching the depiction of a beauty pageant for elementary-schoolers during the same week that the JonBenet Ramsey case resurfaced in the news. Worth putting that aside, though, to experience the sheer joy of over-the-top badness. (The idea of kiddie beauty pageants. Not the movie, which is terrific.) The film did a great job of capturing the embalmed, detergent-hawking grimness of beauty contestants, be they six years old or twenty-two. With one exception, though, and the exception was hellacious.

Oh, and if I were in my teens myself, I'd have a crush on Paul Dano. Besides being an actor, he's a rocker and he's from Connecticut. Keep an eye on this guy.

2006-08-13T21:07:00.001-04:00

Watertown, Massachusetts, 13 August 1988

Rochester, New York, 13 August 2006

2006-08-09T20:42:00.000-04:00

I'm extremely proud of my home state right now. I haven't lived in Connecticut for 32 years, but Ned Lamont's victory in the Democratic primary has me grinning like an amateur myrmecologist in an ant-farm shop. It's going to be bizarre fun to watch the Republicans attempt to label Lamont as a hard-line leftist. (We'll leave alone for the moment the even more bizarre idea that calling someone a leftist should be an insult.) Then again, these are the people who claimed that Howard Dean was a left-wing extremist, fergodsake. (Earth to Joe: What part of "strong anti-war sentiment among your constituents" did you not understand? And if you want your political legacy to be one of moderation and civility, why have you been cuddling up to the kind of people who waffle over whether torture is a good idea?)

I'm mildly sorry to see Cynthia McKinney go, but unfortunately, she's been her own worst enemy one time too many. A few years ago I was acquainted with a community leader whose popularity plummeted when he began to lash out at his own supporters for minor perceived slights. One of his close friends described this fellow as the kind of man who would have spoken out against the Nazis or the Red Guard at the risk of his own life. I have no doubt that this was true. I also have no doubt that he would have brought exactly the same intensity to a dispute over a parking space. That's been McKinney's problem, and it's an easy one for an opponent to exploit.

Closer to home: Check out Salon Life for this article by Rebecca Golden. (You'll need to watch an ad to get a day pass if you're not a paid subscriber.) Rebecca and I have been friends, and frequent partners in outrageous quizbowl trashiness, for eleven or twelve years. She's also one of the bravest people I know, and the article proves it.

2006-07-04T13:06:00.000-04:00

The latest blogmeme via Eric Bell:

Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the better.

1. Who was your best friend?:

Heidi. Or maybe Diana or Linda.

2. What sports did you play?

Just quizbowl. Athletics were definitely not my thing when I was that age. I do regret not going out for field hockey, the only team sport I ever enjoyed in gym class.

3. What kind of car did you drive?:

I really didn’t drive much. I think we had a dark green AMC Hornet Sportabout at the time.

4. It's Friday night, where were you at?:

Probably home watching TV with Mom and Dad. I’d rather have been doing something more exciting, but there you are.

5. Were you a party animal?:

Nope, although I caught up a little bit in college.

6. Were you a considered a flirt?:

Never learned how.

7. Ever skip school?:

Just once, with Heidi, on senior skip day. Nerds that we were, we went to the library!

8. Were you a nerd?

See #7!

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?

No.

10. Can you sing the fight song?:

No. Never learned the words. I was too busy memorizing the lyrics to all of the songs on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

11. Who was your favorite teacher?:

There were quite a few, in a variety of subjects. Senior year, probably my advanced-biology teacher, Mr. Kramer.

12. Favorite class?:

Advanced biology.

13. What was your school's full name?:

Enfield High School.

14. School mascot?:

The Raider. It was an Indian mascot, and I hope they’ve since retired him in favor of a mascot that’s not an ethnic stereotype. I’m not holding my breath, though.

15. Did you go to Prom?:

We had three proms a year, which means nine took place during my attendance at Enfield and three when I was a senior. Impressively, I didn’t go to a single one.

16. If you could go back and do it over, would you?:

Well, let’s see. If you could go back to that time when you accidentally slammed your hand in your dresser drawer and it really, really hurt, and you could do it again, would you?

(Actually, I’d do one part of it over. I’d take the time to apply to colleges with good entomology or organismal-biology programs.)

17. What do you remember most about graduation?:

High-fiving my friend Dayle as we left the gym to walk down the big hill behind the school for the procession.

18. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?:

Going to the Class Night dinner, which was actually kind of fun.

19. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?:

I don’t think we had a senior wall.

20. Did you have a job your senior year?:

No.

21. Where did you go most often for lunch?:

Just to the cafeteria. Sometimes I brought lunch, other times I bought it.

22. Have you gained weight since then?:

Unfortunately, yes.

23. What did you do after graduation?:

We all got together at a friend’s house, had snacks and soda, and talked late into the night.

24. When did you graduate?:

1974.

25. Where are most of your classmates?:

All over the place. Once in a great while some of us find one another on the Internet.

26. Reunions?

I went to my 15th, and doubt I’ll go to another.

2006-07-03T19:56:00.000-04:00

As a placeholder to demonstrate that I'm still alive and blogging, here's one of the best quotes I've ever seen on a message board:

"How can anyone be so stupid with just one brain?"

2006-06-11T14:08:00.000-04:00

For those who follow only this blog: I got back on Wednesday, and have been catching up with my bug photos from Panama at Stridulations.

Rick returns today from a week-long conference trip to Italy. Yup, this means I haven't seen him in nearly four weeks. Needless to say, I'm not only eager to have him return, but I'm trying to finish unpacking before he has to do the same, in the same small space. (We typically take approximately one week to unpack per day of previous travel. Since following this guideline would delay my own unpacking until sometime in October, it seems prudent to accelerate the effort.)

2006-05-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

Quick update:

I arrived in Panama on Monday night, and will be here until next Tuesday, when I'll move to the main STRI site in Panama City.

For the duration, I'll probably be blogging only at Stridulations. So, friends are invited to drop in there, relax, and enjoy the bugs!

2006-05-14T17:21:00.000-04:00

Stridulations is back, after having been mothballed (sic) during a very busy time. More to come; I leave for Panama tomorrow morning.

¡Me gustan los insectos!

2006-05-13T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to post a link to this one, but I just took one of those four-question blogquizzes that told me that my "inner child is sad".

I know exactly why. I've been trying to ditch the little pain in the butt for over 40 years. "Hey, kid, go home. I hear yer ma callin' ya."

2006-05-07T23:23:00.000-04:00

Just saw this movie for the second time. The first time was about 25 years ago.

No one would mistake the story for being realistic, but it paints a picture well. The way I'd describe that picture: Imagine a Fight Club for girls.

2006-05-05T22:22:00.000-04:00

Letter meme (by way of Greg Sorenson):

This is how it works: comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your [web-based area of blather], including an explanation of what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

Greg, in an apparently sadistic mood, gave me "V". Oh, hell, why not?

Vinnie. I’ve never seen My Cousin Vinnie, but I had three cousins – count ‘em, three – with that name. Of course, my maternal grandfather’s first name was Vincenzo, so this was to be expected.

Vintners. In tribute to my grandfather Vincenzo, who made wine. I rarely drink beer any more these days, and much prefer the fermented products of Vitis vinifera to hard liquor. This may be why, although my cholesterol level is not exactly low, I supposedly have a thoroughly enviable HDL/LDL ratio.

Vernor’s. I could lose my honorary Michigan citizenship for this, but I really can’t stand the stuff. I can almost tolerate it if it’s cut heavily with lemon juice, but the naked stuff is much too sweet and too devoid of tartness for me to find it pleasant to drink.

Vanessa cardui. Sweet painted lady/Seems it’s always been the same.

Vaccination. Got three of them last month (hepA, typhoid, and yellow fever) in preparation for my upcoming trip to Central America.

Vegetarians. I’m not one and probably never will be, but I always seek out vegetarians as dinner companions when I’m on quizbowl road trips. The reason: Since vegetarians find little of interest at most fast-food or chain restaurants, they’re always willing to find adventurous ethnic eateries. And, since I don’t demand meat at every meal or even every day, I’m quite happy to follow them to totally vegetarian places. Ask me about the vegetarian pan-Asian place we found in Austin last weekend. Yum!

Venomous. Why I think big stinging bugs are cool is anyone’s guess. But I do.

Video Free Europe: My long-departed 1980s garage band. Hey, Vinnie, pour me a couple of vinos and you might get me to sing “Rocket Run”.

Voodoo, Wall Of: There was much, much more to them than “Mexican Radio”, but that could become the topic for a whole 'nother entry.

Vote. You really should.

2006-05-01T22:37:00.000-04:00

The late Jacqueline Susann may have been a writer of crappy, lurid, formulaic novels, but she was one tough lady. (She had to deal with not only a disabled child, but recurrent cancer that finally killed her at age 56, so keep in mind that I'd feel a little bit uncomfortable about dissing her; in fact, I shouldn't even slam her novels, since I've never actually read any of them.) But tough she was by all accounts; so much so that the equally late Truman Capote did diss her, during her lifetime, by publicly comparing her to "a truck driver in drag".

I heard about that incident just about when it happened, which means I would have been in high school, and somehow the image never left my mind. In fact, on the few occasions in the last 30-plus years when I've actually had an image of Jacqueline Susann come to mind, the expression "truck driver in drag" has immediately been stamped right over my mental picture of her. There hadn't been such an occasion in a few years, but on Sunday morning, early in the finals of TRASHionals 2006, moderator James Dinan began a tossup question with the line: "Truman Capote once compared this author to a truck driver in drag ..."

