Old cartoon

Adding certain numbers

While grading with Kene, I admitted that "adding 8 and 7 has always been really hard for me."

With a horrified look on his face, Kene proceeded to tutor me using sentences like "But 7 and 7 is 14, right??" and "So, what is 9 and 7 then?" and "I can't believe you." In the end, I was left with the impression that 8 and 7 is probably about 15.

The whole interaction ultimately made me want to die, but it also reminded me of how I've been unsure of numbers my entire life. As a child, I was constantly asking questions like "is 9 plus 8 seventeen?" and my mom would reply "every time." I hated that answer, and it never really assured me that the next time 9 and 8 were together, seventeen would be the result of their union.

Now that I'm older and even less confident about life and the world in which we live, I did what every quailing individual with an embarrassing problem does: I Googled "adding 8 and 7 difficult."

As expected, I didn't get a lot of valuable information. However I did find an article in the American Psychology Association's Monitor, where the following paragraph was highlighted:

Children in the United States eventually learn that the number system is base 10 and that teens are tens plus ones, but only the most mathematically adept children ever learn to add by adding up to 10 and then adding the remaining ones (as with adding 7+8 by breaking 7 into 5 and 2, adding 2 to 8 to get 10 and then adding 5 for 15), says Fuson.

I took two things away from this. First, in the miasmal and amorphous realm of single-digit addition, 7 and 8 must be the most challenging pair to really wrap your mind around. Even mathematically adept children must deconstruct the numbers for it to make any sense at all.

Second, I'm an idiot.

Wine Review

Name: Sauvignon Republic Cellars' Stellenbosch
Date: 2005
Origin: South Africa
Alcohol content: 14.0%

NOTE: My Blood Alcohol Content remained between 0.01 and 0.03 while grading all lab reports (Webb et al., 2005). How this may have affected my heart rate is yet to be determined.


The Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc is the perfect way to say hello to Autumn. Its pale straw color is accompanied by a surprisingly forward leap of summer citrus, but nipping at its heels is a hint of fall spice. This wine would make a great hiking companion-- the smell of fall leaves crushed under your sturdiest shoes providing effortless enhancement.

But that's only if you're not a Teaching Assistant. For TAs, this wine is best enjoyed with Cornflakes.
In terms of the contribution of the Cornflakes, the 45% and 25% contents of Iron and Niacin, respectively, made the Teaching Assistant feel both healthy and ill simultaneously. It is known that Teaching Assistants are relatively fragile, and that their diets require a delicate balance of alcohol and vitamins (Wikipedia, 2007). Cornflakes and a mimosa is the ideal administration method for the maintenance of this equilibrium, but in this case the TA substituted the mimosa's champagne with Sauvignon Blanc and did not add orange juice.

The Vitamin C (2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol) content of orange juice is ~150% (www.tropicana.com) and could potentially decrease the risk of Scurvy development in the Teaching Assistant, and a future experiment could be to monitor the Teaching Assistant in the continued depletion of Vitamin C (2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol) as a function of modified mimosas.

This work was supported by The Science Company and the Howard Cunningham Fundation.

Terrible Disease of the Month Club

To kick off year two of graduate school in style, I thought I would make you all members of the Terrible Disease of the Month Club. I'm enrolled in a Human Genetics course and while familiarizing myself with the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man [OMIM] database, I stumbled across this little gemstone:

Fatal Familial Insomnia is September's Terrible Disease!

That's the OMIM entry, which is neatly and less-accurately summarized by Wikipedia. Skip right to "Presentation" if you want-- it's what I did.

So if you find yourself at age 45 with a complete inability to sleep, you probably did something so heinous in a past life that, at the moment your parents' gametes fused, the Mutation Fairy gave your genome the middle finger and waved her wand at aspartic acid 178 in your copy of the PRNP gene, changing it to an asparagine residue. Granted, this change would only result in a disease phenotype if the amino acid residue in position 129 happened to be a methionine-- but let's assume you did something extremely heinous in that past life.

Actually, there is no correlation between how shitty you acted in a past life and your chances of harboring this rare mutation, but I'm sure sufferers of FFI do a lot of apologizing to no one in particular in those last six months.

