Bugs

There are so very many insects here in South Carolina. I can barely step outside without getting the screaming heeby-jeebies.

Sounds of nature. Mmm. Cicadas, birds, Boeings, crickets, roller-coasters...


Everything is So Big. The appliances. The rooms. The spaces between things.

Everything is so Straight. The walls. The roads. The sense of decisive order.

Everything is so New. The houses. The cars. The silly young religions.


I'm here for a week. Then I return home to little, to wonky, to ancient.

Plants, Pies, and Little Neighbours

So, WindoPlant is looking happier than it has in months:

This rhubarb and strawberry pie (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, discovered thanks to my dear Kim is still cooling on the rack RIGHT NOW.




I came across this little fella sleeping in my garden when I came home from the shops yesterday afternoon (and yes, he was breathing--it's always a bit iffy when it comes to London foxes. They're not the healthiest of creatures.)


But These boys live next door and come over to say hi to me almost every day. That's Squidge in the front and Mooney standing behind. They're very sweet. Squidge is a bit simple (he's a fully-grown tom who still chases his tail) and Mooney can be a bit aloof but they both come around right after dinner for a head-scratch. (Before we met the new couple next door, but after the cats started coming around to say hi, we called them Ackee and Saltfish.)


That's all.

I saw a documentary recently about the conservation challenge of non-photogenic endangered species, such as the Dominican Chicken (a big frog with tasty legs) which are on the verge of being wiped out (in the case of the Chicken, by over-hunting and an infectious fungus that was probably brought in by a tourist). It's strange--amphibians have been around for millions and millions of years, and even this particular species has been around for ages, but they are so very specifically adapted to their habitats that they're two degrees from extinction at the best of times (well, at least since the industrial revolution). I guess when you have a fairly permeable skin layer protected by a rather pH specific mucus, the slightest environmental change can wreck your defences and cause catastrophe. Like the white perch in Baltimore Harbour--almost all of them have an intestinal infection (that starts at the anus) by midsummer because the bay's acidity changes during fertilizer season, burning through their protective layer right when the algal bloom is reaching its peak. This illness, plus depleted dissolved oxygen levels (courtesy of the opaque slurry of dead algae) prevents many of these little ugly fish from reaching sexual maturity, so spawn counts are lower, which means the animals that eat them are going hungry...but they're not big or fluffy, so no one really cares. Holistic ecology is lost on most people.

Cool Events I've Come Across

What's that? I do believe that's a Thames clipper coming about after having just passed through the drawn Tower Bridge.

Oh, and what's that? I believe I witnessed London Henge.

And that is a very mean swan.

4 Legged Poop Machines and other garden poems

I love cats.

I hate other people's cats.

My cat would never think of pooping in my vegetable garden.

As with other people's cats, my cat poops in other people's yards.

Because, hey, you don't shit where you eat.

----

I hate snails.

I hate other people's snails.

They hate snails too.

----

Greenfly, greenfly, scourge of courgettes

You gave the zucchini a disease.

My birds don't eat you.

I used insecticide.

A plant died.

Garden Update

Three of my aubergine plants have been eaten down to the stalks. There's still several more so I'm not too upset, but I can't imagine what ate them. Several of the stakes in that bed have been uprooted and some of the plants have been banged about, so I can't help but think it was one of my neighbors' vile cats. They use my backyard as a town square/toilet and no amount of shouting or chasing after them has convinced them that they're not welcome. I need a super-soaker.

My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.

Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.

Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.

I'm not sure if I like gardening.

more mouse

ew. we found another mouse-hole last night thanks to an ill-timed run for it by a furry squeaker. from the looks of it it's been there for years.

gross. gross. gross.

There's just something irresponsible about building a pantry with floorboards that don't quite reach the walls. it's like an invitation on the part of the house. "c'mon in, eat the people food!"

We had a chat last night about what animals would not want to live in a people-house and eat people-food. The only ones we could come up with were large herd-animals like cattle and gazelles. Bears in particular would love to live in people-houses, and eat people-food, and eat people.