Bzzzt.

We eventually lost that final, due in part to my bad habit of sitting too long on tossups in situations where a neg would be a bad thing but a calculated risk would in retrospect have been worth it. But, the ghost of Jackie did briefly come through for me (or maybe it came through against the ghost of poor Truman), and I can now say I've been applauded by the house in a TRASHionals final, and even got JD to say, "Dang!" And, though I would have liked my own martini glass, all three of my teammates (Craig, Mike, and Anne) have already had previous TRASHionals wins, and it was as always great to have a gig with such amazing players for this year's TRASH tournaments. Besides, Austin was a great place to spend a long weekend, and quizbowlers are, as always, clearly my kind of people. F'rinstance:

Ron White (on TV): "I was sittin' naked in a beanbag chair eatin' Cheetos ..."
Geoff Zmyslowski: "A day in the life of Kevin Federline!"

I'm back in Rochester now and I have to get up for work tomorrow, so I won't even try to top that. Many congrats to Tim, Jason, Keith, and Mark on their TRASHionals 2006 championship -- they were awesome.

(Postscript: In no way is this post meant to insult truck drivers in drag. My opinion is that, regardless of occupation, sexual orientation, or attitudes towards the novels of Jacqueline Susann, an adult's fashion preferences are his or her own business.)

2006-04-23T18:34:00.000-04:00

And me not even a botanist.

The Chloroplast
You scored 50 Industriousness, 51 Centrality, and 30 Causticity!

You're the Chloroplast!

Most of the Earth's energy comes from the chloroplast's ability to capture the energy of the sun and fix cabon dioxide for conversion to starch. Like the mitochondria, they have their own DNA and live somewhat independantly from the rest of the cell.

In terms of real life, you have it all! You're the person everyone wants or wants to be. Just watch out for being overconfident, as you may end up alone.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 12% on Industriousness
You scored higher than 99% on Centrality
You scored higher than 75% on Causticity

Link: The Which Cell Organelle are you? Test written by fading_shadows on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

2006-04-19T22:31:00.000-04:00

Brief update for friends: I've cancelled my accounts on Friendster, Orkut, and LinkedIn, simply because I never seem to find myself with any reason whatsoever to use those services. (Same reason I own neither a PDA nor an iPod. They'd spend 99.9999% of their existence forgotten in a drawer somewhere.)

I guess "Not a gadget person" doesn't begin to describe me. Not even virtual gadgets do much for me. (This woman was an undergraduate engineering major? Sheesh -- talk about early mis-steps!) The only exception seems to be my laptop, to which I'm uncommonly addicted. I do have to acquire a new camera soon, for sort-of-work-related purposes, and I'm sure the process will become a source of amusement. At the very least, I hope that I can find a model that comes with a thumb leash.

2006-04-05T20:51:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned a few posts back, I'm going to be taking a three-week trip to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute starting in mid-May. The current plan is for me to spend the first week doing some collecting and field experiments at at this site, and then move to the main site in Panama City as a base for two more weeks of field and lab work.

I'm really, really geeked about this, and plan to blog during the trip with both barrels (at this blog and Stridulations) if I have time. Most likely, though, entries during that time will be short, because I'm planning to be very, very busy with the bugs. A collaborator at STRI has already sent me some samples, in fact. Like these little beauties (yes, that's a nest complete with inhabitants). And these ladies, whose sting can knock you flat for the rest of the day. Actually, the preliminary work that I've done on the bullet ants has shown me that there's probably little need for me to collect any more. The wasps are another matter. Of course, if they begin to recognize me, I can always retreat to my other project and set fly baits until the heat is off.

2006-04-03T20:33:00.000-04:00

The Bug House congratulates James Dinan and Susanne Akin Dinan on their April 1 wedding in Alpharetta, GA. It was a wonderful event, attended heavily by quizbowlers, of course. And it's always great to find a good excuse to travel to the Southeast in the early spring. (There were tiger swallowtails everywhere, for one thing. Not something you see in upstate New York on the first weekend in April, to be sure.)

There's a fair amount of travel on my schedule this spring, and I realized on the way home from Georgia that I'm not at all used to actually packing dressy clothing when I'm on the road. On quizbowl trips and on vacations, I usually use my suitcase for a storage drawer. If I hang anything up, it's usually because it got rained on. But, because I was toting a skirt, a shell, and a matching jacket, I had to unpack them, steam them, and hang them in the closet. Consequently, when I got distracted during the packing process, I left for the airport without checking the closet. Fifteen miles into the forty-mile drive from the hotel to Hartsfield-Jackson, I remembered the skirt, the shell, and the matching jacket. Oh, and my favorite self-packable spring windbreaker, which for some reason I'd also hung in the closet instead of cramming the whole thing into its own pocket as usual.

I'm an infrequent cellphone user, and generally don't have a lot of patience with people who won't hang up and drive. So, I'd like to apologize to all the drivers on Georgia State Route 400 late Sunday morning who found themselves behind a woman steering a rented Stratus with one hand, yammering into a cellphone held in the other, and narrowly missing a detour onto the wrong interchange in the process. Fortunately, Rebecca hadn't checked out of our shared room yet, and promised to haul my stuff to Toledo in her mom's car and pack it back up over TRASHionals weekend so that my skirt, my shell, my matching jacket, my favorite spring windbreaker, and I can all meet up in Austin at the end of the month.

Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun. James's and Susanne's families were wonderful, and it was great to reconnect with some of the George Washington University quizbowlers who were such terrific and friendly rivals during my playing days at Western MIchigan. Oh, and if you've never seen a scale model of the Empire State Building made of marble cheesecake, maybe we can prevail upon James to post a photo on his blog when he gets back home.

2006-03-30T22:42:00.000-05:00

Well, duhhhh.

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic

At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung

You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping

Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

2006-03-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

There's been a request in the comments line for my rum punch recipe. As soon as I'd posted the reference to it, I looked for the recipe on my hard drive and realized I'd managed to mislay it somewhere. However, I'll try to reconstruct it from memory. This should be at least close.

Mi Dushi ("My Sweet") Punch:

For each serving, mix:

3 to 4 oz. orange juice
3 to 4 oz. pineapple juice
1 generous jigger of white or gold rum
Half a jigger of orange curaçao liqueur
Half a jigger of peach brandy
Juice of a lime wedge
A few drops of grenadine (if you want it pink)

Shake or stir it up well and serve over ice. It's easy to make this by the pitcher if you're either sociable or very thirsty.

I haven't tried it with other ingredients, but if you don't have orange curaçao on hand, you can probably substitute a different orange liqueur. Ditto for other similar fruit-flavored liqueurs in place of the peach brandy. If you try any variations, let me know how it works out.

And, of course, drink responsibly -- not while climbing around in the rigging of a sailboat, like I did. :-)

2006-03-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

Obligatory postscript to the last post, international travel division:

Ontario: Burned myself with Tim Horton's coffee within convenient distance of a pharmacy that carried OTC codeine.

Sonora: Managed to explain to a waiter, in Spanish, that my husband is allergic to dairy.

Queensland: Found Nemo while diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

Northern Territory: Scared away two other tourists by chattering in French about the honeypot ant queen that was crawling at my feet.

South Australia: Got sworn at for parking on the side of the road while echidna-watching on Kangaroo Island.

Victoria: Saw flocks of galahs and crimson rosellas flying across a road.

England: Got a tour of Oxford from an alumnus who pointed out all the places where he'd gotten drunk.

Scotland: Tasted haggis, and decided that I prefer liver and oatmeal when served on separate plates.

New Zealand-North Island: Irked some cave weta in a national park.

New Zealand-South Island: Read all about the Rainbow Warrior at the Dunedin public library.

Tahiti: Swam at the most littered beach I've ever seen in my life.

Aruba: Acquired a recipe for the planet's best rum punch.

Bonaire: Brought traffic to a halt in the capital while incompetently parallel-parking a Suzuki Samurai.

Antigua: Earned a sailboarding certificate despite my utter inability to stay on the damned thing.

Panama: (Coming May/June 2006 -- watch this space!)

2006-03-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

The meme spreads further (see the 19 March 2006 entry here).

