In Which The Dogs Question That Whole "Pack Leader" Thing
Unfortunately, last night was another night for deadly storms in Alabama. My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones and homes.
You might think that you would eventually get used to the sound of weather sirens in the night, but I think most people who live in tornado alleys would second that it's always an unnerving and unsettling phenomenon.
Since I live in a house with a concrete slab foundation, our "place of safety" (the real term if you don't live in inclement-weather-prone parts of the country) is the only room in the house without windows -- otherwise known as the guest bathroom. It is also the only bathroom with a tub, so it's where the dogs get their baths. Whether it's claustrophobia or bad memories, neither pooch was too crazy about the idea of getting in there with a bunch of fleece blankets, pillows and the Kindle fire at 3:30 in the morning.
When they realized that they we would be sleeping in there until the tornado warning ended around 4:30, or I knew from local meteorologists that the worst part of the storm was out of Jefferson County, they did not seem pleased.
I might be projecting too much, but I do think my authority is in question now. There's just something in their eyes that seems to say, "The lady has finally lost it."
* Of course, I don't mean to make light of what anyone suffered last night. For those affected by last night's storms, the Salvation Army has announced feeding stations, and I'm sure that the Red Cross will be coordinating donations.
Giraffes, Grocery Packaging And Guest Posts
I'm guest posting today, so if you'd like to read about some of the wacky stuff that popped into my head over the weekend, please head over to highly-entertaining Jamie's Rabbits written by the very talented Jamie Golden.
It Feels Like Burning
In evolutionary terms, I’m not sure I was really meant for life in the South. By the standards of nurture, thanks to manners classes, ballroom dancing and some great stationary, I’ve done just fine here. However, if we have to look at nature, I’m not sure this pale, WASP-y body was meant for Alabama.
It’s not just the heat. You see, what comes with or causes the heat is the sun (I told you I never really paid attention in science class), and this fair skin and the sun don’t mix well.
(I’d like to thank my Scottish ancestors for the dark body hair and bushy eyebrows that come with my porcelain complexion. I’m sure if my forefathers had settled in Minnesota, I’d be more than prepared for the winters. Instead, I swelter and invest a lot of money in good tweezers. I guess the Scots never figured that they’d put all the distilleries in the South. (This really is the best reason I can figure for previous generations of my family to pick this region of the U.S.) In my family, you don’t follow the money; you follow the line to the bar.)
Luckily, I’ve had 30+ years to adapt, and I spend good money keeping the sunscreen companies in business, too. Still, every so often, I fail.
A few weeks ago, I didn’t just fail to protect my skin. I think I almost melted it.
I fell asleep reading on the beach, and when I woke up, I felt like I could be a little pink, but I wasn’t too worried.
“Why don’t you toss me some more of that Banana Boat, and I’ll reapply?”
Later that afternoon, I figured out that I was more than a little pink. While my shoulders and thighs could be described as pink/red, my stomach looked like the color of a tomato set on fire and felt about the same.
I dosed myself with Advil, slathered on the aloe and went to bed with a cold Miller Lite – not for drinking, but so I could hold it against my stomach in the night. Even the sheets were unbearable to touch.
For the next five days, I climbed out of chairs like I was eight months pregnant so as not to in any way agitate the skin on my torso and slept clutching either bags of frozen vegetables or frozen bottles of water for some sense of relief.
By day six, I thought I might need to turn to more than Internet forums for help.
In case you’re wondering, this is the advice I shouldn’t have taken:
1. The Vinegar Soak: Despite what the masterminds of the World Wide Web might say, vinegar does not “pull out the burn.” All that really happens is that you have to hope your friends always secretly wanted to know what it was like to spend time with a giant pickle.
2. A Baking Soda Bath: It’s not as stinky, but it’s equally as un-helpful.
3. No store-bought aloe is really better than any other aloe. Just make sure you buy the one with some kind of painkiller in it. I think the effect can be at least mildly psychosomatic.
I headed to my local pharmacy.
“What do y’all have for sunburn?” I said.
“Have you got aloe?” the clerk said.
“We’re a little bit past that,” I said.
“Let’s wait for the pharmacist to get off the phone then.”
