Self-cloning Lizards

A new species of self-cloning lizards was discovered recently in Vietnam. They were being served in a restaurant and apparently taste awful...identically awful.

I'm London bound in a few days. Prepare yourself for pictures of me in front of the house Herman Melville stayed in while he was there.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Click on the book for my favorite short story.

Finally

It's comforting to know that scientists have such good taste. A giant prehistoric sperm whale has been identified and named for Herman Melville. Leviathan melvillei grew to about 60 feet and ate other whales. Yum.



Thanks to Will for alerting me to this.

Monkey Man of India

Click on the Monkey Man pictures for the story of his attacks on New Delhi residents in 2001.

Why is it people who work in some stores (bookstore supporting charity in this case) can't be civil to their customers? Fine with me if they don't get my $.

A cell phone is not a replacement for a brain

Survival of the Fittest, folks. Survival of the Fittest.

The fireflies are out and about. So are the baby gooses. Time to enjoy summer before it gets too ungodly hot outside.

I realized that the body lotion I've been using for two weeks is actually volumizing conditioner. No wonder it lathered a little when I rubbed it on my legs.

Quite a Year

The past year has been a pretty big one for me. In the last twelve months I have:

• Moved into my very first house
• Traveled by plane for the first time
• Left the country for the first time
• Attended weddings of two of my friends
• Started my blog
• Cooked new things for the first time: tacos, egg salad, clam sauce
  
• Taken a self-defense class
• Had the first out of my group of close friends become engaged
• Started a book club
• Joined the world of text messaging
  

I hope that every year will be so full of new things.

Gloucester

One of my new favorite websites for the study of all things nautical is about Gloucester, Massachusetts. The picture above shows a fishing boat called the Evelyn G. Sears sitting in Gloucester Harbor.

Yummy

Click on the delicious glob of chicken ova and mayonnaise for my favorite egg salad recipe.

Le tired

The ferrets and I are le tired.

I had one of those nights of sleep that just sucks all the life out of you and makes you want a nap after you've only been awake an hour.

I entered the ferret room to find most of them sprawled in various sleeping positions. It's warming up these days and they can't sleep under layers of blankets the way they like to. Instead they lie out in the open in their cages looking like they wish they had some cold linoleum to sleep on.

I guess we've all had a tiring week. I've been enjoying my last few days of having a 25 hour work week before going full time and I broke a nail at my self-defense class. That must mean I'm either doing something really right or really wrong. And the ferrets have had the heat to contend with...which is a pretty big deal when you're a ferret.

zzzzzz...

Happy Easter!

Life is pretty good right now.

I can eat meat again, now that Lent is over. For lunch today, my mom cooked chicken with bacon on top and dried beef under it. Mmm.

The weather's getting warmer and I can open my windows for a nice breeze.

Scully, our elderly ferret had a hormone injection about a month ago to control the symptoms of her Adrenal Disease and now her hair is starting to grow back. This means that the injection is going to allow her to live with the Adrenal Disease by making her more comfortable.

Yep, things are going well.

It's amazing how putting meat back in my diet makes everything seem great.

Why?

Today I heard a waitress respond to the question "What fish do you have?" with "Well, we have salmon...if you consider that a fish..."

She wasn't being facetious. She wasn't disparaging salmon. She was seriously doubtful as to whether or not it was a fish.

She also pronounced the L in the word.

Why does such idiocy exist?

Fishies

I've only been away from home a few hours, but I guess I miss my fish. I added virtual fish to my blog. Visit them on the right hand side of the page. Click on their pond to feed them.

The fish in the picture in this post are a couple of platys who didn't make it and the shiny oblong object to the right of the plant is Toughy, the little gold tetra who can't be killed.

The only one on my block

While spending the evening with my parents in Pinehurst, I received a very exciting gift. My bedroom down here is nautically themed and filled with books, paintings and knick-knacks relating to whaling, pirates, sailing and sea life.

Each time I stay here I usually find a few new books or little items my parents have picked up for my collection. This time, my dad presented me with several excellent items. In addition to a ship's model and glass decanter from the New Bedford Whaling Company, I got a blubber hook that was supposedly actually used on board an old-fashioned whaling ship. I cannot tell you how much that excites me.

Herman Melville is one of my favorite authors (as you will notice in the title of my blog) and I love anything to do with the era of New England whaling. I told my parents that if it wasn't so dangerous, I'd sleep next to my blubber hook. I couldn't find a good picture online, but it looks like the thing the murderer runs around with in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

I figure I'm one of the few girls my age who gets excited by whaling memorabilia and the only kid on my block with a blubber hook.