Arizona: Joined an entourage that was following a tarantula hawk like paparazzi all over Britney Spears.
Arkansas: Landed in the Fayetteville airport on the eve of my 24th birthday, while Texas was beating the Razorbacks at football.
California: Drove 80 mph for the first time, and not so coincidentally ran over my first small mammal.
Colorado: Ate terrific vegan food before catching the Denver premiere of Fahrenheit 911.
Connecticut: Drank tequila sunrises at age 17 in a (probably) mobbed-up pizzeria.
Delaware: Would have driven straight through it except for the fast-food stop.
Florida: An alligator climbed an embankment just to say hi to Gail and me.
Georgia: Toured a greenhouse in 100ºF heat just to see a butterfly exhibit.
Hawaii: Tried siamin in a Lihue airport restaurant just because Jim Bouton raved about the stuff so much in Ball Four.
Illinois: Put ladybug stickers on my face and ate larva-studded lollipops at the Insect Fear Film Festival.
Indiana: Finally convinced my in-laws that garlic goes well with tomatoes.
Iowa: Saw a big male luna moth on a highway rest stop window screen.
Kansas: Took a detour on the highway just to say we’d been there.
Kentucky: Waited two hours in a KFC near Cave City after locking the keys in the car.
Louisiana: Talked a fellow quizbowler out of eating fast food in New Orleans’ Garden District.
Maine: Had dinner in Millinocket’s best restaurant, while wearing grubby camping clothes and surrounded by gowned and tuxedoed prom-goers.
Maryland: Played on the first WMU team to ever beat Georgia Tech in ACF Nationals.
Massachusetts: Poured cold water from a dorm roof onto the head of a Cincinnati fan on the night Carlton Fisk hit his 1975 Game 6 homer.
Michigan: Shared a hospital room with a victim of Munchausen’s Syndrome.
Minnesota: Engaged in a “Re-name Hooters” contest with the Michigan QB club at the Mall of America.
Missouri: Was contemptuously spat upon by a Camponotus worker after I annoyed her in Mark Twain State Park.
Nebraska: See “Kansas”, except this time we got caught in a traffic jam.
New Hampshire: Spent four consecutive rainy June Sundays shopping in malls there, in the days when Massachusetts still had blue laws.
New Jersey: Unwarily stood underneath an incontinent pet canary in my aunt’s Union City apartment.
New Mexico: Rolled down the dunes at White Sands, and then slept in a motel in Alamogordo.
New York: Enjoyed two of my favorite tourist attractions: the Ellis Island museum and Wegmans supermarket.
North Carolina: Waited in a truck-rental office with Dwight, while the entire office staff smoked about a dozen cigarettes apiece indoors.
Ohio: Went to Caesar’s with Rebecca a few weeks before a bus crashed into the place.
Oklahoma: Didn’t get out of the car much while driving through a small part of it.
Pennsylvania: Spent an hour trying to find a restaurant in Pittsburgh that stayed open past 9 PM on a weekend.
Rhode Island: Went swimming with my aunt and uncle at Misquamicut Beach.
South Carolina: Bought the sweetest, juiciest, fuzziest, best peaches ever from a roadside stand.
South Dakota: Admired the Pogonomyrmex at the campsites at Badlands National Park.
Tennessee: Finally scored a toilet seat last December, after approximately a dozen attempts.
Texas: Attended an entomological conference at the country’s least convenient convention hotel.
Utah: Was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to get a decent margarita in Moab.
Vermont: Spent a long summer weekend filming silly home movies with a bunch of college friends.
Virginia: Visited one of Rick’s old friends, who makes the world’s best chocolate sauce.
Washington: Experienced my first cat-allergy symptoms at a friend’s place in Tacoma.
Washington, DC: Helped calm down a friend’s three-year-old son after a museum guard screamed at him for touching an original Mark Rothko.
West Virginia: Enjoyed a leisurely spring drive while winding down from my most stressful ever quiz-tournament volunteer stint.
Wisconsin: Jumped off rocks into Devil’s Lake alongside a bunch of strangers 30 years younger than myself.
Wyoming: Found out that Cheyenne, just like my Connecticut hometown, has a street named “Missile Drive”.

2006-03-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

Wow. Check out this video. (Warning: Not suitable for insectophobes.)

2006-03-19T22:10:00.000-05:00

Rick and I have returned from a week's diversion in Arizona and New Mexico. Although it wasn't exactly the height of bug season, bug-related images will start creeping into Stridulations soon.

In the meantime, a few thoughts for road-tripping northeasterners:

* This is only the second time in my life that I've actually timed a vacation around spring break -- and not only do I not have kids, but on both occasions, I was past 40.

* After not having an airline misroute my luggage for around 20 years, it was an interesting experience to have my bag delayed in both directions. One more such incident, and I'll start trumpeting my theory of the origins of modern airlines via Stupid Design.

* If you land in Arizona or New Mexico during a freakishly rainy March cold snap, and you want something to do that will be more fun when it's not hot, go here. Be aware, though, that it will take several weeks to get the gypsum out of your luggage.

* Best guidebook line ever (from Greg Ward's The Rough Guide to Southwest USA): "When it began life in the 1860s, Phoenix must have seemed like a good idea."

* Go to Sedona. Just go. It's pretty, and you'll either love it or be amused by it. Even if you're not into crystals, aura therapy, or vortex hunting. If I were a member of an alien organization bent on harmonically converging on Earth, it's the top U.S. site that I'd pick. (Well, okay, unless I could book a summer campsite at Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin.)

* When you're traveling with one other person, be it spousal unit, relative, or friend: Sometimes there's something to be said for harmonic divergence. If you want to eat in different restaurants or participate in different activities, do it. You'll both be much happier than if either of you felt dragged along to some place you didn't want to go.

*And, finally: As a political progressive who's also very much a realist, I sometimes have trouble putting my opinions into words. For example, I've often had difficulty expressing why I'm so opposed to capital punishment. This picture, I think, says it perfectly.

2006-03-09T21:45:00.000-05:00

One of the characters on this show, momentarily confused while discussing a fire investigation with a co-worker, blurted out, "What we have here is a case of arse-brain".

Similarly, what we have here is three cases of arse-brain.

2006-03-09T10:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'll admit that this article has a somewhat high TMI factor, and you probably don't want to read it during lunch. But anyone who despises self-flushing toilets as much as I do deserves a link.

The author's main complaint was with the false negative -- the toilet that fails to flush when it should. I'm actually not convinced that he gives enough credit to the fact that self-flushers generally have an override button (although it's usually hidden behind the fixture, just below the sensor). I've had more trouble with alpha than beta error myself. The worst offender, which I encountered at a family campground in Michigan in the summer of 2003, reduced me to tears when it flushed eight times in, to put it bluntly, mid-stream.

I do, by the way, love automatic sink faucets, which I think are the greatest hygienic invention since soap, and would love to have them installed in my own bathroom when I own a house again. However, the above article has a reference to a bizarre glitch in a public-restroom faucet sensor that many of us would never have considered. (The sensor wasn't responsive to the entire spectrum of skin pigmentation among members of its user population.)

(To wash away all the bathroom-fixture memes, the remaining solutions to the alphabetical-songs quiz have been added to the February 26 entry.)

2006-03-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

Best. Lyrics. Ever.

Aim for the body rare, you’ll see it on TV
The worst thing in 1954 was the bikini
See the girl on the TV dressed in a bikini
She doesn’t think so but she’s dressed for the H-bomb.

"I Found That Essence Rare", Gang of Four (c. 1979)

2006-02-26T18:14:00.000-05:00

Solutions to song quiz:

I’ll list two songs that have one song between them in alphabetical order in my iTunes library, followed by the name of the artist who performed the mystery song. Your job is to guess the missing titles. (Yes, they’re heavily, but not entirely, skewed in the pre-1990 direction.)

1. Between: “Hotel California” (Eagles)
and: ”I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow” (Soggy Bottom Boys)
Hyperactive (Thomas Dolby) -- JQ

2. Between: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (Green Day)
and: “Bullet in the Head” (Rage Against the Machine)
Breed (Nirvana) -- Anonymous

3. Between: “Raised on Robbery” (Joni Mitchell)
and: “Real Life” (Simple Minds)
Reach the Beach (The Fixx) -- Mark

4. Between: “I Have the Touch” (Peter Gabriel)
and: “I Love You (Miss Robot)” (Buggles)
I Love a Man In a Uniform (Gang of Four) -- Greg

5. Between: “Stick it Out” (Rush)
and: “Strobe Light” (B-52s)
Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen) -- Joe

6. Between: “Through Being Cool” (Devo)
and: “Tongue Tied” (cast of Red Dwarf)
Tommy the Cat (Primus)

7. Between: “When Things go Wrong” (Robin Lane and the Chartbusters)
and: “White Rabbit” (Jefferson Airplane)
White Punks on Dope (The Tubes) -- Greg

8. Between: “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” (Beatles)
and: “I’m the Slime” (Frank Zappa)
I Will Follow (U2) -- Phil

9. Between: “Famous and Dandy” (Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy)
and: “Fifty Mission Cap” (Tragically Hip)
FCC Song (Eric Idle)

10. Between: “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” (Stevie Wonder)
and: “Zorak’s Blues” (cast of Space Ghost)
Zamboni Song (Gear Daddies) -- Greg

2006-02-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

Algebra Made Cute

There's a great (and very long) comment thread running at Pharyngula, regarding this essay by the Washington Post's Richard Cohen. Quick summary: It's the story of a young woman who dropped out of a Los Angeles high school after failing algebra six times.

The comments have elaborated on the story, bringing into the mix such disparate elements as poor teaching, poor student attitudes, whether standardized testing is a good or a bad thing, whether it's elitist or anti-elitist to expect all kids to get a rigorous education, and just why (and whether) this algebra stuff is important in the first place. My own opinions on this issue are somewhat mixed. While I'd hate to see a 17-year-old girl feel like a failure because she struggles with math, I also hate to see 17-year-olds convincing themselves that they can't do math in the first place, much less using it as an excuse to start cutting class and eventually transferring to the School of Fast-Food Career Options. (For one thing, I doubt that this happened in an affluent neighborhood; kids from well-off families just don't fall through the cracks this thoroughly.) Closer to home, algebra is something I use daily, and not just because at work I mix solutions in volumes ranging from a few microliters to the metric jugful. Simple mathematical reasoning of this nature goes a long way when one is cooking, shopping, or trying to figure out whether one really, really needs to fill up the gas tank at the next Thruway rest stop or can wait until passing the Albany interchange.

