Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~quote of the day~

~the first Autumn cauliflower~

~~~~~

It's lovely, isn't it?  Earlier this fall I had purchased several cauliflower plants, unusual ones, and I wish I had remembered to save their tags.  This one is close to 'plucking' time - it's not very large, but is a gorgeous shade of creamy white.

I need to work on my fall garden.  There is still garlic to be planted - and onions and leeks.  I'm behind.

~~~~~

The eclair-baking postdoc drove out to the Airstream and Pointer Ranch (a name that I just made up at this very moment) and we sat and went through a draft of his current manuscript - one line at a time, more or less.  Hopefully tomorrow we will have our final edits completed, and we will email the manuscript off to our co-authors at other institutions.  We're excited about getting this work published.

The manuscript was good - it was my second time going through it, and all went well until I came to the concluding paragraph.  I started reading it - and gave up after awhile.  It was...bad...and that kind of silly-bad that made me laugh more than get frustrated or upset or disappointed.  Even the eclair-baker himself laughed outloud when we got to the following line (and I quote, with permission from the eclair-baking first author):   

Similarly, the presence of collagenase equips this pathogen to invade organisms composed of collagen, which includes all animals.

The silliness of this line cracked us both up.

(It's just a really bad line.)

I was so worn out from going through the manuscript by this point, that although the concluding paragraph was kinda rotten, the only thing I could suggest was to 'tighten it up and make it not suck'.  The funny thing was that the eclair-baking postdoc knew what I meant.

I love science.  

~~~~~

~a Pointer Sister vacation...for the birds~

~live oak, outside of the Airstream~

~~~~~

Today I was enjoying the birds - goldfinches and nuthatches were swarming the feeders, woodpeckers clinging onto the trunk of the live oaks, mockingbirds dive-bombing the perennial border, and morning doves scavenging alone the ground - and I foolishly thought to myself 'why are there so many birds around today?'

Silly me.  I don't pick up the Pointer Sisters from the kennel until tomorrow morning.  The birds have had a reprieve, a pointer-free holiday of their own over the past week.  Tomorrow the birds will be sharing space once again with a pair of crazy bird dogs.

~~~~~

~thankful to be back in the Airstream~

~Stanley on Thanksgiving morning~

~~~~~

My camera received little attention over the past week - I think the only time that I took it anywhere with me was on Thanksgiving morning when I went outside early with Stanley.  It was a foggy morning - a day that didn't feel much like a holiday, since I had spent the previous 48 hours in the first floor basement of my Father's home, going through my Mother's things.

It's strange, the things that get to you:  a pair of pinking shears.  Images of my Mother cutting out patterns when I was young came rushing back into my head - she used to sew alot when I was young.  And there was rick-rack...remember rick-rack?  Then there was a bag of her Mother's dresses - so my Grandmother Frankie - cut into squares ready to be made into a quilt.  I've never liked to sew (confession:  I got a 'D' in Home Economics in 7th grade mainly because of the sewing projects) but going through all of my Mom's bags of fabric made me want to make a quilt.  Perhaps a quilt of my Grandmother's dresses.  (Yeah, right, just what I need - something else to do).   

~~~~~

~tiny spiderweb boats sailing across the forest floor~

~~~~~

I wasn't at my best this week.  I was worn out, tired, quiet - focused more on what I needed to get done for my Father (which were two large projects:  cleaning out the first floor basement apartment for his 'live-in' person and organizing/taking over his finances) than on being either gracious or friendly.  It was a bit overwhelming, no - it was alot overwhelming - this taking over of my Father's life.  It had to be done, undeniably, and it's a relief tonight knowing that things will be a bit easier for him as a result.  He is such a sweet, sweet man - and is fighting little of this transition.  Tonight his live-in healthcare person is with him - he really enjoys her, and she's great with him.  She'll be moving this week into the first floor apartment - a bed will be delivered on Monday or Tuesday for her - and hopefully soon she'll be settled in, and they'll get into a comfortable routine.  So all of that is good - and now I'm home, exhausted, but back in the Airstream.