My favorite part of the Wikipedia entry is the "Treatment" section because it is absolutely 100% grim. Let's highlight all the words that contribute to the excruciatingly hopeless tone of this little paragraph:

There is no cure or treatment for FFI; hopes rest on the so far unsuccessful gene therapy. Sleeping pills have no effect. While it is not currently possible to reverse the underlying illness, there is some evidence that treatment modalities that focus upon the symptoms can improve quality of life.

Big sigh.

I'm curious about these "treatment modalities that focus upon the symptoms" and what kind of improvement they could actually make in the life of a deranged middle-aged person who hasn't been able to sleep for six months and is definitely going to die. Like, are we talking about upping their Netflix membership plan to the 8-at-a-time unlimited option? Getting rid of their bed to make space for one of those mats with dance steps printed on it? Sun lamps? Moon lamps? If it were me, I would ask to be locked in a room far from my friends and loved ones and get into some heavy duty drug experimentation. I would make the best Christmas cards.

I would also make a really terrible Genetic Counselor.

Cranky reflections on "Sunshine"

Directors, producers, astronauts: that's the Sun. Don't try to go near it or land on it, or make another movie about either of those two things.

But if you really have to, then you need to make sure everyone acts as though they are about to die at all times. A sheen of I-Can't-Believe-it's-not-Butter spray on their faces isn't going to cut it-- especially not after they dart out into Space for a mo, wrapped only in some Pink Panther insulation. I think someone in the movie even said "You can't go out there, it's -273 degrees Celsius!" However, it seems that what is physically unattainable can't hurt you any more than getting drunk and passing out ice-fishing in Canada can. The tinfoil-swathed crew member that made it back to the safety of the airlock sustained only a mildly frostbitten thumb. For having spent more than 10 seconds at the temperature at which atoms and their components purportedly cease to move, I'd say things went pretty well. To quote Lord Kelvin, "whatevs!"

If you hadn't already guessed, today I saw the movie "Sunshine" as part of the Lena's Solitary Summer Saturdays Series. I thought it would be a fun thing to do on a 95 degree day, and someone had also recommended that I go see it. So I walked down the poorly-shaded street at 1:30 prepared to experience psychological cooling by way of cinematic astronaut charring. Two hours later I left feeling cranky and jaded-- and I continue to sweat.

But it's as silly and unproductive as the movie itself to rant about the moments that not only required that I suspend my disbelief but that I also set its dangling body on fire, so I'll end with a list of pithy observations.

1. The sleaziness of Cillian Murphy's hair is directly proportional to its distance from the Sun. Evidence: his weird little ponytail becomes increasingly obvious.

2. The rapidity with with the Sun burns you is inversely proportional to your distance from it. Evidence: en route to the Sun, crew members are charred to ash within seconds of Sun exposure but when Cillian and Rose and the Insane Guy are plummeting through the Sun to its core, there is only some sweat. And when Cillian is confronted with the Actual Core of the Sun, he is able to stretch out his hand and watch it become slightly discolored/burnt before being consumed.

3. The best sex you will never have is analogous to plummeting into the core of the Sun. Evidence: Rose Byrne stays alive until the end, which allows both her and Cillian to writhe separately on the floor of the spacecraft and moan.

4. In the event of another Ice Age, children will still make snowmen.

5. Going to the Sun is always a bad idea and everything will go wrong and you will die.

A Faux Pas

This morning at around 10:25am I headed to campus to run and do some lab work. I was in my athletic clothing with a strip of t-shirt acting as a headband, and I was blasting Petula Clark's "Downtown" with the window open. I stopped at the end of the street and proceeded to sing along while I waited for an opening in the traffic.

After I had belted out that there are "movie shows, Downtown" I realized I had been stopped for longer than normal. I continued singing, but unfocusedly examined the traffic at the same time-- and eventually I noticed these on the cars:
I had been singing the whole time and by the time I realized it was a slow-moving and well-attended funeral, the song was practically over.

I don't know how many of them had their windows open, or how many of them noticed my passionate accompaniment to the horrifically upbeat song, but I do know that I had to wait 5 whole minutes to make a right-handed turn on to Moody St. While waiting and singing, I made a mental addendum to my own personal Funeral Specifications list: everybody goes their own separate ways afterwards-- none of this parade crap. Or at the very least I would encourage carpooling. I'm thinking 7 black Windstar minivans to carry guests to and from the event. I haven't decided what type of event it's going to be yet-- maybe just your standard funeral.

