When all else fails -- MEME

Inspired by the mighty Nate, a.k.a. Ceiling Cat.

Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test...

Lion Warning Cat

53% Affectionate, 52% Excitable, 44% Hungry

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.



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Take The Which Lolcat Are You? Test at OkCupid

::giggle::

He popped the bill in his mouth and ate it

24. The Octopus and the Orangutan: More True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity by Eugene Linden

This was a bit of an older book (published in '02 or '03), so it is very interesting and leaves me wanting to look for studies published in journals. Always careful to point out that most of these accounts are anecdotal (some unverifiable because they are third- or fourth-hand retellings) and not scientifically substantiated, Linden provides examples of seeming intelligence in a variety of species, including octopuses, dolphins, orangutans, chimps, elephants, starlings, and even household cats. A Pacific giant octopus pointedly refuses some spoiled shrimp by catching the eye of her keeper, then shoving the unsavory morsel into her aquarium's drain pipe. There's also the tale of Fu Manchu, an orang who picked the lock on his nighttime cage at least three times and kept his wire pick hidden in his mouth. An elephant, seeing her keeper struggling to push a wheelbarrow up a hill in her enclosure, gives unbidden assistance by pushing the barrow herself. An alpha male chimp comforts his zookeepers after the escape and tragic death of one of his colony's young females. A wild alpha male chimp in Uganda uses a stick to beat one of his females who is protecting her infant from him. All these stories are compelling, yet most would be rejected as intelligence by many reductionist scientists. Linden points out that intelligence is not clearly defined, which leads to the many arguments about whether animals are actually demonstrating the phenomenon. Reading the anecdotes made me feel that there is more going on in some species than just copying what they see humans do and more than just operant conditioning.

I woke up too early = SILLINESS

::Dawn singing along with the CD::

Her hair was green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
Her face it was a work of art
I loved that girl with all my heart
But I only liked the upper part
I did not like the tail

--"The Mermaid Song"


And if the devil would take her
I'd thank him for his pain
I swear to God I'll hang meself
If I get married again

--"The Scolding Wife"


Oh me! Oh my! I heard me ol' wife cry
Oh me! Oh my! I think I'm gonna die!
Oh me! Oh my! I heard me ol' wife say
I wish I'd never taken this excursion around the bay!

--"Excursion Around the Bay"

I break no bones. I am a healer.

23. Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

I've definitely developed a taste for Kathy Reichs's series, though I never can seem to read them in order. Reichs is a forensic anthropologist who writes novels about a forensic anthropologist. In book #9, our heroine Temperence "Tempe" (as in Arizona) Brennan has been wrangled into teaching a two week field anthropology course at a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina. On their next to last day digging, one of Tempe's students finds skeletal remains that are not like the rest -- not deeply buried, not jumbled, not prehistoric. This single find sends her down a rabbit hole of missing street people with her estranged husband Pete and lover Ryan along for the ride. As usual, Reichs keeps you guessing until the end.

LOVE this series!

It is wakan

22. The Medicine Men: Oglala Sioux Ceremony and Healing by Thomas H. Lewis

I probably should have looked at the publication date of this book before checking it out. I was looking for a more contemporary read in an attempt to learn more about current Oglala ritual and healing, but what I got were field notes of a psychiatrist/anthropologist taken from 1967ish through early 1973. Most of the book was transcribed field notes of a white outsider with a heavy dose of skepticism for some things he supposedly wanted to understand while promoting a white-Sioux synthesis of medicine. About the only thing he gave me a bit of insight into were the heyoka, specifically the complexity of the role they play in Native society. I didn't even read all of the last chapter because his analysis wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know.

Note to self: In the future, check the publication date!

Finding Your Joy

March 15, 2010
Finding Your Joy
Be Happy Every Single Day

Being happy doesn't come naturally to everybody. It is your birthright to be happy, choose happiness everyday.

