Sticks & Scales

100 Best Novels

2012-02-09T09:50:00.000-08:00

Modern Library has two side-by-side lists of the 100 greatest novels of all time. One is put together by the editors and one is put together by the readers.

I put together in chronological order the editors list. And well over half appear to be drunk perverts slogging through life completely self-absorbed. A daunting task to read so many such books. The editors list starts chronologically with Joseph Conrad in 1899.

I started ordering chronologically the readers list and was halted by the fact the top 10 novels included three--one of those three being a nine-book-series--by L. Ron Hubbard and four by Ayn Rand! The other three were Lord of the Rings, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Very weird sampling of people to make up the readers of Modern library!

But back to the editors list. I get the impression that reading about suffering seems to be the way to understand literature! Perhaps it's the way that the author presents it that is the jewel. That voice. Those idioms.

So after I finish reading all of the novels in Nabokov's "Lectures on Literature" I will begin reading the editors' list in chronological order. Starting with Joseph Conrad. But then I'll have to do some preliminary Joseph Conrad reading--follow his thread of influence back and start with that. Then go from there. I wonder if I'll make it to the decade of the 1970's... 1960s? I might have to skip some of the books in the first half of the century. The 1930s seem to be especially profuse!

Scooby-Doo and the Yowee-Yahoo Vampire

2012-02-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

The repetition of motherhood allows easy access to the zen-like tranquility of repetition. I will pick up every little crumb, every stick, every torn paper, every cereal ring, every shoe, every backpack. I will pick up every piece of clean laundry that has been scattered around the house. I will vacuum and sweep every bit of broken glass and broken ceramic. I will do it without hesitation-- most of the time.

I will help Micah watch this Scooby-Doo movie a hundred more times and find something new in it every time, like he does. This cultural tendril that forms a root in his thoughts. How does he do it? If I pay attention to the movie there are new aspects every time. I try to focus in on the music only, or just the sound effects. Or actually follow the storyline.

Laundry is an especially indulgent pleasure of motherhood. It begs to be simplified every time. Let go, let go, let go. And folding is such a naturally contemplative time that it allows you to occupy the moment. Also hanging out the laundry in the most effecient way is a mental treat.

Today as I withdrew the laundry from the clothesline I overheard my parrot-voiced neighbor cawing her usual routine with her squealing toddler grandson/charge, when the tone changed to more threatening on the part of the parrot and more frantic, apologetic crying on the part of the toddler. I won't go into the peeping-tom details of the discipline ordeal, but it *did* leave me feeling like a stick was in my throat. Suffering is real, and sometimes it is easier to recognize it in others.

I realized that I had said and done all the offenses that were presently being hurled upon the pre-schooler, but to my own children, especially my eldest.

Parenthood did not bring out the best in me. More like it unleashed a beast that was a culmination of legacies of poor parenting choices among ancestors on both sides. Noah was my knight who came to help me slay these demons: spanking, yelling, disrespect, teasing, taunting, bullying, harassing, doubting, giving-up-on, tormenting, grabbing, yanking, pushing, ad infinitum.

When I see someone spanking their child today I recoil with acridity. Yet, there was a time when I spanked Noah--frequently. Me! I can hardly believe it myself. The point is that I *know* that beast inside. Intimately. That is the beast of suffering and attachment. Rising up with bat wings through the smoke, not unlike the Yowee-Yahoo Vampire of Scooby-Doo!

The pain of hearing someone else attacking their child amplifies the aggression that I practice on my own children. I *still* count when I want them to do something. WHO DOES THAT TO ANOTHER PERSON? I only realized this *today* when I heard the neighbor counting to the kid. If I can shed all of this stuff by the time Noah grows up, perhaps I will achieve permanent enlightenment!

Micah and Ana-Bees are helping too, but Noah has a knack and is truly forging the way for his younger siblings. He's just so strong--he brings out the worst in me and I am forever grateful to him for it!! Bring it out! Hope I can leave more of it out. Shedding legacies of suffering is a laborious process!

Mommy Plants

2012-01-31T15:35:00.000-08:00

The collard plants have turned into a riot of yellow-mopped beauties. These seeds are fourth generation wild-hybridized collards. The first seeds were planted in 2008, the variety known as Vates Georgia Collards. The parents and grandparents of these buttery lemonheads fought back against aphid invasions, but this winter they were able to flower early and so there are no aphids.

Today Micah noticed the bright display and commented on how the plants had turned into mommy plants.

"They are tall mommies. They are hairy mommies. I think they are hairy mommies."

Tall hairy hippy greens-lovin' mommies.

I love the greens so so much and they produced so much abundance that I became saturated. I ate an enormous meal of roasted greens the night that every adult came down with a tempestuous stomach bug. So the plants have been left to themselves to complete their life cycle. We got our fill.

I haven't had a green smoothie in well over a week. There has been a cinnamon toast craze gripping the family. We can't get enough cinnamon toast! Just this morning we ran out of cinnamon. A wondrously magical plant.

Someone once told me that as long as I had a garden I would feel peace in my life. Mommy plants.

Confessions of an Atheist

2012-01-30T13:22:00.000-08:00

Even though I am an atheist I still adore the god(dess) stories. I slip in and out of those stories without even knowing it through my daily thoughts and musings. Then sometimes I remind myself to just be present without any stories and they shed off like water droplets cascading off a ducks back. The stories always reappear to beg my opinion, of course, and I will engage in them frequently, as many are quite enjoyable.

One story that is particularly enjoyable is that of reincarnation. I have been able to imagine a godless reincarnation where it is just some law of the universe that consciousness continuously slips through different incarnations. It's just so enjoyable to imagine past adventures and escapades with current friends and family!

Another story I love is gratitude for blessings--feeling like special moments were given to me. I realized today that I only want to feel gratitude toward people, not gods or universes. If a moment feels extra special then I aim to occupy that moment freely and if it involves another person to be grateful to that person for their kindness. I aim to be aware of flattering myself regarding blessings and "feeling good." My goal is peace.

Grand Person's Day

2012-01-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

Today was Grand Person's Day at Noah's school and also the Open House is tonight. I am glad I was able to attend this event. Noah told me that he was going to have to "sit on the wall" during recess for talking to CJ. (!!!) I accidentally arrived about an hour early which was actually fine because I got to sit in a room of 30 seven-year-olds! It was like being in a room full of puppies! They all came over and loved on Ana and asked me to watch them do cool stuff or tell me something they know. Then during recess there was always a cloud of girls and sometimes a boy that wanted to help Micah do anything he wanted! They took turns pushing him on the swing. Noah and his best friend C.J. just ran to the opposite ends of the fields pretending to be motorcycles. A little girl that Noah went to a birthday party of told me that her mom had her baby a few days ago and is in the hospital :( I know she was planning a birth center birth.

Anyway! The event at Noah's school progressed after the recess with the arrival of all the Grand Persons. I love seeing the family of the children! I feel so blessed to be a part of their lives and their children's. Also, I am perpetually impressed by the teacher's ability to split her brain in so many ways! Her skills and abilities are beyond my comprehension.

I had been feeling anxiety toward the school when I shaved my head around three weeks ago. I worried about how people's thoughts of me would affect how they interact with my son. Ridiculous!!

I wore a hat. I am not ashamed! I saw another woman wearing a hat and she was also wearing stilletto heels!

Whether or not I wear a hat doesn't change who I am.

After all the melee and intensely short conversations with various parents, I returned home thinking that school is not the worst place he could be during his day. There is a genial feel among students and they interact with their peers in a friendly, amiable manner.

I feel like a balloon letting out air because I can let school be school again. His teacher is a normal beautiful human, not what I have characterized in my mental story of school. I can let school be just school.

I don't know why my emotions get so wrapped up in school thoughts. But being at the school clears them away. Because I can see everything as it is. Blissfully uneventful. Which is especially poignant because one year ago a little girl at his school was martyred for Gabrielle Giffords--an angel went to Noah's School. She is still there, it feels like. People are so kind, but shy to each other. The principal's name is Foster Hepler--he is living his purpose--and that's his educational philosophy--kindness.

Transitions, Patience, and Listening

2011-04-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Two and a half weeks have passed since the beautiful birth of our third child and first daughter. Needless to say, we have all been adjusting to the big change in our own ways. This week is the first week that I am home alone with the kids and trying to make dinner each night like I used to. Noah picked up a sickness last Friday and Micah got it by Sunday. This sickness started with a fever for both of them and then developed into lots and lots of mucus in the chest and head. Fun!

The boys seemed to be handling the cold okay. Noah stayed home from school last Friday since he had a fever, but then he was going to school again this week and doing his homework.

Micah has been a little more anxious since the baby was born. Sometimes he will grab something that is breakable or a special toy of Noah's and run away as we are asking/hollering for him to put it back.

Since this is the first week that I've been getting up at 6:30 to get Noah off to school I've been getting progressively tired-er and tired-er each day. Yesterday my dad offered to take the boys to the park. They seemed stable in their sickness. That is to say, they were still congested but not getting worse and the weather has been in the high 70s and low 80s. They were gone for a couple hours. When they returned Micah went in his room and lied down on his bed, but didn't sleep. After a couple of hours he started moaning and that progressively lead into wailing. His ear was aching. He also had a fever so I suspected an ear infection. I called Erik and had him pick up some colloidal silver and some treats for Micah to entice him to let us put the drops in his ear.

It was close to 6pm by the time Erik got home and we immediately started treating Micah. Since Micah was sick we let him watch the TV just to keep his mind off the pain and relax. Noah was watching it too and began to wonder when we were going to have dinner. I had had to stop making dinner just to comfort Micah so finally I threw together some grilled cheese and sliced apples for the kids.

By this time Micah has calmed down on the couch and Noah started getting real whiny. He starts saying that his ear is tickling him. Then when it's time to go to bed he starts wailing that his ear hurts too. I try putting drops in it, which calms him for a while but then more wailing. When Micah was going through the fever and normally when Noah is sick they will take vitamins and let us take their temperatures in order to get better. But Noah refused to take any vitamins, he just kept screaming. Also his energy was "up." Normally when they are sick they just kind of moan and we take care of them. But Noah just kept demanding me to help him but wouldn't take anything and was acting totally helpless. Like when I put a hot rice pack on his ear and it fell off he just screamed and said he needed me to put it back on.

After a couple of hours of this I needed a break. Ana had been in the sling the whole time and she wanted some time out of the sling, plus I had a few cleaning up chores I wanted to get done before bed. Micah was quietly resting on the couch. Noah kept yelling, "Mo-o-o-o-o-mmmmm!!!" But I just kept saying, "Hold on, Daddy's coming."

