Caitlin Doughty on Talking to Your Children about Death

Caitlin Doughty, of "Ask a Mortician" fame, has some wonderful advice for talking to children about death and trauma. It's so good, in fact, that I think it's also quite sound advice for speaking to adults about death and trauma. Advice tidbit #1: be honest. Advice tidbit #2: hug them whether they like it or not. (okay maybe not so appropriate for adults or children to whom you are not a parent or guardian.)

After the breathtakingly quick succession of senseless acts of violence across the world over the past week, it's nice to hear someone who works with death daily tell you to "turn off the death porn" and discuss your feelings with a loved one.

Click through to her original post from yesterday for links to even more sound advice -- both hers and Mr. Rogers'.

The Suffering of Saint Roscoe Bueno, Martyr

Poor Mr. Coe. Saturday before last, I took him to the vet to treat a wound I found right above his tail the night before. It was a raw spot the size of a quarter, no hair on it, and Roscoe wouldn't let me or Jason inspect it or clean it. I ended up resorting to spraying it with Bactine while Jason kept him pinned down to the kitchen floor. NOT A HAPPY DOG. Frankly, I wasn't very happy, either. I was shocked, shocked, that Jason hadn't noticed it earlier during the day, and couldn't figure out how he had hurt himself. Was he injured while rough housing with Rusty?* Did he get caught up in something in the yard? Did my crazy next door neighbor sneak into the yard and do it?** I WAS A HYSTERICAL PERSON. 

At the vet's, the vet tech deduced that it was a hot spot Roscoe had created biting and scratching and chewing an itchy patch of skin (his butt). They shaved his butt and exposed an entire constellation of raw sores, scabs, and hivey, red, irritated skin. It. Was. Horrible. It looked like leper skin. It looked like meth skin. It looked like zombie skin. It was mortifying. I felt like a negligent dog owner. I communicated this to the vet tech and she told me, "Oh this is nothing! Sometimes owners don't bring their dogs in until they smell and the skin's rotting and has maggots." And I barfed and died (as I'm sure you just did, sorry).

Anyways, we're thinking that the hives were caused by an allergic reaction to a new food Roscoe had been eating for the last month. After cleaning his butt with an antiseptic solution, the vet sent us on our way with some antibiotics and antihistamines, and strict orders of: NO BITING.  Easier said than done! But that's what the cone's for...

Roscoe's only ever had to wear the cone of shame (or, in his case, the cone of paralyzing fear) once before. It was horrible then, and it's been horrible this time, too. Completely debilitating. After leaving the vet, I went out and found an inflatable collar that, though absurd and heavy, at least allows him to see where he's going and reach his food and water. It isn't as effective as the cone (he can still reach his butt if he really, really works at it), so he wears it under adult supervision only. When he's alone he's in the cone (poor dog).

Cone and inflatable collar, lots of bed rest and down time, short walks, no baths, no hikes, and, most tragically, no beach. This dog has been stoically suffering the most boring week of his life. The good news is that the medication is working its magic and his skin's looking much better. Scabby, but better. He's back to his old food and now salmon oil in the mornings as well, and I'm looking forward to having a cone/life preserver-free dog back very soon.

* We had been sitting my parents' dog Rusty for three weeks while they were away on a trip. Conveniently, they had just picked Rusty up earlier that same day.

** Though my neighbor is a pain in the ass, the idea of him sneaking onto my property to torture my dog is, in and of itself, insane. Hyperbolic histrionics on my part, clearly. (though he's horrible.)

Wintertime is for Postcards, Too

Just the front of the postcard this time. 

I'm happy that we're receiving some much-needed rain after an incredibly dry year, but it's been non-stop mist, fog, rain, storm up here the past couple of weeks. Looking at this photo of the postcard I received from Sarah T last week -- and then comparing it to other photos of postcards received over the summer -- I note the paleness of my fingers, the (perpetual) sogginess of the lawn,* the morose grey sunlight. Winter is here in all of its central coast, Wuthering Heights, doom & gloom glory --and I love it!-- but boy do we have a long winter ahead of us.

Wintertime is wonderful for its storms and winds and cold and spookiness, the move to insularity, introspection, quiet, and aloneness. But, sometimes, it becomes lonely. In a Stephen King-protagonist-isolated-in-a-snowed-in-cabin/closed-mountain-resort** kind of way.