While we waited on the pharmacist, the clerk and I discussed a number of different options for my sunburn, and she told me about some of her bad burns. (If nothing else, in a land where tanning beds are still prevalent, I didn’t feel judged for the potentially-hazardous-to-my-future-health slip-up.)
When the pharmacist did come over, I explained the problem.
“We have x, y, z and even a to treat sunburns,” she said. It was a litany of products with names I don’t remember. “How long have you had the sunburn?”
It was then that I decided the only good explanation would be to flash the pharmacist, so in front of her and the clerk, I pulled up my shirt to show them what we were dealing with.
“Foille,” she said. “It has to be Foille.”
It’s amazing how a little visual can take your list of potential saviors from 10 to 1 in a split second.
She was absolutely right about the Foille. If you’re ever in any kind of burn trouble, I highly recommend it. (Plus, it only costs about $4/tube.)
I know that normally one should only flash one’s doctor with skin abnormalities followed by awkward questions, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Nearly a week of burning tomato-colored flesh was my desperate time.
I’m a little embarrassed to go into the pharmacy again this month, considering how I’ve exposed myself to the staff and all, but a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy is a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy.
I’d like to pretend that they’ve forgotten about me, but I have a sinking feeling that the girl without shame and siren red stomach might have made more of an impression than I’d like.
In The Event Of The End Of The World
I realize that some people think the world might end tomorrow. I’m not actually one of those people, and honestly, I don’t even know what the theory is based on, but I do pay attention to the four stories that pop up on my Yahoo! home page, and May 21 has been getting a lot of attention lately.
I mean, if the world is going to end, it’s not like there’s a lot I can do about it. (Not that this is an excuse to stop recycling or pursuing green initiatives in case there are still any conservatives left in my blog audience.) As I was discussing with a friend over the weekend, I think most generations would almost like to think that the end of the world would come within their lifetimes. It’s a good way to put off the unnerving truth/realization that, most likely, life will go on without us, for generations and generations, and possibly even eons. An ongoing world means we’re all a little more forgettable, and no one wants to be forgettable. (Sorry to get a little dark there.)
I also know some people are freaked out by the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Anxiety disorder and all, I think this is one of the least upsetting signs of a possible impending apocalypse. Let’s be real. For a group of people that went out around 1450, I think it’s pretty impressive they even bothered taking the calendar to 2012. How far out front are you supposed to get with those? I doubt anyone is working on day planners with New Yorker cartoons in them for 2415 right now, and I hardly take it as a sign that the world will end whenever the people down at the warehouse decide to stop making kitten calendars.
However, since we never know what can happen, I might need to get a few things off my chest before tomorrow – just in case.
1. I cheated on my menu tests at both La Paz and Calypso Joe’s. I have never cheated on any other tests in my life, but those menus presented some problems. At La Paz, I was a hostess, so I didn’t really see a need to learn the menu. They were going to make me take the test until I passed, so I used the menu as the hard surface on which to take my paper test. (I did learn a little though. That job is the only reason that I know the difference between an enchilada and a burrito is that a burrito is made with a flour tortilla while an enchilada is made with a corn one.) As for Calypso Joe’s, well, that one was just pride. The manager liked to post scores at the end of the day, and I refused to come in behind a bunch of perfect scores because I couldn’t have cared less about what dipping sauce came with the conch fritters.
2. I didn't like Titanic -- or Sex and the City.
3. From the ages of 21-25, I gave out my fake phone number to boys far too many times. It wasn’t very nice, but that’s kind of what happens when you’re a slightly cowardly people pleaser. It’s probably a little late, but I’d like to say I’m sorry anyway.
4. I don’t like the symphony, ballet or opera. I find them boring, and they always remind me of being forced to do educational stuff when I was a kid. (And this is coming from a girl who likes learning new vocabulary words.) If I nod when these topics of conversation come up, I’m only pretending to be cultured (or listening).