Our lives are rich with potential sources of happiness, but sometimes we become victims of negative thinking because we believe that focusing on all that has gone wrong will provide us with the motivation we need to face the challenges of survival. When we choose to focus on what makes us happy, however, a shift occurs in the fabric of our existence. Finding something to be happy about every single day can help this shift take place. The vantage points from which we view the world are brought into balance, and we can see that being alive truly is a gift to be savored. There is always something we can be happy about —- it is simply up to us to identify it.

On one day, we may find happiness in a momentous, life-changing event such as a marriage or the birth of a child. On another day, the happiness we experience may be a product of our appreciation of a particularly well-brewed cup of a tea or the way the sun shines on a leaf. If we discover that we literally cannot call to mind a single joyful element of existence, we should examine the cause of the blockage standing between us and experiencing happiness. Keeping a happiness journal is a wonderful way to catalog the happiness unfolding all around us so that joy has myriad opportunities to manifest itself in our lives. Writing about the emotions we experience while contemplating joy may give us insight into the factors compelling us to resist it.

Happiness may not always come easily into your life. You have likely been conditioned to believe that the proper response to unmet expectations is one of sadness, anger, guilt, or fear. To make joy a fixture in your existence, you must first accept that it is within your power to choose happiness over unhappiness every single day. Then, each time you discover some new source of happiness, the notion that the world is a happy place will find its way more deeply into your heart. On this day, find one thing to be happy about and let it fill your heart.


© 2004-08 DailyOM - All Rights Reserved
From dailyom.com

. . . the absence of a skeleton in a marine life form constitutes a form of perfection

21. Octopus and Squid: The Soft Intelligence by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Diole

Don't let the wording of this book's title mislead you -- "soft" refers to body makeup, not the animals' intelligence. Published in 1973 as part of Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Discovery series, it is one of the earliest explorations of the four well known cephalopods -- the octopuses (~80% of the book), the squids, the cuttlefish, and the nautiluses. One of my very favorite animals, in fact one of my totems, is the octopus, but I know surprisingly little about this mollusk without a shell beyond that many people find them tasty and I find them mesmerizing. This book, while as old as my sister would be were she still alive, is kind of a "getting to know you" book in which Cousteau describes many of the octopus's abilities that had previously never been known since SCUBA diving was still merely in its toddler-hood. Within the pages are descriptions of the octopus's amazing ability to disappear into a crack, its home-building activities, its mimetic (camoflauge) abilities, its means and manner of movement, its playfulness, its reasoning and problem solving capabilities, and its mating habits. The book is loaded with color photographs at nearly every turn of the page. Here are two photos demonstrating camoflauge, with an octopus being mostly brown with green flecks sitting on an airplane's sunken engine covered with algae, and another gone completely white when placed on a large plastic plate. There is an entire series of photos of an octopus exploring a large glass jar with its arms and then pulling its stopper to retrieve the tasty lobster contained within. The final chapters mention in passing the other three cephalopods, with a clear admiration for the nautilus. This book makes me hungry for more recent discoveries about these beautiful creatures.

Great Big Sea

Over the weekend, my friend Lynlee asked me to go with her to a concert last night in Salina at the Stiefel Theater. The group was called Great Big Sea. I'd never heard of them, despite them even having a Wikipedia page (I bought the CD/DVD combo of Courage & Patience & Grit mentioned in the article). Lynlee has great taste in music, and I like discovering new music, so I said, "Sure! I'm game!"

I'm so glad I did! What a dancing, clapping, sing-along time we had. So, I only knew one song ("Mary Mac"), but I still had a great time. We had an even better time when Lynlee traded in the tickets for disabled seats, which moved us from row 6 aisle seats to in front of the front row. Being in a wheelchair sometimes has its benefits. ::grin::

I have included here a couple of videos of songs performed last night. First is Sean McCann taking the lead on "Mary Mac":





One of my favorite original songs, "Consequence Free," with Alan Doyle doing leads:





Good company, good music, good times.

Quotes

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
— Arundhati Roy


"The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. THAT is their mystery and magic."
— Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)

Today's good news is . . .

