No meat.

The later blooming native azaleas are taking over in the garden.

So, the day started with taking (Dog)Wood to the Vet for a follow up to her gall bladder removal surgery.  Since she's back to chasing squirrels and trying to sneak cat food, I'm assuming that the removal of her gall bladder (and it's infectious agent) is helping her liver out - so I'm pretty optimistic about her bloodwork.  I'll find out tomorrow. 

When I got home at the end of the day, and opened the gate and brought the car in - as I was closing the wooden gate back up I heard a sound, a dull roar if I'm allowed to exaggerate after a difficult week - and realized that the sound emanated from my Savannah Holly that is in bloom - and 'in bloom' means that a 25' holly is covered, literally, in tiny white flowers.  The entire tree was covered in more bees than I've seen in one place EVER, and perhaps I've found the missing bees.  I mean, they were LOUD. 

In between taking Wood to the Vet and listening to bee harmonies, I was at work.  Today I mostly thought.  Pondered.  I think that I committed to getting a graduate and postdoctoral training grant in on the 19th of May (I know, I know, that's soon) - so I thought about the grant, and the who/what/where/why should you care of it, and I talked to someone who is in the know about it, and then to another someone, gauged their reactions - and suddenly I'm emailing and coordinating - and the deadline looms.  Another call tonight from a collaborator (do any of us have lives?) and suddenly we have shape:  microbial (pathogen) diversity in a coastal gradient...air above a saltwater marsh, the saltwater itself, sediments and inhabitants (dolphins, invertebrates) ...the tools:  microbial phylogenetics, metagenomics, functional genomics, and spectroscopy.  Grant - done (well, not really but let me just think that for the weekend). 

But the lab is having trouble:  with reproducibility of developing protocols, and contamination of bacterial DNA (those stupid, stupid bacteria are on EVERYTHING).  Routine problems really that require tedious troubleshooting and slows down what we want to do but as we troubleshoot we learn (does that sound professorial or what?) but deep down we know that that is really crap and that it just slows us down in this case.  We'll figure it out, it's a snag, a snag that has happened before.  For now we'll blame it on the tenacious polysaccharides in the coral mucus and leave it at that.  Polysaccharides will be our common enemy.

And in SEED Magazine today (June Issue), or from a few days ago, since I keep forgetting to check my mailbox, there was a quote from an article that went: 

There are moments that have fundamentally altered our relationship with the natural world, tipping the balance of power in our direction.

This quote was in an article that discussed the 11-episode BBC/Discovery production Planet Earth.  The article discusses the power of images in making us connect emotionally with the environment - instead of the power over the environment that we obtained when we made the atom bomb, travelled to the moon, and unraveled the mystery behind DNA.  On a simpler scale, this made me think about a recent post over at Garden Rant about the disconnect that many have with the natural world - and I suppose that paving and habitat destruction is the power that we weld there.  Either that, or simple neglect.  I don't know, I need to finish the SEED article before I ramble on much further. 

So, the garden is exploding.  My mother went for a walk today, the first one in awhile - and it felt good to hear from her that she had joined her friend again for a walk.  And when I asked her what she was doing tomorrow, she immediately talked about the chickweed that was a problem in the peony bed and how badly she needed to get that out.  Ahh...the therapeutic power of weeding in this sinister battle with lung cancer - never underestimate the contribution of a pesty stand of weeds. 

But much of my day I can't discuss:  hmmm...this would be inappropriate to write about here, and I can't go into this...and this drives me so nuts that I can't keep it to myself and although I want to have a good 'ole rant about it, I'll refrain, but let me just say this:  just because you have a Ph.D. AND a M.D. behind your name, doesn't mean that you have a clue about the human condition.  So all I can really share with you here are the random events in the day and not the meat of it.  I was going to say 'your loss' but in reality it's probably 'your gain'.

Oh - and then my brother called tonight and asked if I wanted to adopt a one week old baby girl.  Really.  He did.  Oh, I don't have to do it this weekend, but next weekend would be great.  And he'll keep the kid until I end my Airstream stint if I want.  And he's serious.  Long story.  But it made me remember something that someone said to me several years ago:  they asked if I didn't like children because I had dogs.  It was such an odd thing to say that I think I looked at them (in the way that a dog would, with their head tilted to one side) and said 'But isn't it illegal to just pick up kids off the street?  Wouldn't I go to prison?".  Well, it seems that this evening my brother has found a way to avoid the whole prison part of the equation.

It's kinda been one of those days.   

Comments

[Christopher C in Hawaii]

Where is my dull roar? My 'East Palatka' Holly is in full bloom and it is busy, but not near the roar of years past.

[Pam]

I don't feel that I've noticed such a roar before - perhaps I just wasn't paying attention. That's curious about yours.

[Joan]

A baby? is it the right season for babies? Do they transplant well at one week? Is the garden big enough?

[Pam]

Joan: All excellent questions. I mean, do they have to be watered daily, or just once a week? What kind of drainage do they need? My brother's rescue attempts are on-going - I'm expecting to have to post bail money anyday now.