Back off, Spidey!

I am not afraid of spiders. They do not seek out people to bite; we are not their prey. Spiders might bite a human if they feel threatened, but a creature can't be blamed for simple self-defense. As an adaptive trait, people may be genetically predisposed to learn a fear of spiders, along with snakes, as certain varieties of these animals have posed threats to hominids throughout our evolution. However, there are no poisonous spiders in my area, and I never had that initial bad experience that often ushers in phobias. So to me, spiders remain an object of fascination and wonder.

Occasionally, I will relocate them to what I deem to be a more suitable location. One place that warrants a reassignment every time is the shower. I don't know why spiders seems to favor the shower so much, but I suspect they are merely attracted to moisture, especially in the winter, when the air becomes so dry. But I hate seeing them in there, because I often fail to notice them until it's too late and they are swirling down the drain (and then I feel terribly guilty). It also can be hard to carry out the logistics of catch-and-release while soaking wet and possibly soapy.

Yesterday, I was lucky. The spider showed itself as soon as I opened the shower curtain, dropping in front of my face on a cord of silk. I grabbed the string of silk, and reattached it to the knob of a nearby cabinet and went about my merry business. Apparently, I wasn't thorough enough, though.

This morning, Spidey was back, and I didn't spy it until I was already lathered up. The poor creature was clinging to the wet shower curtain. I was careful for the rest of the shower, trying to keep water from spraying in Spidey's direction. Once I toweled off, I freed the little spider from the water droplet where it was trapped by surface tension. The spider seemed to recover quickly, suggesting by its mobility that it had not drowned. This time I moved it further away, to the guest room, where I put it on a houseplant.

Spider, meet spider plant.

Snow Removal

Winter has finally arrived in my neck of the woods. It took me an hour to shovel the driveway this afternoon, which is actually a good thing, because it means I got some exercise. I have a much harder time motivating to go for walks when it is cold out. Mind you, once I get going, I invariably enjoy myself, no matter the weather, but like I said, I have motivational issues. You could even say I am motivationally challenged.

I shoveled my car,too, in addition to the driveway. There was just way too much snow for a puny little brush. I didn’t touch SodaBoy’s car, though, because he can get a little uppity about scratches and such. He came out and brushed it off himself when I was almost done with the driveway. Of course, then I had to shovel all around his car again (we really got quite a bit of snow).

Strange little snow removal detail… when the city plowed the street this morning, they only did a narrow landing strip down the center of the road, leaving about six or seven feet on either side unplowed. Normally, I shovel through the plow crap all the way to the street, just to have a clear opening. But after shoveling four feet of road, I started to feel like an ass and threw in the towel. This is the first big snowstorm we’ve had since living here, so I’m hoping this isn’t how they routinely do things in this part of town. I’ve been scoping out the neighbors and their shoveling habits. It’s pretty well split between the OCD types who removed every speck of snow in the vicinity, and those like myself who didn’t shovel the entire street. Along with a few who apparently don't shovel at all.

Onto non-snow-related issues, I had two good things happen today:

1. After I finished shoveling, I convinced SodaBoy to take me out for a milkshake at the neighborhood scoop/sandwich shop. The counter boy looked at me like I was batshit when I ordered my milkshake. Yeah, I know, it’s cold outside. But I’m all warmed up from shoveling, and I’m wearing a down coat and a wool hat and leather gloves, and I’m not cold, and I’ve been craving one all week, so make with the milkshake already. No, I don't want chili. I want a freaking milkshake! Mmmm, milkshake. We also stopped on the way home and got SodaBoy some cough syrup.

2. I got a call from a prospective employer this morning, and we set up an interview for Monday.

Clever of me to save the best for last, huh? Wish me luck.

In Sickness and In Health

SodaBoy has been sick the last few days, with a bad cold that is migrating from head to chest. In the last three days he hasn’t strayed from bed except to the couch. This has meant even more television than usual. Now, I’ve been sick and I understand that it’s no fun. I was prone to strep as a youth, and fairly susceptible to bronchitis as well, and I even had scarlet fever once. The only childhood illness I missed out on was chickenpox, mysteriously enough.

[I had one reddish spot at the same time my sister had chickenpox, but other than that, none of the normal symptoms. This will frighten me if I think about it too much, as I don’t want to get it as an adult and end up with shingles. Adult onset chickenpox is clearly a foolish thing to fret about, though. My grandfather had the pox twice, once as a child and then again as an adult. There are no guarantees with immunity.]

