Sissy Hunting Dog and the Dissappearing Blogger

Sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery doesn’t it?!  Yes, I am still among the living.  I’ve discovered that my life is just too busy to dedicate an entire block of time to daily blogging.  Maybe if the computer had a stick with a truffle hanging from it chearing me on.  I’m quite sure I’ve lost my entire entourage of 3 readers due to my extended absence but I can always email my mother and get one back!

So what could inspire me, other than a truffle, to tippy type my way back into blogging fame?  My dog. 

Prancer is an 11 year old Shiba Enu.  Her ancestors were bred in Japan to hunt small game on the sides of mountains.  Apparently, someone forgot to inform Prancer of her illustrious heritage.

She’s always had a few little quirky habits.  When she gets a new bone she carries it around the house for extended periods of time while whining.  Loudly.  She then puts the bone in her bed and lays down next to it.  Apparently bones require a place of honor and comfort.  She doesn’t chew her toys up but does nibble them to death.  She will not sit on a couch or a bed if another human is on them but does make exceptions if it’s thundering outside or no one’s home and she needs a place to deposit fur.  She is also very selective with who gets the honor of letting her outside.  She will sooner explode than tinkle for just anyone.  (Unless you are a vet, an employee of the vet, or a distant relative of the vet.  Any of which will be rewarded by copius amounts of solids and liquids spewing at high vilocity in several directions.)  Which leads us to “the ritual”.

Having such high standards for letter-outers leads a dog to have frequent middle of the night regrets.  It seems that refusing to go outside most of the evening catches up with the bladder around 3am.  Coincidently, this is also the time when various rabbits, raccoons, and stray dogs are cruising through the yard but we’re sure that has nothing to do with it.  So last night when Prancer began her  “scratch at the bedroom door and hope someone lets me in to let me out” ritual, we weren’t buying it.  (And before you all ask why we don’t just let her sleep in the bedroom with us, she won’t.  We’ve tried that.)

She began at the son’s door.  After ignoring it the best he could he let her in.  She layed down just long enough for him to fall asleep before she began pawing his hair.  Once he covered his head with a quilt she became discouraged and started in at my bedroom door.  After shouting “go lay down” as quietly as I could several times I finally got up and let her in.  She sucked her little shedding body to the side of my bed until I stopped petting her then proceeded to scratch the carpet while spinning in circles.  (We’ve learned the scratching is universal doggy communication for “if you’re not going to get up and move my bed then I’ll just have to dig to China before I’m comfortable.”)  Surprisingly, once she settled in she fell asleep.  I should have known something was up. 

When I woke up in this morning Prancer sucked herself to my leg and followed me through the house and into the bathroom.  It wasn’t until the return trip, with her still stuck to my leg like a leech, that I saw it.  A mouse.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, my purebred Japanese hunting dog is terrified of mice.  Well, thunder and mice.  And vets.  Usually she whines when a creature enters her part of the house but I figure she’s getting old.  The panic of the previous night is just the doggy dimensia setting in.  Like her new habit of barking at the front door when you set a glass down in the kitchen but not when someone is knocking on the front door.  Until…………it moved.  (At this point I began scratching on the bedroom door and whining for my husband.  I felt her pain.)

It seems while we were peacefully sleeping, my dog was being terrorized by a mouse who managed to get stuck, but not injured, in a plastic trap.  It’s little back legs were scootching all over the floor like a kid that had crawled into a pillow case to find the last oreo cookie.  (Now don’t tell me you never hid oreo cookies in your pillowcase!)  I can imagine her terror as she scratched on door after door while the dreaded vampire frankenstein mouse scootched nearer and nearer.  Apparently jumping on the couch hadn’t crossed her mind. 

To make up for the trauma, we gave her a bone which she proceeded to carry around while whining and fretting over where to put it.  To add insult to doggy injury, my son looked at her and said, “Poor puppy, and you expected ME to get up and take care of a mouse?”  I’m not sure it was the kind of sympathy she was hoping for.

