4 Things Meme

I was tagged for this meme last week by Mary over at No Polar Coordinates. I haven't done a meme in a while, so I might as well try this one. At least it's nice and listy.

Four Jobs I've Had

Keyboard Specialist

Pharmacy Technician

Gas Chromatography Analyst

Dendrology Assistant

Four Places I Have Lived

Oscoda, MI

Blackduck, MN

Mashpee, MA

Current Hometown

Four Places I Have Vacationed

Acadia National Park

Northern California

Maho Bay, St. John

The Adirondacks

Four of My Favorite Foods

Strawberries

Raspberries

Pho

Egg Noodles

Four Things I Like to Do

Hike/Walk

Take Photos

Read Books

Canoe/Kayak

OK, this took longer than I thought, so I am not going to tag anyone. Except Electronic Goose, that is, because I recently learned she has never done a meme.

Blog Action Day for the Environment: What I Do

Although I have made many allusions to it in all my talk of the wetlands and the plant love, I am not sure I have ever revealed what exactly it is that I do. There is my whole wishy-washy anonymity complex to contemplate, after all. However, I have decided to come out in honor of the day: I work for an environmental consulting firm.

Environmental consulting firms and environmental consultants can get a bad rap. Sometimes our clients think we are a bunch of seed-eating treehuggers out to ruin them. Sometimes environmentalists think we are sell-outs in the pockets of developers, paving the way for all sorts of evils.

I am here to explain the situation. None of these things are true.

Every.single.person I know who works professionally in my field is there because of a passion for the environment. We all went to school and studied ecology, wildlife management, botany, hydrology, soils, environmental policy. We are not in it for the money; we all know we'd make more doing something else. I certainly had a higher income working at the chromatography lab, but I was miserable.

The sad truth is that some development is inevitable. It is barreling down on us. What we do at my firm is take that development, and make it better.

I admit I was a little unsure when I started at this firm. All my previous environmental work had been for various government agencies. I knew that system, and had some faith in it (although unfortunately the current administration is doing a magnificent job of dismantling every protection they can). But the same policies dictate what we do in the private sector, the same National Environmental Policy Act, the same Environmental Impact Statements, the same fieldwork.

Still skeptical? Allow me to present this unnamed creek, barely a dotted line on a topographical map:


I feel a little dramatic saying it like so, but I saved that creek. In the preliminary project designs, an access road and electrical lines were proposed to cross the creek. On a field visit this spring, I took photos. I was worried that blasting would be required to continue with the proposed plans, and that it would destroy the creek. I brought the photos to my boss, who shared my excitement about the beautiful site, and my concern for its future.

We got the ball rolling, and soon enough: voila! When I was up delineating wetlands last week at the same site, the new maps show no project components anywhere in the vicinity. The plans were re-worked, the road was re-routed, and the creek will no longer be impacted. It is but one example. When I find populations of rare plants, they are protected. The wetlands I delineate are avoided, and when impacted, compensatory mitigation is required at great expense to the developers.

The project goes on, but it is a much better project due to the involvement of people like me. It is satisfying to know that I am making a small difference each and every day.

SodaBoy's Desktop

I was tagged for this desktop meme a few days back by Mary, and I love the idea. It gives us all a visual peek into each other's worlds, the scene of the bloggy crime, as it were. Except I am sharing SodaBoy's desktop instead of my own, since my computer officially died a few months ago. Close enough, right? Plus, his desktop is an especially fun one... how many icons can you find?


SodaBoy took the photo at Fantastic Canoeing Provincial Park, a favorite camping spot of ours. OK, now the hard part. I am tagging Woman Warrior, Aliki, Andy, purpleteardropsofhappilymarriedness, and anyone else who wants to participate. Show me what you got!