5. In the third grade, I stole my classmate's square dancing partner. I had a crush on the tallest boy in class, and square dancing partners were assigned by height. As the shortest girl in class, I was screwed -- and stuck with the boy who got very, very angry every time we played dodge ball in gym. When my classmate was out for a couple of days with a stomach bug, I saw my chance to move up, and we she came back to school, I pretty much implied that our teacher thought the new dance partner relationship was better. (Although, I hardly think our teacher had an opinion about the dancing partners.) Oh, the things we do for love ... And again, sorry about that one.
6. I prefer my dog to a lot of people. I can’t help it. She’s adorable, snuggly and completely non-critical. I should probably have some more love and compassion for humanity, but in general, a lot of my affection goes towards the dog. And that whole thing about there not actually being dogs in heaven if you go by strict theology? (I told you Sunday school was quite upsetting for me.) I’m not pleased.
7. For a few years now, my chest has actually been known as “the rapture.” It was a name that a female friend came up with for my boobs while we were drinking one night. I kind of thought it was awesome (especially since my late-blooming meant I didn't have a chest until the age of 18), and the name stuck. I hope this will not be considered blasphemous during the actual rapture, but clearly I can’t be sure. Even in the end of days, we can all appreciate a good joke, right? Maybe?
Anyway, I look forward to our continued interactions next week when I will most likely be experiencing some shame for what I hope are a few very premature confessions.
A Sunday School Drop-Out Spared
My parents tend to worry – a lot. Kidnapping, hostage-taking, teen pregnancy, drugs, drunk driving – you name a problem; my parents have considered how to keep it from happening to their kids.
There’s only one thing my parents never worried about when it came to me and that had to do with joining a cult. Their theory? “You had so much trouble with conventional religion; we never really figured you’d fall for some extreme splinter group.”
I guess there’s at least one plus to raising a natural skeptic.
My parents both taught Sunday school when I was growing up. My father taught kindergarten, and my mother usually taught sixth grade.
Through what I will claim is no fault of my own, I tended to be a troublemaker in Sunday school class. It’s not that I ever meant to get in trouble; I just like to ask a lot of questions. (Outside of Sunday school, my mother and I spent many hours in the library researching my various topics of interest from why ostriches liked to stick their heads in the sand, how an egg develops and the growth of asparagus.) Curiosity, neurotic-ism or annoyance? You decide.
Wikipedia and IMDB have been Godsends in my adult life.
Long before I knew the difference between evolution and creationism, when one of my Sunday school teachers went over Genesis, I had to ask why she seemed to be in direct conflict with my science teacher. “If the Earth was created in six days, what about the dinosaurs?” I said.
Mrs. Johnson, my science teacher at the time, had explained that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with no humans, and I really didn’t see where Adam and Eve fit in on this time frame.
Then, there was the day our Sunday school teacher came in to explain that “We were all adopted because we were all God’s children, and He had given us to our parents on loan.” (The “on loan” might not be a direct quote, but I promise that that Sunday school teacher was not particularly eloquent.)
I think I started the crying that day, but I know a lot of other kids eventually joined in. I think adoption is lovely, but as a kid who feared learning she was one day adopted, breaking the news this way seemed insensitive to say the least.
I also did not know how much I would upset my first grade Sunday school teacher when I answered the question, “What’s the last movie you all saw?” with “Aliens.” My mom had been out of town, and it was true. I’m sorry she only wanted Disney answers.
Eventually, my Sunday school teachers seemed really tired of my questions, and it could be hard to get them to notice my raised hand, but I’m not one to give up easily.
“Would King Herod really have cut the baby in half? What if none of the moms said anything?”
“How could you really have all of your power in your hair?”
“Wouldn’t the whale’s stomach acid be a problem for Jonah?”
“Just going from Saul to Paul doesn’t seem like a real earth-shattering name change. Wouldn’t Joe or Sam have been more dramatic?”
Apart from making my class the Bible Trivia champion of 1980-something, I was not an asset to most Sunday school classes. (I actually had to share that title with another Sunday school class, a decision I contested and still consider to be an unfair ruling, but the journey to move on continues.)
I don’t know whether or not it was discussed during some sort of Sunday school teacher conference, but from fourth grade on, I spent three years in my mother’s Sunday school class. She was used to my questions, and I imagine my departure from the regular course of Methodist teachings was a relief to many.