Erik was trying to help Noah but he was all screamy and whiny. He tried to take his temperature but Noah freaked out about that too which was really weird. We started to feel like there was something really strange about his symptoms. He had no fever and seemed to only talk about his ear hurting after Micah had his earache. We started to wonder if it was psychological. We felt helpless and held captive by our 6yo. Finally I told Erik, "Just go get some Motrin. I don't know what else to do!" Which is really weird for me to say because I *never* give them pain relievers because I think it goes against the body's natural healing system.

At 10pm Erik went out to Walgreens to get Motrin. By the time he got home Noah had finally fallen asleep. Which is also weird that he fell asleep so late because on school days he usually falls asleep by 9 since he gets up so early.

We decided last night to keep Noah home from school today no matter what. Whether it was physical or psychological he was obviously stressed.

I got up around 7am with the baby and sat on the couch, exhausted. She started falling asleep and I figured that the boys would sleep in since they stayed up so late and had been battling the sickness. So baby and I snuggled back into bed and as soon as I started drifting off to sleep I hear Micah crying for me and wanting to snuggle up next to my face, with all his snot and drool dripping. Such is parenting!

I beg for him to let me rest just a little longer and somehow he turns on the TV, or maybe Noah turned it on for him because around this time Noah comes in and lays on the bed with me, very grumpy. Finally I muster up some energy to get up and that's when Noah starts complaining about his ear again.

Now Micah is demanding food so I just leave Noah wailing and go take care of Micah. Ana, as always, kindly obliges by sleeping in the sling. For about an hour, as I tend to Micah and prepare food for myself, Noah is in the bedroom yelling, "MOM!" It felt really weird, but there was something about his tone that didn't say "sick." It just sounded demanding and mad. Every now and then I would go in there and he would tell me, "You don't care about anyone but *yourself*!"

Finally he demanded that I put more drops in his ear, so I agreed and started preparing to warm up the drops. When I finally brought them in he was quiet and said his ear had popped. Could he please watch a movie on his portable DVD player?

My body breathed a sigh of relief. Once again I was humbled that some "problem" that seemed extraordinary turned out to be temporary and I could have been more patient.

I had thought all kinds of things about Noah that weren't true, namely that he was so stressed out by a combination of factors, that in my mind were a cocktail of "the new baby", "Micah getting treats and attention", "me not having given Noah enough love and attention" that his mind just got so stressed out that he was manifesting depression and pseudo-sickness. None of that was true! His ear was stuffed up and needed to pop. That's why there was no fever.

What can I take away from this? That yes, life transitions do require extra patience and endurance and listening. Mostly to be kinder to myself and not blame myself when my kids feel sick.Transitions in life, like transition in birth require lots of breathing and no judgment, just presence.

Birth Story of Ana Belén

2011-03-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

As summer of 2010 began I assumed we were done having kids. Two seemed good. Our table has six chairs and since we co-habit with my parents it seemed perfect. We have three bedrooms...the boys share a room, I get an office/reptile room. All four of us could fit into Erik's truck and go hiking. The carseat and booster fit in the back of my RAV4 with a little extra room. I had been volunteering at Erik's work in the Herpetology and Invertebrate Zoology department and felt really good about my work there and my relationship with the keepers. Even though I had been passed on for a job as a bug keeper, I felt good with the experience I was getting and the rapport I was building with my associates. Micah was becoming more independent and I planned to go back to work when he entered kindergarten.

On June 25 I went to a birthday party for a friend of mine's little boy. A friend I had not seen in about a year since we had moved up to the Northwest side, further away from the park we used to meet at where I met some other beautiful mamas as well. This friend is studying to be a midwife and I always enjoy being around her kind, patient energy. At the party there were two women in their third trimester of pregnancy and they both radiated. Both also had two boys already. I remember really soaking in that night, meeting new beautiful women and getting to hear about the pregnancies. It had been a long time since I was surrounded by so much lovely sister energy, so I wasn't too surprised that when I got home that night I got my period. Little did I know that that was day one of my pregnancy.

Erik was already scheduled for a vasectomy consultation around September. We knew about Natural Family Planning and were smart enough to know when we had to be really careful to avoid pregnancy. But exactly 14 days into my as-yet-unknown-pregnancy, a cloudy haze came over Erik at the critical moment and I remember him saying, "What am I doing?" To me it didn't seem as though anything had happened different from any other time, but he had a feeling there was a slip.

Within about three hours we were at the local drug store purchasing Plan B. I wasn't too happy about the price, but they could charge whatever they wanted for that pill when people were desperate for it! I took the pill within an hour of purchase and the second one around the time when I was supposed to. I kept waiting for the nausea and bleeding to commence, but didn't have any side effects. I considered myself lucky. As I was tossing the packaging, I noticed the statement, "Works effectively in 80% of cases."

Two weeks later I was anxious to know if the Plan B worked. You already know how that played out. The night I found out that I was pregnant I had been invited to go on a special bug collecting expedition late at night in the Santa Rita mountains. By now it was the end of July and the monsoons were working their magic in bringing spectacular bugs and herps and plants out of their usual hiding. Since I volunteered with the keepers I had access to people who had seen and knew where to look for gorgeous animals that I had only seen pictures of or seen in captivity. That night one of the keepers was setting up a bug sheet, which is a white sheet hanging from a frame and a white sheet on the ground with a ridiculously hi-wattage mercury vapor bulb and black light illuminating the whole thing--irresistable to any bug within miles. We were especially on the lookout for a spectacular metallic green beetle called Chrysina that is mostly tropical, but edges up into the Sky Islands of SE Arizona, and the flying-mouse-like giant Saturnid moths. My heart hung heavy as Erik and I drove up the windy mountain road in the dark summer night. I felt like I had to choose between my newly found passion of volunteering with these amazing bug and herp and fish people, and this pregnancy. When wehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif got to the site I was like a kid in a candy shop running from bug to bug on the sheet, calling out for the others to see this one and that one. We had fun but there was a thickness in my throat all night that I couldn't shake. The next day I cried and cried. I felt like that volunteer job had the potential to open up a career somehow, somewhere, in the field that I loved the most. I decided that the practical thing to do was to hold onto the one chance I felt I had at a career of my dreams. I would terminate the pregnancy and life would continue on as normal.

After I had Micah I remember telling my midwife, somewhere during the postnatal visits that I would be sad not to see her any more. She said she had a feeling she would see me one more time. I was all high on the ecstasy of having had a successful homebirth and I just thought that was sweet of her to say, but in reality that felt impossible. We stayed in contact with email and facebook and about a year later she posted something like, "Repost if you have a lovely daughter." I knew that she has daughters and grand-daughters and I wrote back something like, "You are blessed to have so many beautiful daughters." After we re-connected for this pregnancy she told me that at that moment she had a knowing that I would have a daughter. Also around that same time I remember visiting Montana with my family for my cousin Kristy's wedding. Kristy is my mom's sister's daughter. Kristy has two sisters and my mom's sister has seven grand-daughters. At that time I had been ruminating on mitochondria and how my maternal heritage would continue through my cousins, but not through me. Seeing all my sweet little nieces at the wedding made me think of it and I even brought that up with my mom's mom, Nana, during a visit to her apartment there in Montana. I just said something like, "Nana, I counted up all of Tita's (her mom) female decendents and half of them are your great-granddaughters (through my mom's sister). It is strange for me to think that I won't get to continue that heritage." It took her a second to realize what I was saying and then she said, "Oh, you'll get your daughter." In a brief moment I looked at her kind of quizzically and gave an embarrassed smile. I wonder if my face might have conveyed the feeling of hurt inside, knowing that we weren't planning on having any more kids. She may have noticed because she kind of had a look like maybe she said too much and we both chuckled, changing the subject.

How to terminate a pregnancy is not a fun thing to research on Google. I wanted to go the herbal route, because I felt it was more natural and women had relied on it for centuries. After much hunting around I found a blog of a heroic woman who swore that her method worked and was safe and natural. I read through about 15-20 pages of comments that it worked before I decided to do it. The method was taking enormous amounts of vitamin C and parsley tea for up to ten days and making a bundle of parsley which gets inserted to bring on cramping. I think I started the process almost a week after I found out I was pregnant. On one of the last pages of comments (after days of reading them) I read a comment by someone that I knew, but hadn't talked to in a year. Re-connecting with her felt so positive and sisterly, in spite of the circumstances. The process had worked for her and taken about ten days. I feel very fortunate to have been able to connect with someone who went through that. I told Erik about my decision and while he was sad and asked me several times if I was sure, he supported me. I was crying and he just said that no matter what we could always have another baby down the line.

I eagerly purchased the ascorbic acid powder and about five bunches of parsley. I had made up my mind and didn't want to think about it any more. I was diligent for the first two days, but on the third day I had a revelation. I pictured myself as an old woman with three adult children or an old woman who had spent her life studying bugs and two adult children. The thought of being old and surrounded by more family warmed my heart. And earlier in the year I had been talking with a friend who had been a keeper and he had said something that stuck with me. He said, "No matter how well you do your job or how hard you work, when you retire people are already moving on and they will forget you in a few weeks. That's just reality." Which, when he told me that reminded me of a quote by Wayne Dyer, "When people are on their deathbed, nobody ever says, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.' They always say, 'I wish I had spent more time with my family.'" My friend finished the quote with me because it was one of his favorites. When all these thoughts crystallized in my mind, I immediately pulled out the parsley and went crying to Erik,
"I don't want to have another baby down the line--I want *this* baby!" He had tears in his eyes and hugged me and said, "Call Bette (the midwife) now! Tell her about the vitamin C!" I called her and left a message just to call me and then avidly researched the effects of too much vitamin C. Fortunately, there were none, unless high doses were taken for the entire pregnancy, then the baby could have problems absorbing C after birth and show temporary signs of ricketts. It was very rare. Bette confirmed this when I finally talked to her.

I was shakily optimistic as I adjusted to the fact that we were going to have another baby. Now August was fully underway. I informed the Herpetology department that I was pregnant and that I had suffered from morning sickness in the past and that it would probably happen again. They congratulated me and said of course not to worry about taking as much time off as I needed. (Even though I was a volunteer, I treated it like a job and they all knew how much I loved doing it.) The morning sickness definitely happened again--it kicked my butt!

I think I volunteered one or two more weekends before I became incapacitated by the morning sickness. At first I was combatting it with meditation and was having some success. I was having ethereal revelations of joy in my strange state and would find myself weeping as I felt graciously connected with the immensity of all existence. But then it came on like a tidal wave. I became so weak that all I wanted to do was lie on the floor covered with a sheet. I couldn't sleep at night because I was waking every few hours to heave. My weight dropped down to what I weighed in junior high. I felt skeletal. I called the naturopath who told me to only eat what smelled good to me and smell everything deeply before I consumed it. That night I smelled and nibbled and nommed on a peach like a person on ecstacy. Also I picked some leaves off our lemon tree and inhaled its fragrance readily. I inhaled the clean smell of the red rasberry leaf tea which made it taste real and good. About three days later I visited his office and received resonant sound therapy, which is the closest thing to shamanic healing that I've ever experienced. There was chanting and groaning and essential oils and chakra tapping and at one point a bottle of lavender essential oil crashed open on the floor! It lasted about 30-40 minutes and at the end I felt like I was floating. I had no words, only a slight, perfectly content smile.