My cousin Josh's and my cousin-in-law Kyla's new daughter was born at 11:56 p.m. last night. Makynna (muh-KIN-uh) Lynnlee was 8 pounds 9 ounces and 21 inches long. She is Josh's 4th child and Kyla's 2nd. I'm hoping to go visit mama and baby this afternoon.

Also, today is my parents' 39th wedding aniversary! Dad gave Mom a dozen red roses with a card that asked, "How about 39 more?"


Edit: Here's a picture of Makynna, taken by Grandma Shelly.

. . . the manners of this pretty little fish are amusing and engaging

20. Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, From Myth to Reality by Helen Scales

In this post's title, Philip Henry Gosse was discussing a pipefish he had collected at the Devonshire seacoast (western England) sometime between 1852 and 1854, but he could just as easily have been talking about their cousins, the seahorses. Seahorses have fascinated me since I was a child, so I was overjoyed to find this "little book" at my local library. In her opening chapter, Dr. Scales questions about the seahorses, also known as hippocampus, "Should we presume these odd-looking creatures were designed by a mischievous god who had some time on her hands?"

Seahorses have fascinated land-walkers from the earliest times, evidenced by their likenesses being found on Lydian jewelry, in Greek and Roman mythology, and on Pictish stone carvings. Scales's book, while only 193 pages of text, is crammed to the hilt with information about these intriguing little fish, including mythology; taxonomy, evolution, and relatives (pipefishes and pipehorses); traditional medicine (especially Chinese); the aquarium trade, starting with how aquariums came to be in the first place (Roman water gardens stocked with edible fish to assure guests will have a fresh meal); and conservation concerns. This book is easily read by the non-scientist and is thoroughly engaging. Included at the end of the book is a complete bibliography of the author's sources and an appendix with brief descriptions of all the known Hippocampus species. Several plates are found in the middle of the book showing a few remarkable individuals as well as ghost pipefish and leafy and weedy seadragons.

In the epilogue, Scales points out that the oceans and the coral reefs are not dependent on seahorses to be healthy or to continue to function. Hippocampi are not keystone species, but they are an aesthetic wonder and an intrinsic joy for millions of people, regardless if they've been seen in person or not. Their loss would be felt if for no other reason than our grandchildren would listen incredulously as we described them:

Imagine what it would be like if all we had to tell our grandchildren were stories of a time when there used to be wonderful creatures called seahorses living wild in the oceans. They looked like miniature horses with rolling eyes and tiny monkeys' tails. It was the males that had babies -- no animals do that anymore -- and they changed color as if by magic and danced elegant dances every day with their faithful partners. If stories were all that were left of the seahorses, I don't suppose anyone would believe us.

He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men

19. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

I started reading this book some time ago, but I'd only gotten a couple of chapters in before having to give up due to an upswing in my academic schedule. The story takes place in 18th century France and is the odd story of a boy born in a fish stall in Paris who grows into a most unique individual. He is saved from death at his mother's hand (she is beheaded when she confesses to not only wanting to kill this child but had killed her three previous infants as well) and given over to a monastery where he is baptized Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is a bizarre child in that he himself has no smell, but his sense of smell is so acute that he learns at a very young age how to distinguish between tree species and can find his way in complete darkness using only his nose. People do not consciously realize he has no odor, but everyone who comes in contact with him is unexplainably unnerved by him. He realizes after being sold to a tanner by his foster mother that he wants to catalog in his memory every possible scent. One night, on the anniversary of the king's coronation, Grenouille catches a scent unlike any he has ever smelled before. He follows the trail, mesmerized, blissed out, by the purity of the scent. It is the scent of a young virgin girl, and that amazing, unadulterated scent becomes the driving force of the rest of his life.

Grenouille is not a likable character. At times (especially during a seven year period of his life) he reminded me of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings -- a tragic little creature that everyone despises. Only with Grenouille, you get the sense that he was destined to be an evil little gnome from conception, that no amount of love or positive reinforcement could have altered his path. You know his life is going to end in a train wreck, and what a spectacular wreck it is. And all of it is fueled by scent:

The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.