And, coincidentally, my friend Pam just sent me this little diversion, mentioning that it took her a few minutes to figure it out. A hint that most of my regular readers won't need: A little algebra, plus a tiny stretch of one's symbolic reasoning skills, will do it. (People who know me really well also know that my own visual skills require some prodding before they kick in, so for me, the algebra was what got me there first.)

Okay, the above is just for fun, of course. I was going to write that most people know there's a trick to this, but given some of the urban legends that wind up in my mailbox under the return addresses of people I consider intelligent, maybe that's not a given. Does a lack of abstract reasoning skills make people more susceptible to unsupportable ideas? Well, I don't know the answer to that one either. I'm sure there's a literature on this somewhere. To regular readers who might possess actual evidence that can answer the question: Have at it. After all, it's been a slow day.

2006-02-11T19:41:00.000-05:00

This story made me so angry that I swore out loud while reading it.

I try not to worry too much about the diversity of religious beliefs or political opinions that other people hold in good conscience. But I don't see the good conscience here. I don't understand what kind of conscience permits doing such a thing to small children, or to the professionals who do the hard work of helping children develop their curiosity.

I'm trying to imagine the public outrage that would occur if this tactic was used by Holocaust deniers, or by the idiots who think that slavery couldn't have been all that bad. ("Were you there?") Or, maybe, by AIDS/HIV deniers. ("Did you see the virus?")

And in the meantime, 2300 kids -- some of them "voraciously curious", and all of them at an age when they should be developing a sense of what civility means in an open, democratic society -- are being taught to shout down their teachers, disrupt the education of their classmates, recoil from the wonderful adventure that is the study of natural science, and thoroughly disrespect both learning and the work that it requires.

This man isn't just misguided -- he's an evil, egotistical, obstructionist ignoramus. And teachers don't get paid enough to have to endure this crap.

2006-02-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, Victoria, you're on.

Four Places You've Lived:

1.) Enfield, CT
2.) Watertown, MA
3.) Kalamazoo, MI
4.) Rochester, NY

Four Jobs You've Had:

1.) Scanning electron microscopist
2.) Technical writer
3.) Computer and network support wretch
4.) Insect molecular ecologist

Four Movies You Could Watch Over & Over:

1.) Diner
2.) Best In Show
3.) The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe (original French version w/subtitles)
4.) Good Night, and Good Luck

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch:

1.) Futurama
2.) Red Dwarf
3.) Waiting for God
4.) Blackadder(any series)

Four places you've been on vacation:

1.) Badlands National Park, South Dakota
2.) Dunedin, New Zealand
3.) Kangaroo Island, South Australia
4.) Catalina Island, California

Four websites you visit daily:

1.) The Panda's Thumb
2.) EvolDir
3.) Weather Underground
4.) Wikipedia

Four of your favorite foods:

1.) Spinach and cannellini beans
2.) Pan-grilled scallops with garlic butter
3.) Key lime pie (with whipped cream -- NOT meringue!)
4.) Spaghetti with fresh chopped tomatoes, avocado, garlic, and grated cheese

Four places you'd rather be:

1.) Australia, New Zealand, or anywhere else you can get a nice cold lemon Lift
2.) Devil's Lake State Park (Wisconsin) in midsummer
3.) Kalamazoo, Michigan
4.) Any place that's warm and has good bugs

And I'll add a few:

Four songs you could listen to a hundred times in a row:

1.) "Rocky Mountain Way", Joe Walsh
2.) "Outside", The Fixx
3.) "Video Killed the Radio Star", Buggles
4.) "Fifty Mission Cap", Tragically Hip

Four books you could read until the covers wear out:

1.) United States, Gore Vidal
2.) The Earth Dwellers, Erich Hoyt
3.) Modern Manners, P.J. O'Rourke
4.) Harry Potter and the [insert rest of title here], J.K. Rowling

Four things you've done that would surprise at least some of your friends:

1.) Voted in a Republican primary (for John Anderson, in 1980)
2.) Wrote several dozen rock songs, and played guitar in a garage band
3.) Briefly took the controls of a small plane
4.) Stopped at McDonald's on a quiz bowl road trip without getting coffee

Four things you'd like to do if you ever get a chance:

1.) Live and work in another country
2.) Visit all 50 states (8 more to go)
3.) Have a kitchen with a gas range
4.) Finally get an NSF grant

2006-02-05T20:29:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, I actually have the TV on and tuned to the Super Bowl. I haven't watched one all the way through since we lived in Boston (make that 1991 or earlier), and the last time I saw even a few minutes of the big game was at a friend's Super Bowl party in Michigan in, I think, 2003. Or maybe it was 2002. All I know is that it was one of the years before Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunctioned, and I was not one of the people following the football action; I was sitting in the kitchen eating great potluck food and talking politics. (One interesting thing about activist gatherings: Some people love sports and some don't, but it doesn't seem to break down along gender lines.)

Anyway, I'm only catching fits and starts of this one, mostly in solidarity with all of my friends who are Pittsburgh fans, because I'm dashing in and out of the kitchen to do what I need to do in order to cook dinner. Rick is doing homework upstairs; although I don't know whether football alone will lure him downstairs, the Rolling Stones may eventually do the trick.

But here's what I want to know: I know that Super Bowl ads are usually mostly good-humored, tongue-in-cheek tributes to masculinity. But why do the purveyors of light beer spend so much money on this event? I mean, what's so macho about light beer? (Besides being a partisan of McEwan's Scotch Ale myself, I have several female friends who rarely drink alcohol of any kind, and only occasionally indulge in beer, but won't touch the "light" stuff -- they prefer the nice heavy dark imports.)

Maybe this has all been turned on its head. The message I'm getting: Real women drink porter or oatmeal stout at room temperature, while real men drink ice-cold, mildly alcoholic fizzwater that possesses less flavor than your average vodka and soda. (Don't tell me the breweries are marketing the stuff to the guys who count carbs. The whole point of the exercise, if you'll excuse the expression, is to wash down a bag o' chips per head. And along with the carbs comes the fat, in the form of not only the chips, but the onion dip and guacamole.)

I guess I just don't understand these secular sacraments. (Okay, I admit it -- I'm currently sipping a vodka and Polar Diet Orange Dry, which is not something you'll be served at the finer cocktail bars in town So I'm not being an alcohol snob -- just honestly curious.) As for the beer: I'm saving the imported dark brew for Darwin Day, which is a week ahead of us. That is, as soon as I remember to score some in the supermarket, since I keep forgetting that I live in a state that prohibits the sale of beer in liquor stores.

Don't ask ....

2006-01-29T20:55:00.000-05:00

I don't often write about books or movies, but have been seeing more films than usual lately due to a combination of this service and this venue. Without really having expected such an intense response, I've become one of those many viewers who was emotionally jolted by a viewing of Brokeback Mountain. Everyone seems to have read something of their own lives into the film, but it's not always from the same page.

The characters of Ennis and Jack in Brokeback Mountain come from families that seem fine-tuned to breed loners. Ennis witnessed the results of a neighbor's fatal gay-bashing as a child because his father forced him to look at the body; later, after his parents' deaths, his older siblings make no room for him in their own lives. Jack's parents, finally seen at the end of the film, have the worst nightmare of a cold, lonely marriage imaginable. (A scene between Jack's mother and Ennis is a masterpiece; two people who have stomped on their own emotions in self-defense throughout their lives understand each other perfectly while exchanging very few words.) Ennis essentially remains a loner; when the movie closes, he's a divorced man of forty who has presumably had sex with one man and two women in all his life, and has left all of them hurt and bewildered by his remoteness. Jack is the sexual "force of nature" that becomes the movie's tagline; when he can't have Ennis to himself, he's enough of a risk taker to not only seek out male prostitutes, but (at least by implication) to charm both men and women into bed closer to home. However, the two men love, and truly confide in, only each other.

In my own extended family, there were no fewer than six men who lived with little or no intimacy in their lives -- none of them ever married or openly dated, had children, made many friends, or seemed to experience real familial warmth with their other relatives. I know nothing about the sexual orientation of any of them. I can only presume that among them, there were some who would have most easily loved women, and some who would have been more likely to love men. If an omniscient being slyly told me only that, say, three were straight, two gay, and one bisexual, I would have no clue as to which ones were which. They gave no hints while alive -- possibly not even to themselves -- and left none behind when they died. But, narrowly defined sexual labels wouldn't have been what mattered. It's simply that there were people in there -- six humans that no one may ever have known.

At any rate, the broken-record folk wisdom has become that Brokeback Mountain isn't just a "gay movie". While the story absolutely depends on a same-sex love affair, the folk wisdom happens to be true. The difficult part is coming back to reality after being so absorbed in that story for only a little over two hours. On a much lighter note, it's almost fun, at least for someone with my particular chronological advantage, to watch Heath Ledger turn 40. (Jake Gyllenhaal's makeup people weren't quite as talented, but it doesn't really matter.)

2006-01-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to announce the launch of Stridulations, which I hope will become my primary "bug blog", with a more scientific orientation than the posts normally found here. However, it'll probably cover all aspects of insectitude at various times in its life, and may include some cross-posts shared by the Bug House.