In the end, I didn't really feel bad for having ignored their presence. They're asking for this kind of thing if they process down Moody St-- it's not a very classy street.

Yes, I run. On Mars. It's awesome.

Today I purchased my very first pair of purely athletic sneakers. It was such a difficult purchase for me to make, being a lover of shoes. All running shoes are hideous, and to spend more than $50 on footwear that looks like it was designed by MTV VJs masquerading as NASA engineers, well it's unpleasant.

I tried on a pair of dusty blue and white Asics that felt like mini hotel mattresses, followed by a pair of neon orange and white New Balances that felt like Barbie Ferraris melted onto my feet. Looking up and down the aisle I realized that my only options were absolutely hideous-- so I decided to embrace the hideousness.

I shut my eyes, grabbed a pair of size 8 Nike "Reax," and stuffed my socked feet inside. They were comfortable enough so I opened my eyes to study the exterior. White, grey mesh, metallic gold details, and a big toothpaste-y blue Nike logo. Perfect.
The metallic details really get me. Also, the intricate heel-- the VJs really must have put their heads together on that one.

Hideous or not, I expect these shoes to protect me from fallen arches, shin splints-- and I expect them to hold up to Martian standards. I also want some Aliens to abduct me and eventually upgrade my shoes.

Before paying for the hideous sneakers I was informed that it was "buy two pairs get one pair 1/2 price" day. Desperately needing to walk out of that store with something other than awful single-purpose footwear, I also bought these. At 1/2 price.
Now I own a pair of "cute" shoes.

I also bought a new digital camera.



This post is dedicated to Mary Todd Lincoln.

Tropical Depression

We've all heard about Seasonal Affective Disorder [SAD], characterized by a Winter depression that can be treated with sunlamps or trips to Florida. But what about those of us who become depressed in the Summer? It's seasonal, it's affective, but is it a real disorder?

What does the literature say?

So they noticed it in 1987. In 2002, the New York Times ran an interesting article on "reverse seasonal affective disorder." To me, it makes perfect sense. The Summer has always screwed me up a bit. The persistent but asynchopatic chants of the katydid, the hot and heavy air, the early bright sun, sunburns, sweat, dehydration, exhaustion, anxiety over its ultimate end and concomitant return to academia-- they all add their respective weights and contribute to my personal disdain for the season.

Of course Summer is supposed to encourage a more carefree attitude but when you don't sleep well and you sweat more than your gin and tonic, the fun isn't sucked out but rather trickles out over the course of 3 months.
But I was raised without an air conditioner, so I guess none of this really bothers me. I'm used to it.

Bonus Post: Find Figure Two Location Update!

As the summer approaches its hottest, the Find Figure Two extravaganza also approaches its hottest. Here are the latest locations and their hiders:

In the DVD player [Lena]

In the fish food [Pearl]

Under Pearl's musk body spray [Lena]

In my birth control pill case [Pearl]

In the vitamin jar [Lena]*

Behind the first slice of bread in the loaf [Pearl]

In the flap of the unopened butter carton [Lena]

In my underwear drawer [Pearl]


* Figure Two spent a lot of time with the vitamins, which helped to point out an enhanced feature of the game-- the hider gains insight into the daily routine of the seeker. Clearly, Pearl had been neglecting to take her supplements. Should I have not found Figure Two on the top layer of underwear strata in my drawer this morning, Pearl would be free to modify her secret opinions of me.

But where is it now????

Lab Doors

Because I am a very incipient second year
it means that I've chosen a lab in which to do my PhD thesis, and that I've been working there for about a month. I am interested in better understanding how the position of the nucleus impacts cell polarity in Drosophila melanogaster's developing photoreceptors. I will also be addressing the importance of centrioles in nuclear positioning. And this is where I will sit while doing so
I bring my laptop and sit at my window seat, and surround myself with flies
I also tear out the brains out of fly larvae and spend some time with various microscopes, looking at the position of the nucleus. In this picture, I'm not looking at anything at all
But there is much more important research being conducted in the Science Center. In fact, I have recently stumbled, inadvertently, across some highly sensitive experiments in the hallway near the elevator
The rusty rooster is critical to understanding magnets.