So, this Mother’s Day, I’d like to thank my mom for putting up with a lot – from the struggle to define infinity for me to typing up the school newspaper my third grade class dreamed up one day. But, I suppose that most of all, I’d like to thank her for taking me in when no one else was eager to, listening to and trying to find answers to my questions and never making me feel like I was the weird one for going against the flow.
Happy Mother’s Day Mama! I love you!
Acts Of God And Nature
Not to go all Patch Adams on everyone, but I really do feel like laughter can be the best medicine (along with antibiotics and all the traditional Western stuff that is). I think we should look for laughter – and joy – whenever we can because life can be pretty darn hard.
However, there are also plenty of times when laughter doesn’t seem appropriate. Or when there doesn’t seem like there’s much to laugh about. For the past few months, I often haven’t felt like laughing, but that’s another story for another day, when I’m ready to tell it.
More immediately, today is not a day that I feel like I can share anecdotes or talk about my annoyances from trips to the pharmacy, talking on the phone or attempting to fit in the clothes at Forever 21 (because at 31, I still believe I can be Forever 21).
On Wednesday, as most of the nation knows, a tornado unlike anything I have ever seen tore through my state and my city. The worst reports I hear have the main funnel at 1.5 miles wide and traveling a 200-mile path. Hundreds of people are dead, missing or homeless. So, even though I’ve spent most of my life being called irreverent, I’m going to just let today be today. There but for the grace of God, they say.
Also, at the risk of sounding preachy (which is not anywhere I ever want to go), I’ve been thinking about the ring my best friend gave me when I graduated from college. She’d had the same one for years, and I’d always wanted one of my own. It’s made of silver and says “This too shall pass” in Hebrew. A skyline of Jerusalem is engraved on the inside.
(I’m not Jewish. I have a St. Jude medal, too, even though I’m not Catholic. I don’t worry about it, so I ask you not to either, if you’d be so kind.)
At the time, I thought my “This too shall pass” was just a reminder that the bad times aren’t permanent and won’t last forever. (I’m sure it’s the depressive in me.) However, my friend reminded me that the adage isn’t just for the dark moments. It’s a reminder in the happy ones, too. We will not always be sad, just as we will not always be happy. Life happens in the ebb and flow, and you have to appreciate each of the moments when you’re in them because you have no idea how long they’ll last or what you might learn.
Like we all know, life is hard, and it isn’t fair. I’m just trying to figure it out like anyone else. And what do I know? Very little. But I know that today I’m lucky while others aren’t, and I may not always be the lucky one.
To quote more pop culture (because that’s what I do) I like what Morgan Freeman says in Bruce Almighty. When it’s all going downhill, sometimes it’s not the time to look up, but to look around. I am thankful for the family, friends, volunteers and general human beings who share in our triumphs and do want they can to make the tough times a little easier to bear.
Heathens and Happy Hernando
A few weeks ago, the SO and I took a trip to DeSoto Caverns outside of Childersburg, Alabama. (I like to do really cheesy things, and the SO likes to take pictures, and amazingly, these two interests often coincide.)
For those of you who don't know, DeSoto Caverns is the country's first recorded cave (I don't know what this honor means either), and it's a rather amazing natural phenomenon full of stalactites, stalagmites and the like. (By "the like," I mean stuff I didn't bother to pay attention to in either science class or the guided tour.)
The good people who own the cave have seen fit to fill the area around it with attractions like panning for gemstones, a maze and water gun shooting forts. The attractions are pretty fun, and a good way to drive up the price of admission. Of course, rock candy and fudge are for sale in the gift shop, too.
The SO and I had a good time. We engaged in some archery. (I say we didn't keep score. The SO claims victory.) I fed some llamas, and of course, there was the panning for gemstones, maze-running (that I did kick ass at) and cave-touring. But, there were two rather troublesome aspects to the whole adventure.
1. The mascot for DeSoto Caverns is Happy Hernando. Now, while I have no problem with lying to children in some respects -- the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, "Of course Mom and Dad never smoked pot" -- I have my limits. And turning Hernando DeSoto into Happy Hernando, the cutest of the conquistadors, just seems wrong. After all, we're talking about a man known for his cruelty in wiping out and enslaving indigenous peoples wherever he went. Dressing him in all primary colors and adding a jaunty hat doesn't seem like enough to whitewash that past.