The academic quarter has come to an end. The past couple of weeks have been long, sleep-deprived, manic and exhausting. I found this postcard in the mailbox late Thursday evening of last week, and it's been brightening up the large pile of unattended mail ever since. Thanks, Sarah T.

* The lawn has become a perpetual mushroom pit of fungal despair. I'm pulling out handfuls of mushrooms on a daily basis.

** MADNESS.

Found: Medieval Well

Colin Steer and his wife Vanessa.
Photo: SWNS, Source.

Going through my (very long) backlog of news articles and online ephemera earlier today (Happy Thanksgiving! We're celebrating tomorrow because I'm exhausted and why not!), I found this delightful article about a man in Plymouth, Devon, UK who found an old well under his living room while doing some home improvement chores one day. He's dug down 17 feet so far (all in the past year -- this is what he's doing with his retirement); found a crude, peasant's sword; and installed lights and trap door (see above).

According to living room adventurer and hobby historian Colin Steer's research, the land on which his home was built was woodland until the late 19th century, and archival plans date the well to at least the 16th century. He now wants to hire a professional to see if he can date it even further back in time.

Steer states:

I love the well and think it's fascinating. I'd love to find out who was here before us. I've got a piece of Plymouth's history in my front room. 

 Colin's wife, Vanessa, is less than enthused (just look at that glare on her face in the photo above), and says:

I hate the well. 

I just think this story's great.

Perhaps this will become a (relatively) regular sub-feature: Medieval Found Objects? Refer to my previous Found entry on Medieval Underwears, here.

Señor Babándose Mogollón...

Source: El Hematocrítico de Arte

When all else fails, laughing at the fake titles for works of art on the El Hematocrítico de Arte tumblr page really takes the edge off of an evening (or very early morning) of grading essays. 

Did you notice the new blog design? I lost my mind a couple of weeks ago, and redesigning the blog was one of the weird things I did to NOT DEAL WITH IT. A bit much? I don't know, I kind of like it's ultra femininity; it's certainly a far cry from the previous serial killer green. 

I'm still working out some of the new blog design stuff (new pages under construction, for example), but I'm getting anxious to get back into blogging about the ridiculous. Thanksgiving break is quickly approaching, and I look forward to a break from the grading insanity. Is a new Procrastination Investigation in the cards? I do hope so!

Mr. Coe is Internet Famous!

Check out Roscoe's absurdly adorable "Hello My Name Is..." profile on Pawesome! That dog, how does he do it? 

It's good to see that somebody in the arantxa household is still active on the interwebs, am I right? Speaking of the interwebs, let's see if I can't get back on the old blogging bicycle... plenty's been happening! 

Until soon...

Weekend Update(s): Hiatus, End

Notice that the ribbon is missing? BET YOU DIDN'T.

It's been busy, busy, busy here over the past couple of weeks. After getting the new teaching job (that I'll be performing in addition to the other I already had lined up for the fall) two weeks ago, I just got slammed with the brunt of new and change and now: developing two separate curriculums and creating my syllabi and class plans for the fall quarter, last minute doctor appointments, an all-of-a-suddenly necessary new laptop purchase, buckling down and researching in earnest for a new car. In particular: these new purchases, though exciting, are absolutely terrifying. Spending large sums of money all at once gives me a terrible case of "adult Steve Martin" syndrome:

This is, basically, how I do anxiety: panic attack as toddler's temper tantrum, with a dash of conspiracy theory mixed in for good measure (this is also just what my mom calls being a Hysterical Cuban, which I'm starting to suppose is an inherited trait). Anyways. Now that I've wrangled together a solid routine for the fall, I'm looking forward to returning to our regularly scheduled programming of the quotidien interspersed with the scholarly and/or bizarre.*

***
* p.s. I checked in on the blog hit statistics this morning and was absolutely tickled by some of the recent google searches that have landed people here during my absence: apart from the ubiquitous and near-daily Enriqueta Martí searches, we have "books on 16th century european cannibalism," "embarrassing postcards," and -- my absolute favorite -- "thanks for spoiling my day." YOU'RE WELCOME.