Now we are going to get to the feature of this post: Lab Doors.

I have only photographed three of them so far, but I'm awfully sure there are hidden treasures on almost all of them. Lab doors are decorated, plastered with regulations and restrictions, but mostly they want to remain shut. And locked.
I see that tape-strangled door every morning, and every morning I wish the window wasn't covered with butcher paper.

These following notices are taped to the door I have to open and walk through every morning. This is by far the most demanding lab door. Because it is self-locking, I always carry my bunchy metal keys in my back pocket and end up sitting down on them, and that is painful. Often, I unlock the door for the day-- breaking all rules painstakingly taped to the Obnoxious Door.

Here are some other random lab door signs:
I have a feeling I will be TA-ing in that room.
Whatever SNAC panels are, they are beyond this door. But what IS beyond? Can we find out if we walk through this door?
And, finally, the instructions for getting clean in the Emergency Shower Once you bathe yourself in the Emergency Water, the Emergency Eye will come and also be bathed prior to saving you from whatever horrible chemical burn you are suffering from.

This is how we do.

These guys!

These guys comprise some kind of Latin jazz band, and they are also my backyard neighbors-- and they sound pretty good! They were having an outdoor rehearsal. It's nice to have a live band around on your average Tuesday evening.

Now that it's dinner time, they have courteously disbanded. The sounds of birds and playing children tell me that this is a time to reflect. I learned a few things this past weekend:

1. Limoncello-Vodka martinis are superb
2. Heavy cream, sugar, a bowl, and a whisk make hard-earned and delicious whipped cream
3. YUM!
4. A new RNA granule has been named! Uridine-rich small nuclear ribonucleoprotein-containing RNAs have been shown to localize with snRNP assembly factors in discrete cytoplasmic foci!

But wait, there's more.

Just as the infamous Processing Body [PB] has been shown to interact with the equally infamous Stress Granule [SG], the U-rich snRNP Body [UB] interacts with PBs! The dynamics of the observed interaction have not yet been studied, but I'm thinking we need to cut to the chase and assume that there is a HUGE RNA granule that encompasses most of the cytoplasm and consists of a mosaic of unique RNA clusters. It will be called the ribonucleoplasm.

Count it!

Brooklyn and back

Last Thursday Mackenzie, Jamie, and I bravely boarded a New York City-bound Lucky Star bus. I was going to Brooklyn to visit Uberfriend Will Murray '03 and I had a flask of Wild Turkey whiskey. Also, I had made three unique peanut butter and jam sandwiches for us-- cherry, blueberry, and classic strawberry. Additionally, Mackenzie also had a flask of whiskey. Too.

While we feared flaming gasoline leaks and exploding tires and overturnings, we were somewhat comforted by the silly dragon Lucky Star logo. This dragon is so very clearly drunk and also tripping on acid while smoking a blunt-- if the bus does explode, he's not going to care. We thought that was a pretty good attitude and proceeded to pay homage to the Dragon Spirit.


We tried to play a drinking game that involved drinking whenever we saw a blue tarp or a Howard Johnson's. The blue tarp component comes from my youth when, on road trips, we would count blue tarps. As I was explaining this to Mackenzie, we actually passed a blue tarp and were able to drink immediately. Unfortunately, that was the last blue tarp we saw for the duration of the time we still had alcohol. We saw a Howard Johnson's on the way back, but we didn't have any whiskey then either. Discouraged by the lack of blue tarps, we switched to drinking while making eye contact with Truckers and drinking again if they honked at us for being awesome. That happened twice. We drastically underestimated the amount of alcohol we needed to sustain ourselves on the bus and as sobriety increased, awareness of intense urine odor increased in a directly proportional manner. We stayed awake just long enough to buy delicious ice cream sandwiches at a seedy pit stop-- chocolate ice cream with nuts! Then, I woke up at midnight in Chinatown.

I took the subway to Will's street. This is Will when he lived in Flushing-- he did a lot of thinking then.
Now he lives in Brooklyn with the World's Largest Cat

He also lives with the World's Luckiest Kitten, but he can tell you that story another time. In the morning we had a nice brunch, took a walk around Prospect Park, and discussed the Battle of Brooklyn. I said that it sounded fake and that there was no Battle of Brooklyn, and Will insisted that there was a monument and the war was a reality. We walked a little further and Will spotted a monument.
Anticipating an informative block of text on the other side, we walked around to the front.
Now there's no way I'm ever going to believe any Brooklyn war stories!

