1 August 06
Avian Flu Redux
While Natalie may have inadvertently conflated West Nile with Avian Flu (see comments, last post), my time since I got back from Philadelphia and genealogical interludes has pretty much been taken up with the H5N1 story and how to deal with it once it gets here (or Tanzania or South America). My colleagues at the Wildlife Health Center are conducting Flu School this week, a train-the-trainers program which may take off fast, hopefully faster than the spread of the virus and its transgenic mutation to a strain that spreads easily among humans.
We had to get all the materials together by this morning, which was a huge undertaking given that a) the illustrator (who at this point I’m promoting to goddess) didn’t know exactly what illustrations were needed or what order they went in or what their context was; b) ditto for the syllabus compilers; c) ditto for me, the apparent queen of xeroxing (well, okay, layout and design too). At 10:45 last night I really hoped this was all worth it, having inhaled miles of xerox-ozone and snapped hundreds of binder fasteners together. And opened them. And snapped them. (I really really hate binders but some people unaccountably love them; the director of this project is one of them. We joke. But he orders the binders, so I snapped away.)
I haven’t actually bled a chicken or vaccinated one. But I think I could, based on what I’ve been looking at for the past week. I could probably slaughter one, though this wouldn’t be my first choice of activity on a Monday evening. I might be able to pass the fluorescent powder test of Personal Protective Equipment on and off, showing no flourescent on my person afterwards under black light. I know now you’re not supposed to drive a truck from farm A to farm B without disinfecting it first.
And I offer up to whatever deity is listening that none of this proves necessary, because if it does, we’re in the deep cack. Chicken cack. It will reach, dear readers, to the ozone layer.
27 July 06
Morphologies
One of the most interesting things about this past weekend and my enounters with distant cousins was a kind of horror in recognition. Yes, those are my earlobes. Yes, lots of other women in this family went gray at 28 and some of them, like me, stopped dyeing their hair a while ago. Yes, lots of us have crooked lower front teeth despite the best efforts of orthodontists to convince the world to the contrary.
Kinship systems are a field of anthropology and often include, by definition, systems of taboo. What, then, to make of the disowned sisters, one of whom was my grandmother, who each married “wrong” and who caused great scandal, some of it still the subject 70 years later of whispered giggles (hardly so weird; an allegation of an affair between my grandmother and her brother-in-law). But his son, the great sire: 8 children in wedlock, at least another three, but who knows in fact how many else, out of it. And, ladies and gentlemen, some of them were there, along with both ex-wives. It was an amazing gathering, with the backdrop of the hurricane outside.
Genealogy programs tend to be written by and for mormons and exclude gedcom categories like “natural daughter” or “lesbian couple with three children, all with same biological father from sperm bank.” Kinship systems need to catch up, and so do the genealogy codewriters. Those of us needing to record such kinship systems must muddle through on our own, but I guess for the first time I’ve felt really proud to be part of this family. And this, from my mother, walking barefoot through St. David’s cemetery on Sunday: “I think I’ve finally trampled out the terror of this family.” (That, alone, was worth the trip for me.)
I arrived home to a blistering heatwave and some interesting vegetables. I have no idea what this is. It’s in the Armenian cucumber patch but it looks like it got crossed with a honeydew melon.
24 July 06
My First Cousin Ate My Ethernet Cable...
... and my thirty or so second cousins introduced themselves in phases, like the “1955 model”—one of my mother’s first cousins was especially prolific.
I was in Philadelphia over the weekend, attending a “symposium” on the family (this couldn’t just be a family reunion; it had to involve papers, poster sessions, name tags, and a list of materials for purchase). There was a lot about boats, which surprisingly didn’t bore this non-sailor. Hemingway rubbing shoulders with Dr. Beebe of the bathysphere fame. (Uncle Edwin didn’t believe in the depression and saw no reason why it should interfere with summer cruises to the Caribbean.)
I’m tired. I’ll say more later. But for now, it is good to be home, even though it’s sweltering in the Central Valley. (But it’s a dry heat…)
14 July 06
Working Where I Do
This is what you find lying around the place:
Happy Friday.
