Frogs and Ravens

Rah Rah

D. starts teaching as an adjunct today, with three survey classes. Wish him luck!

Creepy Crawlies

For some reason I feel inspired to post about various invertebrates that have creeped me out over the course of my life. (Squeamish readers may want to come back tomorrow.) I'd been noticing that whenever people have posted about their encounters with such creatures, they are astonishingly vivid in the details. Clearly, these are things that have profound and lasting effects on our psyches. So...

Here are some creepy-crawly memories of my own. Some are disturbing, some not. But all made an impression!

The Great Earwig Flood.
I hate earwigs. I loathe them. From the way they move, to the pincers, to the (perhaps apocryphal? I never dared find out) smell they exude when stepped on... ugh. So imagine my shuddering twitches in the following encounter. I had, at one point, made a large ceramic sculpture in pottery class. Said sculpture being of considerable size, it ended up residing in the garden. Also, by dint of it being large, it was perforce hollow. So... along comes a young-adults art fair. I think that this sculpture would be a great entry, so I fetch it in from the yard and put it in the garage sink to wash off the dirt. And it was filled with earwigs. I poured in gallons and gallons of hot water, and bleach, and soap, and they Kept. Coming. Out. I'm not a person who tends toward nausea, but this time I was this close to losing it. Lots of jumping around and arm-waving was also involved. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

But I did win a prize.

Tomato Hornworms
No good story here. But, ew, I can still remember how squishy they were. And how huge. And the fact that Mom wouldn't let us use gloves. Bare-nekkid vulnerable little kid hands here. Gah!

Centipede Stampede
Want to see an entire group of people (more than 30, of all ages) suddenly leap up and start madly stomping the ground and beating it with sticks? Set a large centipede loose in the crowd. (And I mean LARGE. And poisonous!) Even better, have it Crawl Up Someone's Shirt. (!!!) (Not mine, oh merciful heavens!). So much for the "respect the earth and all its creatures" message we were trying to explore. And all the tents were very carefully zipped shut that night...

Roaches
Did you know that if you suck them into a shop-vac before they are quite dead they will cling to the sides of the hose and clog it up? My dad was not pleased to learn this.

And large roaches in an outdoor toilet are not a welcome audience. Even if there is a large toad waiting to eat them before your very eyes.

On the other hand, some Australian roaches are kinda cute. They even whistle and hiss! (The ones I am thinking of are not the ones you get when you google "Australian roach"; they are smaller and come in colors like bright orange and black with white stripes.)

Ants
I am very tired of ants cruising my apartment looking for food. Go AWAY!

Australian green tree ants are horrible, aggressive little buggers. Their predilection for falling en masse onto the unwary from their nest trees and biting you wherever they can is not endearing. (Yes, this has happened to me.) On the other hand, they taste like lemon if you bite them, so you can get a bit of your own back.

Cicadas
My little brother used to throw the abandoned shells at me in the hopes of having them stick. I still don't like them!

Ladybugs
When camping, we once came across great colonies of ladybugs hibernating on a mountain top. This is less cool when you live in a place where they try to do this in your house.

Wasps
They don't like me; I don't like them. I've had them fly out of their way to sting me. As a result, I am now very good at killing wasps, both mechanically and chemically.

Fleas
Annoying little bloodsuckers. Bad enough that they bite the pets, but... let me say, entering a side-yard full of starving fleas after a long vacation is not something that you forget easily. Yar.

Tapeworms
Guh. That's all. Just guh. Gee-yuck. Blarg. You get the idea.

Ticks
Can we say paranoia? I've never had an actual tick on me, but seeing them on pets is bad enough. And I find myself doing "The Tick Check" for days after a walk in a grassy area. I look like I've got some sort of obsessive disorder. (Perhaps a nervous tic? Hah.)

Leeches
Luckily, I've only had to deal with leeches once, when a kid doing "pond water sampling" for a nature class. Gross. I hope I never need a finger reattached; I'd have to hide my eyes the whole time.

Okay... that's enough. Feel free to share your stories. I'll be wearing my virtual Paper Mitt of Protection (c/o finslippy) in anticipation!

Partisan

Argh. I was going to be a good citizen and watch the Republican convention coverage, despite my feeling that I was unlikely to be persuaded by any of the major speeches. But I have been listening to all of 20 minutes of it, and already, I am nauseous. The amount of 9/11 references, the evocations of Bush's "strong leadership" (including his "courage" in going to Iraq for the turkey photo op), the jingoistic group singing (!), the rampant war on terra hoorah... gah. I can't do it. I just can't. Not even in the name of informed citizenship.

Edited to add that Michael Berube has an amusing take on the convention. c/o jimbo in comments at ADPR.

Charting

For those of you who were wondering about temperature charting (which I do as part of a sympto-thermal regimen), this site is informative and not preachy, and this book is really great (it has some of the best charts I've seen; I use a modified version of their Celsius version).

Weird Blogs

Here is a blog written by a cat. The commenters seem to be cats too.

c/o rampant penguin.

Spiderman Reviews Crayons

Yes, he does! Parts are PG, but this should be fun for kids and adults alike.

c/o flea.

Late Summer Quiet

Not much to write about -- geez, how many times have I begun a post with that phrase? Too many, no doubt. Yet it is true. I find myself doing weird things like slowly sweeping up ants with a dust broom late at night (no joke -- I was trying to track them to their entrance point) and thinking about taking my spinning to work. Anything to keep busy. (One good thought I had -- I have brought some of my old Russian flashcards to work to flip through when I'm feeling particularly unoccupied. I recognize more than I thought I would, but I've forgotten a lot too. Especially some really basic things, like the accusative case.)