Later, after an aborted game of Scrabble, Will told me that we were going to go "meet Richard at the Sleep Lab." Richard [Image Unavailable] is Will's Uberfriend and Classmate, and together they are steps away from guy duo-movie stardom. Richard works in a Sleep Lab on the 13th floor of a building in Manhattan and, more specifically, in a room filled with medical records. Will and Richard enjoy Philosophy and picking on Science. Or scientists, at least. You know, theoretical physicists and how they define information. I pretty much have to wake up each morning feeling confident that electrons are the minuscule droplets of glue that hold everything together, so their philosophical harangues fell on already ruffled feathers. But this is exactly what I enjoy most about Will and his friends-- the heated debates. We also played Pétanque under the bridge and attended a rooftop barbecue, which are both classy things to do.

I also managed to visit Ben where I gave him a bottle of Groth and he gave me this bird book and a jar of honey.
The bird book is great because it consists entirely of casual answers to casual questions. Example-- Q: How much do birds eat? A: It depends on the bird!; Q: Do birds have knees? A: Yes, and not where you'd expect! The honey is delicious stirred into plain yogurt. Also, I want an Xbox now thanks to Ben's demo.

It was sad to leave on Sunday, but even sadder was the fact that I had to walk from the Riverside T-station to my street at 11pm. The minute Lexington turned into Moody a pick-up truck containing two Mexican men slowed down and I was addressed in their native language. They were subsequently addressed by my native language which consists of several variations on the Icy Scowl.

Back in Waltham, the temperature was 95 degrees Fahrenheit and Pearl suggested we check out a public pool. After Pearl effortlessly lied about being residents of Newton, we scampered through the nightmare of a locker room, failed to take the mandatory pre-shower, and hopped into the People Stew. We made some observations:

1. People around you hate it if you talk about peeing in the pool
2. There are no average-build kids anymore-- they are either sticks or butterballs
3. Public pools aren't as fun as they used to be [Pearl is faking mirth in the upcoming picture. I'm not.]
Also, I cut myself washing a cracked wine glass and wrapped dental floss around it to stop the profuse bleeding. I'm reasonably sure it might be a touch infected.

And now I'm back to farming flies and tearing their developing brains out such that I can study neurons-- those ion-pumping conduits [and electrons have nothing to do with ions, I swear]-- in their proto-eyes.

The summer is grand!

Ugh.

This is where I should have stayed on Saturday-- pillow nest cradling my head and the NPR line-up keeping me immobilized until 4pm.

But no. Instead, these things happened:

1. I had to get out of my car and lead a blind man back to the sidewalk after he and his lousy seeing eye dog decided it was best to walk directly in front of my car.

2. I blew a tire and had to endure an hour of courtship from a mechanic named Calvin who began to yell at me when I didn't commit to dinner and a movie that night.

3. I spent the rest of the afternoon throwing up my special sandwich after it was prepared incorrectly via the addition of tainted prosciutto.

And all of this had happened by 1:30pm-- If only I had stayed in!

Find Figure Two!

A recent grocery store trip brought back both edible sundries and tampons. The food was put away, but the tampons just kind of stayed on the dining room table for the rest of the evening. Pearl and I started reading the box during dinner as it sat next to the salt and pepper shakers, and after we were finished we took it to the living room for further study.

Inside was the "instruction manual." It was written in three languages which all shared one common set of simple line drawings detailing the steps of product utilization. Figure one showed the correct way to hold the product, and then came Figure two. Pearl saw my expression change and asked if I was looking at "that one with the cross-section of the pelvis to show where the product sits once utilized" and I shook my head and just handed her the manual.

Figure two:
A simple yet surprisingly graphic image illustrating how best to utilize the product, shown above tactfully censored. After the initial "Oh my!" response we started laughing and soon after that, Find Figure Two was born.

I cut out Figure two and mounted it on some cardboard, and laid down the rules: Hide Figure two for other house mate to find. When other house mate finds Figure two, she must re-hide it without announcing its discovery. The game is over when Figure two fails to be found, or when we get sick of it. So far Figure two has been hidden:

- In the sugar bowl [Lena]

- In a cosmetic container in the medicine cabinet [Pearl]

- ????? WHERE IS IT NOW ?????