Even reading can be too much of a strain when you feel like crap. Intellectually, I know that; I remember it from my own past suffering. And, yet... despite knowing all that, I’m still struggling to suppress my resentment about the constant television chatter. It’s driving me bonkers! There is no escape. Frankly, it is the biggest disappointment of home ownership. Living in apartments for years, I constantly fantasized about having a house and being able to get away from the idiot box. But it’s not really possible. I can hear it jabbering from every.single.room in the house, even the basement.

As a kid, I could read through anything and everything. I would carry books to the grocery store and read while Mom shopped. I would happily read away while Dad watched television. Not a problem. I never saw Star Wars until I went to college, because when it came on cable and Dad watched it? Yeah, I was busy reading. Somewhere along the way, I mostly lost that skill. I’m much more easily distracted as an adult. And reading? Reading is easy compared to writing.

Unless I want to end up with drivel like this.

Not Too Proud

As part of my ongoing quest for employment, I took a civil service exam yesterday. Another new experience, but hey: I’m not too proud for job security and good benefits. The exam was for a technician title in an applied science department with the county. The tests will be scored and ranked by performance, a process that is scheduled to take up to three months. I don’t see how it could possibly take three months, since the test was multiple choice. Then again, I may be biased by my eagerness for work. It is the government, after all. I shouldn’t expect efficiency.

Civil service law requires that appointments be made from among one of the three highest scoring candidates interested in the position. I was optimistic before the test, thinking to myself, I’m pretty smart, I should have a decent shot. Now I’m not so sure. More people took the exam than I expected, at least 20 warm bodies. And the questions were hard! Well, not all of them. Half the test was math of some variety, all ridiculously easy. However, the subject related questions were very, very specific. I’m trying to comfort myself with the thought that everyone else found those questions difficult, too.

In two short weeks, I'll be taking another exam for a different technician job with the county. Maybe I’ll do better next time.

Bribing Myself

I didn’t have any pressing errands to run today, but I knew it was going to be nice out again. I told myself I couldn’t go for a walk until I applied for another job. Going out this morning to bring up the empty trash can and recycling bin really lit a fire under my butt; it’s gorgeous out today, sunny and 55 degrees. Of course, even then, I putzed around for a while first: putting away clean dishes, loading the dishwasher, checking my email, reading blogs, updating lists.

I finally hunkered down to work on the job application early this afternoon. It was another application that must be completed online, and of the worst variety, too. “Paste your resume” into this rinky box and lose all your formatting. Super! So I dinked around with that for awhile before I got it into acceptable shape. Then I was free. I grabbed the camera and headed for Stormwater Park.


Our city has a great program where they pick up holiday trees curbside starting after the New Year. The trees are taken to one of several compost sites, where come spring time, they are ground into mulch. The mulch is available free to anyone who wants to come and pick it up. So to entertain myself along my walk to the park and back, I kept a tally of the discarded trees. Three balsam firs (Abies balsamea), two Douglas-firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and one Frasier fir (Abies fraseri). Nice trees, with the exception of the one Doug fir that had been spray painted with white streaks; some people are really desperate for snow, I guess. What the fake snow does to the mulch, I don’t even want to think about.


The park was bustling, mostly with families at the playground, and dogwalkers. I swear, dogwalkers are the friendliest lot you ever could meet. I love how when you make casual conversation with a stranger and their dog, you invariably learn the dog’s name but not that of their human companion. Today I exchanged greetings with many a fine folk, and had a friendly conversation with one man. His canine friend Reese approached me while I was taking pictures of the ducks, and tried to sit on my feet. Of course we talked about how the water should be long frozen by now, what a beautiful day it is, and how happy the foolish little mallards look.

All us foolish little humans looked pretty happy, too, if truth be told.

Ginkgo Alley

The unseasonable warmth continues in my neck of the woods, with highs in the 50s forecast for the rest of the week. I just returned from a walk to run errands, two banks and the post office, exactly four miles round trip according to Google Earth. It feels good to be able to propel myself on these routine missions, for several rather obvious reasons. Why use the car, and burn fossil fuels, when I don’t need to?

Plus, I enjoy the walking. Of course I like walking in nature best, but any old walk will do: I’m easy. Fresh air, sunshine, interesting sights. SodaBoy used to mock me sometimes when I’d try to talk him into joining me in a prowl around the neighborhood. He loves hiking, but wants his walks to be somewhere interesting. Forced marches is the term he coined for my “boring walks” around the neighborhood. But I always find things of interest.