It was strange coming home, and first turning on the electricity at the fuse box and the water before opening the door of my 'home'.  The Vornado heater is on - and it's finally warming up.  It was 49 degrees inside when I got home - which really isn't too bad (I had turned the electricity and water off for the week).  It was strange in my Dad's home - I kept thinking to myself 'wow, he heats up all of this space!' and I know it's this whole getting used to compact living thing and the truth is that I rarely sit in the Airstream thinking 'I wish this place was larger'.  I'm sure the time will come, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet.

It's time to sleep.  I'm tired, drained, emotionally-spent and glad to be home.

~~~~~

~back on I-95 tomorrow~

~Pyrus pyrifolia, asian pear~

This pear has such nice fall color - and, as for the pears, I battle for them with the squirrels each year.  The squirrels are winning.

~~~~~

I'm heading to Virginia tomorrow - I'll make a stop for an early dinner with one of my Mother's sisters in Richmond, and then I'll head to Earlsyville and my Dad's home.  It'll be nice to meet Dad's new live-in healthcare person - she seems so nice, and he likes her so much.  So far - so good, even better than good.

~~~~~

 
~the face in the oak~

It does look like a face, doesn't it?  Perhaps like the face of an owl?  I was standing outside with the Pointer Sisters today - and there it was, staring back.  It's not so odd that I noticed it really, I've mentioned my fascination with bark before.  In fact, I'm working on getting a group of 'bark' photographs framed for a little show sometime in the winter.

~~~~~

My visit to Virginia should be a busy one - I'll be helping my Dad's new healthcare person to get settled in to a above-ground 'basement' apartment so that she has space of her own for the five days she stays with him each week.  I've also got to get Dad's finances streamlined so that he doesn't miss paying his bills on time (which has happened numerous times recently) - I'll probably just get my name on his bank account so I can pay things online from Charleston.  There will also be an interview with my Father's longterm health insurance provider, and my Father also has an MRI on Wednesday - to rule out that he hasn't had a small stroke or seizure which might explain his cognitive decline.  And yes, there will be Thanksgiving dinner - at my Mom's sister's club on the James River in Richmond (I know, no leftovers - perhaps I'll cook on Friday?  Maybe...maybe not.).

~~~~~

~the Pointer Sisters at rest~

Yes, it's one of those rare moments - but since some recent fence repairs, the Pointer Sisters have been getting their much-needed twenty miles or so of running in each day - resulting in sweet, sweet exhausted Pointer Sisters by night.  Unfortunately this duo has to go to the kennel tomorrow - with so much to do in Virginia, having them come along would be prohibitive.  So I'll take them to the kennel first thing in the morning, and I feel a bit bad because I didn't call in time to get their usual kennel (that has two acres fenced in for them to run) - so tomorrow they check in to a kennel with your typical dog run, and not much more.  They'll be together though, so that is good.

I really enjoy the Pointer Sisters.

~~~~~

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's drive - I think there will be rain most of the way - at least I-95 shouldn't have alot of traffic.  I've downloaded the book 'The Help' to listen to along the way - I've heard good things about it, and it sounds like it might be a good one for the road.  Stanley will be traveling with me (he's so good) and Haiku will have the place (aka Airstream) to herself (with someone stopping by to check on her).

I'm sure I'll be checking in here from time-to-time too.

The Microbial Lab Gives Thanks...During Wartime

~The Microbial Laboratory~

[Clockwise around the table, starting on the left:  the eclair-baking postdoc, the lab's senior doctoral student, a graduate student friend-of-the-lab, the lab's masters student, the next-to-senior-student doctoral student, and the lab's exiled poet laureate.  And yes, they're flipping me 'the bird'.  You all should know by now that maturity isn't our strength...actually, they're just saying how unfair it is that I always take the photograph, and am never in them.  I just say it's one of the few 'perks' of my pseudo-job.).]

~~~~~

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

~~~~~

So this is what a lab looks like during wartime:  still smiling, still grateful, still funny, still passionate and productive - but also frayed around the edges, stressed, worried about what the future holds, and  angry.  Thankfully however, they are still willing to sit at a table with each other, with pitchers of margaritas and good quacamole and cheese dip - still willing to momentarily overlook the war and express gratitude.  The tab was picked up by both of the lab's doctoral students - one had a gift certificate to the place we went to, and another used the money she won for her second place for her presentation in the graduate school's Student Research Day.  Everyone was thankful for that.

~~~~~

From the NYTimes, Lives During Wartime:

WAR by an unknown Author

Politicians talk about the need of it,
Old men boast about the glory of it,
And the soldiers just want to go home.  