That is for Pearl to find out.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

When we could no longer ignore the fact that we were standing in ankle-deep water by the time the end of the shower rolled around, we realized it was time to maybe start considering calling our handyman. Soon.

The little drain cover had always remained firmly screwed in place, and we were always mindful to remove the population of lost hairs that would invariably gather-- and, really, what else can one do? Our hair is going to fall out until we die, and then it will keep growing and falling out after we've died. It's Nature's Way.

But goodness me our bathing experience was getting grim! So grim, in fact, that I was getting preemptive twinges of shame when I thought about Sweet Dennis the Semi-Responsive Handyman encountering what must be an almost certainly grotesque quantity of our... byproduct. I couldn't exactly picture myself sitting on the toilet seat, holding a gin martini, sighing, and telling Dennis that "it's Nature's Way" while he wrestles with our slimy hairball. It wasn't Dennis' hairball, now was it? His hairs probably just slide down the drain with ease, and lazily sink to the bottom of his septic tank-- for Dennis, that is Nature's Way.

And so, propelled by the need to accept responsibility for the things that fall off of my body and collect in places that usually only male strangers accept money to explore, I unscrewed the drain cover and probed away with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

The amount of hair I first extracted made sense. I noted the resistance I encountered when pulling it out and took it in stride, figuring it had wrapped around some critical pipe component to cause the sluggish draining. I decided to try one more angle just to make sure I had gotten it all before reassembling the drain. What happened next was absolutely disgusting.

The tip of a thick mass of hair, lubricated by old soap scum, pushed its way out of the hole as if propelled by free will. My face contorted as I let go of the pliers and the mass managed to continue forward for almost a centimeter. The only reason I didn't allow myself to become completely hypnotized was because of my intense belief that it was going to try to reestablish its rightful place in my scalp and take over my brain. When Pearl came home, I would have no choice but to encourage her half of the scummy hair clod to do the same-- and this, Dennis, would NOT be Nature's Way!

I grabbed the hideous nub and pulled. There was the quintessential sucking noise, and It Emerged.

And now, just as I faced my responsibility, you [The Reader] must face yours. Look upon it.

Look upon it and face your responsibility.

Wine Review

Name: Groth
Date: 2006
Origin: Napa Valley, CA
Alcohol content: 14.5%

This isn't so much a review of the Groth as it is a recap of my Epic Day. The wine is the period and my day was the sentence.

I woke up at 9:51 am, which is supremely late for me. It was gray, humid, and I had been sleeping under an inappropriately heavy blanket. I woke up with the notion of having a Delightfully Mundane Day, and I peeled myself out of bed to do just that. First stop: the lab.

Now that I am in the business of fly farming I have to factor Drosophila melanogaster's breeding cycle into my daily plans. Newly hatched female flies will remain virgins for 16 hours at 18 degrees Celsius, so I got to the lab post haste. I arrived and put the virgin females in vials with male flies from the Bloomington Deficiency Kits-- a collection of flies that have huge genomic mutations.

Then I went to the mall and bought this ridiculous article of clothing.
It is a short-sleeved hooded sweatshirt. And I paid for it. I can only hope that, someday, the perpetuation of my life will be dependent on the ownership of a short-sleeved hooded sweatshirt-- as in, somebody tells me that they won't shoot me if I make the biggest idiot out of myself that I possibly can. I wouldn't be shot because I would simply put on the short-sleeved hooded sweatshirt.

After making my confusing-and-potentially-humiliating-but-ultimately-life-saving purchase, I headed to my local farm stand/grocer to buy a delicious sandwich and, if possible, mulch. It turns out that the place not only has several varieties of mulch to choose from, but it is also crawling with Future Husbands. While waiting at the deli, I noticed an incredibly attractive Italian man wheeling a cart filled with ingredients for what must have ended up to be the World's Most Amazing Meal. Fresh ricotta cheese, LOADS of basil, an amount of crimini mushrooms, and many other groceries I failed to gawk conclusively at. I gawked very conclusively at the man. I basically morphed, momentarily, into a 67 year old man with erectile dysfunction stopped at a red light in my silver convertible while a 23 year old restaurant hostess lopes across the pedestrian stripes. As the man navigated his cart towards the cashiers I noticed he was wearing TeVa sandals and black socks. Then I got my sandwich and paid for 8 items at the 6-item express lane. I ended up buying spruce mulch, and my car was rapidly saturated with the smell of Christmas as sweat beaded on my upper lip. As I drove, the wisps of air-conditioning delivered intense odors of pine forests and bearded men capable of building two-ton rafts.