Never fear -- the Bug House will remain active as an occasional diary of life, the universe, and everything. Both Stridulations and the Bug House will be sporadically updated, as befits my usual state of organization.

More later, of course.

2006-01-13T22:09:00.000-05:00

During the past couple of weeks, I've made some career-planning decisions that don't change anything that's currently going on, but have removed immense amounts of stress from my life.

Might also be starting a science blog soon, but I'm usually better at planning these little side projects than actually doing them. Then again, I've just had the first manuscript from my postdoc research accepted -- and it came not from my main project, but from a side project that I started last March. (Can't claim it's entirely mine, of course; without the enthusiasm and expertise of some amazing collaborators/co-authors on both sides of the Atlantic, it would never have become possible.) It will require some revision first, but the task is not at all onerous.

In the morning, I'll be off to play this weekend's Ann B. Davis in Ann Arbor, also in a low-stress situation.

Some things just work out in spite of themselves.

2005-12-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

I went to the movies tonight with two friends who are not only older than me, but are probably even bigger Harry Potter fans. (Yup, my third viewing of Goblet of Fire, and their second.) They bought tickets at the senior discount price, and then I asked the cashier for a ticket to the same film in the same theater. Got my ticket, gave the cashier a ten-dollar bill, and got four dollars back in change. Since the usual evening ticket price at that theater is $8.50, I was about to ask if there was some kind of special promotion, when I looked at the slip I was holding in my hand and realized she'd also sold me a senior ticket.

Well, there's a first time for everything, so I suppose that for maximum amusement value, the stub will have to go up on my office wall. Besides, I'm the same age that Stephanie Cole was when she got the role of Diana Trent in Waiting for God.

2005-12-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

Nuthatch posts this description of the ultimate winning science fair strategy:

Materials

Raw hamburger
Three types of shoes
Modeling clay
Little boxes
15 male humans
An exciting paper on anything of your choice
216 beet plants
A little bit of sunlight
A saddle
Loose leaf paper
One hamster
Three different fingers to test
Paper towel (each cheese will be on it)
Human source of mouth bacteria

Procedures

Put on latex gloves.
Dampen your swab with distilled water.
Get permission from Mrs. Thayer.
Collect urine from my two St. Bernards
Stop at Jack’s Party Store and buy the same brand of nightcrawlers every time.
Let dry.
Wait until the ants come out.
Stick the thermometer in the person’s mouth.
Bring cheese home.
Do this for two weeks.

And, speaking of other efforts that deserve an A+, congrats to JQ on his Jeopardy! win. (It also established, with three replicates, that the cognoscenti do not listen to Barry Manilow.)

2005-12-06T18:49:00.000-05:00

For those of you who were on the edges of your seats wondering how TrashMasters turned out: Not only did JQ, JD, Rebecca, and I have a great time, but we won the darned thing. Two games out in front of everybody in one of the most competitive fields ever. And all I had to do was sit back and only buzz in when I knew what was going on.

As usual, and as noted in these pages last year at this time, Rebecca keeps rummaging through her road-music collection and managing to find country tunes that I actually like, no matter how much I protest that I don't like country. It's probably a matter of early exposure; I've blogged before about the similarities I see between blue-collar New England and the rural South and West, but unlike the way things are now, country music just hadn't made inroads into the Northeast, fan-wise, during my early years. (One of my uncles, forty years or so back, was a notable exception. We all made fun of his taste in music. Turns out he wasn't eccentric, though; he was just ahead of his time.)

And, yes, Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" does remind me of some of my family's neighbors, both then and now. But, of course, it's nowhere near a perfect match. No matter how thorough your blue-collar pedigree, there's a point where you have to admit that you just might not be a redneck.

For instance, you probably aren't a redneck if:

Your mother makes her own cannoli shells.

You know how to pronounce "Zbigniew".

You have a least favorite kind of sushi.

You've ever taught a dinner guest how to use a Mouli grater.

You think the pre-Joe Walsh Eagles were country.

You have more than two cousins named Vinnie.

You had your first legal drink before you ever tasted Velveeta.

You have to consult the owner's manual before checking your oil.

You've ever expounded on the difference between punk and new wave. (Note to younger or older non-rednecks: Substitute the memes of your choice.)

Your grandparents arrived on four separate boats.

You dislike drinking beer that you can see through.

You've never fired a gun. Not even at the @&$*&$ groundhogs that ate the broccoli and Swiss chard in your garden.

You have or have ever had broccoli and Swiss chard in your garden. (It was right there next to the garlic.)

You own three different types of coffeemakers.

You've taken multiple entomology courses and still need a dichotomous key to identify fire ants.

Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without ziti.

I really can't say whether having a SpongeBob SquarePants toilet seat in one's bathroom is a qualifier or a disqualifier, so Rick and I are just hedging our bets and consigning my new one to the trophy wall. Thanks much to the rest of the team for letting the first-timer take the grand prize home!

2005-12-01T22:54:00.000-05:00

This is the real December holiday.

Forget the presents. Forget the tree. If you're a trash quizbowler, this is the real deal.

Happy Trashmasters Eve!

2005-11-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

We’ve been watching the DVDs of the Jeeves and Wooster series, and have been especially amused by the antics of the Drones Club. (What better name could be given to a gathering of idle young gentlemen?) Of course, this has led me to speculate on what might actually go on among anthropomorphic drones:

(A room in a smart London hive. Beeves is tidying up. Flewster is reading his daily paper.)

I say, Beeves, did you hear the one about the drone who always wanted to ride on a Vespa? Well, he finally got hold of one, but then she stung him!

Most amusing sir.

(Flewster reads paper, looks startled.) Good Lord!

Sir?

I say, Beeves, I just read here that Buzzy Apis-Hives got caught in a spider web last night. Rotten luck, that. Imagine, old Buzzy pinched by a spider.

Yes, sir. I believe it was an argiope, sir.

An argiope?

A large orb-weaving spider of the family Araneidae, sir.

You’ve heard the story, then?

Yes, sir. And as often seems to be the case when the gentlemen of the Drones Club are involved, there is some good news and some bad news, sir.

Good news? You mean that poor Buzzy hasn’t, as we say, snuffed it, then?

Fortunately not, sir. The predator in question – or should I say, predatrix, for she is, in fact, a female of considerable size – is not partial to comestibles of the hymenopteran sort, and has therefore has chosen to neither envenomate nor consume Mr. Apis-Hives.

Oh, jolly good, Beeves. Bit of a relief, that. But old Buzzy is a keen-eyed old ….whatever was he doing near an orb web, Beeves?

Well, sir, Mr. Apis-Hives, along with your friends Mr. Bombus and Mr. Colletes …

Bumbles and Plasters?

The same, sir. Having encountered some fallen fruit that was fermenting in the sun under a pear tree, the three gentlemen stopped for some liquid refreshment. So much liquid refreshment, in fact, that they most rashly began making wagers regarding the architectural prowess of the local arachnids.

You mean they bet Buzzy he couldn’t fly through the spider web, Beeves?

Precisely, sir.

So what’s the bad news, Beeves?

Well, sir, the lady is concerned that she has spent many hours constructing this web, upon which she, a poor widow, relies to make her living, only to have, as she most frankly put it, some thrips-brained waggle-dancing sperm on wings drunkenly puncturing it, and so although she says she does not intend to directly harm Mr. Apis-Hives, she has wrapped him tightly in silk and has informed his friends that she will release him only after she is presented with three flies.

But that’s blackmail.

Actually, a ransom, sir.

Of course. I knew that. But how are we supposed to catch flies, Beeves? Nasty little creatures … (snaps fingers) Of course! We can sting them!

If I may take the liberty of reminding you, sir, this is an activity which is not possible for those of our sex, sir.

Oh… damn and blast, Beeves… I always forget. No, of course not. We don’t have the necessary equipment.

However, sir, the ladies, whether of the royal or the working classes, are not similarly limited, sir.

(snaps fingers again) … I’ve got it! We’ll ask the girls to come along.

If I may be so bold, sir … This will not be an easy task. You may be aware that flies frequent places that a fastidious hymenopteran may find to be both distasteful and disreputable, sir.

I’m sure, Beeves. Difficult enough to get the girls to appreciate a good jape under the best of circumstances. Like the time we put the parasitic mites in Skeppy Mellifera’s sleeping cell …

Indeed, sir, his sisters were especially upset, especially since they had to destroy a large number of their larval siblings after that episode, sir.

Well, we’ll have to think this through … Perhaps we can invite the gynes out for a drop of mead, but tell them that we have to fly to a smart garden bar out in the country, and we can observe the wildlife along the way … And then we’ll suggest a little hunt. These queens-to-be are very competitive, you know. Ah, this is brilliant, Beeves, they’ll love it. The fresh air, the thrill of the chase, the random stinging …..

Begging your pardon, sir, but young gynes are, on the whole, a pampered lot where fly-hunting is concerned. How do you propose to lure them to a garbage dump? Or the remains of a deceased mammal? Or … well, delicacy forbids me, but you must certainly understand, sir.

Hmmm… I’ve got it! We’ll tell them it’s a hunting competition for charity, Beeves.

Most interesting, sir … I take it you are suggesting that appealing to their finer instincts will release their baser instincts as well, sir.

