Category: curious

Propagation of the Species

I work across the street from a public park that borders on marshlands, very near the actual Bay. The proximity of water and the tasty grasses in the marsh entice lots of birds to come visit and stay.

Among others, we have egrets, herons, spoonbills and sandpipers. All so elegant and beautiful.

Here’s a rather grainy shot of a snowy egret, one of my favorite birds. This one usually keeps a beady eye on everyone walking by:

Many of the birds that we get in our beautiful marshes are on the endangered or near endangered species lists.

So it’s good we have a nice habitat here for them.

That said, ya wanna know what bird isn’t on any endangered list and is pretty much in zero danger of extinction?

Geese.

@#$%ing Canada Geese.

Or, as I like to call them, feathered poop factories.

Taken with my iPhone, this is by a walking trail:

That’s not even a small portion of the inventory.

Here’s a wider shot:

Again, to the left and right of this frame there are at least this same number if not more geese.

The one in the center of that photo charged at me, hissing, so I didn’t take any more photos.

The geese eat grass, lots and lots of grass, then they process it internally and drop the leftovers right in the middle of the walking trails.

Their drop offs equal the size of the leavings of a large dog. Only a whole lot greener.

Just. Ew.

This morning coming into work, there was a goose right in the middle of the driveway (which is a long narrow single car path). The goose moved neither right nor left, but strutted right down the center of the lane. I counted ten cars in line behind while Mr. Goose waddled his way into the day.

I was in car number eleven.

These cranky birds have certainly figured out how to continue the prosperity of their species. In a big way.

My elderly uncle, unfortunately now deceased, used to shoot bottle rockets at the Canada geese that befouled the walkway in front of his house in Indiana.

They sort of frown on that here in California, don’t they?

All photos by Karen Fayeth. Click on any photo to see a larger size.

That’s a Travesty!

What’s a travesty?

This, this is a travesty!

I know a lot of people really like Coffee-Mate. A lot of people use Coffee-Mate. It’s very popular.

A dear friend’s husband is a self confessed Coffee-Mate hazelnut flavor addict. He stockpiles it in his fridge.

Weirdo.

Look, I’m here to tell you, this isn’t a food product. I don’t know what it is, but it is definitely NOT a food product.

The label says “contains milk ingredients”.

Uh. “Milk ingredients?”

What in the seventeen kinds of sam hell are “milk ingredients?” That doesn’t say “contains milk” or “contains cream” or “contains anything you’d recognize.” No!

Milk ingredients. And oil. And a bunch of other things you can’t pronounce.

There is a big box of these pods of crap-food in our break room.

It’s the only option for lightening a terrible cup of coffee in the late afternoon when you are desperate for a cuppa and the coffee bar downstairs is closed.

Look, I’m inherently suspicious of any sort of dairy product, even a pseudo-dairy product, that doesn’t spoil when you leave it out on the counter for weeks at a time.

Except for real butter…and even real butter has its time limits.

What is the half-life on a pod of Coffee-Mate? A billion years?

I personally enjoy a good splash of half and half in a cup of joe.

Or as I call it, half of the half, which makes The Good Man laugh.

So with no half of the half on hand, I used some of this Coffee-Mate “creamer.” Cuz I ain’t calling it creamer without them thar sarcastic quotes.

It’s gross. It’s oily. It’s chemical-y.

Just. Ew.

So then I poured out the coffee and tried this, also available in the break room:

While sipping at this sort of tangy beverage from a package that does not include an ingredients list, I did a Google search. I didn’t net any ingredients, but I found this image which shows the main box that the packets come in. The box says “contains no apple…” and the rest is blocked by the packet in front of the box.

I assume it says “contains no apple juice.”

Which means…

This is ALSO not food. This is more chemical crap.

Gah!

I’m not any sort of Birkenstock wearing, tree hugging, raw food eating girl. I like as much red dye number whatever as the next guy.

But even I have my limits.

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***Note to my readers: I actually wrote this yesterday afternoon. Upon a solid reread today, I was struck by just how much I’ve been whining lately about the no-cost beverage choices at my new place of employ. I’m still new, and while I do have some work to do, I am also sitting around a lot.

Leaving me to my own devices is never a good idea.

As I become busier with my job, I suspect the beverage posts will die down.

Hopefully.

And We Haven’t Piped Down Since

Today, August 18, 2010, marks ninety years since the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.

In case you are a little shy on your constitutional amendments, here is some of the actual text:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

That right. On August 19, 1920, women got the right to vote.

It took Tennessee’s legislature to pass the proposed amendment by one little vote for (the 36th state to ratify) to cause the 19th Amendment to become a part of the United States Constitution.

(I’m pleased to note that California was 18th and New Mexico was 32nd. Nice early adoption from my two home states.)

The 19th Amendment gave women a voice. An official voice.