On the up side, last night we avoided the rodents by heading uptown to the Luminaire where we enjoyed the folk musical stylings of Spiers and Boden, of Bellowhead. Who knew a fiddle, an accordion, and a couple of feet could create such complex and beautiful tunes? I always assumed on their albums that there were other instruments contributing, but nope. What I mistook for a bass was an accordion, and drumming was done by stamping on a box. Nice.

It would have been the perfect evening out if it hadn't been for the presence of the Maths Club Alumni* in the audience--five or six middle aged shut-ins wearing t-shirts printed with song lyrics shouting random comments, whooping and singing along in the perfectly tone-deaf style of the offensively loud. I'm always astonished when I see groups of people with no social skills--how did they get to be friends in the first place? This cluster also succeeded in clapping along with such poor rhythm as to confuse and exhaust the players, which I found frustrating.

To Misters Spiers and Boden, I wish to apologise for not elbowing them in the face. I'm just too nice. If they come along again please feel free to chuck a brick. We'll all applaud.

(After the show, as the performers were packing away their antique instruments and crew were coiling cable, Captain Awkward Obnoxious made a beeline for the stage and could be heard asking, "so when do I get to meet Les Artistes? You're not going to stop me!" I hope nothing was broken in the rush to get away from him.)

To any interested party, The Luminaire's webpage hosts the most enjoyable Frequently Asked Questions (and Seldom Asked Questions) of any business I've ever encountered. The walls of the venue, similarly, are a delight to read, both in the house and in the ladies' room. (I've heard the men's room is likewise enjoyable, but can't personally vouch for it.) The atria of the restrooms in particular boast a remarkable archive: white lx tape, crammed with sound configurations from past shows, peeled off of audio desks after gigs and re-stuck over the doors.

In other news, my practice group put on a piece of theatre on Wednesday evening.
That is all.


*I don't actually know if these people were ever in a maths club, but it seems likely. It also seems likely that several, if not all, express traits in the Autistic spectrum. While I do feel some pity for these people's lives and the difficulty of their mental states, it still pisses me off that they chose my concert to ruin. It also disappoints me that folk musicians are too nice and patient to ever chuck a bottle at them.

hot sauce, spider webs, and a gallon of coffee

So. I've been out of town.

Having a blast, by the way. Two weeks ago found me in St. Michaels, MD, running some day programs for Eastern Shore kids, which were a lot of fun (if fast!) My crew and I spent nights alternately weathering rain and enjoying brightly starlit skies from Sigsbee's deck after delicious meals cooked over a lead-melting burner. (a welcome backup after a propane tank attachment mix-up. Big Fire make Fast Dinner. And perhaps the most perfect popcorn i've ever tried.) The crew transit back, a trip of several hours, was passed enjoyably, if a bit noisily, thanks to the addition of four bottles of hot sauce and a box of crackers. Yeowza! (technically we only tried three--the fourth was saved to be shared with the captain of another vessel. After watching the reactions of tasters, I'm rather glad I wasn't tempted to try the fourth.)

Last Friday was spent in drink and revelry at the annual Maritime Magic gala, a large party/concert/auction/local restaurant sampler/boozeup to benefit the Living Classrooms Foundation. The music was great, the food was excellent, free, and largely vegetarian, the vendors were friendly, and nobody fell in during my M.O.B. watch. I'd call that a success.

This week found me on a 3-day trip to Kent Island, complete with an entire department-load of insurance agents on a team-building adventure. Also known as a lovely few days on boats, some lovely restaurants, and plenty of lovely beer. They were generally pleasant people, and though we flatly lost the sailboat race against Lady Maryland, no one was hugely surprised and it was a great day on the water in any case.

An odd thing occurred while we were crossing the bay toward Baltimore--in a rather nondescript area of open water we happened to pass through a giant cloud of bugs. I don't know what kind exactly--they looked like largeish flying ants, but with pointier aft ends. They may have been larval wasps or juvenile versions of any number of interesting critters, but needless to say I spent most of this time cowering behind one of my coworkers as the bugs whizzed past. Most of them passed by without even noticing Sigsbee, and the ones that did land on deck were easily shooed off it again. We passed through them in about twenty minutes at 5 knots, so do the math and tell me what the diameter of the bug-cloud was. Seriously. I'm pathetic at math.