The Stuart Smalley Meme

I was tagged for this meme by Aliki over at World of One Thousand Different Things. It is like many of the other list meme going around except for one little twist: this list of ten things has to be ten things you like about yourself. This is quite a challenge, especially if you are feeling a little poopy like I have been, which is actually why I chose to do this meme before the 8 Things Meme I owe NSLS. I thought it might be a little pick me up. So without further ado... I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!

Ten Things I Like About Myself:

1. My wrists. All through my childhood, teen, and college years, I was a total scrawnster. Those days appear to be over. I’ve softened up and grown into a more womanly body, which is all fine and well, I suppose. But I still have these tiny little wrists. I love that I can wrap my hands around them and easily touch my thumb to my pinky.

2. My eyes. In my nuclear family, I was the only one with blue eyes, so I always felt a little special, I guess. I likely got the eyes from my Grandpa Joe, along with the round face, so we always had a blue-eyed, blockheaded kind of bond.

3. My relationship with my family. I love being close to my sister, and my parents. I love that I grew with my grandparents such an integral part of my life. I have come to realize that a great family is not something to take for granted.

4. My place in the outdoors. I am very happy when outdoors, especially when walking in the woods or along a shore. I have a comfort and ease in the forest that is foreign to many, many people. SodaBoy learned about different sorts of intelligence in a class in graduate school. I like my outdoor intelligence.

5. My work ethic. I work my ass off at whatever job or pursuit I happen to be engaged with. Employers who hire me always get a bargain, because even if I don’t like a job or a supervisor, I still bust my hump. I am just constitutionally a hard worker.

6. My empathy. I am able to drum up compassion for just about everyone and everything, even inanimate objects. I get weepy all the time listening to NPR. I had an online quiz pronounce me “benevolent to a fault.” The only people I struggle to sympathize with are those who utterly lack empathy themselves.

7. My plant skills. I always had an easy time learning plants, although to be honest, I struggle with what I call horts, or the landscaping plants, the weird hybrids and such. Probably because there aren’t good technical keys. Or maybe because I don’t find them walking around in the woods.

8. My analytical mind. I am very organized and detail oriented. I like that I like solving puzzles, that I can spy the unusual amongst the ordinary. I can always find a four leaf clover, if anyone is in need.

9. My civic mindedness. I like that I have voted in every election since I turned 18, that I care enough about the world I live in to want to change it. Voting is such a priority to me that I drove home from an out of state job 10 hours each way to vote.

10. My love of reading. I am so glad I am a reader and a lover of books. My father in law once told me with pride that he hadn’t read a book since college. He seemed proud of himself, as though he was making good use of his time. He is a smart and successful man, but I was filled with such pity. Reading is a joy, and I like about myself that I can appreciate books and all the wonderful places they take me.

OK, now comes the part where I tag people. How about Nadine, Mary, NSLS, Andy, and Nicole? And anyone else who feels up to the challenge! Let's get our brag on, folks.

The Letter B

Nadine over at In Blue Ink is handing out letters. The challenge is to list ten things you like beginning with that letter. So here goes:

1) Berries. OK, this one is a given, but I might as well get it out of the way. And it is oh, so true. Going strawberry picking is something I often choose to do for my birthday. There is very little better than fresh sun-warmed berries.

2) Birds. Yes, also a freebie, but also something I truly like. The proof is in the pudding, right. See... here and here. Photographic evidence!

3) Books. I love books. I just finished Jean Hegland’s Into the Forest and before that, The Hungry Tide by Amitov Ghosh. A big thanks to Turtlebella, who wrote the review that piqued my interest in the latter.

4) Bungalows. Craftsman-style bungalows, the real thing. Not just any little saltbox the realtor decides to market that way.

5) Birches. We have seven paper birches planted around the edge of our backyard. The white peeling bark is a nice visual contrast to all the glorious green.

6) The beach. I should qualify that, though, if I am going to be honest. I don’t really care for bathing suits, and abhor laying out in the sun. It burns us. However, deserted beaches are a great place to walk. Lake Huron has some beauties.