There was a bit of excitement over the weekend, though not of a good kind; some friends of mine were rear-ended on the freeway. Luckily they are all right, but the car is totalled. Scary. (Plus it gave me flashbacks of the accident D. and I were once in -- there are some things you never forget, like the sound of something hitting the car hard, and the smell of deployed airbags. Ugh.)

Otherwise... it's the same-old, same-old. I think I may have to knit a sock or something, just to break the monotony. Oh, and I got new glasses. One of these evenings, when I'm not feeling tired, I may post a picture of them. They're very cool, but I'm still getting used to how they look on me. My face looks a lot paler and thinner with them on, and I haven't decided whether this is a good thing.

Well, back to "work."

Not My Parents' NPR

Oh, gah! Terry Gross is interviewing Rick Santorum. During my lunch hour. Barf.

Calling Academic Bloggers

Lore, via A Delicate Boy, issues a call for academic bloggers to write about their blogging experiences, both professional and personal.

c/o Faculty Wife.

Daily Practice

Today Mel posted about practice (as in the yoga or meditation sense) and the question of how we go about finding ways to envision scholarly activities such as reading and taking notes as practice.

In responding to this post, I wrote,

"It is one of the ironies of my life that I do best when I have a fairly rigid routine for my days -- rigid not so much in terms of exact minutes allotted, but rigid in that there are certain things I do every day at about the same time, no exceptions -- yet I seem to find maintaining any kind of routine difficult on my own. Practice, indeed! So I don't really have advice to you, except maybe that ritualizing even ordinary tasks (like remembering to take your vitamins or watering the plants) can elevate them to the level of practice. Perhaps you can use the same kind of pen/cil for taking your notes, or sit in the same chair with the same comfy wrap, or drink a cup of tea every time... to make it a familiar, comforting ritual rather than a chore or a waste of time. Now if I could only follow my own advice..."

So, in pursuit of that end, I thought I would blog about some of my daily "rituals" and see how I might be able to fit in yoga and practicing the recorder into the mix. (Unlike some of my other activities, like spinning or knitting, both of those require a specific time commitment; I feel like I can't just "do a little recorder" while waiting for the tea water to boil. Maybe I should rethink that...).

Morning Rituals

Re-setting the timer to give myself a few more "snoozes." (I don't use an alarm clock; I use a kitchen timer that goes up to 24 hours and includes a clock.)

Taking my temperature, adding it to the chart, and coloring in the bubbles made by circling the temp number on the chart.

Washing my face, combing my hair, getting dressed, putting on sunscreen, etc.

Gardening: watering the plants, looking for pests, trimming the out-of-control basil, pulling off dead leaves, testing the tomatoes for ripeness, etc. Often includes communing with TNC, who's feeling neglected now that her worminess is keeping her from coming inside.

Laundry: Yesterday's wash is taken off the rack and folded; the clothes that were soaking from before are rinsed and hung up to dry; a new bowl of clothes, soap, lavender oil and water is set aside to soak.

Breakfast: Tea water is put on to boil while I wash dishes from last night. Tea is set to steep while I prepare my cereal. (Sometimes a tiny bit of spinning occurs at this point, too.) Both are consumed while reading a bit of stale newspaper passed along by D.

Lunch is prepared, teeth are brushed, calcium is consumed, I'm out the door and away to work. Given that I drive the same route every day, that is probably a ritual, too.

Work Rituals

Here there be the rituals of entering the office, turning on the lights and computers, getting the computer programs loaded in a certain order, the checking of the blogs, the shuffling of the papers, the marking off of the tasks, the checking of the mail box, the visits to the restroom, the re-heating of the lunch, the blogging over lunch, and so on, concluding with the rituals of logging off and locking up, followed by the ritual of driving home.

Post-Work Rituals

This is the most disorganized time of the day, and that is, I believe, part of why I have trouble getting to bed in a timely manner. There are several things that I do every night, and a few brief sequences that must occur in a certain order (like eating-brushing teeth-sleeping) every time, but mostly it's just a hodge-podge. Some days this feels like freedom; others it drives me nuts.

Bringing in the mail and patting TNC, followed by sorting the mail and recycling the envelopes.

Talking with D. on the phone, unless it is a tv show night, in which case he comes over.

Making dinner and eating it, accompanied with the making of the evening tea and the washing of dishes.

Watching tv on tv nights.

"Going to bed" -- which involves various combinations of the following -- crossword puzzles, reading Yoga Journal or Spin Off, having a snack -- and always brushing my teeth and filling out the rest of the day's chart.

Random non-ritual activities that I'd like to turn into rituals: spinning, reading, knitting, yoga, practicing recorder, going through my Russian flashcards, and crunches.

I think it's pretty clear that I have highly structured mornings, somewhat structured days, and largely disorganized evenings. It's sort of like I unravel as the day goes on, and so it is unfortunate that it is in the evening that I have the time for things like yoga, but not the structure/discipline needed to keep me doing them. Hrmph. Why is it that I don't need to force myself to do things in the morning -- I just do them, easily and without much thought -- yet by evening I'm having to browbeat myself even when it comes to basic things like eating dinner and go to bed on time? Which comes first, the practice or the will?

(I realize that one might wish to call these activities "routines" rather than rituals, but given that I tend to do things the same way each time, in the same order, and get distracted when things change, and they give me some degree of stability and comfort, I feel that "ritual" works as well.)

Obsessive? Compulsive? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?