So here I am, apologizing to my elderly nuerotic dog.  See you at 3am.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

No Wonder Doctors are 12

My week has been a conglomerate of little projects that have kept me from finishing any one thing.  My soldier son has gone active (that will be another post), I’m fighting with a nasty EBay person, and I seem to have reached the end of my formal education.

A few weeks ago I would have adamantly denied my interest in pursuing a doctorate.  I learned while acquiring my masters that I love to conduct research but I’m not so fond of writing about it until I puke.  I did think about the idea long and hard.  I spoke with several people who have doctorates or are pursuing them.  I weighed the advantages and disadvantages: not much advantage in the education field unless you want to feel important or be a superintendant or professor.  I looked at lifetime salary increases versus the cost of 96 more credit hours.  (I don’t have enough life left to pay for another 96 credit hours!)  And just to give writing up the research a side in the argument, I bought a book called Write Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day.   In the end, I made peace with the decision that a doctorate just wasn’t for me.

Then I woke up Monday.  It’s almost August and I’m not registered for any classes.  Stores are selling school supplies and I have no need to look at the latest and greatest note taking ink pens.  I’m going to have to start paying back student loans!  I’m not a student anymore!  UUUUGGGGGG!  In fact, according to my college licensing board, I am in a position to renew my teaching license until 2027 without taking another class!  I could retire by then!

While many people can’t wait to get out of school, I enjoyed college.  (Well, there was the one professor that screamed at us all the time, never knew what she had assigned, and answered every question with, “You people think you’re smarter than me.   I have a doctorate.”  Could have lived without her!  But then the adorable (insert drool) physics professor who wore surfer shorts and flipflops in winter made up for her.)  The thought of not working towards an achievement, of not having a defined goal, is more terrifying than the thought of having to write that stupid dissertation! 

So I opened the phone book and started the search.  With a 4.0 and maxed scores on my exams, I didn’t have a concern about who would accept me so I started with the university closest to me and spread out from there.  Indiana University: have to spend two summers on the Bloomington campus.  Can’t do but the most likely option.  Purdue University: have to drive 4 hours one night a week to take a class.  Can’t do.  Ball State: many classes online but not all and would have to take a leave of absence from work.  Can’t do.  Notre Dame: I have a department chair willing to sponsor me but I’d have to leave my job.  Can’t do. 

It seems that you can either focus all your attention on going to school or on doing the job you went to school for.  You can’t have both.  I wasn’t ready to start this when I was younger and now that I’m older I have too many other committments to devote all my time to it.  No wonder all the doctors look like Doogy Howzer.  You have to jump in there before your life starts!  Having started my carreer in my late 30’s, I want to enjoy it.  So my new plan is to teach until I retire while keeping my radar out for a program that I can complete while working.  If nothing turns up, I take advantage of reduced tuition for senior citizens and get my picture in the paper for being the oldest doctoral candidate in my class!

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Our Snazzy Camper: The Pictures

Nothing like the warm welcoming light from a fishnet clad leg to welcome you back to the camper.

 

We set up the 10×20 awning in case we needed shade from the shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, our very own pool.  It even has a deep end and a shallow end.  Who needs pool volleyball when you can play pool ladder ball or pool bean bag toss while watching the fire?

 

 

 

Ice in your mixed drink anyone?

 

 

 

   Yep, we’re roughin it.

 

 

 

 

 

  The master suite.  (Yep, there’s a full bathroom behind that curtain.)  We did decide the television hiding behind the bench was a bit much.  We’ve replaced it with a digital flat screen

 

 

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Ink Blots and Tan Lines

Any fan of old movies has, more than once, witnessed a mustached man with an accent ask a blond woman with an airy voice and an abundance of cleavage for her opinion of the meaning of stains on pieces of cardboard.  I’m not sure what the answers were supposed to say about a person, but I do believe you couldn’t go wrong by saying, “butterfly”.

It seems the new form of ink blots are tan lines.  Camping for 10 days has given me several opportunities to witness tanning and conversations about tanning.  As my eavesdropping has informed me, tan lines speak volumes about a person and bystanders are more than willing to interpret the message.  If you are ever asked by a mustached man with an accent to interpret female tan lines, here are some answers that should keep you from the straight jacket:

1.    If her tan lines do not line up with the swim suit she’s wearing, she owns more than one suit.  She’s obviously too skinny and we don’t like her.  (Chubby women own one swimsuit and had to drink copius amounts of martini to endure the humiliation of shopping for it.  We don’t own two.)