3 July 06
Towards Footie Enlightenment
Last time the World Cup came around, I thought of buying a soccer ball. Walking past the garden today, I had the similar idea. As a kid I did get my fair share of soccer, mostly at the summer rec camp I participated in for a few years. This wasn’t very competitive, nothing at all like today’s AYSO, but they did teach fundamentals of ball handling, and I enjoyed it. But soccer was not a sport I grew up watching. Unlike Pica, who followed the fortunes of both England and Spain while growing up and every four years goes on a World Cup football binge. In 2002 the World Cup was of course in South Korea and Japan, which meant the matches were at ungodly hours in the morning here, and I wasn’t able to see many of them.
This time around the matches have all fallen conveniently between 6 in the morning and noon, and I’ve been able to watch bits and pieces of many of them, and a few complete games. Saturday we went to Little Prague for the Portugal-England match. This is the Czech restaurant in town that has been serving a breakfast of scrambled eggs and dumplings to all who come in to watch the World Cup. There were about a hundred people in there, mostly rooting for England, but there was a vocal Portugal contingent near the big screen. Having had enough of a sports bar scene for the day, we borrowed the 3-inch telly from Pica’s workplace and watched France-Brazil at home. In my short history as a soccer spectator, this was the best match I have ever seen—there was the biggest sense of story about it, with the two teams having met in ‘98 with many of the same players, and with this being Zidane’s final hurrah. It’s been good this past couple of weeks—I’m really starting to understand the game.
25 June 06
Living Room Full of Half-Full Bottles
My mother left today. Left for Maine. We all went up to Mosquito Ridge Road last night to look for owls. Heard spotted, saw-whet and flammulated but saw none of them. We didn’t get home till about 1:30 pm; she’d been up nearly 24 hours.
My brother has put her on the red eye to Boston this evening in Seattle. I am left with a living room full of the things she removed from her house yesterday morning the movers didn’t take but she couldn’t take, either. We have enough laundry detergent for a year.
Her presence will linger here for a few days as she starts this next chapter in her life.
The self portrait I’ve done today and will post here tomorrow has me looking at my reflection in the kitchen window. It’s dark out. I look tired and feel conflicted. I look like a child, I think, in the drawing. It’s sort of how I feel.
22 June 06
Less
I weighed in at Weight Watchers yesterday.
I now weigh forty pounds less than I did the first time I attended a meeting, right after Thanksgiving and right after I went to the doctor having dropped a big bottle of water at work.
For now, I’m stopping. The trick is going to be trying to stay here… thanks to everyone who’s sent encouragement along the way.
19 June 06
Squids and Oysters
Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has just been elected primate of the Episcopal Church. She was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters.
Now THIS is someone I’d enjoy chatting with at dinner. While eating calamares, perhaps?
Here’s another self-portrait, in honor of the self portrait marathon. If I look football fatigued, it’s because I am…
14 June 06
Still Waylaid
Sorry, everyone, it’s going to be a long month.
Spain beat Ukraine today 4-0. The passing was flawless, the set pieces (wot, Spain?) executed perfectly, and then there was that beautiful flowing final goal.
Meanwhile I’m trying to fit in a few self portraits and get at least a little laundry done before a friend gets here on Friday for the Hammond’s flycatcher. She’s, um, not into soccer.
11 June 06
Waylaid
I was heading over to my friend Barbara’s this morning to watch the Mexico-Iran match. Barbara was in Southern California seeing family and Numenius was off doing his breeding bird atlas.
My ride took me past Ali Baba. Open, it said, at 8:50 am. I stopped my bike with a screech and got off. Watching a match in a room full of Iranians was too good an opportunity to miss! (I go to Ali Baba for lunch every Thursday: spinach special.)
The match ended badly for them, 3-1, but it was a wonderful time. The first half was excellent. Wouldn’t it be good, said a student, if these commentators knew anything about Iran.
I almost said, but bit my tongue, wouldn’t it be good if they knew anything about soccer. (It was televised on ABC, which, contrary to my expectations, did NOT interrupt play with advertising. But the commentary was still, predictably, horrendous.)
There was one other person in there besides me who was not obviously Iranian: a woman whose boyfriend was. She was bug-eyed. Welcome to the world cup, lass.