As my morning sickness ever-so-slowly decreased its intensity Erik got some devastating news from his work. As the fiscal year was about to start in October, they realized their budget would need some severe cuts and Erik was the last person hired in his department so he knew his position was vulnerable. He immediately started looking for a new job in case he got laid off. My parents reassured us that no matter what they would help us. Adjustments could be made. After much worry and anxiety they ended up cutting his hours by one day of work per week. We immediately thought of ways to cut back our spending. Driving 26 miles every Sunday for a volunteer job suddenly didn't seem so important.

As we adjusted to the fact that Erik would be losing a portion of his income he started thinking of ways to augment. He hung up a flyer in the docent lounge at work advertising tree trimming. Slowly the jobs started to trickle in and by the grace of God he has managed an average of about three per month, which is enough to replace the lost income. He also started an Amazon seller account and sells used books online that he finds for sale at the local Friends of the Library book sales and other such places. This income basically supports his book habit, which even he admits had been taking a small bite out of our budget.

As I entered into the second trimester my energy returned and I resumed the daily routine with the boys and domestic affairs--cooking, cleaning, helping with homework. The pregnancy remained easy and mostly faded into the background. As the due date marched closer the only thing that became an issue was pregnancy-related anemia, which I had with the boys as well, and a bit of swelling, which I combatted effectively (for the first time--the other pregnancies I suffered) with increased fluid intake and focusing on proteins and vegetables while shunning my beloved carbs. Seeing how well my body responded gave me newfound respect for people following diets such as the paleo diet and the alkaline diet, which also tend to shun grains. I found plenty of support for such dietary changes through online friends and family who practiced such diets for their health and found results.

The last few weeks before the birth, our family life felt like it was getting stitched together. Everything felt right. I felt relaxed and confident about the birth.

Maybe I was a little too relaxed because as the weekend before my last appointment with the midwife arrived (I was due the following Friday, April 1st) I still hadn't gathered all the supplies and sterilized the rags and sheet for the birth. When Saturday came I had an impending feeling to "get it all taken care of." We also went to the feed store to get straw bales for our raised garden bed. As we drove around from store to store I had a few times where I felt a combination of a cramp with a feeling of light-headedness, sort of like how a guy describes getting "kicked in the nuts". About an hour passed between each time it happened. Also, due to our running around, I hadn't eaten nearly anything since breakfast and was famished and *very* grumpy. The cramps and grumpiness could easily be chalked up to not eating. As we left Home Depot I ate a few M&Ms and then planned on having a nice protein meal when we got home.

Funny thing is that when I got home and fixed myself some chicken, I could barely eat a few bites. I felt slightly nauseous and anxious to get everything ready for the birth. I had an inkling that it would be in the next couple of days. I felt monstrously bitchy as I finished getting everything prepared. As the afternoon wore into the evening, Erik finished placing the bales and then decided that he would finally take Noah to go see "Rango" like he had been talking about for the last week or two. He asked if the birth was imminent and I said I had a feeling the contractions would taper off at night. I'm glad they went because he was anxious and Noah was bounding off the walls. They both needed to get *out*! I still needed a few things from the grocery store, but was feeling kind of weak from not eating so my mom went for me and took Micah. I had almost an hour alone to meditate on what was to come. I put on some relaxing music as an incredible back ache came on that felt like I had been doing heavy lifting all day. I savored it.

Since the onset of my pregnancy, I had a strong feeling that this would be my last pregnancy and longingly wished to have an unassisted birth. Since I had birthed Micah successfully at home I felt, I knew, I could do it on my own. I knew women who had done it and with my innate distrust of the medical profession and trust in the wisdom of the ancient process of birth, I wanted to experience that most primitive of mammalian experiences, alone, the way I imagined most animals birthed. Even though I had seen adult female cats birthing in the arms of another female and knew that some animals like elephants and horses might have a female accompany them at their birth, I felt that birthing alone was the most normal way for an animal to give birth.

As I sat there in the blue night contemplating the upcoming birth I was surprised to find myself feeling grateful that I would have Bette with me at the birth. Even though I knew I *could* do it on my own, having her calm, knowledgable presence felt comforting.

Mom got back with the groceries and bathed Micah and put him down for bed. In order to help Micah fall asleep, she laid with him in the dark and I turned off all the lights and sat in the living room dark, surfing the internet. By the time Erik and Noah got home around ten the back-ache had subsided and I decided to try sleeping. My stomach felt a bit off so I drank a big glass of chamomile tea and a little Recharge because I was feeling weak from not eating much food all day.

I fell asleep with Erik and woke up around 1am to go pee and felt like I was going to be sick. I sat on the toilet and barely grabbed the trashcan as my body mechanically evacuated from every hole in my body. I felt slightly better when the whole event was done but didn't feel like sleeping. Erik gallantly cleaned out the trash can for me and put a liner in it. I was a little concerned because I had heard about people throwing up during transition with especially hard contractions, but not just in general.

Thank goodness for Dr. Google, because I learned that flu-like symptoms without fever are common for 48 hours prior to labor. And that's exactly how I felt. I even had muscle cramps in my legs similar to when I have the flu. I went back to bed and mostly laid there, stretching and moving my aching legs. At around 3am I started to get contractions again, about every 15 minutes. At 4 I got up again to use the toilet and was sick again, even though the contractions were totally bearable. I took the trashbag outside to the main trash can, just wearing my t-shirt. The cool dark air was so silent and silky; I glanced up at the big dipper and knew that I would soon be giving birth.

I returned to the bathroom, rinsed my mouth with water and baking soda, and laid in bed for about twenty more minutes, feeling the contractions gaining strength. After a few good ones I got up to go to the bathroom again and now the pinkish mucus was definitely being shed. Yea! I re-read Bette's instructions on when to call her--water breaks or regular contractions. They were still about 5-10 minutes apart and I didn't have to breathe through them. In fact, I found that if I I sat on the toilet and pushed just a little during a contraction, it almost felt good. I decided to feel inside myself when I was pushing to see if I could feel anything. The first couple of times it just felt all squishy and I couldn't really tell one fold from the next. But when I had a really good contraction I reached in and past a certain fold (the lip of my cervix, which was all soft and fluffy) I felt something smooth and hard. The head! I was exhilarated and encouraged. I briefly contemplated just going through with the birth there in the bathroom, but since I trusted Bette and knew that there was still major work to be done, I decided to time the contractions and make sure that birth was imminent when she came. Now it was around 5am, and even though I wasn't even breathing through the contractions (the pushing lessened the pain), when I had a contraction and pushed I could feel the bag of waters descending. I was surprised how in between contractions everything ascended back up inside. Also, I had a new understanding of "dilation." The cervix didn't just incrementally increase in size opening over a period of time. It opened and closed dynamically and was definitely not circular! It was more elliptical and tilted toward the back.

I called Bette and while I was waiting for her call-back had another contraction and felt the bag of waters descend even more so I paged her again. She immediately called and we talked for a bit because I was still able to talk through them okay, due to my pushing technique. She told me to be careful with pushing because pushing too early can swell the cervix which will make it harder to push when the head is ready. She also said sitting on the toilet can dilate me very fast. Could I please just find another position and breathe through the contractions until she got there? Yes, I could.

I told Erik that I had called Bette and for him to get the bed ready. We already had the plastic sheet on the bed, but he had to put the sterile sheet on the bed and he also had to assist Bette with anything she needed when she got there. I went back into the bathroom and Rama the cat squeezed in with me. As I got on all fours to manage the contractions, Rama mewed and rubbed all over me, begging to be pet. As I smoothed her silky smooth fur and she bumped her head on me I became acutely aware that petting a cat does, indeed, release oxytocin. I wished Erik could have taken a picture because I always loved the idea of cats comforting a laboring mother. Unfortunately, as so often seems the case, some (most?) of the soft, delicate moments in life find us without a camera to memorialize it.

I migrated into the bedroom to try leaning over the edge of the bed for something to sink my head into and grip the sheet or a pillow. Now the contractions were feeling really intense without the toilet seat to relieve the pressure and I started to really breathe through them. I felt like this was probably a good thing for me to endure for a while and let my body really open up. Fortunately the contractions were only 30-45 seconds long and were spaced a couple of minutes apart. No trains barrelling down on me. Now Bette arrived and started setting up camp. I asked Erik to sit on the edge of the bed and during a contraction I would burrow my head into his torso. I really wanted to bite him but he asked could I please not! Maybe I could bite something else? A pillow might work.

Bette wanted to check the heart and do an internal. She asked if I could get on the bed with a bunch of pillows behind me? (I had told Bette beforehand that I wanted to catch the baby and she said that was a good position for that.) I made a pile of pillows and laid kind of on my right side and kind of on my back. Remembering how good it felt when I was feeling the bag of waters descend during a contraction on the toilet, I asked if she would do the internal during a contraction while I pushed. She later told me that was strange because most women don't want an internal during a contraction. But when she did it she could feel the cervical lip and asked me if I wanted her to massage the lip over the head with a bit of oil as I pushed. Yes! I did! Which, again later I found out that many women don't want that kind of intervention from the midwife at all, but it felt so good! She did that for a few contractions then said the baby was so close to being born. When she got up to get some supplies for the birth the contractions were so intense without her massaging back the cervix. I told Erik to get behind me and I would pull on his arms during the contractions. I definitely was wanting to push through these huge contractions now.

So now came the guttural moaning and groaning. The deep down strong noises. The "get-behind-it" noises. I don't remember how many pushes at this point, but the on one of them the bag of waters burst with a thick snapping sound and a splash of fluid which Bette expertly blocked with a towel! Then one push where I felt the pressure on my tailbone. Then one push where the head almost crowned. I didn't want a repeat of almost-crowning so on the next one I pushed 'til crowning. Which is such a surreal moment because the stretching, burning sensation is so strong that the urge to just blast through it with a push is so intense, but Bette knows that can lead to a tear so she tells me to stop pushing and just blow-blow-blow. It's like a skateboarder flying through the air on a half-pipe and if you could slow down time to an incremental frame by frame as she (of course!) reaches the pinnacle of her trajectory with one hand planted on the rim of the pipe and her body upside down staring down the wall of the pipe and just freeze time right there, right on that edge, that incredible momentum and potential energy at its peak--that's kind of what it feels like. That's when my humanity betrayed my will to birth goddess-like and I called out, "It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!" After just a few more interminable seconds I don't remember if I pushed or her head just popped out, but the burning subsided and the words "Thank you thank you thank you" flooded out of me. My eyes were still closed out of exhaustion and I heard Bette say with more than a hint of delight, "Hi Baby!" So I reached down and caressed the head and ears and nose that was facing my right thigh. That gave me a rush and I wanted to meet the baby so much that I started pushing again and Bette said, "Slow down now, we're doing the shoulders." So I just paused and delicately stroked her face, still with my eyes closed! As the next contraction came over me a mighty heave and she was out. I lay there panting "thank you thank you thank you", the words streaming from my heart.