Precisely, Beeves. So all we have to do is get the girls to come along so that they can sting the flies, drop them off in the arg .. the arg .. the spider’s web, and cut old Buzzy loose, we’ll be all set.

Indeed, sir.

By Jove , Beeves .. it … just … might … work!

(With apologies to P.G. Wodehouse.)

2005-10-08T14:45:00.000-04:00

Most amusing observation of the day (baseball division), from Tim Brown of the Los Angeles Times:

"Like the Red Sox before them, the White Sox have a tradition marked by futility. They have not won a World Series since 1917. On the bright side, they have not thrown one since 1919."

2005-09-30T10:35:00.000-04:00

Kalamazoo, MI

... actually, Texas Township, where I'm staying with some friends, after three days with another friend in Oshtemo. This has been my first trip back to my adopted hometown since late January, when I moved to Rochester. I've reconnected with large segments of every local demographic that could call me its own. Biologists, Unitarians, activist/progressives, you name it.

Also plowed some money back into the local economy; as an example, the proprietrix of my favorite imports store on West Michigan Avenue cut me a deal on some very nice, flowing, blousey New-Agey clothing. Now, my friends know that I'm not into New Age spirituality, and my fashion sense normally tends towards Contemporary Remote Field Station. But I've always liked the artsy-craftsy look that singles out the crystal crowd, and the best thing about that style is that you can be crowding fifty from either side, and a bit thick of thigh and more than one SD off the population mean regarding height, but you can put on this kind of clothing and look like both an adult and a female at the same time. Besides, it's both washable and comfortable. What else would a biologist wear while in a festive mood?

And, paradoxically, being reminded of how much I miss Kalamazoo will make me work harder at finding community in Rochester. I'll be back there on Sunday night, ready to go back to the lab the next day and tackle the bugs again. And Rick will approve of the new wardrobe. I figure I can't miss.

2005-09-25T12:41:00.000-04:00

Ann Arbor, MI

Many thanks to Dave and Emily for not only inviting me to their wedding, but for getting married during wasp mating season so that I could easily justify a trip back to Michigan.

Many thanks to Kevin for making the Ravenclaw Common Room available, as usual.

Off to Kalamazoo, for the first time since I left there in late January. I have no idea what this is going to feel like.

2005-09-11T18:36:00.000-04:00

People who know me will not be in the least surprised that the test at Political Compass ranks me as very strongly left-libertarian. I personally like that site quite a lot; the quiz defines the left-right continuum in terms of economic systems, and the libertarian-authoritarian continuum in terms of attitudes towards the social relationships among individual, community, and government. (This may also explain why I've been known to enjoy reading both Gore Vidal and, albeit in much smaller doses, P.J. O'Rourke.)

So, of course, this other quiz result (abridged but still long -- see end of post) was interesting. (Yes, I know it's just an Internet quiz written by someone with his or her own strong opinions.) Boldface in mid-explanation is mine, though, because I especially liked that statement.

And, yes, my pride level has been low of late. I remember trying to discuss this sort of thing last summer with two friends, one of whom was American and the other Australian, and both of whom share most of my political beliefs. My fellow American friend feels and expresses tremendous pride in being American. (Remember, this is a fellow leftist, who was incidentally much more active than I was in political opposition to the current regime at election time.) I couldn't quite come up with the words to express why that didn't describe my own feelings very well, but more clarity came later. What I felt and meant was: I feel fortunate, but not always proud, to be American.

The simplest reason for this is that my nationality, like everyone else's, is an accident. I had no more control over it than I did over my sex, my date of birth, or my adult height. My grandparents did exercise indirect control over the situation by virtue of having arrived in the United States on four separate ships and then converging on the same Connecticut town, but I can't appropriate their adventuresomeness as my own achievement.

The more complex reasons for the discrepancy have to do with being frequently appalled by the actions of the U.S. government (insert obligatory Michael Brown reference here). Obviously, I'm frequently even more appalled by the actions of many other governments, but then again no one has ever tried to shame me into expressing pride in someone else's government. At any rate, I think what I really meant to say to my two friends was this: I feel extremely fortunate to be an American, because I've benefited tremendously from our overall high standard of living. But, I think that for that reason I'd feel equally fortunate to have been born Swedish or Australian or Japanese -- while none of us who have been reading the accounts coming out of New Orleans from the safety of our higher and drier cities would feel especially fortunate to have been Americans living in the poorer parts of that city when the water started pouring in.

"Fortunate" and "proud" are two different concepts that can overlap considerably but are not identical. If we let ourselves become too complacently proud, we run the risk of becoming much, much less fortunate in a hurry. As for me: Like many people on both the left and right, I'd say I believed the lessons of grade-school civics all too well. Still do. And I'm mad as hell at the brainless frat-boy cronyism that paralyzed the response capabilities of the richest society in the world and left its poorest citizens in danger. In the meantime, there are positive things we can do.

http://www.redcross.org

Patriotic
You scored 68% US Philosophy, 12% American Pride, 93% Involvement, and 100% Citizen Status!

This test measured you according to four criteria: Philosophy, Pride, Involvement and Citizen Status.

Philosophy reflects whether you agree with the philosophical foundations of the United States, such as: liberty, equality, democracy (though limited, not absolute), capitalism, checks and balances, constitutionalism, etc.

Pride reflects your assessment of the factual reality and history of the United States as a nation. It is your opinion as to whether the United States has been a "good" country and whether it has acted rightly or not.

Involvement reflects your level of political activism--whether you act to stay informed of what is going on in the world, and what you do on the basis of that information.

Citizen Status simply reflects whether you claimed to be a citizen of the U.S. when asked by this test.

It is the opinion of this test that, of these four factors, the only one that matters when it comes to being considered a Patriotic American is one's score in the first category--Philosophy. Therefore, if you scored between 0-33% in that category, you have been rated 'Unpatriotic'; 34-66%, 'Somewhat Patriotic'; 67-100% 'Patriotic'.

Certainly, the other categories provide interesting information for your (and others') consideration. However, they are not crucial for Patriotism, and they do not necessarily reflect a love, or its lack, for one's country. Regarding American Pride, some people will be surprised that it does not affect the outcome of the test; some people will be upset by this. However, if a person supports every military action the United States has ever engaged in, but does not really support his neighbors' right to live their lives in the ways that they see fit, then they do not truly love the United States. Further, and despite much of the rhetoric some political pundits engage in, a truly Patriotic American can be highly critical of many of the actions undertaken by the U.S. throughout history. Certainly, much of what the United States has done has been done poorly or for the wrong reasons. And while the author of this test believes that the United States has been mainly a force for good in the world (and the most-free, best nation ever to exist), he respects the opinions of those who would disagree with him and fully supports their right to dissent. For that is what America is all about.

2005-09-07T21:25:00.000-04:00

Nothing heavy today. That may come later.

Minor amusing anecdote: Longtime movie crank that I claim to be, I still asked for, and got, a Netflix subscription for my recent birthday. First movie I picked was this one. I'm glad to report that Rick and I now have a movie in common. In fact, we had exactly the same impression of this one -- specifically, that we were so bored that we lasted 20 minutes before flipping through the rest of the DVD trying to find something interesting. When we failed in that task, we just put the DVD back in the mailing envelope, parked it in the mailbox, and put on an old Futurama tape instead. I think I'm actually going to like Netflix.

2005-08-30T19:49:00.000-04:00

I've been out in the field quite a bit this week, working on my primary project. To recap: I'm doing a study that requires me to collect a variety of mushroom-feeding insects, so I had to put out little plastic flowerpots each filled with wet sphagnum and topped with a soaked mushroom. Then I had to revisit each site for several days and sweep over the baits with an insect net, to catch the critters flying overhead. Today I had to pull in my baits, take them back to the lab, and set the soggy mushrooms (and several pooled samples of the underlying sphagnum) up in separate rearing jars. Three sites, 20 baits per site, lots of soggy decomposing fungi. And I'm still rearing insects from the previous round of baiting.

I picked my sites for convenience to my home and lab, so two out of three were habitats that I'd describe as "urban woods", which means they're a mixed system of trees, shrubs, leafy plants, broken beer bottles, condom boxes, and assorted dismantled plastic housewares. I'm not especially fond of doing fieldwork among discarded pop cans and mini-pads, plus at one site I showed up yesterday to sweep baits and was greeted by a locked parking lot gate marked GATE CLOSED FROM NOVEMBER 15 THROUGH MARCH 31. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but they reopened the gate today, so whatever was being smoked by the caretakers must have been confiscated.

The third site, however, was much more pleasant, despite being right off a bridle path that is frequently fertilized by horses. Suburbanites go jogging or walk their dogs there, and people ask in a friendly manner what I'm doing and why all these pink plastic tape banners are waving from the trees. Some of the creative guesses as to my purpose: Fishing (I was carrying a bucket of supplies near a creek), playing hide-and-seek (?), and setting up an orienteering course. Everyone seemed at least politely interested when I explained that I was letting mushrooms rot in plastic pots and then collecting them to bring back to my lab. (One signed off, "I hope you get an A!")

And, at this site, for the first time ever, I caught an amphibian in my net while sweeping for insects. I'm not good at IDing vertebrates, so I don't know whether it was a frog, a toad, or a cursed royal personage, but it was about 4 inches long and bright green. It just hopped in there and stared at me. Most likely, it had figured out that a slimy piece of fungus was a good place to stake out a fly-hunting ground. I booted it out of my net and went on with my business, but today it was still there, staring at me, while I picked up my baits. At least it's been wet enough lately so that there are other mushrooms around. Seems like a pretty resourceful frog to me.