~~~~~

This has been a laboratory ritual for over 10 years now - and I paused a bit this morning when I realized that four years of giving thanks, laboratory-style, are documented in these pages, this one as well as three previous years:  2006, 2007, 2008.

~~~~~

It's an important thing to do, this expressing of gratitude.

~~~~~

From a fascinating piece by Robert Kaplan at the Atlantic:

The end of the Cold War was not just a culmination of the Long European War that began in 1914, but also a new beginning that allowed us to direct our energies towards liberating societies further eastward. It’s a struggle we’ve devoted ourselves to for a while now, and we’re fairly far along with it: the European Union is now struggling to incorporate Serbia, and we are trying to salvage something noble from Iraq and seek peaceful regime change in Iran.

~~~~~

I know how corny this sounds, but I always start off by giving thanks for everyone's hard work - and I always end the exchange by saying how grateful I am that they all join me for this little ritual.  In between these two things, we take turns, going around the table one at a time, and give thanks:  for each other, for opportunities, for genomes and favorite microorganisms, for fellowships and interesting science and little discoveries and paychecks and poetry, for Obama's election and past mentors, and then finally we play a silly 'mad lib' game by the lab's former senior doctoral student (who recently defended and couldn't attend). 

And then we go home. 

~~~~~

From a piece in Mother Jones titled 'Defining Terrorism':

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Nidal Malik Hasan was (a) quite mentally disturbed and (b) motivated by religious beliefs, but that doesn’t make what he did a terrorist act. Unlike, say, a suicide bomber in Jerusalem, there’s hardly even a hint that he was trying to make any kind of political statement. There was no note, no videotape left behind, no explanation while he was shooting, no nothing. What kind of terrorist does that?

(Did you immediately jump to the conclusion that the incident at Ft Hood was a terrorist act?  I didn't.  Even after I heard more details, I didn't view it as a terriorist act.  I'm not trying to place any kind of judgement on this - I don't know whether it was 'good' or 'bad' that I didn't jump to that conclusion - but I do know that I'm glad that I didn't.  In time, by following hopefully just procedures, we will know more.)

~~~~~

Oh!  And not to forget that before we got started, Katherine (the lab's Poet Laureate In-Exile) read us a poem of gratitude that was written by a student in the poetry discussion group of her spouse, the poet Richard Garcia.  It was a poem that made you hold your breath a bit, waiting to see if the outcome was the one you hoped for.

~~~~~

April 17, 1984 by Fred Thomson

 

Thank you unknown driver of the blue maxima

Who was doing only what the law allowed.

Thank you for having both hands on the wheel

And thanks for not lighting a cigarette

 

I appreciate it that you were keeping proper lookout

Glancing right and left

And that your speed was slow.

 

I’m grateful you had those brake shoes replaced

And the rotors checked;

the master cylinder reservoir topped off with proper fluid

And that the radio had not taken your attention.

 

And I apologize most solemnly for not

Making eye contact and failing to acknowledge your gift

 

As I chased my three year old son

From around the corner of Alhambra hall

And down the walk behind the hedged sidewalk

Hidden from your view

Until he/we darted headlong

Into your path

So close we smelled the scorched rubber on pavement

and felt the whisper of your metallic blue hood

four inches from our wide eyes.

 

I am in your debt kind sir

Angel of god.

