Poppies and lupins and a bridge?

This is a photo I took of California poppies down in the Sacramento Valley.
And lupins from the same area.Here are some poppies just struggling to survive in a rocky river floodplain up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Ditto for the lupins. You sometimes find poppies that are lighter or darker than the typical California poppy. I was trying to take a picture of the bee, but she kept moving.This rocky river floodplain is not natural at all. It is 30 or 40 or more feet higher than it should have been because the bottom of the canyon was filled in back in the late 1800s due to hydraulic mining during the California gold rush. I talked more about that in this post. This gravel layer makes a very unstable substrate on which to try and build a bridge. The gravel is slowly being washed out from under this tree. Note the rocks embedded in the roots.

Donated blood today

That brings it up to 4.5 American gallons (~3.75 UK gallons). I've been deferred twice in the past 3 weeks, but I finally managed to get my iron levels up high enough. Must have been the maple and brown sugar Cream of Wheat.Can you tell the clip art was free?

100 things about me

1. My feet are so ticklish, I can't even touch them sometimes. Seriously. Don't even try unless you like being kicked in the teeth.

2. My husband, Bill, is 15 years older than I am.

3. But his kid's ages bracket my son's age.

4. I have the worlds worst memory.

5. I was once pissed on by a lion.

6. I have met several other people who were pissed on by lions, so it's apparently not that uncommon.

7. I did not think it was funny at the time, but my mother almost died laughing.

8. I have never believed in a god.

9. Any of them.

10. I vaguely remember believing in Heaven — sort of the same way I believed in Santa Clause — until I was about 7 and someone told me that non-human animals don't go to Heaven. Then I decided it wasn't anywhere I would like to go, anyway.

11. This was right around the time I was pissed on by the lion, but I don't think the two were related.

12. One reason I became a fisheries biologist was because my father used to take me fishing. He let me gut the fish so I could cut open their stomachs and see what they had been eating.

13. Another reason was that I started out as an Animal Science major in college, and was wrestling with a sheep in Ani Sci 101. Sheep stink.

14. I decided to change my major and went through the catalog alphabetically. I made it all the way through to W and found Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, and the rest is history.

15. I married my high school sweetheart, David.

16. Anybody who's read this blog a while knows that he turned out to be gay.

17. Actually, he's one of my four readers, and I'm pretty sure he knows he's gay, since he married his partner of 16 years.

18. I've had to have my appendix and my gall bladder removed. I'm running out of extraneous organs.

19. I used to get really awful stomach gripes, and then come up in hives all over my entire body.

20. The doctor thought that it was systemic mastocytosis, but the only way to tell for sure was to biopsy one of the hives the next time it happened.

21. I haven't had hives since.

22. I still get the stomach problems, and the doctors can't find anything.

23. Both Bill and David used to be avid comic book collectors.

24. I have a skull collection.

25. Pseudoscience of any kind irritates the hell out of me. This includes, but is not limited to; astrology, homeopathy, phrenology, acupuncture, anything to do with the paranormal, chiropractic, crystal healing, magnetic therapy, intelligent design/creation "science," therapeutic touch - they are all bullshit. The list goes on. And on.

26. Intelligent falling, and the terrible threat of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) however, are real. I was appalled to find out that DHMO is even an additive found in my tea, and I drink gallons of that!

27. I was born in England.

28. All my relatives except my immediate family and two cousins live in England.

29. I was a resident alien for over 30 years.

30. I got my US citizenship in 2000 because I wanted to be able to vote.

31. Lotta good THAT did.

32. I have three college degrees.

33. I only really use two of them.

34. They look impressive on the wall, though.

35. I have oligodontia - I was born without eight teeth, including my wisdom teeth.

36. I think I passed this on to my son, but I don't remember (see #4)

37. I've always joked that I am just more highly evolved.

38. I hate milk. It is only acceptable in tea, and sometimes on cereal. It also usually contains DHMO (see #26).

39. I had to drink it while I was pregnant, though. I hope my son REALIZES THE SACRIFICE I MADE FOR HIM!

40. I also don't like many other dairy products very much, such as yogurt and ice cream. No, I don't think I have lactose intolerance - I've tried cutting it all out, and still get the gastrointestinal problems. I just don't like them.

41. Many people don't have a problem with my disbelief in a god, but they think that not liking ice cream is just UNNATURAL.