2.  If she looks tan but there are no tan lines, she either has regular appointments at the tanning salon or she sunbathes nude.  Either way, she’s got money to spend on tanning and she’s too skinny.  We don’t like her.  (Just try to pry these clothes off my body in the name of tanning.  I dare you.)

While I’m sure the list goes on, it got me wondering what my tan lines say about me. 

    Impressive aren’t they.  That’s the whole show folks.  I’m tan no where else.  As if I would subject innocent campers to any more of my body than neccessary! 

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is the extent of my tan lines.  Notice the lovely hue to my toes (which are painted patriotically with flags).  Should I choose to wear dress pants with open toed shoes I’ll be set.  Above the lovely criss-crossed pattern reminiscent of being sizzled on the barbeque grill, I have one shade of pink topped with a ravishing shade of red (it will turn brown eventually!).  What the picture doesn’t show is that the red stops there.  (Yep, wearing capris.)

Now what do you think I’m supposed to do with this?  If I sunbathe nude for awhile do you think it will even out?  Ya. Right.  On both the evening out and the nude part. I could just wear those sandals and capris for the rest of the summer.  How fashionable.  The worst part will be listening to the chuckle when the nice lady who puts flags on my toes sees them.  It appears they are the chuckle that keeps on giving. 

So given that people have definite opinions of a person based on their tan lines, what does this say about me?  My toes are the only thing skinny enough to warrant make-up and pampering?  I secretly desire char grilled steak, medium rare?  I prefer to go with: she spent ten days on a lounge chair reading trashy romance novels while sipping pineapple juice and Malibu Rum

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Our Ten Day Camping Extravaganza

After spending nearly two decades as Scout leaders (camping on little pads and eating food cooked by 11 year olds) my husband and I decided to find grown up camping friends (defined as those who sleep in beds and drink alcohol around the campfire).  While researching pop-up camping trailers, we came across an online club forum for people who want to get together, camp, and share their love of tent trailers:  The Great Lakes Pop-Up Club.

The first time we met with the group our camper was still being built (a 2007 Jayco 12HW).  They were camping at a state park not too far from our home so we decided to join them for the Saturday evening potluck.  We decided ahead of time to drive by the group slowly and if we heard dueling banjos or if anyone had a snake wrapped around their neck we would take our tray of brownies and keep driving.  Thankfully, they were all just people who liked to camp and we’ve since spent many enjoyable weekends sharing campfires with them.

Every year, members from five states descend upon a campground and this year it was our state’s turn to host the Rally.  We decided to make it our vacation and reserved a site for ten days.  It’s our longest camping trip so far and packing for it has made me reflect on those people who build big houses after their kids move out.

When the boys were little, camping consisted of a tent, sleeping bags, and a cooler full of hot dogs and marshmallows.  It all fit in the trunk of the car.  Three kids and a dog in the back seat, stop at White Castle on the way to the campground, and you’re good for the weekend.  You would think now that the kids are grown, provisions would only take 1/2 of a car trunk.  Nope.  The leg lamp alone takes 6 square feet.  Yes, the leg lamp.  Camping isn’t what it used to be folks!

 As I sit at my trailer table, next to the leg lamp, I am blogging at my computer with a wireless card and my cell phone and digital camera are sitting next to me.  (The flat screen tv hooked to adjustable rooftop antenna is only a few feet away.)  Above the 3 cubic foot refrigerator, the ice maker is churning out ice to keep our 3 coolers nice and frigid.  The aroma of coffee is scenting the air while the convection oven/microwave is cooking muffins.  Fortunately, it’s cool enough to have the windows unzipped because the air conditioner will freeze you out and my hair is wet from just showering in my camper bathroom.  It has been cold at night surprisingly so I’m glad we have heated mattresses.