Anyway, we got back to the dock and tidied up the boat, and in the process of tying off the gantline a member of my crew happened to look up and see that every line, every lazy jack and halyard was decorated with hundreds of delicate webs--the entire rig was covered in a filigree of arachnoid fibers. We assumed these had something to do with the bug-cloud, but we really have no idea--no one had heard of six-legged or winged insects with the ability to produce a web, and none of them appeared to be ballooning anyway. Some theories we proposed, but later shot down included:

-the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which marks the entrance to Baltimore's Outer Harbor, just doesn't have cargo ships passing under it like it used to get and is overrun with spiderwebs.
-the bugs were being attacked by minute ballooning spiders and we just interrupted, which led to all of the webs appearing to be over four feet long
-we were attacked by something at the dock overnight (this theory was dispelled when we saw the same webs covering the Lady Maryland's lines, and LM anchored out pretty far from land because the water gets too shallow for her)
-our captain is actually a spider and we've just never noticed.

Any ideas?

in any case, my crew has been rather busy lately and, on account of this, have managed to go through three bags of coffee beans in about three weeks. Is that normal for four people?

The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race is coming up in a couple of days, and boats from up and down the eastern seaboard have been showing up in droves in the inner harbor. Its been a lot of fun to see. I hope to get a chance to schmooze with their crews.

One more thing. This piece of psychadellic art gave me pause to wonder--it looks hand-painted by a giddy stoner with no concept of life-like colors, patterns, or ratios. I think a new religion or at least emphatic cult should form around this clear proof that God trips on acid.

prey

Has any group of scientists done an environmental impact study on the utter removal of mosquitoes, biting flies, no-see-ums, and fleas from the planet? What would happen if we forced the extinction of predatory insects? Who depends on these horrible creatures for sustenance? What else needs them, aside from themselves? Does the right to live extend to critters that prey routinely upon humans?

I am covered in tiny bites from an outing this weekend--there's some from skeeters, some from no-see-ums, some from who knows what--about 50 in all, all of them itching and swollen. I even have them on my legs, and I was wearing long pants. Natural bug repellent does nothing (except make me smell like a candle) and DEET-containing sprays are very bad for you if you don't wash them off daily (long camping trips? showers? ha.) I can't figure out how to avoid these things while still performing my job, but an idea popped into my head regarding their forced removal from the world.

Mosquitoes are known carriers and transmitters of disease. These horrible animals suck up infected blood from one mammal, carry it around a bit, then shove it uninvited into the flesh of another mammal, infecting and frequently killing them, without ever contracting the disease themselves. This made me wonder--to what extent do mosquitoes interact with other skeeters? do they have skeeter mixers? Is there a way for humans to play their game back at them--infect one mosquito, and have it pass a skeeters-only disease to the rest of them? I know poisons are supposed to work like that for colonies of cockroaches, but would it work with a disease? How could that backfire on us? Could the disease mutate and infect humans, or infect all insects, upsetting the food chain? Would they pass it to one another or would it just die with one? Could it be mixed into bug spray--if buggy bites, buggy dies--without being harmful to the wearer? So far I think all insect killers are harsh chemicals that kill by dissolving the critter where it stands, which isn't exactly pleasant for people and pets. I don't want to wipe out bugs altogether, but I seriously can't see any particular value for bugs that bite me but don't wind up being eaten by frogs and birds. Can we isolate the blood sucking bug community and level it?

----

So I just did a store location search for Barnes and Noble Booksellers in my area, and lo and behold, the first hit was none other than...the Barnes and Noble Bookseller I can see from my porthole and actually could hit with a well-lobbed book of my own. Wow. Impressive. Some mornings this brain of mine forgets my name. Can I trade it in?

Giant Horseshoe Crabs, or Visitors from the Paleozoic

today's trawl hauled in an insanely diverse catch--in addition to numerous white perch and striped bass, which have been our staple catch, we dragged in a heap of sea nettles (jellyfish with pink tentacles), ctenophores (comb jellies), some huge oysters, flatworms, barnacles, mussels, and what appear to be a mating pair of horseshoe crabs. The male was about a foot long from the end of his spiked tail to the apex of his face; the female was easily double that. They were wiggly and annoyed with us for obvious reasons, but we kept them in a tub separate from the other critters and they chilled out.