42. One way I will eat ice cream: smother vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, raspberry sauce, and put it all on top of warm chocolate cake. With a cherry on top.

43. Contrary to everything I just said about dairy products, I love all kinds of cheese.

44. I hate clowns.

45. But I like mimes. The mention of Shields and Yarnell brings back fond memories. Of Laugh In. Even though they were never on Laugh In.

46. I may have a terrible memory (see #4 again), but I can remember everything that ever happened to Ross and Demelza Poldark.

47. I've lived in California all except two years since 1979, and I've felt quite a few earthquakes, including a several fairly large ones.

48. Bill has lived here for about 56 years, and he's never felt one. Does that count? It isn't really about me.

49. I've also lived in tornado prone areas (twice). I'll take an earthquake over a tornado any day.

50. During my time in Texas, I experienced a couple of tropical storms and a "mini" hurricane (it blew up off the coast of Texas with hurricane force winds, but it was very small and didn't even get a name). Hurricanes spawn tornadoes, therefore I'll take an earthquake over a hurricane any day, too.

51. Speaking of tropical storms, I'll have to do another post about the time one hit while my parents were away, and I brought the horses out of belly-deep water and into the garage. My mare, Najmah, then broke through the back door into the house. Twice.

52. I'm the worlds worst slob. Seriously. Oscar Madison is my hero. Dirt and filth, piles of clothes, boxes, etc. - it just doesn't bother me. When I lived alone, I was fine as long as there was a fairly clear path through the crap on the floor. I would wash the dishes, sometimes even before they started growing mold.

53. Luckily for me, Bill is slightly obsessive-compulsive the other way. He just follows along behind me, picking up.

54. The older I get the more Monk-like I become. I'm talking Adrian Monk, not the religious kind. THAT would be a nun. I think. But I'm not religious, so I'm not really up on whether there are female monks. Maybe female Buddhist monks. But I digress.

55. Bill wishes I would be more OCD about cleaning the house, and not wander around leaving a trail of papers and articles of clothing, but my Monk-like behaviour only seems to apply to germs.

56. Almost anything you say can and does remind me of a show tune.

57. Does anybody else go around with music constantly playing in their head? And no iPod or Walkman, or whatever? I don't need one.

58. Right now? Caravan (Duke Ellington).

59. Sometimes I have trouble concentrating on anything if there is music playing in the background. All I can hear is the music.

60. I'm one of THOSE people who walks through the supermarket singing along with the Muzak. Out loud.

61. I am an extreme introvert. I have to work hard all the time to overcome it. I am the awkward moment queen.

62. This also means that I generally avoid controversy.

63. Unless I'm right. Which I always am. Bill still hasn't learned this.

64. Controversy avoidance is why I have generally stayed in the atheist closet until I get to know people a little.

65. Because I was so shy, I, of course, was labeled "stuck up" in school.

66. I'm fiercely loyal to my friends.

67. I used to read books constantly.

68. Then my son got a new computer and I got his old laptop and discovered blogs. Now all I do is read blogs, (sometimes) write blog posts, peruse Facebook, and Twitter. I don't have time for actual books.

69. When I was young, one of my favourite books was Lad: A Dog. The first dog I got when I moved out on my own was a collie.

70. My favourite books of all time are the Tolkien trilogy. I've read them numerous times - the first when I was nine.

71. I used to have a cat named Mink who was a slightly pinkish color. Her nicknames over the years were: Pinky Minky, Sinky Minky (she sat in the sink a lot), and Stinky Minky. My father called her Scrut.

72. Music in my head right now? Turk Murphy - Trombone Rag.

73. I switch between English and American spellings, usually depending upon to whom I am writing.

74. Even more entertaining for my friends - I occasionally switch between English and American accents without realizing. People used to frequently ask if I was Canadian. Not as much nowadays.

75. I had a really weird accent when I lived in Texas. One of my best friends had the same accent, as his mother was from England, too.

76. I have an extremely bad temper.

77. My temper is usually short lived, though.

78. On my first date, I went to The Muppet Movie. With the guy in #74. His mother drove.

79. I have an irrational fear of spiders. Ticks are included, but I don't consider that irrational.

80. However, I won't let anyone kill a spider in the house. They have to be put outside.

81. I once shared the shower with an enormous wolf spider, and didn't condition my hair for several days because she was hiding behind the conditioner bottle. I knew that if I moved the bottle, she would jump. I finally started worrying that she would starve to death if she stayed there, so I moved the bottle. She jumped, and I screamed (several times) as I put a (large) glass over her and put her outside.