Vegetarians don't know it's not bacon

Last night I went grocery shopping and scoured the faux meat section for something that would taste enough like meat to satisfy me. I picked out Morning Star Farms bacon and Buffalo wings.

Will and I were cooking dinner together later and I held up a strip of neon pink and white "bacon" for him to smell.

"Ooh," he said. "I want to try some." This comes from a boy who has never eaten bacon in his life. He hates the smell of real bacon, but something about this stuff appealed to him. To me, it smells like dog treats.

I microwaved the things for a minute and a half and then nibbled on the edge of one. It tasted about the way it smelled. And let me reiterate; it smelled like a dog treat. I broke off a small piece and gave it to Will. He was not impressed and I assured him that real bacon does not taste like that.

I ate one of my three pieces and then continued helping him cook. But after putting water on the stove to boil, I found myself picking up a second piece and gobbling it down rather than prepping our nachos. Will turned to me and asked if I could slice up the peppers.

"I can't," I said. "I'm cooking."
"It looks like you're eating "bacon".
"I am, but I'm not done making the Helper (our name for Hamburger Helper sans hamburger) yet."
"Why are you eating that so quickly?"
"It's addictive. I can't stop."

I've yet to find a meat replacement that actually tastes like the food it claims to be, but these bizarre soy amalgamations can be strangely tasty in their own right.

On Easter morning I plan to treat myself to some sausage and bacon that don't come from the veggie section of the frozen food aisle.

Lions of Tsavo

I just finished watching The Ghost and the Darkness with two of my best friends. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, although they might not have appreciated me gleefully telling them about the bloody true story behind the movie.


The two maneless male lions killed an estimated 135 people during their reign of terror in Tsavo. Their behavior was so aberrant that the railroad workers from whom their victims were culled considered them supernatural beings rather than animals.

Vlad the Legislator

Did you hear about the vampire who's running for President?

No, I'm not setting up a joke. It's actually happening. Well, he wants to run for president. His name is Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey and he wants to move from Florida to Washington, D.C . in order to become our first undead prez.

What better way for us to follow up the election of the first black president than with a man who thinks he is the direct descendant of Vlad the Impaler, the man on whom Dracula was based? Minority politicians are clearly on the upswing and I can only assume Jonathon is shrewd enough to see that.

Oh, and get this: he's going to be running as a Republican. Because drinking people's blood and opposing abortion go so well together.

Let me put this out there (for any of you who might not know this about me, and therefore, don't know me at all): I love vampires. I'm a huge fan of Anne Rice's vampire series and can spend hours watching old Bela Lugosi movies or re-reading my collections of vampire short stories. I've even read all the Twilight books, but don't tell anyone.

However, the thing about this story that intrigues me the most is not the fact that this guy is a vampire. Because, let's face it; he's just a crazy guy with long black hair who likes to date girls younger than his own teenage daughter. A catchy nickname and raven locks do not a vampire make.

No, the thing that's got me thinking is the fact that this may set off yet another war between Democrats and Republicans. This one will be over who can put the minorityest president in the White House.

Imagine the possibilities.

Just think about it: Democrat Barack Obama was elected as our nation's first black president. Amazingly historic! I don't agree with more than 10% of what he has to say, but I have to admit I'm proud of this country for looking beyond skin color when choosing a leader.

What if crazy vampire guy manages to get elected in 2012? It's highly unlikely, but you never know. Does that mean that the Democrats will have to come up with a candidate for the next election that will out minority a black man and a vampire? Maybe the president after that will be a gay midget named Carl.

It puts a smile on my face to imagine how far this search for the most shocking candidate could be taken.

Hmm

I've just discovered that Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame) has a TV show. Must investigate...

Didn't you get the memo?

I have perhaps been working in an office longer than is healthy.

Today I got very excited when I got to replace my printer with the office manager's old one. This involved me rearranging, to their best advantage, the personal items on my desk around the larger printer and humming happily.

Yes, please

I would very, very much like a hamburger.

I watched Super Size Me today and instead of turning me off meat or fast food, it just made me a little bit suspicious of this guy's research technique. I'd never watched the movie before and was less than impressed by the way he went about things. Not satisfied to prove that McDonald's is bad for you, he felt compelled to combine every stereotype about fat Americans. He ate nothing that didn't come from a McDonald's for 30 days and also stopped walking any more than strictly necessary and taking any kind of vitamins.