Yes ladies and gentlemen,  this is what camping has become.  I’ve gone from the whole family and all the gear fitting in one vehicle to pulling a trailer with a loaded SUV while my husband follows behind in the pickup.  When non-campers say they don’t enjoy the outdoors I just have to chuckle.  I’ve got better accomodations than I’ve had at many hotels!

(It was my intent to include some pictures but I can’t get them uploaded.  I’ll include them in another post.)

 www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Post-it Note Wills and the Dress Boobs

Yes, it does seem boobs are a theme around here but it’s inevitable when you’ve grown up in a boob obsessed family.  My grandfather was the grand boob-a (get it!  Pooh-ba…….boob-ba…….)  All through the 70’s, Dolly Parton greeted you at the door of his workshop.  Even though I hadn’t grown to full height, I was quite sure that those glossy boobs were about eye level for a tall man.  Hmmmm.  It did give me something to look up to.  Or shelter if a pipe burst.

As my mom’s blog mentioned (http://savanvleck.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/things-i-miss-by-clicking/), Grampa had a love affair with televisions.  After his retirement, many of us were convinced he felt remote controls were an adult toy.  At the push of a button you could summon boobs of all shapes and sizes.  If boobs moved off the screen you need only to click to a new channel and another pair was waiting to entertain.  I remember visiting one day and wondering why he was watching a program aired in Spanish until I realized boobs suffer no language barrier.

While Grampa was dedicating his life to freeing boobs from bondage, Gramma was spending hers trying to make them illegal.  Everyone watching the battle of the boobs sympathized to some degree with both sides I believe.  After all, when two polar opposites dig in their heels, the tassles are bound to fly.  The situation was made all the more ironic when, due to medical reasons, Gramma ended up with more than one set of boobs.  For Grampa it must have been like visiting Ben and Jerry’s and being told you were allergic to Chunky Monkey.  Sweet revenge.  Gramma now had eight boobs and Grampa wasn’t touching any of them.

Now in another twist of neurosis, Gramma was concerned she would be called to meet her maker and the family would fight over her posessions.  Since editing a will on a daily basis is inconvenient, she reserved coveted items by placing post-it notes with names of their next owners on the them.  (I learned this trick real early and would scan the room when I first arrived tagging things like a male dog at a campground.) 

When my mother, grandmother, and I get together we tend to get a tad giggly.  Grampa had chastized us for such outrageous behavior more than once.  (It appears boob watching is less enjoyable if women are laughing behind your chair.)  One visit our giggly conversation turned to Gramma’s spare boobs and the matter of inheritance. 

Now for those of you who did not grow up during the Great Boob Wars, you may be surprised to find out that medical boobs come in many shapes, sizes, materials, and weights.  Good dress boobs can cost upwards of $1000!  (a pair, not each)

Since we were already giddy, and it was really irritating Grampa, Gramma helped the conversation along by retrieving her boob collection from its hiding place.  What ensued was akin to a booberware party.  We shook, jiggled, passed, and assessed the qualities of the various pairs while laughing until we cried.  Three generations of women making such statements as, “What if I want to borrow the dress boobs on the same night you do?  Should we draw bra straps to decide or do we each get one?  (Which reminds me of the bag of bra straps Gramma gave me one year because she was sure I could use them in a craft for my Cub Scouts.  NOT KIDDING)  In the end, I believe my mother won inheritance rights to the boob collection on the condition that I then get them after her.  I do have to wonder though if the post-it notes with mom’s name on them are visible through a pink sparkly evening gown.

While I have many many treasured memories of laughing with my mom and grandmother, I believe I may be the only one who can claim to have, as one of my favorite memories, the night we all fondled Gramma’s boobs.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Cookie Monster and the Blog Snatchers

Once upon a time, there was a mean generic drug company that sold pretend Viagra.  (I’ll bet it only gives pretend erections too.)  This drug company had a nasty boss named Mr. Fish who liked to swim around the Internet stealing funny posts from unsuspecting bloggers………….

Yes ladies and gentlemen, one week into blogging and I’ve been blognapped.  “Will Knit for Sex” has been stolen by a generic viagra company without so much as a cigarette or change left on the nightstand.  But will this deter me?   Never!  Why not you ask?  Perserverance my ever inquisitive blogging friend.  A trait I learned from Cookie Monster.