 

~~~~~

I would like to say that I left our lab gathering feeling warm and thoughtful - of course a bit of me did (and how could I not?  It's a genuine exchange of gratitude - there is no sense of obligation or annoyance peaking through) - but honestly, as I left I found myself only becoming more (and more) angry.  Angry about the situation that I find myself in, and as a result that I find my entire lab in - a situation that has evolved more out of fear and jealousy and misguided priorities and narcissism than about capability and dedication and science.  The Microbial Lab has never been stronger, more interesting, or more productive.  I wish I could share with you the full story here, but I cannot.  But on Friday evening, I drove home knowing that this, this whole lab thing, is what I am good at - really good at - and I felt little gratitude and only anger that it has not been valued by a very few individuals (aka the ones in 'power') and instead has been resented...and because of this, I don't know if next year at this time I will have a similar gathering of passionate scientists sitting around a table warmly and sincerely reflecting on the past year and what they have to be grateful for - I don't know if there will even be a Microbial Lab or where I will be living or how I will be paying my bills.

They say that it is during the most difficult of times that it is more important than ever to be grateful, to find elements of your life or situation that you are thankful for...so with that in mind, I will say that I am forever grateful to the individuals that have walked through the door of my laboratory over the years - students and others who have struggled, worked crazy hours, grown frustrated, learned how truly difficult writing well is, had moments of discovery, accepted my Food Offense perogatives, and been gracious and generous with one another.  I am grateful to those in my lab today, those who have kept their heads down during an extremely difficult time - and remained focused, hard-working and professional.  They've been cheated out of one experience (and had it replaced by another) because of my situation - and have remained steadfast.  For these things I am grateful.

But I am still mostly angry.

~~~~~

Disclaimer:  I by no means equate the situation that my laboratory is in right now to a 'real' war.  It is our own little 'ground' war, within the relative smallness of our individual lives.  A real war is our experience times about a hundred gazillion worse experiences - and as someone raised as a pacifist in a 'peace church', I don't even claim to understand the true compexity of war and rarely deeply understand the need for it.

From an editorial titled 'The Historic Brethren Peace Position':

 And it was in 1935 that the Church of the Brethren drafted the statement which says, "All war is sin; it is wrong for Christians to support it, or to engage in it."   

~an apple~

~Mutsu (Crispin)~

~~~~~

How nice it is when a colleague, who is walking down the hallway holding an ordinary brown paper bag, reaches inside of it and hands you a lovely apple.

~~~~~

I just finished comments/edits on another manuscript - this one describing the genome of a coral pathogen (the one show in the upper left-hand image).  I'm excited about getting this work published:  it will be the first published genome of a coral pathogen, and one that is globally-distributed and exhibits a fascinating temperature-dependent pathogenicity.  It's a fascinating microorganism.

But that's not to say that the genome of corn isn't fascinating too.  What would the world be like without cornbread, corn flakes, etc...corn is complicated, isn't it?   

~~~~~

An Afternoon in Mid-November (in Zone 8b)

~Farfugium japonicum 'Gigantea'~

~~~~~

It's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and I'm feeling quite proud of myself, maybe even a little smug, for having almost posted this on the actual day!  The images were taken on the 15th, but it looks like I only have 30 minutes left in the day to make the post.  Probably won't happen - but hey - life's a little crazy.  The 16th won't stop the planet from rotating.  At least I don't think it will.

[The above was written late in the evening of 15 November].

[I was being optimistic].

Here it is, several days later, and I'm finally sitting back down and revisiting this post.

Boy, that whole smug thing was certainly fleeting, wasn't it? 

~~~~~

~Farfugium japonicum 'Gigantea'~

~~~~~

This is Year Two in the collection of data to test my Farfugium hypothesis.  Seems like the Farfugium species-specific flowering performance is mirroring that of Year Two exactly - and I find this a bit baffling.  There must be some inherent/intrinsic resistance to - perhaps thrips?  Or some inherent/intrinsic sensitivity to thripishness (I know, I'm just throwing around these highly technical scientific terms here, my apologies).  So - mid-November in my lowcountry garden and the 'Gigantea' is stunning (I mean, look at this leaf!!) - it's been in the garden about two and a half years now (it started out as a little thing) - and after it flowers, my plan is to divide it.

~~~~~

~Cuphea micropetala, Mexican Giant Cigar Plant~

~~~~~

I have become a big, big fan of the Genus Cuphea.  I just can't find anything negative about this Genus.

