Critters

Some of my family was visiting recently, and my Mom stayed with me for the weekend while the boys did the big college football thing. We came home one night, I went to put my key in the door and there was a cute tree frog sitting on the handle! My Mom put it in the bushes, but it took some coaxing.

A few days later, I found a big toad that had burrowed into the softer dirt in my garden. It was there for a few days.

There are a few holes in the garden too that I believe belong to the moles (?) that have done a number on the lawn.

There is a cricket in the hallway, but I cannot find it. It stops making noise when I open my apartment door.

Today, I went back out to my car to bring more stuff in. This was on the window! The one critter I have a picture of. Unfortunately I could not get my camera to focus on the body of the moth. It would be well camouflaged in a pile of fall leaves, huh?

This is how it works

After walking 50k for a fund and awareness raiser with my sister, this was a lovely site to see!

It is unusual for she and I to spend one-on-one time together because there is usually other family around. So we got to chat a lot! I was telling her stories about CF. One story in particular clearly left her baffled, and she wondered out loud how it is that opposites attract. Here is the story.

CF and I visited his American home over Labor Day weekend. At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, we were heading for a fourth day in a row at the fair before driving six hours home. We split the driving so the other can sleep; I was working on Tuesday morning. On the way to the fair, I asked when he wanted to leave to make sure he had thought about that and to tell him I just wanted to know ahead of time because I was working Tuesday. He did a little figuring with some wiggle room and said we would be on the road by 4. I could deal with that because it meant I would be in bed by 11, and the wiggle room gave about an hour of unexpected conversations at the fair with people we had not run int yet. (I like the fair too, so I was not just being pushed around. Don't worry.)

Fast forward to 3:30. We were still at the fair, but grabbing a loaded baked potato on our way out. We happened to run into people (figures), and chatted while we ate, thus using up the wiggle room in the schedule. We finally got in the car around 4:15 -  not too bad.

But wait...after spending 3.5 days in town and now running late on our way home, CF decides he needs to stop at a store in town to look for clothing with his favorite football team's logo. He already has logo clothes at home. In case it is not clear, we had also been there THREE DAYS ALREADY. I asked him if he seriously needed to stop. And when he asked, yes I was mad. I informed him I was also going to go to sleep as soon as we got on the road so I did not have to talk to him and that he could not do stuff like this with children. Of course, with traffic, the drive took longer, and I got to go to bed at 1 a.m. only to get up at 5:30 to go to work. Sweet.

But we do work somehow. We sit on the couch with our computers together. We like to watch sports and romantic comedies (shhh...don't tell himI told you about the movies!). We like to be outdoors. I like to travel; his family lives in Germany. We cook for each other. We like to sleep in (although my sleeping in is earlier than his sleeping in). We spoon well. We have been together and helped each other through tough stuff (that's what happens after almost  two years together). I need to remind myself to continue sharing the good stories and not just his ridiculousness. (I am sure I am never ridiculous.)

You know what else makes it work though? After walking all weekend and my sleep schedule being all random for over a week, I got home at 1 in the morning to these:

...and CF asleep on the couch with my cat...and dinner on the stove.

I figured it out!

I have been reading Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. CF talks about her a lot because she has had a positive impact on the animal agricultural industry - specifically she has changed how animals are handled and treated to minimize fear and pain. It is a really interesting "read" (I admit, I am listening to it in the car). If you have not heard of Temple Grandin before, she is a woman with a PhD in Animal Science and autism. She relates her experiences with autism to animals and their perceptions and reactions to the world. This particular book seems like a great commentary on science for a general audience. I would highly recommend it to people who themselves have autism or whose family members do. It is amazing what this woman has accomplished.

She also explained why my cat does things like stare at the wall in the morning. After I get ready for work and are getting ready to head out, the cat is frequently sitting in my bedroom door staring at the wall. I wondered if there were bugs or animals she could hear in there. Temple Grandin writes about how animals' visual system makes them drawn to contrasts in color and/or light. So one morning I discovered that the sun comes up and shines right in the window and the window screen makes a moving pattern in the light. I realized the cat expects this bright strip on the wall every morning. She must sit and wait for it because it is so fascinating to her!

Apparently there is also a recent movie about her that was well received. I will probably end up seeing it at some point.

Awkward

In graduate school, we had a student invited speaker from whom I had taken an animal behavior course as a college junior 10 years earlier. I got all excited at lunch when it was my turn to introduce myself, and said I had taken his class, the year, and that I had done my undergrad thesis with his close colleague/friend. I clearly did not do a good job introducing myself, given his response. He was totally taken aback and did not know what to say. He clearly did not remember me, and I guess did not know how to diplomatically continue the conversation. Was I too excited?

This past spring, I re-met a PI who had given a talk at my grad department. She was also the undergrad advisor and technician PI after graduation to a good friend from grad school. As a matter of fact, he was supposed to go to her lab this summer to do some work, which would have been nice because it's close to my current lab, but I digress. I introduced myself to her grad student, then later to her when she came to my poster and I noticed her name tag. Actually, when I think about this situation, I think she was just kinda quiet because she is shy. It was still awkward though because I had not thought out what to do after sharing my big revelation that her former advisee is my good friend!

The two rotating grad students in the lab right now are great. I asked the new rotator what year she graduated, because I have a friend who went to the same small college and studied biology. It potentially could have been awkward because new rotator and I had not talked much previously and I just sorta asked her randomly this morning. With she and "my" rotating grad student, it has never been awkward. We are all science-y people in that we like doing research and talking about science. Even though I would go out on a limb and say that scientists as a whole have their own way of interacting (or not) with people, my lab seems largely made up of people who are comfortable talking in general. That certainly helps prevent awkward moments!

I started thinking about these a couple of weeks ago as I tried to compose an introductory email to someone at my university who I had never met. She is the head of a big center on campus; we will call her Head of Big Center (HBC). HBC formally worked for a female alumna of my graduate department. The alumna mentioned HBC when I saw her at graduation (she was being honored as a female alumna of the sciences), and that I should contact HBC. HBC sent a very nice and enthusiastic email back, and we are meeting for lunch next week. I need to think ahead of time things I would like to know about HBC's Center and how I can be involved to avoid an awkward lunch with someone of influence.