I was one of the few early residents of Sesame Street who was able to benefit from seeing the extremes of life and knowing that, even though the characters had a few issues, at the end of the day it would still be sunny and the air would be clean.  We all knew Bert and Ernie had leather stashed in their closets.  (I always looked forward to the Tweedle Bugs who lived in Ernie’s flower box.  They were a tiny little version of the Brady Bunch and I think they lived there just to show you really could get along with gay neighbors.)  It was common knowledge that Grover was “special” and the aliens were just another form of stoned hippies.  Wap-wa-da-da- dadada- Wapwanna wa - da- da- da -da  EVERYBODY!  We all knew Big Bird was an abandoned six year old forced to sleep in the alley.  No one called DCFS, they took care of him. 

Even though I loved them all, Cookie Monster was a muppet after my own heart.  He loved cookies……..I loved cookies.  If left unattended, he would eat all the cookies.  (That’s why we never see his butt……….too wide.)  We all knew he had a problem with immediate gratification but we accepted him into the fold and tried to guide him to have a little patience.  (Never once do I recall him being prescribed ADD medication to help him control himself.)  He was a muppet that had a single minded driven purpose in life……a goal that he pursued with a passion.  To get cookies.    But did he steal, lie, and cheat to get cookies?  NEVER!

I’ve now taught over 300 students in my teaching career and I can recall only a few who had a passion or goal to equal Cookie Monster’s.  While my goals have changed since I was eleven, I still had them.  My students, overall, do not.  Even when Maria was holding tightly to the tupperware and the cookies were just out of reach, Cookie Monster was polite.  My students, not so much.  I teach at an amazing school with a special population but even at that, many of my students feel entitled and don’t hesitate to roll their eyes and flip their head or call mommy on their cell phones to tattle on me.  Cookie monster knew that, with a little patience and restraint, even if it was so hard that his eyes rolled around, he would eventually win the cookie prize.  Not many of my students.  It’s easier to cut, paste, and plagairize.  It’s easier to make excuses than turn in homework.  And in the end who gets the grief for their grades?  Me…..not them.  What has caused this un-Sesame-Street-like behavior?

I believe the very fabric of society has been ruined in the name of political correctness.  Instead of raising a generation to believe that you can have burning goals and desires…..you can be polite and still win….. you can fight the urge to live in the moment and still gain the prize……….we now believe that “Cookies are a sometimes treat”.  Yes, the PC police have even censored Cookie Monster.  (I’m wondering how they are going to manage broccoli crumbs flying around Cookie’s head.  Does he get to keep his name or is he now the “sometime’s-cookie monster”  maybe the “cookie’s in moderation monster”?)  Did they really think that Cookie Monster was soley responsible for childhood obesity?  Could it be……….the parents (horrible gasp here) that buy the wrong food, feed their kids too much, and don’t pull the plug on the electronics?  (I took my students outside one day and they had no idea what to do on a playground.)

 ”Cookies are a sometimes treat” is a rule.  It’s a statement  that we are blindly supposed to accept.  The problem is we are a rebellious society and we don’t just blindly accept things.  The Cookie Monster of my childhood taught me so much more than how to eat a whole box of oreos at once (a skill which I was born to naturally by the way).  He taught me to get along, to have patience, to follow your heart and stick to your goals, and to be polite.  Instead of learning the lessons of my childhood, today’s school children and pretend Viagra pushers want it all now and without effort. 

 In my house, cookie monster’s eat cookies and it’s wrong to steal someone elses writing.  Sunny day……sweeping the clouds away………..on my way to where the air is clean…………………………..

 www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Will Knit for Sex?

My husband and his male (go figure) friends tend to find humor in sending each other juvenile emails.  Most contain photos of men doing stupid things, boobs, or men doing stupid things because of boobs.  This evening we’re sitting back to back at our respective computers and he starts chuckling hysterically.  Now as this response can be brought on by a number of things: finding a booger shaped like a dolphin, a well designed fart, burping the alphabet…….. I felt the need to ask what was so funny. (It was actually a self-defense mechanism should I need to make a quick escape before a breeze blew my way.)  It seems the latest email offering from a friend included several pictures of elderly people in various interesting situations.  I usually resist the urge to look as I always regret it but it’s late and…….well there’s just no excuse.