I finally opened my eyes and as I was lifting the baby onto my belly Erik said, "How big is he?"

I said, "It's a boy?"

Erik said, "No, I don't know."

So I lifted her up and said "It's a girl?!"

Bette grinned and said, "I knew it!"

She was all coated in luscious vernix and slippery like a baby seal. She just laid on my belly and rested as calm as a well-fed nursling. Bette even wanted to prod her just a bit to hear just a sound. After some gentle taps and prods she finally tried lifting her slightly off my belly, to which baby let everyone know that was not okay.

Bette felt the cord and it was still pulsing. I'm really glad she did because I wanted to feel that too. The feeling of the pulsing cord was so full of life and yet diminishing. Beautiful and surreal. I wish I had handled the placenta too before it got popped in the freezer, when it was still warm and plump and veiny. I am slightly obsessed with the amazing nature of placentas.

The final big contraction came and I told Betty I was ready to push the placenta out, which surprised her that it was so soon. I was surprised again at how relatively hard I had to push to get a shapeless blob out. But my placentas have all had the remark of "Wow that's big!" Feels like birthing an octopus.

We had our hearts set on naming the baby Scout if it was a girl, but something about her tranquil nature belied our decision. After relishing in the sweet aroma and glow and feel of our newborn for a while Erik said, "She kind of looks like an Anna, or Ana. Ana Belén?" Yes, that felt right. Twelve hours later Erik's uncle called and said that that day, March 27, 2011, would have been the 100th birthday of Erik's beloved grannie, Anna Belle. Waves of chills and euphoria washed over me when I heard that. I later looked up the meaning of Anna and it comes from the Hebrew word "chana" which means grace. Nothing other than grace could have brought Ana Belén into our lives.

Farmgirl Fare

2011-02-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

Farmgirl Fare

So I can live vicariously through her farm...

Homemade yogurt in winter

2010-11-27T08:54:00.000-08:00

This morning, as I made my son and I a fruit smoothie for breakfast, I felt love toward my mason jar full of creamy fresh yogurt. I felt an ode coming on, and since I have not practiced my odes, thought a blog entry might suffice. Homemade yogurt is so sweet and delicious and easy, yet so many do not make it. My mother buys store yogurt, and the other day I tried some and it was SO sour! That's the way homemade yogurt tastes when it's really old. Which tells you that it can last a loong time!

In the summer, making yogurt is so easy because the house is nice and warm all the time. In the winter, unless you keep your house super warm and heated all the time, making yogurt is a bit trickier. If you just do it on the counter, it will probably take forever to "gel", if it does at all. You can try putting it on a heating pad, but that's usually too warm and makes the bottom part of the yogurt extra "gelled" and the top soft--not uniform. This is where the aquarium heater comes in.

I never thought an aquarium heater would come in so handy in the kitchen! I bought one to incubate my lizard eggs in. Turns out that a water bath is the most stable way to maintain a temperature (and it gives humidity) for the lizard eggs. The great thing about an aquarium heater is that it maintains temperatures that yogurt likes, right around 80. Most aquarium heaters maintain heat between 75 and 85, nice comfy temps for fish and plants who live in the tropics. Comfy temps for microbes too... kind of a goldilocks zone. You only need a 25W heater, which are the cheapest ones, but it's nice to have one that allows you to adjust the temperature, although that's not necessary, since the ones without adjusters are usually set at around 78, which is perfect.

The other part of this set-up involves something that won't let that heated water rapidly cool down--an insulated cooler or ice chest. I use something that is like a drink cooler that construction workers use. Fill it about a third of the way with warm water (why wait for the aquarium heater to do its job?) and then submerge your mason jar, or whatever you ferment your yogurt in, into the water. You want the water to completely surround the milk, so it will be very close to the top. Your jar won't float when it is completely full of milk. Then you just put your aquarium heater in the water and in about 12-24 hrs you got the best yogurt ever. While the yogurt is "cooking" I put the mason flat lid on, slightly ajar, don't know why, I just do. Also, I put the top on the drink cooler, but not tightly, and check on it every now and then to allow the oxygen and carbon dioxide to equalize with the air.

If you've never made yogurt before and are wondering about *that* part of the operation, it couldn't be simpler. Bring almost a quart of milk to 180 degrees (if you don't have a thermometer, that's the point just before it's boiling, where you've got tiny bubbles around the edge and a very thin skin). The reason it's *almost* a quart is because you are going to mix in some yogurt to make a quart. Then cool your milk back down to about room temperature, or at least just barely warm. Now get your clean quart jar or clean old yogurt container and pour a little milk into it and add about 3-4 tablespoons of plain yogurt (I have had success with cheap generic brands and organic alike, just try to get some without any additives, like gelatin) and mix it together. Then add the rest of your cooled milk and give it a good stir. Now you are ready to incubate!

Soup Glorious Soup

2010-11-19T11:14:00.001-08:00

I have been loving soup lately, much to the chagrin of my family. My husband says that meat should not be in liquid. He thinks it should all be cooked on an open flame. Whatever. We're not charros.

Anyway, good soup requires good broth. Here's how to make broth the easy way... Whenever you cut up an onion, carrot, or celery (or parsnip or turnip for those who eat more veggies than us) save ALL the scraps (papery onion skins and ugly ends included) and put them in a gallon ziploc in the freezer. Also, if parsley or other fresh herbs starts to get wilted, put that in there. Any time you have any chicken scraps, cooked or uncooked, put them in there too; the leftover bones, skins, etc. Especially if you have a roasted chicken put the carcass in there. Also put the gizzards and innards in there (no need to cook). When it gets full, put everything in a big stock pot and cover with about an inch of water. Don't worry if you don't have a lot of celery or parsley or whatever in the mix; it's different each time and it will taste fine. I never waste good new veggies making broth--only scraps. (Save your ziploc and just put it back in the freezer to start filling again.) Put some bay leaves in there. Simmer for about 4 hours. When you see the scum, skim it off. (I don't think it would hurt you, but my intuition says to remove it.) When the broth is nice and brown, let it cool and strain all the stuff out--discard. You can also season at this point with salt, pepper, and herbs, or just leave it and season when you use it. I glean any meat bits for soup. Put the fresh broth in a big bowl and chill overnight. That way you can remove all the congealed oil. (Again, not bad for you, but greasy broth seems less appealing.) Then freeze in quart bags or quart yogurt containers. Now you have delicious homemade (FREE) broth with no msg or thickeners or stabilizers and whatnot. When you make soup with it, usually you can add water to it and still have plenty of flavor.

Be Here Now

2010-10-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

This simple phrase, brought to us by our friend, Ram Dass, brings me some peace. Especially in this experience of pregnancy. I am in a gentle state of pregnancy. My morning sickness has vanished. I have energy and drive to keep my house clean and healthy meals on the table. My belly and body are not yet huge, but I have a notice-ably larger belly that is manageable. My spine feels much more comfortable in a curve than a straight line. The beginning feelings of movement tanatalize me. I have heard the heartbeat twice now, which I wish I never had because I like the secrets and not knowing. Last pregnancy, I didn't even contact a doctor until I was past four months and then switched over to the midwife when I was close to six months. I fiercely opposed any doctor. This time, I naturally contacted the midwife rather early to start up the relationship, and I'm glad I did. But I don't like the technological invasions into the life of the unborn baby. One of my paranoid pregnancy fears is that the baby will die and I won't even realize it. So now I fear waiting to hear the heartbeat. Or also anxious about when I will next feel movement. It can drive me batty at times to where I'm poking and prodding until I feel *something*. And I am only 17 weeks! I know that this feels the same as the last two pregnancies. I need to just "forget that I'm pregnant." And that's where Be Here Now comes in. My mantra for existing in the moment. I am here and there is a baby inside of me. We are here together. We are here now. Breathe out......

Good News

2010-09-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

Erik is not going to get laid off, but has to take a 20% cut in hours. That means a 4-day work week. At least he still has his job. Whew...

I want to cry

2010-09-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

I want to cry and be strong at the same time. Erik found out today that he's probably going to get laid off. SO many emotions... anger, hurt, worry...

THANK GOD for my family.

I already am an anxious person in dealing with daily living (which is such a waste of energy, *that* needs to change) so I have to closely monitor myself to not worry about this situation too much.

Blessings... healthy children, loving husband, supportive and loving parents, beautiful house, and able to stay home for now.

We are not alone in this ordeal, this I know. Erik already talked about how he didn't want to work there the rest of his life, that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. If he could get a job as a park ranger or something like that in the end of all this "change" that would be a miracle. In the meantime, what kind of job can he get now? We are shooting for tree trimmer with his old company, Asplundh, but that too would be a long shot miracle. We have heard so much about how hard it is to get *any* job that this change that we face is daunting... Please keep us in your prayers.

Morning Sickness Continued

2010-09-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Boy, pride surely goes before the fall! Last night, about an hour after I posted that, my husband comes in the bedroom, where I'm just facebooking and trying to ignore that cauldron in my stomach, and starts talking to me about god knows what. I can feel myself crashing and cannot talk with him. I tell him I don't feel good and he says, "Well maybe it's what your eating. Are you just eating bread?" And I said, "Do not even think that you know." He left to watch a bit more tv and I tried to turn the light off and go to sleep but as soon as I put my head down, I knew it was coming.

I had been snacking on what I thought was my wonder snack all day: boiled garbanzo beans that had been dried in the oven with salt. They seemed so perfect and I made sure I drank lots of water. They really did work good, but the hormones are still regulating and they can definitely still spike, bringing me back to the more delicate stage. I don't mind it that much. Back to morning zombie (no puking this morning!! I think the mint in the morning helps.) and back to The Price is Right! Yesterday I almost missed meeting my son at the bus-stop on the corner because I didn't watch The Price is Right. When it's over, Family Feud comes on and at the first commercial break I went to get him. (I think that was a schedule I developed a few days ago! :nut) Yesterday I was listening to Joni Mitchell's album Night Ride Home on repeat and writing down the lyrics to my favorite song on that album The Second Coming (based on W.B. Yeats Poem-Crazy to read when you are pregnant) and suddenly the thought blasted into my head that I needed to pick Noah up from the bus-stop and I didn't know what time it was! I ran into the bathroom to check the time (11:10, bus-stop time 11:13--they don't wait for you!!!). No time to get the 2-year-old ready to come with me--no time to do anything! Thankfully my dad was in the kitchen, but I had no time to tell him anything--RUN!!!!! I tore out of the house in bare feet, ran down the cobblestone driveway and on asphalt in 100 degree heat! Made it to the shade tree just as the bus arrived. Must have been a sight to see me in barefeet as I crossed the street to the sharp red gravel and welcomed my son from the bus. "Why are you barefoot, Mom?" "Oh, nothing, just ran out of the house. I was afraid I was going to miss you!" "Oh." Scrunched up look on his face as he kicks the gravel toward home. The adrenaline was still pumping so I didn't feel a thing until after the bus pulled away and it was just me and Noah holding hands. "Ow! I gotta run back to the house, my feet are burning!"