Today’s walk led me through Tall Tree Cemetery, then through campus. I passed a tombstone marked with a birth year of 1904, but no year of death had been added later. Is that person still alive? Or did the family move away and inter their loved one elsewhere? And in a small parking area near the biology building, I saw vanity plates on approximately 15% of the cars: CASTANEA, CATFOOT, and YBE NRML. There were zero customized plates in two larger parking areas by the engineering building and the gymnasium. This is obviously too small a sample size to tell us anything meaningful, but do biologists get customized license plates more often than other academics? See how it works? I can entertain myself endlessly with such minutia.

I chose my path so that I walked on Ginkgo Alley in both directions. Ginkgo Alley is my name (I’m sure the cemetery administrators use another, more official, designation) for a lane in the graveyard that is lined on both sides with majestic old ginkgo trees, the biggest I’ve ever seen. Ginkgo biloba trees are dioecious, and oddly enough, both male and female trees were planted along Ginkgo Alley. This is highly unusual. The male trees bear pollen cones, and the female trees produce ovules, which develop into seeds after pollination. The seeds have a fleshy, fruit-like covering, and look much like pale cherries or small apricots.

Ginkgo trees are often used in landscaping, and as urban street trees. They are considered extremely tolerant of salt and pollution, are disease and insect resistant, and can even withstand massive radiation. Although the seeds are attractive enough, female ginkgo trees are rarely planted, at least in the United States. I’ve heard that the planting of female trees is actually banned in some municipalities. The city of Boise went so far as to remove 26 female ginkgo trees, and replant them with male cultivars.

The seeds contain n-butanoic acid, which has a distinctly unpleasant odor, most often compared to rancid butter. Vomit is actually what comes to my mind: ginkgo “fruit” smells exactly like vomit. The smell is strong enough that walking down Ginkgo Alley in the fall, with the seeds littering the pavement and squishing underfoot, can trigger the gag reflex. Really, all you can do is just try to hold your breath, and walk faster. It’s that bad.

The calendar says it’s January now, so I thought the time was well enough past for stinkiness, and I like the ginkgo tree. It’s a living fossil, after all, and damn interesting, and pretty, too. So I walked Ginkgo Alley today. There were a few malodorous seeds still lying about. So to immerse myself in the moment, I stopped, knelt, tied my shoe, and inhaled deeply. Oh yeah, baby, I'm alive!

I've Got the Fever

For the last several years I’ve noticed, with little more than passing fancy, how people in all stages of air travel seem to entertain themselves with little grids of numbers. I could see that some numbers were missing, and the apparent goal was to fill in all the blanks. Like a crossword puzzle with numbers? Where you do a lot of adding? That was about as far as my interest took me. I like to read on airplanes anyway.

Then while visiting SodaBoy’s parents last year at Thanksgiving, we saw them working on these number games. At this time, I first learned the name of the mysterious wordless crosswords: Sudoku. I also made a mental note that a book of Sudokus might make a good future gift for them. [And then I actually remembered, and bought a Will Shortz book for them this past Christmas. Hot damn! I’m on a roll.]

It wasn't until their recent holiday visit that I actually learned how Sudokus work. The first night of their stay, we had 6 o’clock dinner reservations, but were instructed to come by their hotel earlier, since they were eager to see us. When we arrived at their room for pre-dinner cocktails/cokes, both SodaBoy’s parents were working on Sudokus, so they explained how to solve them. I was immediately intrigued.

It’s very simple really. The puzzle consists of a 9 x 9 grid, which is further divided into 3 x 3 squares. Each little box must contain a number from 1-9; no number can be repeated across any given row, down any given column, or within any given 3 x 3 square. There is no adding required, just the most basic of counting skills.




This handy little diagram from Wikipedia beautifully illustrates why the green-colored box must be a 5. It simply cannot be any other number.




After dinner that night, I rustled around the house, looking in our paper recyclables until I found an old Sudoku. Unfortunately the puzzle was classified as “HARD” and I did not persist long enough to solve it correctly. I decided HARD wasn’t the best level to start with, and looked online. Goldmine! This site offers "billions" of Sudoku puzzles, all free and designed for either printing or online play. Of course there are many other sites as well... you’ve gotta love the internets.

I have been printing them up, because as a newbie, I need to a few make notes as I go along. Even printing on both sides of the paper is a getting a little consumptive though. I am not keen to play online: I spend enough time on the damn computer already. I may need to go back to the bookstore and pick up a book of puzzles for myself; it might be cheaper than all this ink and paper.

Seriously, if you've never tried one before, go check out the Sudokus. They are totally addictive, and more fun than they look. And I probably shouldn’t call myself a novice any more, even though it’s only been a week or so now. Last night I completed my first “EVIL” level puzzle. Thank you, thank you...

I will accept your congratulations now.