Now I personally find the elderly fascinating people.  To think that my grandmother grew up with an outhouse, gathered around a radio for entertainment, watched I Love Lucy live on a black and white TV that was first on the block, had an actual Avon lady that knocked on your door each week……..and now blogs.  To have lived through so many decades of change.  I love and respect the elderly.  I hope to be one.  And I hope in my lifetime the decades I live through provide as much fascination for me as the decades she’s lived through.  But there are some things about life as an older person I’m just not ready to envision in quite the detail previously mentioned email has provided.

I’m momentarily speechless.  See for yourself:

Yep.  It’s a deflated elderly butt in a thong bikini. 

Now I’ve often said, “If I ever get thin again………” but I do believe I need to amend that statement to, “If I ever get thin again before I turn 97……..”.  On one hand I’m thinking this lady has earned the right to wear whatever she pleases.  If she feels sexy in her 90’s (I’m going with 90’s because if she’s really 55 I might just have to kill myself) then she should flaunt that badonkadonk.  But there are just some things you would rather not have pop into your mind when you think about grandparent archtypes.  Grandparents should evoke thoughts of hugs and cookies and dollar bills and swinging you like a cuckoo clock……..not deflated naked butts and sex.  Yes, sex. (Cue next photo)

 

Thought you were going to see old people doing the nasty didn’t you.  PERVERT! While not provocative, this photo did bring up several questions. 1. WHAT is she willing to knit for sex?  Is she giving away swatches or sweaters?  Does it depend on the requested act?  Do men who provide merino alpaca blend get “bonuses”?Maybe she’s knitting patterns from Naughty Needles or DomiKNITrix.  2.  Why is the man behind her so enthusiastic?  Is he her pimp or is he just finally glad he’s figured out how to get her to HAVE sex?  Notice the lip prints on his shirt?  HMMMMM.  3.  Who is the slightly inebriated looking gentleman with his dirty hands on gramma?  Maybe he’s the infommercial guy and the man in the back is the testimonial happy customer.  Maybe he’s an alpaca farmer and is throwing her this party for increasing his profits through her innovative entrepenuership.  4.  How long does it take her to knit for sex?  She better be using Addi-turbos if she’s got a high sex drive!  5. Why is she advertising on a paper cone hat?  Couldn’t she knit one?  6.  Does this mean that we know what all the little old men wearing scarves have been doing?  Is the length of the scarf indicative of anything?  7.  Is this why so many elderly ladies take up knitting?  I thought it might be because they needed something to do while waiting for the Viagra to kick in.  At the very least I thought the needles would be a great deterrant.  Seems not so much!

I still have a few decades to enjoy before people are poking fun of my elderly sagging butt in a thong bikini (I can only hope it’s deflated enough to sag.  Right now the thong string would have to be made of nautical rope)  Until that time, I might have to take a little more interest in getting some of my UFO’s finished (unfinished objects for those non-knitters).  You never know when I’ll be tooling around the nudist retirement home and wanna join in the orgy.

MARITAL DISCLAIMER:  My husband is a delightful, cultured, and well educated man who would never indulge in such nonsense…………..Ya, I’m not buying it either.

MATERNAL DISCLAIMER: While I acknowledge my mother has first rights to gramma stories, the historical frames of reference expressed herein are general enough to apply to anyone’s elderly gramma. 

ELDERLY DISCLAIMER:  Dear elderly ladies,  I apologize for the use of your pictures in my blog.  Please feel free to sue your family members and other beach goers who took your picture then posted it for the whole world and any aliens in the radiosphere to see.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Bioeyes at Notre Dame

In my never-ending quest to prove teachers do not “have the summer off”, I have spent the week in labs at Notre Dame’s Jordan Hall of Science learning about embryonic development and genetics in zebra fish.  The goal is to borrow the equipment from Notre Dame and bring the lab activities to my sixth grade science students next spring.   The only words to describe the week are “WAY COOL!” 