I seriously doubt that there is a significant portion of the population who does all these things. Many people take vitamins and many people eat at McDonald's, some more than others. Many of them are probably the same people, meaning that not everyone who eats fast food forgoes vitamins.

Morgan Spurlock (the director, writer and guinea pig for the film) says himself that the average person living in Manhattan, as he himself does, walks several miles a day. He also tells us that Manhattan has one of the densest populations of McDonald's of anywhere on earth. Clearly, some of the people who live there both eat at McDonald's and walk much more than the average American.

The premise is easily understandable: Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's for a month to prove that doing so, combined with other unhealthy habits, will damage your health. But I can't imagine that the people who live that stupidly even care that it's bad for them.

I don't hate McDonald's or its evil plot to (heaven forbid) sell its food. Morgan Spurlock and his vegan chef girlfriend clearly do. The faces he makes while eating his first few fast food meals leave me in no doubt that he was not unbiased in his experiment. I'm no scientist, but it would make me feel better about his results if he hadn't gone into the project already believing that McDonald's is the devil.

I'm off now to eat my dinner: a pot pie from which I've removed all the meat.

Hints of Spring

Today I felt Spring in the air for the first time. It's warming up even though it snowed earlier this week. The sun seems brighter and the air is just plain nicer. But I do live in North Carolina, and I know it may be snowing again tomorrow or up to 85 degrees.

It's days like this when I sit in my office and look out at the bright day full of pine trees and cars zipping along and feel like I should be outside. I'm not even a big outdoors person, but the look of the day out there makes me feel wrong for sitting in a desk chair under climate control. This feeling will intensify in summer when the Southern heat ramps up and the pull of the humid air is almost irresistible.

There's something about warm weather and being indoors that feels wrong to me. It feels comfortable and cool, but also wrong. The South is wild and to sit with plate glass between you and the heat seems false and blasphemous. Magnolias curl toward the door, mocking you in the supposed safety of a man made structure as if they are one missed trimming away from coming inside.

Building civilization in the wilderness doesn't make the wilderness go away.

But I digress...

It's almost Spring!

What do you call it if it's not helping anything?

Day 1,695,213 of Lent

Dear Diary,
Today I ate Hamburger Helper with no hamburger in it.

Lent

Every year for Lent I give up something challenging. I usually choose some kind of food. I gave up sweets or junk food several years in a row. This year I finally realized there is something I love to eat much more than doughnuts and Doritos. It's meat.

What could possibly present a bigger challenge to me? I am a carnivore. I would eat bacon at every meal if I could. My vegetarian friends are used to me mocking their way of life. "I love animals...they're tasty" etc.

So that's what I've been doing since Ash Wednesday; going meatless. No meat and no fish for me until Easter. The night before (at our Mardi Gras party) I loaded up on my roomie's homemade jambalaya. The night before that, my midnight snack was three kinds of preserved fish: sardines, smoked salmon and anchovies.

I was right when I thought this would be my biggest Lent challenge yet. I'm taunted in restaurants by clam chowder, pasta salad with tuna in it and my friend Susan sitting across the table from me with crisp bacon hanging out of her mouth. My pantry and freezer dangle chicken noodle soup, taquitos and even canned ravioli in front of my vegetarian lips.

My aunt, who has spent several years off and on living meatlessly, told me it gets easier. I don't think she understands my pathological reliance on dead animal products. There are plenty of days in my regular life where I don't eat meat, but they are interspersed with days where I eat 2 or 3 burgers or a plate of homemade tacos. To go for 40 days without any of my favorite foods may be crippling to my sanity.

"Smells good," Roomie told me as I cooked some fake burgers the other night. "Thanks," I said, and told her what it was she was smelling. "They are good," I said. "They taste nothing like burgers, but they're good." And that's the thing, I love veggies too, but they will never replace meat for me. I could eat my weight in asparagus, Brussels sprouts and lima beans, but if there's not a seafood omelet or a ham biscuit in my foreseeable future, I may start eyeing the ferrets in a new way.