82. I actually don't like to kill anything. I feel that all life is precious (except perhaps insects such as ants, flies or mosquitoes that invade my space).

83. I am not a vegetarian, so I guess this means I'm also a hypocrite.

84. I've only had three long-term boyfriends, two of whom I married.

85. I've only had four boyfriends.

86. About 5 years ago, I dislocated and broke the little finger of my left hand so that it stuck out sideways at a 90 degree angle. It has never been the same since. And never completely stopped hurting.

87. This has made me realize that I could fairly easily do something that could cripple me for life, so I probably don't take as many risks skiing, with horses, bike riding etc., as I might have otherwise.

88. I was pissed that the hospital wouldn't let me keep the x-rays, because they were really cool.

89. Did I already say I have a bad memory?

90. I like the smell of skunk.

91. I don't like the smell of lavender.

92. I think Best In Show was one of the funniest movies ever made, but most of my friends vehemently disagree.

93. The other funny ones are: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride, History of the World: Part 1, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and A Mighty Wind.

94. The funniest, of course, was Young Frankenstein. Damn your eyes! Too late.

95. I love Sci Fi. TV and books. It all started with Star Trek reruns and Star Blazers.

96. Does anyone reading this (if you actually made it this far) not know that I play the bassoon?

97. I can't decide between Rose's Mango or Pomegranate martini mix. Pomegranate, I think.

98. My attitude is that we only have one life to live, and it is VERY fragile, so we might as well make the best of it.

99. It took me over a month to write this. On and off. Mostly off.

100. Current song in my head: The theme to NCIS. Oh, wait. Bill turned on the TV.

I'm all of a Twitter

I've been on Twitter for a while now and it has been entertaining, hilarious, as well as heartbreaking, and sometimes just downright odd.

Here are some of my observations:

• Wil Wheaton really is just this guy, you know? And proof that nerds can be popular!
• Brent Spiner pretty much wrote a very entertaining short story/elaborate April Fool's joke 160 characters at a time throughout April,
• George Takei doesn't say much,
• William Shatner doesn't say much either, but does some self promotion,
• I unfollowed LeVar Burton because he was just too religious and not very interesting,
• Anybody else seeing a pattern here?
• The Bloggess is just as hilarious on Twitter as she is on her blog, if that is possible (I'm kind of surprised she hasn't been arrested, because that much hilarity isn't generally allowed in Texas),
• The Bad Astronomer is actually quite good.
• Stephen Fry went to film on location in Malasia and tweeted and twitpic-ed it all.
• Al Yankovic? Yep, still weird.
• I don't know how PZ Myers finds time to tweet anything what with all the blog posts he does. He must not sleep.
• The Onion and NPR tweets can be virtually indistinguishable sometimes,
• I even follow a fish. Erica's fish.

I have also found several bloggy friends there. Andrew was the first person to ever comment on my blog, and we've commented back and forth periodically on our blogs, as well as on Atheist Nexus. He and Stephen got into Twitter swine flu pun wars the other day (really, really bad puns - Gammontee, Andrew? Please!). Luckily nobody else was around to hear me giggling.

Anybody who's read my blog for any length of time knows Mr Farty. I won a competition on his blog over a year ago and he sent me a VERY nice set of coasters imprinted with Scottish words such as eejit, crabbit, and numpty, and their definitions. I put them in our curio cabinet, which Mr Farty thinks is just plain odd. He obviously doesn't have a house full of teenagers where things get moved and disappear never to be seen again. Currently he's changed his picture (avatar? icon? I don't know either, Lesley) from a flaming fart to Robbie the Robot. Now he's being stalked by all the zombie robots on Twitter. At the time I was typing this, both he and Andrew were commenting on the same TV show. Something about #eurovision?

Lesley from Um..What?? was my first Twitter follower. My big fluffy, and fairly young cat, Isis, (the one whose photo I used to use for this blog) died suddenly of diabetes (which caused a cascade effect of liver and kidney failure) last month, and Lesley was one of the first people I told. She sent me a tweet because she was concerned, and as she was the caretaker of a diabetic cat, and she is just a really, really nice person, I knew she would understand. My grandfather died the next day. It was a very bad week. I, unfortunately, understood completely when her Moses the Cat suddenly became ill and died less than a month later. Sorry, I wasn't planning on turning so maudlin...