(And, no, it's not the first vertebrate I've caught in my net. I nabbed a mouse in my Kalamazoo living room that way. But if I haven't blogged about that already, it still qualifies as another story.)

2005-08-22T19:13:00.000-04:00

Here's an entry for the "Why Didn't We Think Of This Sooner?" list:

My friends know that it takes something close to an act of Congress to get me to go to the movies. Most Hollywood films bore the crap out of me, I don't like to sit still that long for someone else's fantasy, and (no kidding) I dislike the smell of concession-stand popcorn. (I don't mind the homemade stuff, but whatever they put on the movie-theater variety makes it smell like a camp latrine to me. If I hold my nose and eat a little, I actually become desensitized and become fine with it, but getting myself to that point is a queasy and difficult job.)

Also, while there are numerous movies that Rick and I both actually like, the Venn diagram has a considerable area outside the intersection. For example, Rick likes dark, cyberpunky, action-filled movies; I think he's seen The Matrix more times than I've been bitten by mound ants. I tend to prefer films that make me believe that the plots could be transplanted to my own neighborhood without blinking. (The appeal of the Harry Potter series, to me, has less to do with witchcraft and wizardry than in the otherwise realistic depiction of childhood angst.) In fact, since life doesn't tend to have a plot, I don't demand plots in my films at all.

A few weeks ago, we went to see War of the Worlds, which Rick really wanted to see but which is absolutely not a 'Pede movie. I found it mostly boring and occasionally funny, but lacking in sufficient camp value to be really hilarious. Rick, on the other hand, became a bit embarrassed to be sitting with a woman who roared with laughter when the killer alien vessels showed up. First of all, any alien species with the brains to surreptitiously invade another planet wouldn't do it with objects that were so spindly and topheavy that they looked like a little kid could knock them down by blowing out birthday candles in their general direction. Second, the whole plot reminded me entirely too much of a long-ago joke between Rick and me of what would happen if malevolent aliens invaded the streets and highways of Boston. We figured that the local drivers would just honk at them, and would continue to honk obliviously even as the aliens started vaporizing their cars. (The fact that we often wished to vaporize our fellow Boston drivers in those days may have had something to do with this.) And, third, I've ceased to think of Tom Cruise as being either a cute or compelling presence on screen. (Of course, to understand the full depths of my contrarian crankishness, it helps to know that a college friend and I once decided that Apocalypse Now would have been a much better film if they'd cast Bruce Dern in place of Marlon Brando. And when I was a kid, I had a mild crush on Carl Betz.)

I would rather have seen The Wedding Crashers, which was playing at the same time at the same complex, but which would have driven Rick insane because the behavior of the protagonists would make him cringe with embarrassment. I haven't seen that film yet, and will probably remember to rent it on DVD somewhere between two and fifteen years from now. So, yesterday, we started kicking around the idea of going to a movie, and we tried something we should have done many times before: Quick dinner out, then to the same theater complex, thence to different movies. I saw Broken Flowers; Rick saw Kontroll. We enjoyed our respective films immensely, met up and talked about them excitedly afterwards, and both went home in a joint good mood.

I'm sure we'll do this again. The cafe at the Little Theatre in Rochester has a decent espresso bar. Now, if we can actually get them to serve food that can be consumed by someone with an allergy to dairy and vinegar, we'd really be on to something.

2005-08-18T23:28:00.000-04:00

And more potpourri ....

Haven't been around blogspace much, for no particular reason. Our 16-year-old nephew spent a week with us recently, which was both an eye-opening experience and a lot of fun. This is normally a low-junk-food residence, but I'm still finishing off the last of the ice cream bars and the Frosted Sugar Bombs and all sorts of good stuff that accompanies a visit from a much younger relative.

Went wasping today. I don't know if that's supposed to be a verb, but it should be. There's just something about a big flowering shrub full of huge stinging Hymenoptera that makes me want to grab a net and wreak mayhem. Actually, we're targeting some of these critters for our general survey, so there's some justification for this. At least that's what I keep telling myself when I'm chasing a gigantic Dolichovespula around the inside of my net with a centrifuge tube filled with 100% ethanol. Maybe I should bow to both self-preservation and hedonism, mix the ethanol with my iced espresso instead of using it as a weapon, and leave the big bugs alone.

On a more somber note: I was really sorry to hear this news. As it happens, my cute little plush Heimlich was sitting on my desk as I read the obit. I still remember being able to crack up my niece by quoting the line, "Loooook at me ... I'm a be-YOO-ti-ful butterfly!"

On a cheerier note: Maybe this is old news, but I 've been playing this little ditty obsessively all evening while surfing. (Note: Do not navigate to this site if you are offended by exploding F-bombs.)

More later, since a number of interesting things are in the works ....

2005-08-01T19:19:00.000-04:00

Yeah, baby!

You're a Gila Monster!

While you like to wear bright and discordant clothing to warn people
that you can be dangerous when provoked, most people merely take it to mean you have
terrible fashion sense. You try not to care what they think, as you'd rather be on
your own, looking around at bugs and rodents. Yes, you're a bit eccentric, though you
really resent some of the names you've come to be known by. While many folks don't
look for you at all, kids expect to see you at the airport.

Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

2005-07-30T13:21:00.000-04:00

Given the sheer number of projects that I'm pushing around my plate right now, I occasionally refer to my job description as "cat-herd".

This video will explain further.

2005-07-17T13:49:00.000-04:00

Postscript to yesterday's potpourri:

Read Chapter 1.
Hooked.
It won't take 20 years.

2005-07-16T23:20:00.000-04:00

Potpourri:

Went out collecting with a bunch of UR people yesterday. Generally a successful enterprise, except that I fell heavily while climbing up a small embankment and bruised my right thumb very badly; one of my field companions, who didn't realize I was maiming myself in the process, commented that I looked like a very scary swamp thing while staggering up from the aforementioned abyss. Later in the evening, I got a nasty paper cut on the same thumb. And, this afternoon, my lower back went into hard spasm while I was doing some light housekeeping in and around the upstairs bathroom. My body is really starting to feel like it's off warranty again.

We have several cute little water boatmen (Corixidae) living in the swimming pool here at our apartment complex. If you've ever played Bugdom, you'll recognize them; the Water Taxi driver belonged to this family. Hope they continue to do well; I'm rather fond of this taxon.

Our copies of the fifth and sixth Harry Potter volumes have both arrived. (Borrowed Book 5 from a friend when it came out, but we'd never owned our own copy before.) Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how depressing and unenjoyable I found Book 5; in fact, after Book 2, I've liked each one less than the one that came before. I suppose at some point I'll get around to reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but at this point, it's unclear whether I'll stay up for several nights running to get through it, or instead postpone reading it for some period of time between a few days and fifteen to twenty years. The shorter time period is much more likely, but we'll see. I've been known to put off watching movies for similar stretches of time; I think I finally saw Bull Durham in 2002. Watch this space.

And, finally, some great news: Rick has been accepted to a preventive medicine residency here at UR, and will start the program next month. This was confirmed the day after Rick's 49th birthday. It's definitely fun for both of us to be in postdoctoral training programs approximately as many years past the traditional age as it usually takes me to get organized enough to watch a film or read a book that has piqued my interest.

2005-07-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

A little scenery
Originally uploaded by Juliepede.

Might as well start with a little New York State scenery. This one's from "Niagara Falls Lite" (one of the waterfalls at Letchworth State Park, about an hour away from Rochester on the Genesee River).

Excitement for the day: Persons unknown managed to remotely install malicious software on one of our lab's computers, and then use it to not only emit piles of coarsely shredded spam, but to launch a denial of service attack on a business in another state. We've had the information tech people in to solve the problem (and read us the riot act about our firewalls), but personally I think that if the perp is ever caught, he or she should get a few hours alone with us and maybe some wasps. Or maybe in the fly room, preferably with some rotting mushroom bait down his pants. (Actually, a sufficiently weird person might enjoy that experience, so just forget about it. Erase the image from your brain.)

Let's see ... what else?

Woke up Saturday with the vague recollection that it was the birthday of a friend I hadn't seen in a very long time. By the end of the day, we'd made phone contact with the birthday girl, who was the matron of honor at my wedding back in 1988. For readers who are not old enough to have lost contact with a good friend for over a decade: It really is an amazing experience to reconnect. I wouldn't recommend losing track of a friend simply for the sake of an amazing experience, but the point is that, in a case like this, finding your friend again is a great thing to do.

Interesting phenomenon of the week: Because Rick's allergies have required another elimination diet, he's taken up cooking, which makes our evenings a lot more social. His sensitivity to vinegar makes it difficult for him to tolerate many commercially available condiments, so today, he made mayonnaise from scratch. It had lemon juice in it, and it was very good. (I normally don't like mayonnaise except to hold my tuna salad together. Rick could teach me to like the stuff yet.)

Also realized today that it's been a very good thing for me to have taken up swimming in the apartment complex pool. I'm usually out there at least five days a week, and normally get anywhere between 20 and 60 minutes of moderate to hard exercise. For some reason, despite my general lack of athleticism, I've been a very strong swimmer for years; I lack both speed and form, but make up for it with both endurance and enthusiasm. And I'm now nearly 10 pounds lighter than I was when I first moved here. Yet another reason to eventually move to a place in a warm climate with some kind of swimming opportunity nearby.

