Bad-Ass Arachnid

I've been spending the last month or so watching this amazing spider build and re-build its web outside of a kitchen window. Given the perfect position of the web, my family members and I have been able to watch this thing in action for days on end...savage amusement. It is very cool to see how the spider intricately re-creates the web and the stabilimentum that zig-zag across it. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like the yellow garden spider, Argiope aurantia, in the link above.

Yellow garden spider
Order: Araneae
Family: Araneidae
Genus and species: Argiope aurantia Lucas

Incidentally, I just checked The Other 95% for the first time in a few days and Eric did a post on a similar orb weaver...albeit one that's maybe a bit more nefarious than this dude (dudette?), who seems to dine mostly on midges and the like.

Unpacking and More Unpacking

We're now officially living in a Swing State. Movers dropped our loads of stuff off last week and we spent the weekend unpacking box after box after box--as far as I can tell it was mostly dog towels, toothbrushes, and lots and lots of packing paper.

These people were professional in their use of packing paper. There was not a thing that went unprotected (well, save for the fancy sushi platter, but oh well). Seriously, I unwrapped some whack things. First off, as I was unpacking the box entitled "Master Bedroom" I came across a rock wrapped in 3 pieces of packing paper. Yes, it was precious to me (I scavenge such items from beaches of note from time to time) but I am certain that years, probably millenniums, of ocean pounding did nothing to hurt that rock. Better yet, there were 4 more just like it, each individually wrapped. Awesome!


Next up came some surprises from the kitchen box: bamboo skewers and a used piece of aluminum foil...wrapped up like they were prized Fabergé eggs. And the winner: From the bathroom box, an ace bandage wrapped perfectly in multiple pieces of wrapping paper, sandwiched neatly between multiple toothbrushes in their original packaging, also wrapped up. Unbelievable. If I had been packing, that ace bandage would have been used to wrap up the prized sushi platter. Perhaps I shall take each of these items and construct myself a Halloween costume (of course, if it rains, my packing paper shell will be in a heap). The good news is that we found a user for all of these packing goods and so we won't be quite so hard on our local landfill or recycler (and yes, Williamsburg actually has curbside recycling, for free!!! We're still working on the clean green).

In between unpacking and making 300 trips up and down the stairs, we did manage a trip to the local Saturday morning Farmer's Market, which exceeded expectations: farm fresh meat, delicious oyster mushrooms, eggplants, arugula (still not sure it beats Nash's, but close!), herbs, and pies (we had to pass on the pies on account of our austerity plan, but there will be other occasions...). We also took a spin through the 'hood and liked what we saw, including some beautiful fall foliage. Things are looking good.

Haiku Hysteria

People for the American Way, a progressive social justice organization, ran a contest for the best McCain/Palin (a.k.a. McPain) haiku. Of the 4,000+ submissions, they've selected twelve gems for people to vote on, winners to be published in The Nation.

And my winner is:

Dust thick on text books.
Evolution was a fad.
Science dead? You betcha.
— Laura Welch

To see the rest of the best and vote for yourself (good practice), click here.

The Saline Canine Takes on Sandbridge

It had been a really long time since the Salty One had a good dunking and so we decided to make for the beach a few weekends ago to explore our new surroundings and let the pup accumulate some Atlantic Ocean copepods in her furs. Realizing that our new local beach was not nearly as liberal about free roaming canines as our former local beach, we looked around for the dog laws. It was a mixed bag—some said “No Dogs Allowed” and others said “No Dogs Allowed between Memorial Day and Labor Day.” Hmmmm. What was a responsible dog owner to do? Let the pup have a swam and claim ignorance, of course.


Despite it being a very sunny, warm, calm day, there were some waves churning. In addition, the recent storms had probably changed the beach slope quite a bit. So, when our no-fear water dog suddenly was up to her eyeballs in briny goodness not 5 m from the water’s edge, she was a bit surprised—only to be whapped upside the head by an incoming roller. We laughed. Tough love. The thought of sharkies did cross my mind (and I found out later that there are plenty along there), but we let her have a good swim, chasing tennis balls and having a grand old time rolling them around in the sand in her beach-soccer kind of way. The dog was happy!

Ode to Seattle

I Miss my Fleece-Clad,
Michael Pollan-obsessed, Hip,
Rain-Soaked, Green City.

This Little Piggy…

Okay, okay...enough of this horrible ALCS playoff series...

Pig Roast VI has come and gone with all the usual fanfare, albeit without the typical canine extravaganza! We left our Saline Canine back in the most popular Swing State and toted ourselves across the great US of A via the big bird in the sky and landed in our former, and still most loved, city of Seattle. After napping off 2 days of extreme exam-taking and travel prep, we secured ourselves some delicious noodle soup from the former “Super Bowl Noodle,” and with bellies full and eyes rested, made our way in Mom’s Subaru (hey, it could have been Your Father’s Oldsmobile) to Whidbey Island for the annual convening of the Swine Committee.