There are numerous other interesting people I follow, for instance Lesley's best friend Mo (The Daily Snark), Debra (iamdebra), Steph (quirkyblogger), although I'm not so sure about Clay (mayopie). Oh, all right. He's interesting, too. Liza (wickedlibrarian) just got a cute haircut I might have to copy once the temperature here reaches over 100 degrees. Oh, wait. It's 98 right now. I might need a haircut sooner than I thought.

Oh, and I don't like to brag, BUT Barack Obama is following ME!

So remember:
You're no one if you're not on Twitter
And if you aren't there, you've already missed it.
If you haven't been bookmarked, re-tweeted and blogged,
You might as well not have existed.

Go to your chiropractor to protect yourself FROM SWINE FLU???!

I found a link to this article on Planet Chiropractic.com on the James Randi website. I'm really hoping it's a farce, but I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking. The article indicates that if you're adjusted twice a week, your immune system will be "boosted by 400%! Sounds good, except there is no scientific evidence for this whatsoever. The only thing that will be boosted will the the chiropractor's pocket book.

I can't believe that people actually BELIEVE this crap! Bullshit like this just make me see red. The only reason to go to a chiropractor is for a good massage, which can also be gotten via a good physiotherapist. These people are just stealing your money. The only thing listed in the article that will actually help protect you from swine flu is washing your hands.
/rant

Batshit insane politicians

Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog has been keeping up on some recent Republican insanity (Republican insanity might actually be redundant). I seriously don't know whether to laugh or be afraid. This is a United States Congresswoman:

Yes, the same one that wanted a McCarthy-like hunt for all the left-wing "anti-Americans" in the US Congress.

The scary part? She actually got re-elected after this. And her eyes.

Concerts - not mine for once

I haven't seen many live concerts. Well, I've seen lots of live concerts—heck, I've been in lots of live concerts—but not many involving world famous people. The first one I remember (although, granted, my memory is notoriously bad — just ask my family) was:

Miles Davis
When I was in high school, we had a Japanese exchange student, Yoshiyuki, stay with us for a couple of weeks. Miles Davis was apparently really big in Japan at the time and just happened to be playing in Berkeley while Yoshi was here, and Yoshi was a HUGE fan. All he could talk about was Mile Daybees this, and Mile Daybees that. I wouldn't be surprised if he had coordinated his trip to coincide with the Miles Davis concert. I had never heard of Miles Davis. So my father bought tickets, and we found ourselves in an auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus.

Yoshi was ecstatic, but my father and I weren't that impressed. All Miles did was walk around blatting notes at the ground while his band played. I was more transfixed by the wall changing colors behind him. It was far out! Lest you think I'm kidding about the blatting at the floor, note the third photo down on the Wikipedia article. Blatting. At. The. Floor. He obviously did it a lot.

Yoshi ended his visit by insisting on making dinner for us which consisted mostly of tofu from a can. It was still shaped like the can, and looked like canned, white, opaque, cranberry sauce. This English family of the '70s thought it was extremely odd. We ate it politely, but I don't think any of us had the courage to try tofu again for years.

SIDE NOTE: I was up late last night writing this because I couldn't sleep. Today, one of my Friends M (I have three Friends M) sent me an e-mail which included the sentence, "It was kind of like you seeing Miles Davis." I got the e-mail on my BlackBerry and FREAKED! I was saying to myself, "CRAP! I must have accidentally posted it, but it was only HALF DONE!" Turns out I hadn't posted and it was only a coincidence. I'm just really, really boring, and apparently tell the same stories over and over again.

Maynard Ferguson
I didn't always play just the bassoon. I started out on alto saxophone, and played it in my high school jazz band. The jazz band rehearsed before school and I got up really early (Hey, an hour early is a major sacrifice when you're a teenager) for four years.

In about 1980, we got to go to Reno, Nevada and compete in the Reno Jazz Festival. That particular year, we had a lot of musicians who played more than one instrument, and our band director arranged one of our pieces so that at a certain time, we all put down one instrument and picked up another. Instead of a row of five saxes, we had a flute, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet and bassoon. In the brass section which normally only had trumpets and trombones, we had at least one French horn and a Sousaphone. We won third place in our division against some stiff competition.