This meant that a woman didn’t have to defer to a man to make her choices about how this country should be run.

My folks were married almost fifty years. My old man was an old fashioned guy. In their early years, he used to tell his wife how to vote. Many years later, my mom admitted to me that she’d go to the polls and vote the exact opposite way.

The 19th Amendment gave her that right!

Recently, over a family dinner, for no reason I could fathom, my eleven-year-old sister-in-law broke out and asked, “did you vote for Al Gore?”

I replied, “No, I didn’t vote for Al Gore. I also didn’t vote for George Bush. I think I voted for Ralph Nader that year. I believe it’s essential to cast a vote, even if it is a dissenting vote.”

I’m allowed to do that. You know why? The 19th Amendment to the Constitution!

Heck, I can cast my vote willy-nilly all over the place! And I don’t have to have a nilly ol’ willy to do so!

(This juncture is SO ripe for a “pull the lever” pun, but I’ll refrain.)

I’ve voted in every Presidential election since I turned eighteen and I’ve voted in most of the minor elections too.

This November, on behalf of my residency in the State of California and my Suffragette sisters from the past, I will cast a vote for some random person for Governor, because I sure as hell am not voting for either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman.

But I’m gonna vote.

I’m making my voice heard for Susan B!

Watch me now, heh!

Can’t I Just Have Something Nice!?!

That title must be said in an Edith Bunker sort of voice.

Come with me to the Wayback Machine…

I remember back in the day, grade school era in Albuquerque, when I used to spend time over at my best friend Kathy’s house. It was small, white with pink trim, located over by Montgomery park, across from the public swimming pool.

That little house had this front room, right as you came in the door, that featured these really nice blue velour couches. Very cushiony.

However, those pretty couches were covered with thick plastic wrap. Her mother explained that was “to protect” the couches.

In Albuquerque on a hot summer day, those dang couches were miserable.

There were also plastic runners on the floor. This was “to protect” the carpet.

I once stepped outside the line, as is my way, and got my ear chewed off by Kathy’s mom.

That tiny Hispanic lady also drove a metallic blue Oldsmobile. Kathy and I used to take gymnastics lessons at the YMCA. Kathy’s mom would take that Olds to the car wash every single week during the hour we had our lessons.

She wouldn’t pay to have it dried, just washed, so she’d roll up with water droplets hanging off the sides. (You can get away with that in the 7% humidity of New Mexico.)

Why am I telling you this?

I got to thinking about Kathy’s mom today as I was looking at my brand spanking new iPhone 4.

It’s a beauty of a new phone. A bit heaver than the last model. The screen is amazingly clear. The black and chrome styling. Haaawt!

So here I am with this beautiful phone that isn’t cheap. It’s something really, really nice. And what did I do? I put an ugly plastic case around this marvel of industrial engineering.

You know, “to protect” it.

I tried to find the coolest case I could, but really, there’s not much out there that enhances the beauty and design of the iPhone.

I’m just “keeping it for nice.”

I know you know what I mean.

That Ain’t Right

Today I have a follow up to last week’s The Great Dr. Pepper Incident.

A reader suggested to me that since the cost of that taste-tested Dr. Pepper was free, and since free is good, didn’t all the no-cost make that nasty Dr. Pepper taste better?

And heck, my readers are brilliant, so of course I considered this to be a good point.

Then I decided to embark upon an experiment.

I would try other sodas in the for-free cooler and see how they fared in the “tastes better cuz it’s free” hypothesis.

First up in my research was a Mountain Dew.

I decanted the Dew into a cup thoughtfully provided by my employers.

Now. Um. That’s not a nice color.

That looks a lot like the last time I tried taking a multi-vitamin supplement. My pee turned that color. WHY IN THE HELL would I want to ingest something the color of vitamin-tainted pee?

That said, I forged ahead. I was able to get through a good deal of the Dew before I gacked out and had to pour it down the nearest drain.

Twenty minutes later, I remembered why, besides color, I don’t drink frapping Mountain Dew.

The caffeine.

I had heart palpitations the rest of the day.

Yeah. Free. So not worth it.

Not one to be easily dissuaded…

…Or, as my father used to say, not smart enough to come in out of the rain…

The next day I plunged back into the challenge.

This time, I made sure I took on something caffeine free.

After checking the entire line of Pepsi products in the cooler, that left only Orange Crush.

Also, I’m going to have to say, that’s not a color I’d generally like my food to be. Not even the orangest of foods, say carrots or pumpkin is that shade of neon orange.

It haunts me.

The taste was even worse. I couldn’t get more than two sips through the Crush before it went right down the drain.

Experiment terminated. The lab rat can’t take it any more.

Conclusion: Free doesn’t actually make a crappy beverage taste better.

Sacrifice, all for the good of science.

Now I must go drink three gallons of water to get all that artificial color out of my liver.

Gah!