Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

a view off the IOP connector

~the marsh on a late November afternoon, at 50 mph~

...and you?

~a vase filled with wildflowers, drying~

~~~~~

I'm tired.  It's been a strange few days.  Frustrating, hard, and I'm tired.

That's all I really have for now.

~~~~~

Sunday morning.  This morning I realized how goofy it was of me to write what I did above.  It was kind of melodramatic and just goofy.  I was tired.  What I meant to say was:  my Father has been declining cognitively - and in a faster progression than is typical for Alzeheimers (which has not been his diagnosis thus far yet still remains as the elephant in the room) and at his appointment on Friday the word 'delirium' was used.  The upside is that often there is a physical cause for this - an infection, drug interactions, etc - that is linked to the decline.  So he had a number of tests and we are waiting to hear back regarding the results.  At the same time I've been making phone calls to interview possible live-in healthcare providers (my family has the good fortune to have a Father with longterm healthcare coverage).  Last night I spoke with my Father about not driving until we know what is going on for sure - (fortunately my niece has been with him this weekend, but she catches a flight back to Burlington this morning) -- he asked if it was okay if he drove her to the airport, which is close by, and I said yes.  I told him not to go to church, but I'm sure that he will.  He always does.  So with that as the backdrop, I have a collaborative 2M grant proposal due tomorrow, on Friday night the Airstream lost power and it was 46 degrees inside of it when I woke up (it's been since repaired) and the person who terminated my contract/position has done given notice that our business person will be reduced to a 50% position soon.  She has been with the University for a longtime and his justification was bogus and I've strongly felt that old cliche:  'you can mess with me, but you'd better not mess with my friends'  and I'm exhausted from watching this person systematically and with little oversight cripple an exciting program and the individuals loyal to it. Then there is the fact that as of January I am once again without a salary (my grant finally got transferred for the fall)  and there are few jobs being advertised and what the hell will I do?  I think I'll start by planting the sasanqua my camellia friend gave me a week ago.  That's a good place to start, don't you think? 

Halloween 2009, a Recap

~The Deadbodys, at church on Halloween evening~

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Shouldn't one sit back and reflect on such an important holiday?  Perhaps review a bit, take some notes, write a poem, plan for next year?  Such reflection sounds better than obsessing over one's worries:  a looming grant deadline, a looming birthday, a whole batch of looming decisions [about one's father and one's career and one's home and one's family (who is still finding their footing after it's matriarch passed away)], a head cold from hell and ...see?  You are bored already.

So - Halloween 2009 recapping it will be!  
  
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~Airstream kitchen window shrunken heads~

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The Airstream was decorated minimally this year - two heads hanging in the kitchen window (it's amazing how two $1.50 heads from CVS Pharmacy can entertain me).  Yes, once again, heads (or the lack thereof) was a continuing theme...

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~Lily the Pencil~

~~~~~

Is this not the sweetest, scariest, most realistic pencil in the whole wide world?

That most certainly is not Lily, but I'm told that it is.

(Lily is a budding biologist, fellow lover of Halloween, and forever in my heart because of a lovely little prayer).

~~~~~

~Vincent Van Gogh~

~John Stewart~

~Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'~

~~~~~

 The eclair-baking postdoc (yes, the one who hasn't brought us eclairs in a long, long time) is one of those fancy pumpkins carvers.  A skilled one in fact.  He sent me these images of his three selections this year (and forgive me, but doesn't 'John Stewart' look an awful lot like Vladimir Putin?).

~~~~~

~the lab's senior graduate student (newly appointed) in her Halloween socks~

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A few years ago, a friend came to the lab one morning when I wasn't there, and placed a brain in the lab's 'deli box' - he was like a Halloween 'easter bunny, hiding Halloween-themed socks all over the place.  Every now and then a pair still surfaces, as demonstrated by the feet of the lab's senior graduate student.

My lab is very patient with my Halloween silliness, in fact - perhaps it's been a subconscious screening tool that I've been using all these years?

Now that's a thought.   

~~~~~

~Mr Sperman and SuperSperm~

~~~~~

Now how does one transition from Halloween-themed socks to Mr Sperman and SuperSperm?

I'll just leave this one alone (and no - I wasn't at the party).

However the lab's newly minted Ph.D., Mr Sperman, was.