And now, for something completely irrelevant to Cupheas:

I have a neighbor who is a clammer who sows and harvests his 'crop' off the marshes adjacent to our neighborhood.  Last week a friend/colleague went by his place to pick up some clams on her way up to North Carolina.  When she realized that he lived in my neighborhood - she asked if he knew me and he responded by saying 'yeah, she lives in the witch house'.  He quickly said - oh, it's because of all of the live oaks - but lets face it, the damage had been done. 

My friend laughed and laughed when she told me this at work, and then the eclair-baking postdoc chimed in and said that when he was young, my place would have been the kind of place a kid avoided at Halloween because it looked all creepy and haunted.

Now that's what I call a compliment.

But truly, sometimes I forget about how my place looks from the "outside".  As everything has grown on the inside, it has become a bit more mysterious from the outside -- that sense of what's inside 'there' is growing.  But I love it.  I remember years ago reading something written by the english garden designer, Penelope Hobhouse, something about how a garden should invite you in, that it should tease you, raise your curiousity, your desire to see more.

Okay, okay - creepy isn't exactly what Ms. Hobhouse was referring to....but perhaps creepy is evolving into inviting?  Maybe?

~~~~~

 
~an unfolding Mermaid blossom~

~~~~~

This rose is just exquisitely photogenic.  Sometimes the petals lie flat, almost as if they are floating on a cushion of air.  This rose is crazy-insane to grow, especially when you do stupid, stupid, STUPID things like back up into it when you are mowing (resulting in my back looking like I had been 'treated' to twenty lashings...yep, I did that once...recently).

Words that have echoed around in my head and on the phone over the past week:  power of attorney, long-term health care, in-home care, on-line banking...all words related to the methodical 'taking-over' of the management of my Father's life.  An in-home health care person started this morning at 9 am, she will be staying with my Dad five days per week (live-in).  We're afforded this luxury because of the long-term health insurance policy that my parents signed up for many years ago -- and it is with great relief that I sit here tonight, knowing that someone cooked my Dad a warm meal, that they scoured his kitchen cabinets for what's present (and what's not) - and that tomorrow the two of them are going grocery shopping (with a list!) and are running several other errands.  Tonight when I spoke with my Dad he said 'she is so nice' and he sounded calm and good.  We still don't have a handle on the cause of the cognitive issues he is experiencing - it still doesn't appear to be Alzheimers, but more linked to depression - and having a person around should help quite a bit with the latter.  

~~~~~

~Perle des Jardin~

~~~~~

There are roses in the garden - roses happy that the nights are cooler and the sun is kinder - and tonight, in the darkness, as I was wandering around while the Pointer Sisters were running wild I was catching their fleeting fragrance - lingering just a bit in the cool, damp early night air.

I've been working on my fence lately - much of it was going to be replaced with the new home, something which is on hold until job issues are resolved.  So in the meantime, I've suffered through some scary Pointer Sister escapes, and basically either had them on a leash or stood by a part of the front fence that is bad when they are outside.  It's been tedious and silly and annoying - and so this weekend I was able to replacing some of the front fence material, and yesterday a friend and his parents, the infamous Peanut Riders, stopped by and helped me add 150 feet of two foot high fencing to the areas of my fence that are only four feet high.  It was an easy (and affordable 'fix') and I think it's going to work great.  Today on the way home from work I picked up 150 more feet - that will finish the one side and get most of the back fence done. 

It'll be such a relief to have the fence repaired (or almost repaired) - you see, the Pointer Sisters are charming creatures when they're sleeping - which requires them to be tired, something that only occurs when they get to run about twenty miles in a day. 

~~~~~
  

~a cheery friend of Perle des Jardins~

~~~~~

This is what I've been working on for lately in my 'spare' time.  Beginning last summer, I've been volunteering on the education committee of the SEWEE Association - a 'friends group' of our coastal South Carolina wildlife refuges and forest.  They're a wonderful organization and I'm so glad that I am involved - and one thing that I thought I could do is help 'update' their website and start a blog for them.  The site isn't searchable yet, and there is still much to be done - but I'm excited about the progress I've made (I've had to learn more about typepad blogs than I've taken advantage of here) and about the possibility of the site increasing their visibility.  I probably don't have time to spend on this right now - but I began to also think if not now, when?

~~~~   

~Rosa 'Souvenir de la Malmaison'~

~~~~~

What a sweet bud!