7) Blue jeans. There is nothing more comfortable.

8) Burritos. Specifically the catfish burritos we used to get every Friday from the funky little Mexican place around the corner from our old apartment. We don’t get them as often now that we have to drive there.

9) Bechamel sauce. Yeah, I’m starting to reach here, but moussaka wouldn’t be the same without it. Mmm, creamy, pasty, good. There was a Middle Eastern restaurant right next door to the Mexican joint. We ate well when we lived there.

10) Bagginses. Nerd alert! But, seriously, who can resist a Baggins?

Six Weird Things

So I got tagged for this meme a while back by Mary over at No Polar Coordinates, and I'm just getting around to it now. Memes are supposed to be easy posts, sort of filler, mostly content-free, right? But, I struggled with this one. It should not have been difficult; many people consider me to be a little odd. I finally came up with six things. I hope they are weird enough for you.

1. I vastly prefer restaurant-style cola to that from a can or bottle. To soda connoisseurs everywhere, this is enormous blasphemy, because restaurant-style colas tend to be somewhat watery and flat, which might actually be what I like. By restaurant-style, I mean that the soda is on tap, served with ice and a straw, and preferably with rapid-fire free refills. I always handsomely reward wait staff who are mindful of such details.

2. I can only drink carbonated beverages while I am eating. Otherwise the carbonation freaks me out too much. Growing up, I wasn’t allowed much soda due to hyperactive tendencies, and never became accustomed to “the bees.” Bees were our in-family kiddie lingo for carbonation, apparently because Sis and I thought the bubbles stung. Somehow eating neutralizes the stinging action, don’t ask me how. This meme is for weird things, remember. They don’t have to make sense.

3. I think it is rude when people turn around in my driveway, especially when there is unshoveled snow on the ground. We are perhaps 8 houses away from intersections in either direction. Would it really be such an inconvenience to people to drive half a block and turn around in the public roadway? It’s not like they are major intersections with a lot of traffic. Snow that has been driven on is much harder to shovel. Some days we will get three or four cars turning around down there before we get the snow cleaned up. I suspect the neighbors. Grrr.

4. I got my bachelor’s degree before I got my drivers license. I did get a learner’s permit in high school, but I completely lacked the strong desire to drive that most teens have. We didn’t have extra cars or extra money, and I was totally unmotivated. My parents never really pushed the issue, and continued schlepping me around. In college, I could walk or bike anywhere I needed to go. I finally got the license when I got an out-of-state job that required it, and within the month bought my first car and drove off into the sunset. Figuratively, that is. I was really driving off into the sunrise.

5. I have only owned two cars in my life. My first car was a Geo Metro, with 3 cylinders and a manual transmission. I truly loved that little car. It was a hatchback, and I could fold down the back seat and put most everything I owned in there. I could do a u-turn on a dime, and parallel park anywhere. It didn’t have a lot of forward momentum on hills; even the modest Berkshires could reduce me to the truck lane, but what did I care? It got killer mileage. I drove that car for 9+ years, but I live in the Rust Belt, a term that has more than one meaning. It was the rust that did in my beloved Metro.

6. I seem to be predisposed towards the enjoyment of minorly compulsive behaviors and rituals. For example, I bought a bag of baby carrots to take in my lunches. Out of simple curiosity, I read all the label information, and discovered that a serving size is exactly 14 carrots. I wanted to know what 14 baby carrots looked like, so I counted them out, and have continued to do so every day since. It is absurd: I am not on diet, and a few extra carrots would be utterly harmless even if I was. Why am I still counting carrots? It amuses me every time.

The rules of the meme dictate that I am supposed to tag six people, but I am much too shy for that. Although I would love to read six weird things about all of you who haven't already completed this meme. So please, if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

Yes, YOU.