While I really enjoyed using all the snazzy equipment and watching the embryos develop, one of the best parts of the week was being captivated by the presenter.  There were actually many presenters but the one who guided us through the zebra fish labs, DS, was AMAZING.  It didn’t matter what she was telling us, her energy, sense of humor, and enthusiasm made you want to listen.  “We’re going to pippette fish poop!”  “YAYHOO DS, I wanna go first!”  And, unlike many inservices/trainings/seminars/classes I’ve attended, I did not once hypothesize as to how many times it would take dragging the Bic pen cap across my wrists to slit them.  In fact, I walked away from this week a little slower than I usually do.  I’ll miss you DS.  Hope our paths cross again.

I also got to work with an amazing lab partner which rarely happens.  Last year I had to partner with a woman (for two looong agonizing weeks) who made it perfectly clear that she resented me because I worked at the Academy (translated by her into “they get everything and take all the smart kids and I teach with crap”).  Yep, she actually said it.  On the first day.  Comfy fortnight that was!  Or I get stuck with the teacher who either does nothing, has no sense of humor, and whines or the one who hogs everything and won’t shut up during the final presentation because no one has anything more important to say than she does.  Yes, I’m scarred.  Playing nice with other grown-ups is a skill I’m still working on!  But back to the cool lab partner…..she just got hired to teach at my school, in my grade level, the same subjects I teach!  She’s fun and competent and creative (sigh)!  What a great hiring decision Madam Principal!

But back to the fish……….We have a great document camera in the science lab I teach in and I learned how to line it up with the microscope eyepiece so I could display the image from a slide onto the large screen or tv.  Remembering that, I showed my lab partner how we could use the digital cameras to focus through the eyepieces and take pictures and video of what we were seeing.  So for your viewing pleasure, here are some of the pictures taken this week.  (I tried to upload the video of a twitching embryo but I haven’t figured out how to save it in an acceptable format yet.)

On the first day, we selected our cross of fish to breed.  Here are Fred and Ethel:

After lowering the lights and playing some romantic mood music……….nothing happened.  I don’t believe Ehtel (albino female) was terribly interested in the ever-so-eager Fred (hetero wild….aren’t they all).  But in the morning, low and behold…………fertilized eggs.  It’s my firm belief that Ethel gave in just to shut him up.

 I won’t bore you with pictures of us sucking fish poop or bad eggs (I’ll just let your minds run with that one!).  

The cool thing about zebra fish is that they develop quickly.  The students can use them to learn everything from embryonic stages to genetics in a very short amount of time by studying them.   So by day three, some of our 138 eggs (Ethel seems to have pelted Fred with eggs when he wouldn’t take no for an answer) were twitching with life.

    

Both of these embryos are Albino and the size of a straight pin head.  The large circle in the middle is the yolk and that will get smaller as the embryos develop.  By day four, a few had hatched.  See, WAY COOL!

I can’t wait to spend a week doing this with my students!  If you are interested in learning more about the BioEyes program, they have a great website:  http://www.jefferson.edu/bioeyes/  It takes a minute to do its thing but there is no special password or login.  Once it loads, you can click on “teacher entry” then scroll down to curriculum.  Clicking on the grade levels you’re interested in will take you to links to pdf’s of the curriculum!  Anyone with a microscope, medicine dropper, and a local pet store can conduct many of these activities. 

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Tampons and the Garbage Man

My grandmother has given me many things to laugh about over the years.  I have to give her credit as a contributing editor to my sense of humor. 

I remember staying with her as a child and watching the “garbage ritual”.  Every night she would wrap the dinner scraps in waxed paper then tightly secure that bundle in an empty bread wrapper (this was pre-ziploc gramma) then shove that in a paper milk carton before hiding the whole thing in the bowels of the garbage can. 