It actually felt kind of good to run like that, but I paid the price. My body rapidly declined in energy level toward the end of the day. My mind soon followed. I became zombie prego once again. A comfortable space once I became familiar with it. Grunt and grumble and answer everything with an "I don't know." Kind of like a teenager in some ways.

I think it's easier to joke about it now that I think I see the light in the distance!

On good thing about morning sickness... I'm so glad I got to know John O'Hurley, the ousted host of Family Feud! He is such a snagglepuss! I think I'm going to buy his CD.

Bless the Saints, Bless the Pilgrims

2010-08-09T09:44:00.001-07:00

Noah just told me that he wanted to give Micah a new name... (names have been coming up a lot lately) He ran through a bunch of names like Frank and Johnnie and then stranger ones like Rocket Fan, each time the name not quite feeling right to him. He finally settled on Bat Jamie. My immediate thought was to check the animal totems and see what Bat represents, so I did, and Bat represents Rebirth/Transformation. Sigh... Blessings... Jamie--my cousin Jamie--was reborn and transformed just like all of us are...she completed her teaching in this life form...she participated in a powerful teaching of sorrow, reflection, forgiveness... the man and people that conspired to murder her and her two sons are the ones that will experience the most suffering from their actions, unless they continue with hardened hearts, asleep. Those who most acutely feel the loss of Jamie are given the gifts of an opened and awake heart. The suffering is present to them and they can choose what to do with it, whether to use it for helping other people, or just to harden back their own hearts. Our culture encourages us to hide the suffering of the world from our hearts and keep seeking our own desires. But when we realize that the happiness of others and the joy of others contributes to our own joy, then we can begin to open our hearts to a more peaceful way. Through rebirth and transformation. Jamie's smiling face and laugh are forever.

The Sorrow and the Agony (of Morning Sickness)

2010-08-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

The "get off me don't touch me" is totally ramping up. When my 2yo nurses he's all elbows and knees and shoulders, which before I used to just flex my muscles and take pride that I had my own personal gym machine, but now I just want to remove him from my surroundings! At night he nurses for five minutes (if I can stand it) and then it's tough love; I am so thankful that my two boys sleep together, I wouldn't be able to stand sleeping with them--if you can even call my restless insomnience sleep! LOL! It reminds me of fever sleep--never fully dissolved in the dream--waking, turning, lots of leg stretching, strange dreams, even talking in my sleep the other night--which I never do--and it scared my husband so much--who is already a worse sleeper than me even in this pregnant state--that he wanted to stay home from work (he's always thinking up excuses to stay home--every day he calls me and when I say I am a couch blob he says, "Do you want me to come home?" NOO!!! I'm pregnant, for godsakes, not dying!!)

If you are pregnant for the first time and you *feel* like you are dying or want to die or are severely depressed over your lack of ability to do anything or think a straight thought--congratulations! you are normal! When I went through this the first time my husband and I had only been together FIVE MONTHS (not yet married)! OMG, the fighting was incredible--he didn't understand what happened to me, I thought I had truly lost my marbles--why *couldn't* I do ANYTHING for weeks on end?? My husband had never seen anything like it and thought I was exaggerating! We had to go to counseling, but the smell of her plug-in air freshener was so repulsive that I just created a whole emotional ball around what was wrong with *her!* and then around that time it started to let up and "aaaaaaaaaah" I could breathe again and just tried to forget about that horrible time!

Life from the Couch

2010-08-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Just call me the couch blob. All I do is watch instant Netflix movies--documentaries about Buddhism to calm my morning sickness ravaged brain and body. My kids eat Luna bars and bagels all day, along with dried fruit--all stuff they can pilfer from the pantry.

I watch those movies to calm my mind that only wants to focus on how tired or nauseated I feel.

I try to keep stuffing food in me, usually carbs, in an attempt to keep the sickness at bay, but I am only at 6 weeks today, which is usually the START of morning sickness and I know how bad it can get--that's what depresses me--the thought of how it can get worse and worse over the NEXT 6 WEEKS-- and that also draws me toward the desire for calm and peace--which is mostly impossible when you have a 5yo and a 2yo- boys- running around. My mother graciously took the kids out shopping today (a very Buddhist activity :D) during which time I drew and meditated, which was like a vacation because finding time to meditate is few and far between, not like I ever did it *before*, when I had the time! lol But suddenly I'm craving it and wanting to take the fast route to peace in order to escape the feeling of being trapped in nausea! (all selfish reasons, but that's natural and at least it's *something* opening that part of me!)

Cravings... the weird thing about cravings is... mostly all food repulses, but then occasionally a germ of an idea about a flavor or food quality will sprout and that develops into a craving... which is something to look forward to, fulfilling that craving... it's best to be specific about the craving... sometimes I search for it... maybe based on past pregnancies... thai food, fresh summer rolls from the first... the perfect burrito with plenty of lettuce and pico de gallo, drenched in hot sauce from the second...but if it's too vague then I can't fulfill it and am left with a pseudo feeling of satiation... but when the opportunity to fulfill a craving arises and all the pieces fall into place, the result is a harmonious remedy... all the senses unite and thank the universe for that moment of indulgence... but then, the strange part is... more often than not, after the craving is filled, the object of desire becomes the object of repulsion, often inciting the same feelings of nausea that it had been the promised rectifier of! Such is the nature of the morning sickness brain!

Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: The Pregnant Nun

2010-08-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: The Pregnant Nun

peaceful parenting: The Day I Withdrew From Nursing School

2010-01-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

peaceful parenting: The Day I Withdrew From Nursing School

Albino Housefly!

2009-10-20T08:37:00.001-07:00

First thing I saw this morning when I got up was an albino housefly at eye-level on my sliding glass door. The whole body was creamy golden and the eyes were red. The tips of its feet looked a little darker. There were no lines on the wings, just transparent. I hurried to get my camera, but the bright morning light outside backlit it so much that it just appeared dark in the viewfinder. I managed to corral it into my hand and carefully closed my fingers around it to carry it to the freezer. My intention was to cool it down so I could take a really good picture of it. I eased the fly into the freezer, whereby it promptly flew under the plastic covering for the light. I closed the door and impatiently waited for no more than a minute, congratulating myself for such cleverness and thinking where I would put the creature for its photo-shoot. On the dark green wall? Maybe one of the cookbooks with a black cover. Albinos look best with a black background. Wouldn't my facebook friends be surprised? What luck! I hastily opened the freezer door and attempted to pry off the plastic light cover. Surely it pops off, I thought, or else how would anyone change the bulb? Presently, my photography subject zipped out of its hiding spot and into the vent that blows the cold air into the freezer. Gone! And the only way to get it out would be to unscrew the vent plate! Sigh.

The silver lining is that this is maybe a good omen for my interview today. I am interviewing for a volunteer position at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to work in the Herpetology, Ichthyology, and Invertebrate Zoology Department, or H.I.Z.Z. Erik tells me that the job mostly involves cleaning snake cages. I don't mind. I heard that they need someone to specialize in invertebrates, especially arthropods. It is true that I have spent most of my free time obsessing over skinks, reptiles, and tetrapods, but I feel I am ready and able to study arthropods and think that it would be a wondrous path to take. So perhaps the fly is a blessing from the arthropod gods.

Except that I couldn't photograph it, but it seems that I am unable to photographically capture ANYTHING of import of late. All of our photos from Montana I accidentally deleted. And there have been quite a few tender and poignant moments with Micah and Noah lately that I have forced myself, to no avail, to burn into my memory for lack of a recording device. All this is to remind me to live in the moment and be present.

Tree gift

2009-09-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

I made a bracelet for one of our trees today. It didn't start off for the tree. It started off for me. I have a book called something like "Braiding and Knotting" by Constance Belash, I think. That name was rattling through my brain for days before I figured out where it came from. There are lots of neat projects in the book for how to make a raffia hat, and sandals "from tropical fibers", and a braided leather belt, and macrame type stuff. I think I might be able to make a hammock from the directions. One of the projects is called "knotted bead bracelet". It's a bracelet with a loop on one end and a big bead-like knot on the other end. The instructions call for "coated gimp." Which is elaborated as "tape coated with pyroxylin." Bearing in mind that this book was written in the 70s, I knew I had a little research cut out for me. (Yea!)

Coated gimp... I couldn't find much in the way of that, but I did find gimp and I did find pyroxylin. Gimp is also called lanyard is also called boondoggle is also called scoubidou. It is that hideous neon-colored "plastic lace" that kids at summer camp use to make hideous keychains. I knew that my fine hippy Dover press book was not referring to such garbage. But they were referring to some sort of pre-runner because pyroxylin is a kind of celluloid coating, used in theatrical make-up as a kind of second skin, simulating wrinkles, scars, or baldness. The fabric tape coated in such material was more leather-like than just straight fabric and cheaper than real leather. Today's gimp is plasticized PVC tubes. Not too "green". I think they manufacture it just for kids crafts! Yikes! Biodegradability factor... zero. Trash factor... high.

So I decided to substitute twine. Just to play around with the braiding and knots. I found the twine in my dad's shed. And following the directions I fashioned a rather crude, scratchy, wabi-sabi kind of bracelet. No way was I going to be harnessed with such a creation. So I took it outside and fastened it around an ironwood tree, down in the hollow. It's just a magic little tree circle spot in our yard that begs to be festooned. I have also placed some stone carvings down there for the spirits. And last week a fall wreath came in the mail for the previous owners that they said we could keep, so I hung that down there on a tree next to a packrat's cholla-laced entryway. The bracelet fit perfectly around a branch that was already decorated with a string of shells, so I interwove the two. Gift for the tree!

Corucia Psychology

2009-09-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

Been ruminating on zoology, zoos, natural history... We spent the last two days on our vacation going to every used book store in San Diego. Every store we went to I gravitated to the Natural History section. One book I didn't buy, but it looked very interesting, called Man and the Natural World: A History of Modern Sensibility.