(I hope that Mr Sperman is wrapping up his dissertation edits as I'm typing this.)

~~~~~

 

~Mr. and Mrs. Deadbody~

~~~~~

Each Halloween, Mr. and Mrs. Deadbody are spotted roaming the streets of Charleston, on their way to church on Halloween night.  They're a delightful pair, aren't they?  Rumor has it that they were both poets in the day - he a writer of magical tales, she a teller of family stories and famed observor of the Day of the Dead.

Did you happen to see them too?  I hope so.

~~~~~

~Jeff the dead...lumberjack or something or other~

~~~~~

So what does a Halloween sock Easter Bunny look like?  Does he have floppy ears?  No, no, no.  Does he hop?  Heavens no!

A Halloween sock Easter Bunny looks dead, no he is dead - more like undead - so watch out for him next Halloween.  If you are lucky, he might bring you a pair of socks too.

~~~~~ 

  

FYIs to share for this most spectacular of days...

What's for dinner?  Boone Hall Fright Nights.  The Thirteen Nights of Halloween.  And an appropriate for the season book review by Frytopia (a fellow admirer of this holiday).

Now, quit sitting at your computer and get out there and scare someone!

Update, 1 November 2009:  Now this is the way one should carve a pumpkin -- don't ya love it?

I made it!

~my very own locks of love~

~~~~~

Thankfully - the day finally arrived when my hair easily reached the 'ponytail' length necessary for the Locks of Love organization.  I started growing my hair out right after my Mother's lung cancer diagnosis, in March of 2007, and it was on the short-side when I started to grow it out.  I think that at one time, when I was quite a bit younger, that I had the patience for long hair - but now it just annoys me:  it's miserably hot in the summer, the back knots up on long (or hell, even short) flights, and, well - it just bugs me.  It's nice because I've never chemically treated my hair - and there's no gray - so it can go in the 'pile' of hair used for young children (who are more sensitive to the chemicals).  I know how important it was for my Mom to have a nice wig when her hair started falling out - it was comforting to her, and made her feel better about going out in public.  I've also had a good friend who has unexplained Alopeciaas an adult - and while she has grown comfortable with her bald head (which is stunnning, by the way), she's made me more aware of the condition in people of all ages.

I know that there is the ocassionally publicity about Locks of Love, and other similar organizations - publicity that suggests that they are mis-managed or that what happens to your hair often isn't what you hope it to be.  But regardless of the annoyance, all I had to do was doing nothing for a few years - nothing to my hair that is - and even if there is only a small chance that my hair will end up helping someone, I still know that my Mom is out there smiling somewhere, saying 'thank god she finally cut that ratty mess'.  Thinking about her saying that makes me smile too.

For that thought alone it was worth two years of bad hair days.

What Saturdays are good for...

...well, for one, they're good for discovering things - important, no - awfully important things, like, for example, that some of the persimmon leaves have started changing to that beautiful, beautiful shade of red.

TGIS.

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~silly star magnolia, what are you doing...blooming in October?~

~~~~~

I'm quite glad it's Friday.

I spent today doing stuff - trying to figure out what went wrong with a grant (one where funds, without our knowledge, were sent BACK to the granting agency...and yes, I know - that's the wrong direction!), trying to track down my father's physician to find out the results of his CT scan (no luck there), talking to someone at the Jefferson Area Board for the Aging (through their Care Advantage Plus folks) for someone who might come in and look after my father or perhaps live in an apartment (in the house) and just be around in case he needs someone, checking on manuscript edits, manuscript reviews, grants...yeah, stuff.

Then the lab met at Moe's for their every-other-week happy hour, where we discussed (once again) whether a zombie could be headless, whether the former senior graduate student and the eclair-baking postdoc would make good senators, and...you get the picture.  It was Friday evening...what do you expect from us? 

~thoughts after a rainy day~