2006: The Year in Books Meme

This list of books are those I read in the 2006 calendar year. The seemingly random order is simply the sequence in which I read the books. It really seems like there were more, but I fell down on my record keeping in the latter half of 2005, so some of the "missing books" I'm remembering were probably from that time frame. If it's not on the list, I can't claim it for the year. Why, yes... I normally do obsessively keep lists of the books I read. Don't you? In 2007, I'm going to start tracking movies, too. Oh, boy!

I'd love to see this turn into a meme so I can see what you all have been reading, too. I am not going to link to the books, because there are too many, and I am too lazy, and it would take forever. Plus, I think it might have the unintended effect of scaring people away from playing along. So go out there into bloggyland and tell me what you've read. And leave me a comment so I know to come and find you. Now, to the list...

The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson
True to Form by Elizabeth Berg
Lost in the Forest by Sue Miller
Until I Find You by John Irving
Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent
Life Without Water by Nancy Peacock
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry
Rats by Robert Sullivan
A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle
This is Biology by Ernst Mayr
Quarantine by Jim Crace
Property Of by Alice Hoffman
The Legacy of Luna by Julia Butterfly Hill
Maybe Baby edited by Lori Leibovich
The Lady and the Panda by Vicki Constantine Croke
All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve
Object Lessons by Anna Quindlen
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
The Third Child by Marge Piercy
Nature Via Nurture by Matt Ridley

The Christmas Past Meme

I saw that Nadine over at In Blue Ink had posted a picture from her Christmas past, so I decided to jump on that bandwagon. Whee! It's fun up here. This is me in 1976 with my late Grandpa J:

Interesting but Flawed

Over at Repressed Librarian's, I saw a request asking for readers like myself to help a grad student with his research by linking to this post. Apparently, Scott Eric Kaufman is studying memes, and the speed at which they propagate. The "meme" here is that each person who reads about the study then posts the link and asks their readers to do the same. Many people have already left comments on his blog, pointing out the various flaws in his methodology, some of which he acknowledges right from the start. A major issue I see is that as a meme, this one doesn't offer much to participants: no self-reflection, no self-indulgence, no opportunity to share or write. People don't have the normal incentive to participate in memes (FUN). So don't do it because you want to: link to this cat purely for the advancement of knowledge.

The Comfort Meme

I was away from the internets all weekend, so I'm a little behind the times, but I couldn't resist participating in this fun little meme. I first saw it on jo(e)'s page, and then again at In Blue Ink and No Polar Coordinates. To add to the excitement, I will disclose that this is my very.first.meme!

Comfort Beverage: Earl Grey tea, preferably organic. The tea must be plain; additives like milk and sugar only sully the simple goodness.

Comfort Food: Macaroni and cheese, the variety I grew up on, made from scratch. Again, very simple, only three ingredients: macaroni, milk, extra sharp cheddar (and it cannot be yellow). Combine and bake.

Comfort Seat: The south corner of my green loveseat, with the pillows all rearranged just so and a big comforter for coziness. A cat is a huge bonus.

Comfort Television: I would have to say Seinfeld, only because I can watch the reruns over and over and over, and it is always funny.

Comfort DVD: No doubts about this one. The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring. The scenes from the Shire.

Comfort Music: Tom Petty's Wildflowers. The Grateful Dead's Reckoning. Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon.

Comfort Read: Oddly enough, this is the hardest for me to elucidate. I love to read, and as a kid I reread my favorite books ad infinitum. However, I made a conscious decision to move away from that habit as an adult. The problem is not that I wouldn't enjoy rereading favorites; I know I would. However, there are so many books out there I that I want to read but haven't yet. So I tend to stick with the unknown over the comfort. I guess to be cooperative, I will admit to the guilty pleasure of Jean Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear. The quality of her writing got progressively worse throughout the rest of the sordid series, but the first one holds up to many a reread. It even helped stimulate my interest in plants. The internets are also comforting, especially with that first mug of Earl Grey in the morning.