I am going through an intense learning period right now. So I am rehashing all my ideas. And part of that is thinking about my slaves, my lizards. I am a slave-keeper. An overt slave keeper. Why? Because I tell myself that they would die in anyone's care sooner or later, so why not mine and I try to make it later. These animals were not brought here by me. But they exist here and if not in my home than in someone else's. So why not mine? Some of them may have been intentionally hunted, like the Schneider's skinks, I think. The Corucia were born in captivity, but their parents were probably byproducts of the logging (and possibly mining) industries. The Egernia were also born in captivity, but their parents were possibly collected by herpers and smuggled into captivity??? I believe I was told by the seller that his friend smuggled some back from Australia. Wow! And now they live in my house. In conditions that are so different from the outdoors.

Their only predator now is microbes and possibly a broken heart. It seems as though some animals can just get depressed in captivity and die as though of a broken heart. It think it was in that book, Man and the Natural World, the author, Keith Thomas, writes about how in zoos of the early 20th century, gorillas would often die within a week or two of being caught from extreme depression. There were accounts of gorillas just sitting in a corner of their enclosure, occasionally nibbling on a blade of straw, but refusing all food and drink and shielding their eyes from the stares of the people or just looking wistfully up at the sky and one morning being found face down dead. He notes a contrasting account from fifty years prior of a white hunter in Africa shooting his first gorilla. The hunter writes the description of the gorilla as if it were a devil. The might of the ferocity is impressed upon the reader and just before the gorilla mauls the hunter, he victoriously shoots the beast in the chest, whereupon it groans and grunts as it collapses, twitching for a minute even as the hunter is already upon it examining the face.

The author writes of the two accounts to illustrate how society's attitudes toward gorillas had changed so drastically in fifty years, but perhaps it also illustrated the devastating effects of captivity upon wild animals' brains, and thus the animals themselves. It seems as though the gorilla in captivity died of a broken heart. An immense loss, an immense grief. Captivity.... does that. Would a wild gorilla ever exhibit such behavior? Shutting down and not eating? It almost seems as if the ones that eventually "thrived" in captivity suffered from Stockholm Syndrome. Perhaps, they believed, since their captors fed them and interacted with them that they actually cared about them. Perhaps since they didn't kill them, they actually liked them. Gorillas have been killed by humans for hundreds of years, probably. So they were probably expecting to die. But when they were kept alive, did they feel grateful to their captors?

Cats and dogs generally choose to be captive. So when they get abused it is sad because they continue to stick around. Most reptiles do not choose to be captive. Very few will stay if given the opportunity to leave. I think snakes will leave because their brain is always on search mode. Lizards are on search mode too, but flight mode is a powerful motivator in lizards. I think once a lizard loses flight mode then it has chosen to live with you. As long as they have flight mode I think more about their separation from the homeland. Many lizards die in captivity without ever having moved beyond flight mode. Their brains are so simple and yet the emotional base of the brain is so basic, tied in with the olfactory part of the brain. I think the more relaxed we are the more relaxed they are. It's like a test, with a flighty lizard, how calm can you be. I think the lizards assume that all humans are hasty and will always make the first move. I like to stand next to the Corucia (the cage is at eye level) and just watch them until they flick a tongue. I find that the best way to do this is to act calm and curious myself. If I just think the word "curious" with a blank mind it is often enough to induce tongue-flicking. I picture the cascade of neural chemicals in their brain that is required for a tongue-flick and that usually produces a response. Often during these conversations I find myself imagining the Solomon Island rain forests, like a picture slide show in my mind. I find myself asking the universe, "Why? Why these animals? Why these creatures? Why Corucia zebrata? Thank you! Why a lizard keeper? Why a slave keeper? Were some slave keepers nice? Could a slave keeper die a happy man?" And I wonder if the Corucia will ever forgive humans for what they have done to their home and their families. Or is forgiveness just a human illusion? If it is a form of emotion, then it seems that there would be a root of that in the reptilian brain. Will the reptiles work with me to build a monument to skinks?

Banded Gecko Bonanza

2009-07-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

We have been having a herpetological hoe-down here at the house! Tonight was banded gecko night. Unfortunately, my camera is taking a break right now, so I couldn't capture any visual magic to share with the world!

I was facebooking when Erik appeared outside the office window with a flashlight, waving his hands at me. I waved back in acknowledgement and he shook his head and motioned the "come here" gesture. I knew he had found some cool critter so I dashed out to the front door, slipping my bare feet into flip-flops just before I ran outside.

"A banded gecko!" he calls out to me.

"No way! Show me!"

My mind is filled with all the images of this beautiful lizard that I have only seen in books until now.

"He might have run away already. He ran pretty fast." Erik warned.

We came upon the path and Erik squatted down next to a good-sized agave clump.

"He went in here." He shown his flashlight around the base of the agaves, among the dried-up, curled brown protective layer at the bottom. Perfect hiding place for a banded gecko.

"I think he's gone. Nope, there he is! See him, Honey?"

I caught a brief glimpse of an ivory tail with chocolate crossbands. "I see him!" The gecko walked a little further into the depth of the agave clump.

Erik stood up and looked down the path shining his flashlight under the palo verde tree and cholla.

"Give me the flashlight! I want to see him!" I pleaded.

"Ok, but be careful of the agave spikes!" My husband loves to be the nature teacher. I let him. It's fun feeling like a kid at camp.

I step over some palo verde branches that have been laid out waiting for either a chipper-shredder or a brush-and-bulky pick-up. Minding the arrow-tips of the agave I squat down and shine the light under the blue, powdery spears. My flashlight finds him and my heart skips a beat.

"Hello there! You are so beautiful!" The gecko closes his eyes from the obnoxious light. I try to make sure only the edge of the light illuminates him, not the bright center.

His skin is the most creamy velvety texture of any other desert reptile I have seen. He looks so soft and squishy, too tender for such a harsh environment as the desert. He has the paired swollen gonads at the base of his tail, so I know he is a male, maybe looking for a female. The skin color is a base of buttery cream with purplish chocolate bands boldly crossing his body. His eye is a soft black drop of ink, with an innocence that makes me feel embarrassed to be so vulgarizing to him. This thought makes me immediately stand up to give him his space back. I smile at Erik and hand him the flashlight.

"Let's see what else is out there."

We continue our walk around the property, stopping to listen to Sceloporus, the spiny lizards, scrambling up a tree upon hearing us. We also note the abundance of tarantulas. As the path reaches the main driveway there are solar lights along the edge. Under one of these lights scurries another Coleonyx! The light was very dim, one of those LED glow lights that looks like a little pagoda lantern. Also under the light, perched on a rock just next to it, was a small green praying mantis, who clearly seemed annoyed at us interrupting his dinner hunt. We turned off the light to watch the mantis. A car drove right by on the road and the mantis turned its head in the direction of the car. Erik tapped the butt of the flashlight on the rock it was sitting on and the creature turned in that direction and looked right at Erik's face. Those things are just like little alien robots. I watched him, hoping to see a strike, but he started cleaning his grabbers, patiently waiting for the lumbering giants to keep on their way so he could focus.

We continued on out to the road to check for snakes. Erik shined his light on a plant that looked like a roadside weed in front of the neighbor-across-the-street's house. The house is up a slope and there is a railroad tie berm along the road to make the ground for the yard and house level. The space the plant occupies is about a five foot gravel clearance between the street and the base of the first railroad tie of the berm.

"I'm so jealous of that plant!" Erik said.

"What is it? I want to see it." I replied.

We walked across the street and up to the plant. "Proboscidea," Erik said, "Devil's Claw."

"Oh, you don't have to be jealous of that! That grows easily and we can get that anywhere!"

Erik bends down to look for a ripe seed pod. The plant is a prostrate form with small leaves, only about an inch across. It is about three feet in diameter. There are no other plants within ten feet on all sides.

"Another banded gecko! A baby!" Erik sputters.

"What? I think I see them too!" I can see definite movement among the fleshy stems of the plant. A hatchling Mediterranean house gecko, Hemidactylus, runs out of the shrub and climbs the railroad tie.

"Awww... they're just Mediterranean geckos. No wait, I see another one! And it has definite stripes. They ARE banded geckos! They're hatchlings! I think they just hatched right now!"

Erik starts looking around the base of the plant for more babies. "How many do they have?"

"I don't know. Leopard geckos have four or five I think."

We confirm two neonates. About the width of a pencil and half as long as your pinkie. They looked FRAGILE! One already was missing its tail. The first thing Erik thought was, "We need to move them. They're so close to the road. Let's bring them to our yard." He started to put his hand down around the one that still had the tail.

"No! You'll kill it!"

"Don't worry, I didn't touch it."

Erik keeps searching around the base of the plant with the flashlight, looking for more babies. There is some cellophane with some movement around it. "This place is crawling," Erik says.
What at first glance appears to be ants, on second thought looks more like termites to me.

"Look! The one without the tail is going over to the termites!"

As he approached the opening in the earth, spilling forth with grub, his posture perked up. He started looking straight down at the insects, and following their movement with little jerks of his head. He circled halfway around the hole, keeping his eyes on the prey. Then almost imperceptably he delicately picked one up in his mouth and mawed on it, turning it around with his jaws and tongue. The next one was a little more deliberate. We watched for one more minute and then stood up to allow the tailed one to join its sibling in one of their first meals.

We pondered the location of the geckos, so precariously close to the biggest killer of herps, the road. Maybe we could bring them onto the safety of our property... No, they had a perfect meal in front of them and that was more important for them at this point in their lives than our perceived sanctuary. Their mother probably laid the eggs close to that food source with her eons of wisdom. The railroad ties probably offered numerous tunnels and hiding spots under them. Perhaps their mother gave them the best possible chance that she could, in spite of it being so close to the road. The road is a reality of life. Maybe there are less predators near the road. Who knows?

As we walked back to the house, sans any kind of photographic record of the event, I pondered the wisdom of the desert. Why does she reveal her beauty in torrential showers, and not it parceled drips. All the times that I have gone hiking, hoping to see some new critter, and come home deflated. And tonight, each time I saw the banded gecko, I thought, "Wow! I want to stay here all night and watch this one. It can't get any better than this." And twice she proved me wrong, pulling back the veils to reveal ever more tender moments. And all so close in time to one another! Like fireworks, spectacular, short-lived bursts of light.

P.S. Last week in one day we pulled a neonate Holbrookia and a neonate Cnemidophorus from our pool filter, each alive. The next day a neonate Hemidactylus. And there are two Lampropeltis getula hanging around our house. Not to mention at least two Crotalus atrox. And a long-nose snake was picked up off the road at my uncle's house a few miles away and let go on our property. And Erik saw a Crotaphytus on a hike and a magnificent foraging Cnemidophorus burti.

Night-blooming Cereus Flower

2009-06-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

This cactus looks like a dried-up stick most of the year, but this time of year it makes the most beautiful fragrant flowers, that only bloom for one night. Tohono Chul park lets people know when their cactus is getting ready to bloom and then every night until it blooms they hold night viewings. Some Tusconans really go bananas over this kind of thing.