Cuchi Time: Turkeys at Dusk

I've been waiting for weeks -- weeks! -- for the opportunity to photograph these local wild turkeys. I first heard about them in early July, when my visiting parents saw them walking up my street one morning. A couple of weeks later, Roscoe and I ran into them two blocks from the house on a walk around the neighborhood. It was creepy yet fascinating: when I first saw them, I thought they were plastic yard statues. Even though there were twenty of them. TWENTY. I stood staring for a couple of minutes before my neighbor cracked open her front door to warn me that yes, they were real, and, yes, they moved in unison like horrible feathered dinosaurs. Since then, I've occasionally glimpsed their ghostly, weird turkey silhouettes slowly passing just beyond the front yard fence, but never had enough time to grab the camera. 

Over the weekend, I finally had the opportunity to take some photos when they flew onto our roof and invaded our yard. Flew onto our roof and invaded our yard.

A few caveats:

These photos don't do the turkeys justice. One: they look a lot smaller than they really are. The males were pretty humongous, at least twenty pounds, the hens only a little smaller. Two: they blend in with the scenery all too well (I guess that's the point). Three: there were so many of them, it was impossible to capture them all in the same photograph frame.

Would you have noticed the two turkeys in the oak tree over the studio if I hadn't pointed them out?
I don't think I would have. 

Having these wild turkeys flock in the yard was simultaneously awesome -- cuchi! -- and actually kind of scary. We kept Roscoe inside the house as a precautionary measure, and tried to wait them out. They spent a good hour making their rounds through the front yard, scratching and pecking in the lawn and garden beds. I eventually started to get worried that they'd completely rip up the garden and stood at the front door clapping and yelling at them until they moseyed on over to the fence and flew over it.

I see nine turkeys in this photo. There were at least five more on the other side of the hammock.
(I took this photo through my bedroom window because I'm a SCAREDY CAT)

I would be lying if I said that were the only thing I was worried about. They made me nervous, duh. Don't laugh! If they were a hoard of raccoons or skunks, anyone would have freaked. Just because they're poultry doesn't mean they aren't a threat, especially in large numbers. Have you heard of the horrible Martha's Vineyard Tom Turkey case?* Don't you remember The Birds? (I'm only a little bit joking here) These two avian horror stories spliced and bounced around in my brain the entire time they were creepily pecking and scratching away in my yard. I was relieved that I didn't have to actually chase them out of the yard, though now I have to worry about whether or not my neighbors are feeding them -- one more thing to be a crazy old lady about!

Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963)

***
* The This American Life episode on which I originally heard the story, "Poultry Slam 2011", is fantastic and funny. Listen to it here.

Auspicious Visit

It's been a crazy ass week. I had my interview on Monday and suffered through intense angst (ANGST) until I heard back on Wednesday (I got the job, SURPRISE!*), culminating in a total energy crash and strange and unwarranted general malaise the following morning. It's a good thing Lisa and Mark were driving down for a visit from the East Bay -- and that they had thought to surprise me by secretly bringing along Alana, who I hadn't seen in a year? In over a year? In any case: my general malaise disappeared tout de suite.

This super tall silvery, velvety shrub/tree elicited screams. SCREAMS.

What a wonderful, wonderful surprise. I got to celebrate the new job, my birthday (and Lisa's!) with some of my most favorite people. This birthday feels like a milestone for me -- I'm entering a new stage in my teaching career, which is allowing me to save and prepare for some big, "adult" expenses** -- and I can't think of any other people I would rather be spending it with, even if belatedly.

Touched it. 

Friday we drove up to campus, I signed some forms at HR, and we visited the UCSC Arboretum. In all my years affiliated with the university (first as a student, now as a lecturer), I'd never been to the arboretum. What a shame that it's taken me so long to visit; it's absolutely gorgeous. We wandered from garden to garden, talking about politics and power (a conversation started the night before at a taqueria that continued for the entirety of the visit), touching absolutely everything we came across. Every bush, every flower, every tree, every pinecone. We touched everything. And it was worth the $5 entry fee, well worth it. It was even worth the mild sunburn (and corresponding, mild crankiness) I developed later on.

Touching it. 

These are a couple of the few snapshots taken early in our walk. I didn't take down any notes on the plants I photographed, but I do remember that they were all located in the Australia/New Zealand gardens.

We stumbled upon a huge flock? crew? gaggle? of California quail on the way out, but I was too busy watching them roadrun away from us to take out my camera. No reason to become inordinately upset; I have a wonderful Super Cuchi post (of the avian persuasion) to share tomorrow regardless.