(Then again, maybe it's not so much of a lie. I'm sure Hernando himself was happy, it's just that everyone who encountered him was miserable.)
2. In the middle of the one-hour tour of the actual DeSoto Cavern, everyone is asked to take a seat. All the lights go out, and you experience total darkness. I enjoyed that. As our tour guide pointed out, "A cave is one of the only places on earth other than the ocean floor one can experience total darkness."
Then, total darkness was broken by a laser light show coming out of a rock formation and the words, "And on the first day, God made light ..." The laser lights continued while the rest of the first chapter of Genesis was read -- loudly and with great enunciation. Once the scripture reading was over, the lights stopped, and all that was left was a giant neon cross. The tour guide stood back up, and we continued on our way through some more rock formations.
Now, call me crazy, but I like to be prepared before someone attempts to indoctrinate me, and I don't think a cave tour is the right time for a creationism pitch. (I'm not judging the creationists, I'm just saying that I wouldn't surprise you with a lesson on evolution while you were still high from finding an 1/8 inch amethyst in a man-made, above-ground stream.) If I'm entering a political or religious forum, I want to know about it beforehand. And nothing about that Happy Hernando prepared me for Evangelical Christianity.
A little warning is all I'm asking for. That and maybe some bigger amethysts.
Attacked at the Aquarium
There are many exotic fish I've had the privilege to see up-close and in person -- including a hammerhead shark. When I was 18, my parents took my sisters and I to the Great Barrier Reef.
(Whenever anyone asks about your trip to a reef, they always say, "Did you get a piece of the reef?" as if the first rule you learn on the reef isn't "Never, ever step on the reef." Those things are far more fragile than they might seem on TV.)
There are also some less than-exotic fish I've had the opportunity to see up-close and in person. My father took me to the Bass Fishing Museum in Eufala when I was a child, too.
So, a few weeks ago, when I went to Atlanta, the aquarium was one of my first stops.
The Georgia Aquarium is a great place, and it was fascinating to see the Beluga whales, Tiger sharks, giant Flounder and all of the colorful rest. (Is it wrong that all I could think of when I saw the giant Japanese crabs was "drawn butter"?)
The Georgia aquarium also has some great touch tanks. You could reach in to pet rays, little sharks, horseshoe crabs and the like.
Unfortunately, there was a moment in one of the touch tanks that led to the SO and I being drenched in water. At one of these tanks, the SO became startled by one of the creatures inside, and as he jerked his hand from the tank, he covered himself in water and splashed me pretty good, too.
The animal that took him by such surprise, you might ask? A shark? No. Manta ray? Nope. Even a spindly, tentacle-y plant? No. It was the shrimp and prawn tank that got him. I suppose he's never been around anything but the frozen kind because he wasn't really expecting the shrimp to move when he touched it. He jumped, and his shirt was soaked -- because a shrimp frightened him. (Sorry, I usually try to leave the SO alone when it comes to this blog, but that one still makes me laugh.)
Of course, I had my comeuppance when we went back to the ray/shark tank on our way out and one of the very large rays tried climbing the wall of the tank in front of me. (I could have sworn I heard a very faint "save me," but I was also in a little bit of shock.) Then it was my turn to jump back. I was fine with touching the smooth back of the ray. I did not know what it would do if it found my hand in its mouth.
So, if you find yourself in Atlanta, I'd definitely put the aquarium on your to-do list. And while many people are biased towards the penguins in the "most adorable" category, when it comes to the cute factor, otters take the cake for me every time.
Predator at the Door
I won't lie to you. As soon as I found a boyfriend, I stopped killing bugs. Sure, I could still kill my own bugs (by "kill," I actually mean "draft a carefully worded detente understood by me and the bug granting the bug all rights of access to my home and yard provided said bug will not take up residence inside my shoes, fall on my head in the middle of the night or appear in glasses of red wine"). But I don't want to kill bugs, and I don't have to now. I see it as one of the best perks to dating.
But, every so often, I stumble on a bug that I can't even ask the Significant Other [SO] to kill. Pictured is one such bug.