Desert Spiny Lizard Males Fighting

2009-06-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

My aunt, who lives about a mile from us, sent us this picture of some great lizard action in her yard. These are Sceloporus magister, desert spiny lizards. The males are each trying to appear bigger and stronger than each other and to show off their blue belly patches. The Sceloporus genus is one of the most successful in North America. They have radiated into almost every above-ground niche to be found--trees, rocks, crevices, grass, shrubs. They can co-exist with each other as long as there is just a subtle niche difference. These desert spiny's co-exist with an almost identical species, Clark's spiny lizard, Sceloporus clarkii because the magisters prefer ground rocks and the clarkiis prefer tree trunks.

I have been patiently nursing my way through Hobart M. Smith's 1946 Handbook of Lizards: Lizards of the United States and Canada. I only read about one lizard description per nursing session and I compare what I read to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians and Peterson's Western Reptiles and Amphibians. Reading the descriptions of field herping in Southeastern Arizona in the 1930s is fascinating; I imagine how many more herps were encountered in such endeavors than could be found today. The thought is both sad and exhilirating. How exciting it must have been to be a herper when the land was rich with critters. I must temper the sadness with hope that people are changing how they think about those beings who continue to share this Earth with us--the survivors.

One interesting thing I recently read in Smith's book about Sceloporus is that the females have a pale white belly without blue patches, except for exceptionally old, large females who may show a pale outline hinting of blue. My friend Jen told me that the more kids you have, the darker and coarser your hair gets. And after menopause, many women grow faint (or obvious) mustaches and beards. So we share this in common with the female spiny lizards, the tendancy to masculanize as we age. Which leads me to think that while we all start off physically as females in the womb, we all end up man-like in the tomb. If we are all borne of womyn, we must also be borne of men; there is no getting around this fact!

Happy Birthday Micah!

2009-06-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Micah turned one last Saturday! I made a cardamom grapefruit cake that only Micah and I appreciated! The next day was Pop-pop's birthday! Fun weekend! Lots of feasting! Micah looks like Erik, don't you think?

Doughnut Lesson

2009-06-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

I learned that even the some of the best doughnuts in Tucson can still give you a stomach ache!

Barbie Drama

2009-06-03T15:34:00.001-07:00

When we were packing to move to the new house I unearthed some Barbies from my collection of childhood things. We brought them all out and Noah had so much fun dressing them up and even created a little room for them. I took pictures and it looks as if they have a story to tell...

"I really like your new apartment!"

"Thanks, I can't believe I found this place!"

"Did I tell you about my new boyfriend?"

"No! Where'd you meet him?"

"At a club downtown! He's really sensitive and totally cares about me! I love him!"

Critter Country

2009-06-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

The critters are out in full swing at our new property on West Calle Concordia. As I write this I am looking out the window at the myriad of critters that have come to eat our bird block. We basically have created a McDonald's at our house. There are five mourning doves, five English sparrows, and a pair of Gambel's quail. The block is also visited by white-wing doves, Northern cardinals, pyrroloxia, thrashers, Gila woodpeckers, round-tailed ground squirrels, and rabbits. It's a cheap way to get a wildlife show. We also put out a water dish, which the rabbits enjoy.

On the reptile front we have seen Clark's spiny lizards, western whiptails, ornate tree lizards, Meditteranean geckos, a Gila monster, a Sonoran gopher snake, and a desert kingsnake. Insects are way more diverse here than at our old house. Kissing bugs are Erik's new nightmare. There is a peculiar bug that looks like a cross between a praying mantis, a fly, and a wasp--I must get a picture of that one. Last night there was a gloriously huge wolf spider on our ceiling. It looked like a baby tarantula--hairy and thick. Here are some highlights.

Beautiful kingsnake found the other night. Looks healthy. Erik let it go on the front patio.

We think this is a Urosaurus. Must be only a couple days old at most. Found in the pool! :(

Big guy. Gorgeous. Erik put it outside.

Make your own moon sand!

2009-05-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

We are moving to the Ironwood Forest. We bought the house with my parents and will spend eternity together there! That's fairly comforting to me, maybe because I am Cancer rising. Today a woman is coming to look at our current house to see if she wants to rent it. That is freaking me out to no end. I have been cleaning out the closets and files trying to clear out all the stuff that has sat untouched since we moved in.

One of the things was a file of preschool activities from the 1980s that I picked up as a give-away in someone's yard in Ocean Beach. I was on the track to be a special education teacher back then so I was compiling stuff all the time for my future classroom. I finally went through all the papers and discarded about 95 percent of the stuff. I happened to find this recipe for homemade moon sand.

Noah received moon sand as a present for his birthday this year from Kim and Mia. He loved playing with it, but I only let him do it outside, so some would always fall and get dirty. I would buy him more except that it seems ridiculously expensive for what it is. Here's the recipe:

1 cup sand
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup hot water

Mix the sand, cornstarch, and cream of tartar in an old saucepan. Add hot water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is very thick and can't be stirred. When slightly cooled, make your castle. Allow several days to dry or re-pack into an airtight container. Makes approximately 2 cups.

Pickle Cactus Flower

2009-04-30T16:29:00.001-07:00

Someone told me this was a pickle cactus, but when I looked that up online a totally different kind of plant showed up. I think this came from Erik's Grandma June's house. Cactus flowers shore is purdy!

Breakfast of Ancestors

2009-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

Rolled oats, golden raisins (aren't those called sultanas in the mother country?), vanilla enriched rice milk, unbleached sugar, cinnamon (probably cassia), filtered water, and love. My Scottish ancestors would be proud... oats make a boy strong!

What is your preferred sweetener? Lately I'm really leaning toward agave nectar, mostly because agave is a native plant and my husband has taught me so much about being aware of what plants evolved to live in the area where we live. Agaves have a huge starchy center to them which is what is used to make tequila. Yum! The Tohono O'odham harvested the tubers and roasted them. Gardening of agave is usually limited to the ornamental varieties because of how much land would be required to grow a sustainable crop of agave. There are only half as many species of agaves as there are skinks. Yes, it can always come back to skinks!

Erik is drinking rice milk these days because his liver enzymes continue to be elevated! He goes and gets blood tests periodically just to see how high they are. The enzymes are SGOT and SGPT and they can be an indicator of liver damage. He read that dairy and wheat can exaserbate the weakened liver. He might be sensitive to gluten because of his Hungarian ancestry. Whenever he drinks beer he gets the Asian Flush, which 50% of the Asian population has! It means that when he drinks beer he gets hot red blotches like a map on his face. I think Erik was born in the wrong time period. His days should be spent like this:

Except what did the Magyars do when their backs went out? They probably had stronger backs back then. No junk food and lots of exercise. I wonder what the Magyars ate for breakfast? Maybe some horse milk and dried meat? And some plundered sweets, sultanas possibly!

Bong Mom's CookBook: Chingri Macher Malaikari

2009-04-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Bong Mom's CookBook: Chingri Macher Malaikari

One of my favorite little games to keep kitchen duties interesting is to pick a random ingredient in the cupboard and then to make a meal using it. So far I have made chocolate cherry mace cookies for mace and mini muffins for mini muffin papers (technically not really an ingredient, but equally taking up shelf space). The next ingredient is whole cloves. I found that cloves are native to India, so naturally I want to make an Indian dish. It also just so happens that I am deeply embedded in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Her tale of the Bengali Gangulis is so sumptuously written that I feel like I am embarassed to know so much about the inner dreams and fears of Bengali immigrants. Since I am feeling so connected to Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, I am delighted to attempt to make Chingri Macher Malaikari before I finish the book. And to eat it while reading and feel that I, too, understand their cravings.

When I read Diane Mott Davidson's first novel, Catering to Nobody, I felt especially connected with Goldy Bear by cooking the recipes that were used in the plot. In ninth grade when we read Homer's Odyssey my friend and I made our project, Cooking the Food of Ancient Greeks, and spent the day making dolmas and lemon chicken soup. Cooking makes me feel connected with cultures and history in a way that is so satisfying for my soul.

Cactus Rose

2009-04-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Now I know why they call it the cactus rose. And the image of a dusty rose seems so beautiful now too. I never really got the whole "rose thang." My Nana liked porcelain roses. My old boss liked roses because he had traveled to Afghanistan and had seen the old Arabian style rose gardens. To me they always seemed too stuffy, too royal, too decadent. I like earthy flowers, like lavender and wild roses.

The tissue thin petals of the cactus rose soften my heart when I see them. The rest of the year when I see cactus, I tend to think of how brutal they are with their spines. But this time of year they are so tender and vulnerable. I could easily rip off every flower and not get punished by their spines. Even when they fruit, I still have to battle the spines to get to the sweet pulp. But right now they just have these delicate blooms that no one can cut off and put into a vase.

Body of Art

2009-04-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

My body is a ca-age...

Nothing Left To Do But Walk

2009-04-13T14:25:00.001-07:00

As I was leaving the house with my camera to go to the park I dashed outside to grab Noah's shoes. I saw this little guy strutting around on the patio with his head cocked to one side. I wondered what happened to him that he found himself walking on the ground in the middle of the day. I thought he had immense spirit to be so disabled that he could no longer fly, his head was tilted, his tongue lolling out, but still walking as if that was how he was supposed to get around.

Cabbage Aphids (Brevicoryne brassicae)

2009-04-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

It started so innocently. One day I noticed a few aphids on the tip of a flowering stalk on one of my collard plants. I cut that tip off, but noticed another tip with aphids on them. I thought to myself, "Here's an opportunity to observe nature in action. Predator versus prey. Can the plant protect itself? Will parasitic wasps and ladybugs and lacewings move in and lay waste to this enemy?"

The parasitic wasps and ladybugs did move in and make a valiant effort, but not before the population of aphids exploded on my patch of collards. Aphids are literally born pregnant, but that is not the end of the chain. The fetus inside is also pregnant! So each aphid bumbling and slurping up the precious phloem in the plant is pregnant with her own granddaughter!

Aphids that prey on Brassica oleracea (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and kin) can convert the plant's own defense chemical, glucosinolate, into a kind of mustard oil that can deter some predators, such as larval two-spotted ladybugs.

Aphids in the garden patch in spring are a sign of a cool spring, because some of the predators, like lacewing larvae, will not hatch out until the temperatures are consistently warmer. As the weather warms up going into summer, the aphids die back anyway because the symbiotic bacteria that help them digest their sappy meals cannot tolerate higher temperatures.