Self-imposed Rule #1 of the Swine Committee meeting (imposed only after years of convening) is control the alcohol intake at the outset because dressing a pig at 6:30 am with a hangover is really ugly—raw pig does nothing to settle the stomach. So, with restraint, it was a grand old time catching up with the other committee members and strategerizing [sic] about the roast. We ate some Cordellian home-grown chow, drank some adult beverages, held an apple tasting session to refine our piggy palettes and then, feeling oh-so-good, tapped the keg! It also happened to be at this time (late in the evening) that the swine acquired her name. With past porcines running the gamut from the civil and even stuffy (Rosemary) to the enlightened (Orwell) to the thematic (Glenn, after innumerable bottles of Scotch whiskey appeared on the counter), it was with great pleasure and not just a few snide comments that we arrived at Sarah, aka “Maverick.” And with that, the roast was off to a marvelous start!


The Swine Committee arose when the rooster crowed the next morning. All geared up to get the party started despite the near freezing conditions (and very glad for the preemptive prep work that took place the previous evening), the tasks were knocked off with true pig-roasting veteran aplomb. With coffee brewed and garlic being prepped, the pig was given some love, and nestled into the expertly designed cradle to set about roasting. To add a new twist for this year (the roasting of the pig is evolutionary, after all) and because the swine came in a bit wee, King Cordell procured a few turkeys to squeeze on the spit next to Sarah. It only seemed wise to name a couple of roasting turkeys after other members of the GOP, so Dino and Rover (after Karl) rounded out the line-up. It was perhaps by chance or maybe on purpose that the better part of Sarah’s snout was firmly planted up Rover’s ass…how the heck did that happen???? Could it be…Satan????

At any rate, ‘round, and ‘round, and ‘round they all went, the humble masses engaging in kick-off keg stands, extreme croquet, and plenty of nibbling until the deliciously roasted beasts were too tempting for the Committee to handle any more rotations. We organized the pig processional, Brian the Bagpiper tuned up the pipes, and away we processed from the marsh to the spit to to pull them off! Yum! (Note: In true evolutionary fashion, we learned from our past mistake and will not be coating the pig plank in rubber plastic before putting it over the coals next year. While I don’t think we’ll have the EPA after us for our PAH-emissions, I’m pretty sure we’d all be a bit healthier minus the oozing and smoking plastic!).

Damn, did those beasts turn out well! I’m pretty sure the well-planned 2-day brine had a significant impact. Good work, King! With the carving complete and the Swine Committee and close associates satiated with prime cuts, Brother John brought out some delicious apple pies! What a fine dessert! I think that’s why my belly hurt for 4 hours. Or perhaps it was my 15th beer for the day! The Plankton Pickers set to work, turkey vultures circled overhead spying the carcasses from afar, and Katie roared home on her mower to round out the day!

Three cheers and lifelong immunity against trichinosis to the Swine Committee and our fellow revelers!

Go Sox!

It's October.


Enough said.

My Pet Rock Is More Qualified Than Sarah Palin To Be Vice President

Well, no, I can't just leave this alone. I joined this little group "My Pet Rock Is More Qualified Than Sarah Palin To Be Vice President" on Facebook (I'm a student again, I need to engage in such things to put off calculating chemical reactions and being scared by differential equations!). I thought it was just a joke, but sadly, I'm beginning to think it's true. At least my pet rock doesn't say much to offend me.

Is this woman for real? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the media is being unduly hard on her, I know. Bullshit. The media is hard on everyone and it's not the media's fault that she doesn't know which newspapers she reads ("All of them"--yeah, right) or who Hamas is. To quote Jon Stewart, "Jeeeezzussss."

I've been catching the slow-release Katie Couric news clips and am in awe. Seriously, I could have come up with something to say where she said nothing and talked herself in a circle. At least I know what newspapers I read (The New York Times daily, occasionally the Seattle Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post, USA Today only when I have to and the International Herald Tribune, when abroad, and yes, I have been to more countries than Sarah Palin). Really, is this the best they have to offer? Couldn't Karl Rove put someone a little more credible up for grabs. When Palin debuted and the McCain camp said they were hoping to get some of the Hillary supporters I was a bit insulted--clearly Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton don't stand for the same thing. Now, it's just abundantly clear that Sarah Palin doesn't know what she stands for because she's so politically illiterate it hurts to watch her (though it is a bit like bad comedy and I'll be watching the VP debate with bated breath tonight!). This woman is completely unqualified for the position she may, but hopefully will not get to, fill.

Well, I know she can see Russia from her home state and that qualifies her as an expert on Puty Poo. In fact, I used to be able to see Canada from my old town and you know what, it looked pretty good!