This is the actual spider that spun a web outside my back door (while I won't ask the SO to kill all bugs, I will ask him to photograph them). The spider is huge. His butt is bulbous (which I interpret as being full of poison -- I CAN do science). And he has very long legs leading me to believe that he could outrun me if necessary (not really a challenge, but still).
I keep the SO from this bug mainly because I don't want to be charged with manslaughter in his death by arachnid. (Is "poverty" a viable courtroom plea yet? Bug spray ain't cheap, after all.)
I also think dating is hard enough without having to explain on one's match.com profile how they sacrificed their last boyfriend to a killer spider because unemployment made paying an exterminator out of the question.
Addendum: It turns out that my spider is actually a completely harmless and very common breed known as a garden spider. Unfortunately, fact does not keep the creepy crawly from scaring the bejesus out of me.
The Great Outdoors
In so many ways, I was never destined for the outdoors. My fair skin and appeal to mosquitoes are only the beginning -- direct sunlight hurts my eyes, I don't like being hot and I try to avoid dirt whenever possible. If there's not a pool within a five foot radius, I'd just rather be inside. (FYI: that puts you closer to the bar and reality TV, too.)
Which is why any urge I have to do yard work always surprises me. (Keep in mind I said "urge." It's rarely fulfilled -- hence my lawn looks the way it does. I'd like to blame the stolen lawnmower, but I had lost the battle against weeds and growth long before that.)
I think it's the Type A/OCD side of me that wants to work in the yard. I like things to be neat and ordered. My yard tends to be anything but. Some would call this laziness. I blame the aforementioned genetics/quirks.
But, lately, not even I can ignore how bad my yard has gotten. I dream about towering weeds, creeping vines and sink holes. So, for the past two days, I've ventured out. Gardening gloves on, clippers in hand, rake by my side, I decided to do yard work.
I picked up branches. I pulled weeds. I piled debris on the curb to be picked up. It felt good. I felt like a real homeowner.
Then, as I was pulling some dead vines up, I saw it. A little baby garden snake slithered in front of me before disappearing back into the ground. Being a big girl now, I didn't scream. I didn't even jump back. I acknowledged that it was just a little garden snake -- to myself, over and over again. I kept working in the yard. I congratulated myself on being so mature and brave. About 20 minutes later, I packed up for the day and headed inside.
Sometime in the night though, everything changed. (It didn't help that I watched the "Fringe" episode about a genetically-engineered, part-snake monster, but bygones.) I thought way too much about small, slithery snakes. (And not just because of my love of alliteration.) Sure, that was just a baby garden snake, but where were its brothers and sisters? Or, worse yet, its mama? That snake had been much smaller than the creature I saw last year, but how much could a creature grow in 12 months?
It took 24 whole hours for me to lose my nerve.
I went back into the great outdoors today, but my new found anxiety made me wary of touching the ground or plants, and let's just say it's pretty hard to get much accomplished in the yard when you're only willing to poke at anything green with the end of your rake.
As soon as I figure out how to make money on this here blog (or any other venture for that matter), I'm hiring a landscape firm to deal with all the creepy crawlies, snakes and creatures around my house. Until then, the lawn is theirs.
Some Things I'd Like to Forget
Now, this probably doesn't need to be said, but I wasn't exactly a "cool" kid.
I went to private school. I tended to either duck or swat my hands frantically in front of me whenever any sort of ball came my way in gym class or on the playground. I spoke nonsense to myself in my room pretending to be French. And, I really liked to wear a tiara whether it was appropriate or not, as was immortalized in my kindergarten class picture.
"Cool" definitely isn't the right word.And, I also had a period when I really enjoyed conspiracy theories, not realizing that most of these ideas were espoused by the "crazies" of the world. (In fairness to me, my nannies always liked to watch a lot of daytime television, and if you live in the world of daytime television -- Phil Donahue, "All My Children," etc. -- you are much more likely to believe the impossible is probable. Twins with two different fathers? No problem. Men who dress as women and work for phone sex hotlines? Of course. Sisters who are also cousins who are also aunt and niece who also happen to be neighbors? Tell me more.)