And there was another ant in the bedroom today. She's been booted out the door with the rest, but I'm definitely going to be vigilant.

2005-06-30T19:43:00.000-04:00

The site has been very quiet, mostly because I've been working on a grant proposal, then hitting the swimming pool at the apartment complex after work, then mostly hanging out away from the computer. Just wanted to make sure that people knew that the ants haven't thrown me on the trash midden. Of course, there have been a lot of Camponotus hanging around the apartment, but I'm sure they're harmless -- probably just after some water out of the sink. See, there's one now. Hey, whattya doing, ant? Hey, leggo my leg. Put ... me... DOWN! HEY!!! YOU!!!! ANT!!!! What part of DOWN do you NOT understand ....?

(The 'Pede would like to warn other 'pedes to look out for Amblyopone. What they do to chilopods is just plain not pretty.)

I have an aspirator ...

2005-06-16T20:22:00.000-04:00

I have an aspirator ...
Originally uploaded by Juliepede.

... and I'm not afraid to use it!

The Bug House is pleased to add photos to its bag o' bug tricks, and this one is the obvious first choice. I've sent it to a few friends already, but it was kind of a big file that wasn't compatible with everyone's e-mail host, so it's time to give it a second chance.

Photo courtesy of Rick Stahlhut; meme courtesy of my fellow members of the 70 Families Project, an informal organization of Wolbachia researchers dedicated to collecting lots of bug 'nads and their associated DNA sequences. (As far as I can tell, this effort requires sipping adult beverages while telling entomological whoppers around a blacklight. Or, as one of the PIs asked during last week's kickoff collecting trip, "How can you love bugs and not want to kill them?")

2005-05-28T22:22:00.000-04:00

I recently joined the rest of my project on a four-day retreat to this site in southeastern Arizona. The first time I ever visited the Southwest, in 1996, the trip included (a.) being a member of a team that got its collective arses ignominiously kicked at a national quiz bowl tournament, and (b.) catching one of the worst colds I've ever had in my adult life, so I couldn't say I enjoyed myself much. The second and third trips were made to attend conferences sponsored by this institution; the conferences were fun, but I never quite bonded with the mountains and desert. The fourth trip, last year, was part of a long car trip that included a lot more scenery than the southwestern desert, so I didn't really think about it much. But, the fifth time seems to have been a charm.

Maybe it was the company -- lots of good things happened in the scientific-connection department -- but over the past few years I've really started to think seriously about someday moving to a warmer climate, and for the first time, I've started to seriously think about the southwestern U.S. as a good place to be. It has great bugs, of course, but I never expected to enjoy a 110-degree heat wave so much. I guess that mad dogs and entomologists go out in the midday sun. (Harvester ants, by the way, are smarter than entomologists, and spend the hottest hours below ground.)

Back home, the field season is getting under way. In addition to my current work with mushroom-feeding flies, I've been doing Wolbachia screens on various other insects -- mostly wasps and ants, although it looks like I'll continue to be involved in some more general insect survey work. The other day, one of my labmates brought me one of these little beasties. (Note to all bugs: Do not crawl around in the stairwell of Hutchison Hall at UR, unless you want to be pureed in cold blood. Or, as it more often happens, in cold tissue-lysis buffer.)

Yes, the poor thing did meet the fate described above. This is pretty much the routine in a Wolbachia lab, but is unusual in one respect: This makes me one of two people who, to my knowledge, has ever ground up a specimen of his or her own university's mascot.

2005-05-17T21:36:00.000-04:00

I had a long tirade brewing on this subject, and little time to tackle it, but it turns out that there's really no need for me to do so. As usual, Tom Tomorrow has made it all much clearer.

2005-05-15T20:04:00.000-04:00

Is there such a thing as a wrong-number magnet? Because I think I might be one.

First, there was the guy who called a few times not long after I moved here, clearly thinking he was calling someone else. I politely explained the error to him, he was apologetic, and he never called again. The problem: Before the error was explained, he'd written my phone number on his wall. The next night, an irate, shrieking woman called -- either she was his jealous SO and didn't like him calling other women, or else she was his mom and had to clean the writing off the wall. That one degenerated into mutual and simultaneous yelling before I hung up on her. Fortunately, she got the message and never called back either.

There have been a few others of little consequence, but the most recent was either about five years old, or drunk. Or maybe both. This would have been mildly amusing had it not been one-thirty in the morning. And, of course, when someone has rousted you out of bed at one-thirty in the morning, and the message on the caller ID reads BLOCKED CALL (something that none of your family members, nor any of your close friends, does with their phones), and you bark an extremely gruff "Hel-LO!" with emphasis on the "Hell!" part, and you really want to give this person a piece of your mind, the first thing he or she will say, in either an infuriatingly angry or even more infuriatingly innocent voice, is:

"Who's this?"

Well, I don't know. I've really thought about this long and hard, and it's one of those tough philosophical questions. I mean, do any of us really know who we are? Do we see ourselves as others see us? Am I defined by my simple being? My work? My relationships to other people? My immortal soul or transcendent spirit?

My usual response is a much shorter "Well, who's THIS?" After all, I'm sure the person on the other end of the connection must be in an equally reflective mood. I'm sure we could have a very profound conversation about all of this.

Of course, there's a much simpler answer. You're a person who thinks it's a great idea to make social calls at one-thirty in the morning; you're obviously not distraught, not reporting a crime or a death, and haven't mistaken my number for the police or the emergency room. I, on the other hand, am a now-very-angry woman who has to get up early in the morning to go on a field trip, and has had all the phones in the apartment go off in a cacophony of rings and jingles and, in the case of the basement unit, "The Flight of the Bumblebee", who would hunt you down and sting your sorry butt if I had my way and could, in fact, talk to bumble bees and make them agree to help me out.

The happy ending is that I did eventually get back to sleep, and did make it to the meeting point for my field trip, and went out with the local mycological society for a foray on the spacious and beautiful property of an extremely gracious, 87-year-old former member. It's been a little too cold for good mushrooming, or so I'm told by people who, unlike me, have actually been mushrooming before. But, this is a caring and sharing group, and thanks to them, I've eaten my first fresh morels. (For everyone wondering if morels have an inflated reputation or are, in fact, all that: They are, most definitely, all that. You bet your ascocarp they are. All those years in Michigan, the morel heaven of the U.S., and I have to move to New York State to get fresh-picked morels. Go figure.)

And, when I got home, there was a queen bumble bee buzzing around my front stoop. Good girl. This is a sign. I know you're a loyal minion, at my beck and call. Note to anyone who mistakenly dials my number in the middle of the night: If you hear buzzing, hang up if you know what's good for you.

2005-05-13T21:36:00.000-04:00

Ms. Science Person is feeling psychic today.

This recent finding doesn't surprise me one bit. Summary: Low-fat diets that consist largely of vegetables, fruit, lean proteins, and whole grains are healthier than "conventional low-fat diets" based mostly on processed crap in which the fat has been replaced by sugar and synthetics.

I feel confident in predicting the next finding: Low-carb diets that consist largely of vegetables, whole grains, lean meat, and fruit will be shown to be healthier than "conventional low-carb diets" based mostly on processed crap in which the sugar and starches have been replaced by fat and synthetics.

(ObBugNote: I have to be kindly disposed towards the link at the top of the page, if for no other reason than when I first saw it, the banner ad included a photo of a gulf fritillary.)

2005-04-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

A milestone today ....

The Kalamazoo Bug House has been sold.

This has come with mixed feelings for Rick and me. I haven't blogged in a few days, mostly because Rick arrived last Thursday night in a 26-foot U-Haul, and we've been digging through our possessions ever since. I've moved into a lot of places in the last 30 or so years, but the Rochester Bug House is the first place I've ever had to move into twice.

The Kalamazoo Bug House has been sold.

We sold it to a longtime acquaintance who had always wanted to buy it. He will take good care of it -- he's a builder, for one thing. He's done work on it before; he fell in love with the place when he was putting in some improvements for us, and it was worth the bureaucratic hassle to make sure it was sold to him.

He'll remodel the kitchen and bathroom, but he won't spray the garden. He won't dig up our milkweed patch. He'll almost certainly keep the rhubarb plant in the back yard.

It doesn't make any difference that I grew up in Connecticut and spent my early adult years in the Boston area. It makes little difference that I never set foot in Kalamazoo until I was 34 years old, and didn't move there for more than a year later. In a very real sense, I'm now a person from Kalamazoo, only living somewhere else.

It may be a while before we own a home again. Just like the first time: We'll do it when (and where) we're ready.

I'm a native New Englander from Kalamazoo, Michigan, now living in Rochester, New York. When my husband finally moved into the new place with me, he brought me some sprigs of my beloved bleeding heart from behind the Kalamazoo Bug House.

I've loved bleeding heart since I was a kid in Connecticut; my mother pointed it out to me in a neighbor's yard long ago, and I thought the flowers were pretty and the name was funny. I could never resist that combination.

Maybe someday I'll have bleeding heart in my back yard again. Unless, of course, my next back yard is some place where bleeding heart doesn't grow.

The Kalamazoo Bug House has been sold. The temporary Rochester Bug House now contains a mated pair.

Watch this space.