The headliner that they had come and play for the school bands was Maynard Ferguson. Since I recently just had a not-so-great experience seeing another trumpeter, I wasn't looking forward to the concert. Certainly not as much as our trumpet section was. I don't remember much, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved the music, and Maynard Ferguson could play really really high notes. And he didn't point his trumpet at the ground once.

Billy Joel
In high school, my brother's friend won two tickets on a radio show giveaway, wasn't a big Billy fan, gave them to my brother, who knew I was a HUGE Billy Joel fan, so he gave them to me. Yes, I DO have the nicest brother in the world. Who doesn't read this blog, so I don't know why I'm being so nice to him. If I was really mean, I'd stick in the photo of him with orange-peel teeth that he texted me, but I put that as my wallpaper at work, instead. Where was I? Oh, right. Billy Joel. I took my future ex-husband, David.

Fantastic concert, and since it was in 1982, he hadn't had that many hits, and I knew almost everything he sang by heart. AND people all over the building lit up as soon as the concert started and I got slightly high from all the secondhand weed. At least I imagined I did. I asked David what it was, and he said the same thing he said when I asked him what the F-word meant. "What do you think?"

Basia
Fairly soon after David and I broke up, I lived in an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area with William, my Dalmatian Charlie, and my cat Pepper. Charlie weighed 75 lbs and I lived in one of only three apartment complexes in town that allowed dogs over 15 lbs. Because of this, virtually EVERYONE in the complex had a huge dog, and there were several large areas to allow them to run around.

The guy downstairs had a golden retriever that played with Charlie occasionally. He won tickets (the guy, not the golden retriever) to a Basia concert at the Concord Pavilion from a radio station (Gee. Sounds familiar. Probably the same station), and asked me if I wanted to go. I had never heard of Basia and I was in the process of getting a divorce and certainly didn't want to start dating anyone, especially not someone I saw as frequently as the guy downstairs just in case it didn't work out, but for some reason I said yes.

He drove, and I was acutely embarrassed for him because...the poor guy had the worst flatulence I've ever...er...smelled. While in the car. With me. The silent-but-deadly kind. I was too polite to say or do anything and just pretended I didn't notice. Nowadays, I would just exclaim, "DUDE!" and roll down the window while making rude gagging noises. That's what I do with Bill, anyway.

The main thing I remember about Basia was that she hurt my ears. I think I knew Time and Tide and Promises, but that was about it.

Fortunately Basia's opening act was:

Spiro Gyra
Again. Me. Never heard of Spiro Gyra. I was completely blown away. They were AWESOME!! (although I would have said something like, "Bitchen!," or "Outragous!," except that I was a complete unhip dweeb who only started using, "Cool!" relatively recently. Yes, I was a real Joanie). Basia was even impressed that they opened for her.

And any band that's named after filamentous green algae is fine by me, anyway. I would probably have liked them if they had been called Cyano Phyta.

Billy Joel redux
Or maybe it was Billy Joel's dad. Well, I certainly don't look the same 26 years later, either. I blogged about it here, so I won't say too much other than it was FANTASTIC and he's still got it. Whatever it is.

Leon Redbone
Very recently, my Friend M and I saw him in Sacramento. He was really good, and really funny, but I had some personal things going on so I had a hard time listening. It could also have been due to the two Long Island Iced Teas. We were slightly disappointed to find out (before we went) that he did NOT sing I'm Just a Bill OR Conjunction Junction.

Angels make sense for once!

So why doesn't he reduce human misery and suffering?
Apparently God and all the angels have Australian accents, too.

Found on Pharyngula

WOLVERINES!!

It's been a long couple of weeks, but taxes are done and maybe eventually I'll feel like talking about other crappy things that happened. But not right now.

Right now I'm just going to say WOLVERINES!! Which you won't get unless you follow The Bloggess on Twitter. UPDATE: I guess I should note that I saw this while skiing the other day. Or maybe that's obvious. Wolverine Bowl: about this steep \

Wolverine fact: The first documented wolverine in California since 1920 was photographed last year by a graduate student who had set up a remote camera to study the effects of landscape change on American martens. It caused quite a stir. Click here if you want to see a good picture of a wolverine butt. They have more recently captured video of what they're pretty sure is the same wolverine.

Contrary to the title of the article, the pine martens the student was studying are NOT birds, and are, in fact, members of the family Mustelidae - the same family as the wolverine. I think they were getting them confused with Purple Martins. You'd think that something called Science Daily would have done a better job with their fact checking.