Last stop: wine store. During the course of the drive I decided that I was going to ask the purveyor to recommend a wine for me to drink. I didn't feel like being disappointed, and I didn't want to read any labels. I wanted someone to set a frosty bottle of white wine in my hand and shoo me towards my car-- or better yet, provide me with a frosty drive-thru window.

Once inside Auburndale liquors, I quickly found an employee and told him exactly what I wanted him to do for me. I said "dry, white, fifteen dollars" and I was given a lesson on Sauvignon blancs, their dominant flavors, and regions. To summarize:

France: apparent citrus

California: "grass" and "lemon" and "cheaper"

Australia: sweet, fruity

So I rolled up to the cashier with the 2006 Groth from Napa Valley. He asked for my I.D. as I pulled it out of my wallet along with my debit card, and after inspecting it told me that "he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to accept this." This was the same pudgy red-headed guy that had allowed me to purchase several other bottles of wine in the past! What was the deal? I balked at his trepidation and reminded him of how many bottles of wine he had authorized my purchase of, and how I was an embarrassingly frequent customer, and etcetera. My lovely day was NOT going to come to a screeching halt with gasoline explosions and limbs flying through the air-- not here!

Then I noticed a tall man in a suit standing near the cashier. The cashier was blushing as I protested, and I realized that the suited man was clearly some kind of supervisor. When my license had been approved after several tense moments, I whispered to the flustered cashier "did I just get you in trouble?" To which he sullenly replied, "I hope not..."

I smiled apologetically and swished out to add my final purchase to the mound of acquisitions in the passenger's seat. **Of note: the two New Age Beverage containers in the cup holders**
Upon arriving home, I hoisted the bags of spruce mulch into The Enclosure.
Here is a detail of the mulch bag, because this bulleted list very nicely outlines the perks of mulch.
What can't mulch do? In addition to mulch, I purchased four small basil plants and one bronze fennel plant.

So where is this wine review? Did I drink the wine? Does it compliment mulch? You bet! Here it is:
The first sip I took generated a volatile puff of tartness that rocketed through my nasal passages and brought tears to my eyes. After the first mouthful hit my stomach, shriveling it like a long bath, I almost savagely began consuming my sandwich.
Soon I was actively sweating and wondering if this wine would be good to drink during a yard sale, and then I wondered if it is legal to be drunk at yard sales. I almost went and put together a yard sale.

What I'm trying to say is that this is an inspirational wine-- a Big Ideas kind of wine. It's the kind of wine that you drink after you buy four cubic feet of mulch.

A Question to Never Ask

Tonight, Pearl brought home salmon and the battle for the title of Side Dish raged as follows:

A Bundle of Super-thin Asparagus Spears vs. A bag of ~30 Brussels Sprouts

I didn't know much about Brussels sprouts, their preparation, or recommended portion size-- so I cut off the ugly parts, steamed them for 17 minutes, and steamed all 30 of them. It went pretty much exactly as one would expect.

Soon, Pearl and I were tucking into our substantial piles of roughage. We marveled at how each one seemed to taste just a little bit different and how they were, essentially, very small cabbages. We noted the extreme temperature of the vegetable's dense center, and studied the way the dark green leaves packed together to create these veritable Vitamin C hand grenades.

And then a question popped into my mind. A horrible question.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I blurted it out:

"So, why don't we hear about more people finding bugs inside these? If you look, these really are excellent places for bugs to hide... Right? I mean, I would..."
Pearl stopped in mid-chew and stared at the table, and I realized what a mistake I had made in asking my question-- a mistake that impacted us both.

"Great" said Pearl. As she swallowed, I looked at the Brussels sprouts as we both entertained identical images in our minds.
The rest of our meal stunk of fear and sickness, and we left half of the edible cocoons on our plates.

I suppose the moral here is most vegetables probably contain insects, or have contained them at some point. And that is just awful.