This was the second 'antique' rose that joined my garden.

Now, for my current plant obsessions:  I've had a hankering for more palms lately.  I'm thinking about the chinese fan palm, Livistona chinensis...but first, I need to read more about palms.  I'd like some native palms, palms that prosper in filtered shade - but I've never seriously studied them.  I'll be good and not run out and purchase one today ('one day at a time' = my new plantaholic motto) - but I have been thinking an awful lot about them.  I need to learn more.

The other:  the Paw Paw, Asimina triloba.  Unfortunately I fear that I am too warm for this native fruit - not me per se - the zone silly.  but I'm still thinking about this tree.  It looks like a wonderful tree...has anyone grown one?  I'm curious.

~~~~~

The trouble with gardening is that it does not remain an avocation.  It becomes an obsession.--Phyllis McGinley

~~~~~

~Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'~

~~~~~

What a forthright little sasanqua.  I did recently and unofficially rename it 'Allhallowsgiving' - since by the time the yule thing gets going, it'll be long finished flowering.  There are other sasanquas blooming too - at the end of their blooming season - the prolific 'Cotton Candy' and 'Apple Blossom' - both in bloom for October's bloom day.

I need to get a few amarylis bulbs for the holidays.  I love the Cybisters, I have grown them before and find them fascinating.  I have one large window in the front of the Airstream (you can see it here) that has a ledge that they would fit on (in a pot of course) - I just don't know how Haiku will handle the situation (meaning:  will she eat it?  she's notorious for chowing down on plants).  Maybe I'll just get some for my Dad's house - he'll enjoy them for sure.

~~~~~

~Salvia involucrata 'Hidalgo', rosebud sage~

~~~~~

A garden can never have too many fall-blooming salvias.

Never ever.

~~~~~

~Salvia madrensis, forsythia sage~

~~~~~

See?  There can never be enough of them.  They're my autumn color, they replace the vibrancy of the red maple, the yellows, the golds - even a witch's garden needs fall-blooming salvias.

There are other blooms in the garden - other salvias and roses, an Encore azalea or two (yuck), a late-blooming viburnum - but these I failed to photograph last Sunday.

I love this time of year in my southern garden.  I have optimism in mid-November - optimism that I'll get the vegetables beds finally cleaned out, that I'll remember to plant the garlic before leaving for Thanksgiving in Virginia (which is still late, but hopefully not too late) - there are a few 'on sale' packages of daffodils to plant, and propagatees to attend to - and all the while the japonicas are beginning to bloom - the Debutante has started blooming obscenely early, the buds of other camellias are swelling...

~~~~~

And finally, I can't refrain from adding this non-gardening editorial aside:

I feel as if the word 'rogue' has been ruined for me this week.  Did she think about looking up the definition of 'rogue' first?  Do you think she ever thought about the destructive power of a rogue wave? 

Main Entry: ¹rogue

Pronunciation: \ˈrōg\

Function: noun

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: 1561

1 : vagrant, tramp
2 : a dishonest or worthless person : scoundrel
3 : a mischievous person : scamp
4 : a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave
5 : an individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation

Ugh.  'Going Rogue'.  Double ugh.

A coral-bleaching menace!

The Microbial Laboratory is pleased to report that Science Daily recently posted a piece titled 'Marine Lab Team Seeks To Understand Coral Bleaching' - that discusses an NMR-based metabolomics study in which, yep, you guessed it, members of the Microbial Laboratory participated in...you can find the abstract for the original publication here.  The best line?

These metabolic changes, the HML team believes, are clues to learning why the small temperature change can turn non-virulent V. coralliilyticus into a coral bleaching menace.