After a particularly impressive interview on the local news morning show (that's right, local, I wasn't even smart enough to get most of my ideas from the Today show), I became convinced that Elvis was indeed still alive. I mean, supposedly the sideburns fell off of his corpse before the funeral. If that doesn't say wax dummy substituted for a body while Elvis runs off to live a peaceful life of anonymity, I don't know what does.
I also spent periods thinking that Marilyn Monroe had been murdered, George Reeves (the original Superman) didn't commit suicide, and UFOs were very real and hidden in large warehouses by the government. And, I shouldn't even get started on my JFK assassination theories.
Well, today I was watching Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime (of course), when one of the segments brought up a conspiracy theory I had forgotten about. It seems that two scientists claimed that a photo taken by an orbiting satellite of Mars clearly showed a human face, and this was a sure sign that the government was hiding proof of human life on the far away planet.
Yep, you heard that right. A picture of the surface of Mars supposedly showed an isolated human face embedded in the planet.
Just the face. Not a body. Not a person. Just a face lying on the surface of the planet.Even if we ignore the fact that the "face" didn't even look like a face, but more like the bunch of rocks I'm sure it actually was, why in the world would there be just a face lying on the surface of Mars? Why?!?! When is the last time you saw a human face lying anywhere? (If you work in a morgue, you cannot answer.) Could any rational human being accept this preposterous supposition?
Unfortunately, that's when I remembered that a young me had swallowed that idea hook, line, and sinker. I probably even went to school and told my friends how there were living creatures on Mars because of the 10 minutes I spent watching Unsolved Mysteries the night before.All of the laughing at the lunchroom table makes a lot more sense now.
Pacific White-Sided Dolphins and Me
Monday afternoon, I took a trip to the Shedd Aquarium in downtown Chicago.
Other than the penguins, one of the biggest attractions at the aquarium is the dolphin show. After all, who doesn't love a good dolphin?And, because most people do love dolphins, it's quite a popular exhibition. My friends and I barely got seats, and once we did, we still had to wait about half an hour for the show to start. So, full of excitement and animal kingdom wonder, I waited for the big event.
Unfortunately, the show was hosted by Alison*, who, clad in her Shedd Aquarium-issued polo shirt and mom khakis, and equipped with a wireless microphone over the ear, leads the audience on the journey into the "mysterious" world of dolphins. (From here on out, all words placed in quotation marks will be Alison's choices and not mine.)
Even though we never actually met and Alison was never less than 20 feet from me -- we did not get along.She opened the show with an intro she must have stolen from an old show on the Discovery Channel, but embellished with what I assume to be a background in amateur theater. (I will say this for her -- someone taught her to enunciate and someone taught her sweeping hand motions.)
Personally, I don't think anyone should be as confident as Alison was when she asked overdone rhetorical questions like "What about dolphins is fact [long pause] and what is fiction? [second long pause complete with meaningful sweeping glance over the audience] And, how do we separate the myth [pause] from the reality?"
Also, I don't think Alison fell into her work. I'm pretty sure it was a life-long dream to lead the aquarium show, and thinking of this made me feel like I did when I learned that being a character at period attractions like colonial Williamsburg and The American Village in Montevallo, Alabama is a coveted job and not something forced upon people by some sort of over-arching, all-powerful historical monopoly or the work of a particularly creative judge in the penal system.
Some people really want to wear pantaloons, use hybrid accents, and explain the process behind shoeing a horse.But, that doesn't mean I get these people.
Anyway, here was one of the "myths" about dolphins:"Some people say that dolphins are aliens." Now, who thinks that is a reality?"
Oh, my poor, disturbed Alison ...Here's my question: Who are these people that say dolphins are from outer space?!?! Seriously, when have you ever met someone in a rational and non-institutionalized setting who claimed to believe that dolphins were alien creatures? Who the hell does Alison hang out with that she hears this? And, if she has never heard it ,but only got her poorly syndicated Jonathan Frakes hosted Fact or Fiction confused with something from the history channel, what makes her think it is reasonable to repeat it as part of an educational discussion on sea creatures?
I don't get Alison either.
*Names have been changed because I'm insecure and non-confrontational.