Yesterday I pulled out any remaining straggly collard plants. I had already harvested seeds about a month ago from the plants that bolted before the aphid attack. Since we started focusing on buying a house with my parents a few months ago, I ceased to plant new garden beds. I still have my Indian onions growing and some cucumber young plants that got planted before we really decided to make the move. The onions will get moved and I will ask our rentors if they want to keep the cucumbers. The collard bed is a sunken bed, just like the others--I realized that it is one of the best ways to garden in the desert. The earth in the collard bed is dark and soft, so beautiful; I am sad to leave it. Erik wants me to top off the depression, which means covering it with the sandy gravely compacted dirt that I had so laboriously removed when pregnant with Micah. Once covered up, that lovely loamy earth underneath will be like prime real estate for all the weeds that roam this area-- Bermuda grass, wild mustard, cheeseweed, spiderling.

And yet, there are always more seeds, more opportunities, waiting to be planted and nurtured, tended to and cared for. Why lament the end of a garden plot? Because then it really meant something. It had a purpose; it fed us and taught us and showed us stuff about life and the universe. And then it got attacked. And then I finished its life. Yes, I, killed my garden. The aphids and I; I and the aphids.

Herpetology and Herpes

2009-03-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

I have herpes. Herpes zoster, that is--the one in the top middle. I guess most of us have it. But mine is active again. My immune system got too stressed. (From what? I don't know! Moving into a new house with my parents and mothering two small boys? Nah, couldn't be!) The herpes reactivated.

In my quest to heal I researched herpes viruses and found out that the root word for herpes, herpein, is Greek for creeping. Herpetology, therefore, must be the science of creeping creatures!

Anyway, to add insult to injury I have been infected with a stomach virus, possibly roto or noro. The nausea comes over me in violent waves, not unlike labor. It almost feels as if the virus is affecting my brain's nausea response versus the lining of my stomach (or maybe it is both). Nonetheless, there is an emotional effect from this stomach virus. The herpes virus mostly just affects my skin, but I can also feel stabbing pain shooting along that spinal nerve. Aaaaahhh!!!

Happy Birthday, my love!

2009-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

Happy 40th Birthday to my best friend! I love you!

Spring arrives

2009-02-03T13:59:00.001-08:00

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Spring has arrived in Tucson. Sure, it still gets bone-chillingly cold at night. But the days are very gentle, inviting us to stay outside just a little longer. Most of Erik's native garden still looks brown and dormant, with a few exceptions. The bees are very thankful for my collard greens blooming. Thank God for Brassica! A bright spot and tasty food in an otherwise sea of less useful plants!

Another sign of Spring is that it is planting time. Plant your summer garden now. Plant your tomatoes and your peppers. My garden has evolved in just the short year and a half that it has existed. I believe I have completed one full year of gardening. Yea me! The garden was wonderful while I was pregnant. Pick-axing the bermuda thatch and shoveling the hard-packed desert ground provided just the right amount of physical exertion when I needed it.

At first I planted the seeds in rows with troughs between them, the way I assume is the "standard" way of gardening. Standard don't work too good in the desert! So I dug out square shaped depressions and filled those with a mixture of compost, manure, dirt, and straw. Then I just randomly planted the seeds or seedlings. That's how I successfully grew the beautiful patch of collards that I use to feed my Corucia!

I also grew a patch of radishes, but found the radishes were too plentiful in supply (that's a good thing!) and they ended up getting very bloated and hollow. Fortunately, that variety, French Breakfast (I love that name, because of the image it conjures) doesn't get too spicy or bitter when it gets old. I sliced some of them up into thin strips and poured a little oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper on them and it was darn good!

Once the patch had been de-radished it made the perfect spot for the Indian onions given to my husband by his co-worker. These little bulbs are pretty much full size, but with a little luck they will form dense mats of tiny, tasty onions.

Argentine ants

2009-01-29T19:56:00.000-08:00

Ants have invaded my reptile cage, the tropical humid one, to be more specific. Ants are in Berman's cage. Berman is a Solomon Islands Prehensile-tailed Skink, also known as a monkey tail skink, Corucia zebrata. He shares his cage with a Solomon Islands ground skink, Eugongylus albofasciolatus. Their tropical climate ecosystem that they call home is like an oasis in the Sahara desert for the Argentine ants. You know which ant I'm talking about. The one that gets in your kitchen trash, especially if there is something wet and sweet in it. The ones that invaded the trash cans in your junior high school. Pretty much the only ant you've ever seen unless you go camping and notice the bugs. Why are they so ubiquitous? Who are they?

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile, formerly Iridomyrmex humilis) do indeed come from Argentina. They have invaded fairly the whole world, probably with the help of people. Wherever they go they tend to displace native ants, which can affect plants that depend on native ants for pollination and lizards that specialize in native ants, such as the coastal horned lizard. But surprisingly, the ants don't pillage and plunder the native ant colonies as they sweep across the praries. All they need... is love.

Argentine ants are so successful because neighboring colonies do not fight with each other, like most ants do. Individuals roam freely among unrelated colonies and help each other with their work. They take each others' food without need for repayment. In this way they form supercolonies that can rapidly spread. Queens intermingle as well, often foraging with their workers. Argentine ants tend to upset the balance of native ants who form more tightly knit colonies that are constantly at war with the other tightly knit colonies. The Argentine ants can outcompete the native ants in searching for food and colony location. And if a battle should break out, unrelated colonies will defend each other. Their sheer numbers coupled with already heavily disrupted ecosystems, such as those along the California coast, create a recipe for disaster, with respect to native ant populations.

When I visited Biosphere II about 15 years ago, the experimental space station built near Tucson, the "scientists" had been out for at least a few years. As a budding biologist, I was fascinated with the idea of living in there, like living in one of my reptile cages! I thought the rain forest was beautiful and the grasslands looked lovely. I imagined how the scientists woke up every day and tended to their chickens and pigs and then took data on the plants and fish. As we toured around the outside of the Biosphere (no one was allowed in) and peeked into the windows, we couldn't help but notice the double row of busyness marching all along the entire base of the space capsule. Someone asked the guide about it and she said that was a recent problem and they hadn't worked out all the kinks yet. Apparently not, as it was one of the few animals to breech the security gate.

What can we learn from the Argentine ant? Give peace a chance and we can conquer the world? Perhaps, and yet... if all the peaceful people succeeded in ridding the world of war, would it be a better world? Maybe we need some warring people to keep us awake. A little bit of yang in the yin! Therefore, enjoy your battles because they may be your last! You might be overrun with boring peaceful people who want to share food and support each other!

A quote from Longfellow

2009-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

"That's what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
-from The Courtship of Miles Standish

I read this story to Noah a few times over the past month during evening story time. The book we read out of is called The Book of Knowledge and it was printed around 1915. This quote kept popping into my head today, thinking of President Obama's "A day to act" quote.

Christmas Cookie Cut-outs

2008-12-23T16:12:00.000-08:00

These cookies have been waiting to be made for several years now. I found the cookie cutters--a snowflake and an angel--in an alley by our apartment in Ocean Beach. It was a regular custom for people to put good, usable stuff in their alley and other people would find it and take it home. Walking the alleys of OB with Noah in the Baby Bjorn was how I discovered how much of a packrat I am. I also further validated my love of nature. The alleys seemed more semi-wild than the sidewalks. Wooden fences that sagged and bowed under their own weight, darkened with age, covered in one vine or another that managed to find its way to San Diego, where the weather supports growth of almost any plant imaginable. I harvested and tasted my first passion fruit from an OB alley. The flavor of which is something that must be experienced to understand. I also harvested dill, which lasted us until just this year. And observed the insolent, disobedient flock of cherry-headed conures that fly like a cloud of insects, circling and swooping over the rooftops until they find a suitable tree for foraging or preening.

Every year since then, at Christmas time, the cookie cutters make themselves known in my imagination. This year, they finally got put to their intended use. And the results are delightful.

Almost Christmas in Tucson

2008-12-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

The weather is presenting us with postcard images of Tucson at Christmas.

Cooking with your computer

2008-12-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

The appeal of homemade stuff is so easy for me. If it's cheaper, tastes better, and only requires minimal work and attention from me, I'm bound to give it a try at some point. I had bought the packets of kefir culture over a year ago while in a period of love with the natural foods grocery store, New Life. They carry items that Sunflower, the larger chain of natural foods, does not, and it is relatively close to my house. I only visit them about twice a year, mostly to stock up on bulk herbs and spices.

Two weeks ago I cracked open the box of kefir packets and read the directions. Just cook the milk to sterilize it, cool to room temperature, then add the packet of beasties and wait for them to have a party. Since the ambient temperature has been in the low 60s I wanted to boost the bacteria's growth potential. I tried putting the jar of cultured milk in my old Wipie Warmer, but then realized that the heat coil was in the lid, which was opened to make room for the jar inside. Placing the jar on the underside of the Wipie Warmer lid was too precarious. The laptop computer's small amount of heat generation prooved to be perfect for the job. I just placed the jar near the computer while I burned a DVD and voila! Kefir! As you can see from the picture it also makes a good butter softener.

Winter

2008-12-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

Phainopepla

Winter arrived rather peacefully this year. No dramatic storms or sudden drops in temperature. Just a slow ratchet down of the temperature, which was hardly noticed until suddenly I realized that the concrete outside is ALWAYS cold on my bare feet and the garden hadn't been watered in a couple weeks without any drooping from the radish and collard leaves.

Female/Juvenile Black-throated Sparrow

Winter feels very congested in so many ways. The sky is thick with clouds and buildings are thick with people. The outdoors greet me with a whoosh of cold air every time I open the door. In spite of this, the fall annuals are sprouting between the river rocks and lava rocks that cover the front yards of so many Tucsonans. Tiny green cotyledons, the size of the "8" on your keyboard, burst forth in spite of the loom of frost in our future. Erik says they are next spring's annuals. I guess that means they can survive frost, which seems remarkable to me.

Winter seems the season for birds. I notice them most frequently, as the reptiles are mostly hunkered down, except for some of this season's babies, trying to get one more meal in to make it through the coldest weeks. The insects are all but gone, except for a freak grasshopper, household guests, and occasional miniscule UFOs. Now the bird songs sound sharper and crisper against the cold dry empty air.

Intro

2008-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

My journey into the world of self-publishing, self-glorifying, and self-discovery started on Typepad, which was fun, but costs a small fee per month and does not allow me to have my own picture in the title. I like Blogger's format and it is free!

My original blog over at Typepad was called "Sticks and Scales and Kitty Cat Tails." A playful take on the old "snips and snails and puppy dog tails," which apparently is what "little boys are made of." I removed the "kitty cat tails" part for a couple reasons. One- it made the title too long. Two- although I obssess over the cats, I discovered that it is very difficult for me to write about them, almost as if their mystique is too deep or untenable, remaining just out of my grasp.

Rama

Raleigh

Bugs, reptiles, nature, cute pictures of my kids-- all these seem to come a little more easily to me; I will stick to these subjects for now. Perhaps the blog will evolve to include cats now and then, but they definitely will not be a main subject. Nonetheless, welcome to one more person's take on life on this wonderful planet!