Crustaceans in general have always been the oddest curiosities to me, with their funny mouths and all the flaps to their bodies. Crabs are like matryoshka dolls--there's always another layer to them. Horseshoe crabs are some sort of aliens, i'm convinced. Either that or they descended from soup bowls. They're perfectly round and even have a lip around the base. Segmented, heavily armored, pointy, barnacle-covered soup bowls with at least ten pinchy, wiggly legs all up inside like the lunch special at the Beetlejuice Cafe.

We bothered them for a while and then sent them along with the Snow Goose, a crab boat from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, to take them home (and out of the inner harbor where we had tied up. no sense letting these neat creatures be needlessly crushed by a dinner cruiser or a Duck.) CBF are friends of LCF who run similar trips. They motored up and borrowed a cup of salt from us this morning. We're good neighbors.

sheez dummy!

I know a deer in headlights can be paralyzed with fear, but what about when a deer decides he's seen headlights one too many times tonight and runs at them? A few minutes ago i was driving the speed limit, minding my own business, when this cloven-hoofed ruminant proffered me its ample backside as a live road-target. I slammed on the brakes and sounded the horn, but what did this walking barricade do but give me an innocent, confused look, shift to the driver's side and start running along next to the car, trying to get back in front of it. Apparently if a moving object occupies the space between you and the area you were once in, to a deer, it'll disappear unless you cross in front of it instead of behind. I screeched to a halt and my respected also-ran scampered off, followed by a friend from the other side of the street.

I can't help but wonder what effect the automotive industry will have on the evolution of these moronic animals--if somehow, by killing or incapacitating enough pre-reproductive deer, we'll eventually weed out whatever gene it is that makes them so vulnerable to traffic fatalities. This one got lucky and may live to pass on the Stupid Gene to its young, but someday the term "deer in headlights" may only remain in use as a reference to an obsolete situation, like Ring Around the Rosie or "one horse town." I say, what would the world be like if a generation of wildlife emerged with an innate wariness of long black tracks and yellow lines?

I suppose the Bayou Buffet would go out of business, but the rest of us might enjoy lower insurance rates.

Rain!

A little moisture has graced my county this evening--not much, but enough to make the flowers perk up a bit. (normally even the hardiest of plants are bowing their heads, muttering about gloom and doom.) It was odd to come out of a restaurant and smile at the prospect of getting wet on the way to the car.

Trader Joe's built a branch just north of my house! Its a little more expensive than Oakland (Charles Shaw is $2.99 here) but still cheaper than anything else around here. hooray food! Unfortunately the locals have already figured out that the Jaipur Vegetables and the High-Fibre Joe's O's are the best so i guess i've gotta get there early from now on. One of the cashiers suggested I apply for a job there and i think i would if i were planning on staying in the area for a while. Part time employees get in on the group health insurance, which includes vision and dental, but it doesn't kick in until after 100 days.

Yeah, I need a job. anything at this point, just so long as its not embarrassing for them to call my references. "Hi, this is Nancy with Wendy's restaurants, i'm calling in regard to Kristen, who has applied to be a Fry Cook--do I understand you were her professor?"

Kansas

While driving through a beautifully terrifying lightning storm on I-70 in Kansas, i found myself thinking this way:

Maybe the reason there are so many fanatical religious people in this state is because Kansas really has a god--a wrath-filled, old-testament sort of god, who hates everyone here.

----

All of my fingers have been tingling nonstop for about six hours. I did just complete a drive to and from the beach, so i figure it might be from prolonged contact with a vibrating steering wheel, but would any reader have any other ideas as to what could cause me to frequently encounter this?

----

I saw a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch recently in Charlotte--pretty well done but obviously with a limited budget and for a limited, fringe audience.