Immersion

I love simultaneously reading several books on the same subject. This summer I read Jack's Widow by Eve Pollard immediately after reading November 22, 1963 by Adam Braver. As you might guess, both are about the Kennedys. Both are a mix of fact and fiction, like most books about celebrities, whether the authors are honest about it or not.
By reading these books so close together I got a continuous flow of the story of Jackie O's life: glimpses of her girlhood; meeting, marrying and burying John F. Kennedy; meeting and marrying Aristotle Onassis. The basic facts in each work were real--the structure of the story was historically sound, but the authors provided fictional tidbits about microphones hidden in pillbox hats and fingerprints smudging a metal casket.
It's always interesting to get different people's perspectives on the same thing. Braver's Jackie is the fresh widow; the beautiful woman in the blood-spattered pink suit and then numb behind her black veil. Pollard's Jackie is daring and cunning, ready to spy for her country and marry strategically.
I had never been very interested in Jacqueline Kennedy/Onassis before, but I found myself liking the woman behind the fiction. I had the same experience when I researched Marilyn Monroe, Jackie's bête noire, for a role I was playing my senior year of college. These women are cultural icons, but all I'd ever gotten was the legend until I started delving. I don't know yet if I like the real Jackie or just the slightly fictionalized version. Marilyn definitely became more endearing when I read her own words or observations made by people who knew her. I realized I had always hated what people have made of Marilyn: purses with the shape of her face outlined in makeup, unattractive women in billowing white dresses and glued-on beauty marks, and especially the overrated Andy Warhol paintings a child could have done.
Jackie had simply never interested me. She was tragic and stylish and that was it. I have the feeling I'm going to have to settle for the thought and feelings she might have had. For better or worse, she was more discrete than Marilyn and we will probably never get the truthful, soul-searching self-truths about her that we find in volumes on the Sex Goddess.

Doublex.com

Doublex.com

Great website. Lots of articles about crazy things women think and how they view current events.

Collateral Damage

My computer is enjoying its first functional day in what seems like an eternity. I came home from work and began happily updating my Internet Explorer and searching for wallpaper photos. I wiped the dratted machine clean yesterday for the second time in as many months.

Just a tip: don't visit the Watch Series website. Ever.

I had used the site without mishap several times while catching up on early seasons of Grey's Anatomy. But one day it caused my screen to fill with tiny little pop-ups, all of which told me in imperfect grammar that my computer might be at risk and I should let them scan it for me. I'm smart enough to never trust a pop-up that's written in language comparable to the Engrish you find in many foreign-made toy instructions.

Last week I went back to the same site and guess what. Same thing happened. That's where the whole "fool me twice" thing comes in, but we won't go there.

As I said, tonight I was just beginning the process of repersonalizing my computer. I did a search for corgi pictures to use as my background and while doing so had the brilliant idea of looking for corgis up for adoption in my area.

It is one of my life's ambitions to own a corgi, but I neither have the money nor the space right now. So I was just window shopping. I clicked on the cutest pictures to look at the dogs up close and read about their ages and personalities, etc. The cutest picture by far was of a dark corgi name Cocoa.

Cocoa is 11 years old and is up for adoption because her owners got divorced and "neither one wanted to keep her"!!!

I'm going to give the idiots, I mean people, the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a really rough divorce and both of neither of them could look at the dog without thinking of happier times when they were in love and Cocoa was a puppy--happier times before they became selfish jerks who would rather dump a dog in the twilight of its life because it didn't fit in with their new downsized lives. The benefit of my doubt does not extend very far.

I sat there reading this dog's story and I burst into tears. This is not something I would usually do. I love animals, obviously. I own over a dozen of them in all species and sizes, but I am not the kind of person who gets teary-eyes at ASPCA commercials and puts little paw print bumper stickers on my car. But if I had the money and the ability to house that poor little dog the way it needs, if I had the time and the energy to make up for all the love and affection that dog should be enjoying from someone who cares more about its welfare than about their new divorcee condo not accepting pets, I would be adopting Cocoa tomorrow.

There's not a lot most of us can do to change things. We're not all Mother Teresas and Bonos. But anyone who dares to call themself a human being and an adult can at least take care of the innocent carbon-based life forms that depend on them. If you have a pet (not to mention a child), then you need to take care of it.

This is an animal who will probably die in a shelter or in a foster home, not because she will be put down, but because she's likely only got a few more years to live. Not many people want to adopt senior animals, especially when they have problems like Cocoa does. I forgot to mention that she has trouble eating now because her owners didn't believe in teeth cleaning for dogs.

The adoption group assures readers that Cocoa will be cared for, even if she is never adopted. I'm going to have to content myself with taking the best care I can of my own pets and fantasizing about Cocoa's former owners living alone for the rest of their miserable lives as unloved by anyone as she was by them.