Timelies all!

Waiting to hear from friends. We're going to meet up with them for dinner and stuff. (We have much-belated birthday gifts for two of them)

I am sorting through CDs, and continue to be shocked at how many I had never put into iTunes. Maxwell, really?? I am going to be super excited to have all of this "new" music.

In daylight (and dry) the paint job doesn't look so terrible.

Kelly Hildebrandt marries...Kelly Hildebrandt.

OMGWTFFurniture!

The Oops Awards are the brainchild of designer Andrej Statskij, given annually for the excellence in bad product design. The categories are “ugliest”, “silliest”, and “most useless”.

[link]

A whole bunch of awesome science tattoos: [link]

I love this coelacanth tat: [link]

And this guide to squid anatomy: [link]

And this mantis: Feminism and Cannibalism

I am a soil scientist and entomologist. My favorite insects/arthropods are praying mantises, psuedoscorpions and spiders. I am also a big time feminist. I find praying mantises to be so fascinating, and while they are extremely adept killing machines, they are also one of the oldest insects around! This tattoo is a metaphor for my independance and tribute to my mantis friends.From Wikipedia: Sexual cannibalism is common among mantids in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male’s head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilisation while obtaining sustenance. Later, this bizarre behaviour appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behaviour in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual creatures, and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists. Research by Liske and Davis (1987) and others found (e.g. using video recorders in vacant rooms) that Chinese mantises that had been fed ad libitum (so were not starving) actually displayed elaborate courtship behavior when left undisturbed. The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating. Courtship display has also been observed in other species, but it does not hold for all mantises. So in fact, the common assumption that all females cannabilize their mates either during/after copulation is debated because most observations of this were in a lab, where the mantis was likely highly aware of her captors. I have a magnet on my fridge with a woman in a wedding dress that says…”Marriage? No…I don’t mate well in captivity!”

Dylan just climbed out of his crib instead of taking a nap. KILL ME NOW.

(We thought he'd finally fallen asleep because it was so quiet in there. Turns out it was too quiet because a few minutes later he waltzed out of his room saying "Sleep well?" We put him back and told him to stay in his crib and take a nap. Now it's quiet again...)

You have my sympathies, Jessica. It's the beginning of the fun phase of toddlerhood.

The water level is rising, as my cousin says.

[eta - And I just realized this means a whole new level of toddler-proofing in the cabin next week. Whatever bedroom the crib is in will have to be scrubbed clean of choking hazards before we let him nap there.]

Noah's been sleeping in a bed for a while now. He pops out on occasion saying, "Mommy tired too?" When he really gets down, then we move him to a crib.

I'm making peach frozen dessert. I can't decide if I want to do it milk free and make sorbet or add condensed milk and a touch of yogurt for ice cream.

I don't think it matters because the reason I'm making it at all is to have champagne floats with peach. Like a bellini.