*interestingly, Charlotte made a real ass of itself ten years ago when they decided to cut (and nearly eliminate) arts funding after disapproving of a local production of Angels in America for its apparent endorsement of homosexuality. The Tony Award-winning play was described by council members as depicting "perverted forms of sexuality" and the board, ignoring public outcry, decided that they couldn't endorse this sort of depravity and voted to only allow funding to approved theatres on a per-production basis. (see Britain's 1737 Theatre Licensing Act) This move, naturally, most directly harmed theatre education programs and deeply impeded the city's progress toward recognition as a "world class" metropolis.
Seeing as Hedwig not only ran, but ran without stirring up an angry mob, I think Charlotte's come a long way recently toward joining civilization.*

The show's performers were quite talented, but the production quality was diminished by inexpert sound mixing and equally amateurish lighting design (really, people with lines ought to be visible unless there's a good reason otherwise). While i feel no compulsion to try and spark interest in Charlotte theatre (honestly, around here, the folks who have any desire for entertainment where no helicopters blow up and no gigantic, sweaty men bash into each other while chasing a ball around are already In the theatre seats) i nevertheless feel bad for this area's pathetic audience size and negligible public funding. Increased public involvement would improve production quality as more money attracts more professional designers and technicians.

----

I've been typing for a while now and the tingling has abated. Comments?

----

The links referring to Charlotte's 1997 Anti-Gay legislation are old news, yes, but are still worth reading. If anything, they're a benchmark for progress, though the fact that politicians felt comfortable publicly announcing that "if I had my way, we'd shove [homosexuals] off the face of the earth" as recently as 10 years ago is so appalling its funny. The theatre referred to in the articles, Charlotte Rep, folded in 2005 from lack of funding. Banking capital of the south can't afford a decent arts community.

Thor's Back Yard

Today i went to Garden of the Gods, a truly beautiful rock formation near Colorado Springs. It was most tranquil. And to think, until i was invited, I'd never heard of the place. Next time i'll come with climbing gear.

"Balanced" rock. Looks crazy precarious, right?
Until you notice that some poor park manager has to come out on a regular basis and maintain its natural majesty (and keep it from rolling away) with a bit of concrete as erosion tries to take its course. Several large rocks were also supported with brick columns where people tended to walk. I felt cheated.
Some big rocks, some clouds. you know how it is.

We made a friend on the drive down along a dirt ridge road through a national forest. Click to enlarge.

Some more crazy geological balancing acts--though these ones looked genuine.
A small shrub-growing sunflower. It was posing for me.

yesterday on I-70...

(click to enlarge)

. . . While listening to Pearl Jam. Rock the Rockies.

its just too pretty out here

In other news, i swore at my boss today after he knocked an artificial tree onto my head and, in lieu of apologising, said "well i warned you." (he didn't.) i may have upped the already teeth-grinding tension in my shop. the social friction in there is so intense the lights flicker. i have a bruise now.

welcome to Central City

Believe it or not, people really do opera out here.

What the Gold Rush Left Behind

I've moved to the mountains of Colorado for my new job. I'm having a good time so far in my new environment, though it has taken some getting used to physically. In particular, its cold. I'm 8,600 feet above sea level here and it has snowed constantly for the past two days. It actually stuck last night. Its nearly summer in the northern hemisphere. unbelievable. Also as a condition of the altitude, the air is thin here. You can't walk uphill without panting, and though i'm not the least fit person in the world its taking some effort to get around. Everything is uphill somehow. Uphill both ways, in the snow in late May...Nice.

My internet access is intermittent at best so I will not be posting much for the next few months. I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone too much.

creepy crawlie

my house is infested with ants. big'uns. they're tracing trails over my dining room table and beating a strange, constant path across the living room floor. they seem very intent on something very important, as though the universe may cease to exist if they fail to follow the established path Exactly. there is a wine bottle on the table which holds a rose, and all of the anties actually go around it twice before continuing on.

kinda puts things into a sense of perspective--to other life forms bigger than earth, chances are they're really confused as to why metal objects move on black lines in the same direction at the same time in a condensed, frustrating, exhaust-riddled manner when there's so much more space around that we could move through. the dining room table is Covered in interesting things to explore, but the ants just follow the same path as the first ant, keep trudging right along, never questioning the life that has been established for them by their society, believing only what they're told...kinda pathetic, in a way.

flutter-by

I saw a butterfly today while walking between classes--it was happily flitting along near the center of campus and I turned my head to look at it. I say "turned my head" but my body came along too and I made a complete u-turn in the middle of the path to follow my new little friend as it ambled toward some flowering shrubs. I very nearly climbed into the brick-lined planter over who's wall it flew but was stopped short by good sense. and the fact that there was a professor watching me.