~~~~~

I definitely didn't take this image today - no, today was all about rain and low clouds and ocassional gusts of wind.  Tonight is about a warm, dry Airstream - and sleepy pointers and a wide-awake Stanley - and thoughts about the day - and thoughts about tomorrows drive to Charlottesville.  Today was a reasonable day - we received official notification of acceptance for a manuscript (yay!) and we went through another manuscript that is just minor edits away from submission.  Oh, and we looked at a figure of the lab's masters student - one that is being incorporated into yet another manuscript.  Inbetween all of this, I was trying to schedule my father for a CT scan - and it will happen tomorrow at 2:15 pm, as I'm on the road driving up to visit him.  He fell recently, has been more confused and is sleeping alot - and we just want to rule out (or rule in) some possibilities.  Of course a CT scan can provide insight into Alzheimers, and my brother and I are anxious about this.  However, his memory-related issues don't seem Alzheimers-like, but it doesn't mean that they won't evolve into such a state.  My brother has said several times over the past year that when our mother passed away, that we lost one and a half parents - and I'm sad to say that he's probably right.  He doesn't want to leave Charlottesville (and I don't blame him) but he most likely won't be able to live alone much longer.  The phrase 'assisted living' is creeping into conversations and google searches...while the child in me feels sad and the adult in me desperately wants him to be as happy and comfortable as possible.  However, the gardener in me is thinking about understory trees for zone 8b to zone 9 - and bulbs, it is time to plant bulbs, isn't it?  Oh, and garlic - and poppy seeds and carrots.  Sweet onions too.  And look at where Tony Avent lives!  Those agaves...love 'em.  I'm always lusting after the agaves that Pam over at Digging shows from time-to-time - aren't they incredible?  What about Agave bracteosa 'Monterrey Frost'?  And what about this Hydrangea arborescens "Spirit" PPAF?  And...living in an Airstream is one thing -- but to quit jobs and travel around in an Airstream is something else altogether - how much fun are Tracey and Pete having?  Tons of it, I'm guessing.  I'm becoming increasingly interested in sites that discuss this kind of 'compact living' and it's really helpful to see how others resolve various challenges (my current one is humidity - my Airstream is quite humid inside, and I'm thinking that I might need a dehumidifier).  Oh - and these guys are coming to the lab tomorrow for a short talk - and I'm going to miss them!  Now that's another form of compact living for sure.  Well, it's time to quit thinking, to slow down - to stop thinking about our coral pathogen's megaplasmid, metagenomic libraries or letters that I need to write - it's time to think about sleep and tomorrow's drive to Virginia and a visit with my father.

Sleep well.

~view from the skyrail to Kuranda~

~~~~~

Tonight I found myself thinking about the rainforest - about the skyrail ride over an Australian rainforest that led to the village of Kuranda that I took a year ago.  Crazy tall trees - miles and miles of trees and vines and exotic sounds.

It hasn't been a great week - not a terrible one - but existing difficulties still linger and grow and are puzzling and seemingly foolish and somewhat unexplainable.  I'm tired.  I remind myself of the difficulties so many people are facing - and in that sense, I don't feel alone.  It's difficult for so many right now.

Tomorrow evening is the gathering for my graduate student who recently defended his dissertation.

I made a big crockpot full of vegetarian chili tonight for tomorrow's gathering - a chili filled with pinto and kidney and northern white beans.  I also made a vegetable stock for the corn-potato chowder - I have a number of friends that are vegetarian, and decided tonight that they deserve choices, and so now they'll have them.  I'm a bit bummed that it is so warm - I was hoping that it would be cooler, so that an outdoor fire would be nice.  No such luck - today might have broke records (it was 87-88 degrees someone told me) - that's definitely not a chili and an outdoor fire kinda temperature...

Tomorrow I'll make the chowder, and let it sit for awhile - and gather flowers for large blue jars that will be on the outdoor tables.  The Airstream awning is up - and I will put lights on the awning.  There's always cleaning to do - but I must say that cleaning an Airstream is quite a bit simpler than cleaning a house.  I need to let the dogs run - the Pointer Sisters need to be exhausted, as they will probably be in their kennels in my still standing, dilapidated 'main house' so that they won't pillage, annoy, and lick the guests until they run for their cars.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, but a fun busy day.  Amidst the challenges, it's always good to remember that you can sit under the live oaks, with a cold beverage and a bowl of chowder - surrounded by friends and colleagues and interesting conversation and celebrate a job well done.

A few large live oaks - for now I'll pretend they're my own little rainforest.

~rainy day~

~~~~~

Rain.  More rain.

Much needed rain!

It was one of those perfect rainy days - a gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle soaking rain - a gray sky day.  A low light, out-of-focus day.

A good day to write and think...

...and meet with a group of environmental advocates who are passionate about educating children.

The sun and warmth should return tomorrow.