[FYI:  The 'comma-shaped' microorganism in the upper left-hand corner of this blog is the temperature-dependent coral pathogen, Vibrio coralliilyticus.  My group is currently putting the finishing touches on a manuscript focused on the genome of this organism, and on another manuscript focused on the proteome.  We're hoping to submit these two manuscripts to PLoS ONE before Thanksgiving...].   

~a moment in the garden~

~Autumn in the front garden~

~~~~~

This morning I was out with the dogs, in between rain showers, and there was a gray-sky moment when the yellow of the falling birch leaves and the rust of the bald cypresses and the red of the savannah holly berries looked just magical.  

The front right garden is a tangle of trees - three bald cypresses that I planted as two foot twigs when I first moved here, a beautiful river birch, a large southern magnolia and a growing-like-crazy lowquat - several deciduous spring-flowering magnolias and a tea olive that is over fifteen feet tall.

It was beautiful, a moment when at least to my eyes, my coastal southern garden was transformed into a Seurat painting with pieces of color flying all over the place, refusing to be defined, refusing to settle on the ordinary.  Is this perhaps why we do it?  Why we plant and weed and water and obsess?  If it is, it's most definitely worth it - the fleeting moment of flying color was worth every minute of it.    

~twilight~

~Blossomtime in grayscale~

~~~~~

The remnants of Ida are rambling through the lowcountry tonight - bringing with it some much appreciated rain and warm winds.  The oh-so delicate Pointer Sisters are refusing to go outside - I suppose that Annabelle Lee has a reasonable excuse, especially after her three hour escape through the fence this morning into the woods and marshes that border my neighborhood - and I suppose that the Dan's excuse is that she is still pouting that she didn't manage to escape herself.  Honestly, sometimes it feels like keeping the Pointer Sisters in line is a full-time job.

~~~~~

As for me, I'm relieved that Annabelle Lee is safe at home, and I'm glad that a grant got submitted successfully yesterday.  It was rather large collaborative effort, one that was officially submitted at two minutes prior to the 8 pm deadline, only to have an error message come back - followed by another submission at two minutes after the deadline.  Today it appears that the proposal was accepted, so there has been a collective sigh of relief.  Proposal submissions such as this redefine what 'last minute' means, especially since at 10 minutes until 8 pm I decided to edit one of the required submission documents - and I was given 5 minutes by the university's grants office to do so.  Yeah, nuts - I know.

~~~~~

With Katherine not physically present in the laboratory during this challenging wartime period, the flow of poetry into our routine science days has lessened - so tonight I was happy to receive an email from her regarding a poetry reading this Friday evening that is part of The Poetry Society of South Carolina's Monthly Programs.  Once again she introduced a new poet (a musician poet in fact) to me, Doug Van Gundy, who resides in West Virginia and teaches at West Virginia Wesleyan.  I think I will try and attend his reading Friday evening - and hopefully he will read the poem below, a poem which includes a line about that time in the evening when the dog is unable to find her ball in the grass near oaks - a time that Annabelle Lee and I are quite familiar with.

~~~~~

The Back Yard by Twilight by Doug Van Gundy

These are the hours I love the best:
when the golden light of summer has climbed
to the top of the abandoned building next door

and all of the neighborhood
cats have slinked from inside
the woodpile beneath the back porch

and the cicadas and katydids
and grey tree frogs begin advertising
in the cacophonous personals section of the woodlot

and the dog can no longer
find his ball in the tall grass
at the edge of the darkening oaks

and citronella wafts across the crabgrass and mingles
with the lingering smell from the deep fryer
at the diner at the bottom of the hill

and the air grows heavy and moist
and the sound of the traffic on the
four-lane takes on a veiled quality

and the blue-white of the sun
is reflected in a satellite’s
long aching arc across the sky

and the windows open
and the box fan comes on

and the neighbor’s coon hound catches
the scent of something toothy & wild
and sounds his dutiful alarm

and the faint bruised smell of a skunk comes on
with the throw of the same switch
that turns on all of the fireflies

and the early windfall apples
fall without any wind at all.

 

(you can listen to Gundy read this poem here)

[This poem first appeared in Ecotone, Volume 3, Number 2, 2008]