Now you may be formulating a variety of reasons why she would go to such effort to protect the world from bread crusts and cucumber peels.  I myself had foolishly formed a few hypothesis as a young child.  Gramma didn’t like things that dripped.  Maybe cucumber peels degrade and produce copius amounts of liquid.  Gramma didn’t like things that were dirty.  She had, and I’m sure still does, the cleanest garbage can I’ve ever seen.  I’ve purchased new garbage cans that would have been embarrassed to be placed next to hers. 

One day I just couldn’t resist and asked why she did it.  You won’t guess why.  Go ahead try!   It seems Gramma felt that if her garbage smelled the garbage men would go back to the garbage truck garage and talk about the lady with the smelly garbage.  NOT KIDDING!  So lately I’ve been thinking about Gramma’s garbage ritual but for completely different reasons. 

Every Wednesday night, I initiate procedures put in place to rid us of the castoffs of life.  I begin by locating the garbage can under the mound of trash that has grown up around it since no one but me knows how to change a bag.  I then look for Wal-mart bags to place the rest of the stuff in because I can’t find the box of garbage bags.  (NOTE TO MEN:  Hiding the box of garbage bags does not provide you with an adequate excuse.)  Once I feel the pile from the kitchen corner is under control I begin to move around the house dragging a bag behind me and collect the debris that wouldn’t fit on the kitchen pile.  Now, as in most houses with females, this excess debris often consists of “bathroom garbage”.  You know what I mean.  Little mysterious bundles of paper and yellow plastic wrappers.  Mummified celebrations of yet another moon phase of infertility. (Given, this is not a happy occasion for all but been there, done that three times, VIVA LA PAPER MUMMY!) To finalize the garbage procedure, I dutifully haul all the garbage out to the road for our waste disposal engineers to cart off and dump in a planet-destroying-landfill. 

Now one would think I’ve fulfilled my part of the garbage disposal contract.  I’ve contained it and taken it to a mutually agreed upon location for pick-up.  One would think.  Unless ones neighborhood is plagued by a smartass whose sole purpose in life is to unbundle garbage once it has been placed curbside.  And spread it around.  At the edge of the road.  And leave it there.  For the whole world, and the garbage men, to see.

Now I, as I’m sure you have, at first thought this delightful garbage undoer had four legs and answered to a snappy name like Rufus or Snickers.  As this would be a logical thought for a naive person I did the logical thing and worked to thwart the culprit.  I poured amonia on the garbage to make it more stinky (sorry garbage men at the garbage truck garage).  No luck.  I bought cans with lids.  Not happening.  I double bagged and triple boxed and hauled meer hours before impending waste disposal arrival.  Not a chance. 

I went out this morning to haul the cans back up to the house and there it was…….again.  Now this wouldn’t be so unusual if there had been food scraps or other fun things to chew blowing across the yard.  I could have continued with the dog theory for yet another week given the randomness of the evidence.  But what did I find?  Bathroom mummies.  ONLY bathroom mummies.  Bathroom mummies that had been carefully tied up in a plastic shopping bag then crammed into a packing box then buried in the bowels of the garbage can.  (It’s apparently hereditary)  The box was in a bag with kitchen garbage.  There should have been other waste among their ranks.  But no.  ONLY bathroom mummies.

Now I ask you, how exactly did Rufus/Snickers untie the bag and open the box to snif in only the bathroom garbage?  Was the little canine culprit so fascinated by the happenings in our bathroom that it overlooked the odiferous offerings from the weekly refrigerator purge?  Or could something more sinister be happening?  Could it be that the daily routine of a waste disposal engineer is such that he or she finds it humorous to drop little embarrassing bundles on the road in front of your house then park around the corner with binoculars and wait for you to notice?  (I wonder if there are UTUBE episodes dedicated to waste disposal pranks.)  Or should I be a little more nervous by this phenomenon.  Maybe aliens are zapping my garbage on board their ships at night and for some unknown reason the tractor beams are unable to suck up bathroom mummies.  Or could it be that the mafia is leaving them lined up on the side of the road as their way of saying, “We know what you’re doing in there and we’re watching you.”

Regardless of when, how, or why, I decided I have only one option left.  Next time, I’m dropping off the bathroom garbage at my gay friends’ house.  Let the aliens ponder THAT for awhile.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com