***
* Thanks for the woo-woo, by the way. It absolutely worked!
** Okay, I'll tell you: it's a car, I'm saving up for a new car. Don't tell the Little Green Car, it'll become horribly jealous and stop working just to teach me a lesson. You think I kid, how little you know!

Walking with Mr. Coe: Old County Road

Things have been quiet on the blog since we left Santa Cruz for (what was to be) a quick family visit at the beginning of August. As mentioned in my last post, we drove down to LA for the Mars Science Lab landing. That was two weeks ago. Jason came back up to Santa Cruz on his own a couple of days later, and Roscoe and I ended up hanging out for a week and a half longer, enjoying the perks of staying with Mom and Dad (excellent home-cooked meals, clean and comfy house, air-conditioning, LA museums and restaurants, local hiking trails, etc. etc. etc.). It was wonderful, and we very well may have stayed on for another week (and a half?) if it weren't for a surprise email offering a last-minute job interview. That got us back up here super quick. More on that later. 

Before leaving for LA, though, Roscoe and I took a final early morning walk in our little mountain town. We usually walk in our immediate neighborhood, and along our beloved Love Creek Road, but that morning I took us across the San Lorenzo River and into the neighborhood carved into the side of Ben Lomond Mountain. We walked up from highway 9 and took a left onto (the) Old County Road.

You get to walk through a pretty, little residential neighborhood for the first bit, but as the road winds around the mountain up above the river, you pass through a dense patch of vegetation. And then you get to walk over this awesome and wonderful redwood bridge, over a gully with a creek feeding into the river. It's pretty scary, actually. The bridge is old, and has enormous redwood slabs that are weathered and cracked and have big (okay, not so big) gaps between them. Because I'm an old person with old person vertigo (I know), I have to walk down the center of the bridge because if I get too close to the railing (that doesn't even come up to my waist) I feel like I'm about to lose total control of my body and throw myself head-first over the railing like an insane woman. VERTIGO. But I just walk down the center and remind myself that the people who live up Brooks Road drive their trucks and cars on the bridge daily and that, just like Lucille Two in Arrested Development, "we're okay, we're okay." 

What does that sign mean? Can you really drive an 11 ton big-rig over this bridge?
Why bother with the 6 ton limit for the smaller truck? Why why why?

Once you make it over the terrifying bridge, you're met with this lovely gate and signage. The neighborhood watch sign is new. A couple of times, Roscoe and I have walked beyond the ominous gate, but we never make it very far. Maps show that Old County Road continues, carved into Ben Lomond Mt., high above the San Lorenzo River, for a bit longer before crossing the river and meeting back up with Highway 9, still within the town limits. In reality, though, who really knows (certainly not us because I'm a rule-following, vertigo-inflicted old lady): rock and mud slides have made a mess of the old abandoned road and I always feel like I'm being watched by mountain lions and werewolves from the fallen tree trunks and boulders up above. Maybe I'll bring a friend along and really give it a try, until then, Roscoe and I turn around to go back down the mountain at this point.

The aforementioned Brooks Road continues up the mountain to the left of the ominous gate.

Re-crossing the redwood bridge on the way back home. 

In weekend update news: today is my birthday; I'm currently sitting in front of my laptop with a shower cap on over a deep-moisturizing treatment for my hair; I'm preparing for the aforementioned interview for the teaching job that I have tomorrow, Emily will be mock-interviewing me sometime this afternoon; Jason and I will go downtown for a fancy dinner of my choice this evening (don't get too excited because I'll probably end up deciding on a cheeseburger at Betty's -- but then I WILL insist on going to a movie), and then I'll go to bed nice and early so I can get up with plenty of time tomorrow morning to GET IN THE ZONE. 

I wrote Lisa an email last Thursday telling her about this interview, asking her to think woo-woo thoughts for me the day of. She replied that she was going to "woowoo all over that shit" and it made me very happy. Perhaps you'll woo-woo, too?* I JUST BROKE MY BRAIN.

***
* I think it's hilarious that Deepak Chopra wrote a snarky little article defending woo-woo for the Huffington Post in 2009. Yes, I just found it when I googled woo-woo, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. 

Getting Weird with David Bowie

And nostalgic, and maybe even a little bit weepy, too. Remember sitting on the floor of your bedroom and listening to "Life on Mars?" while cutting and pasting bits and pieces of things together for your 'zine? And it was a track on the b side of a mix tape? Cassette tape? And you knew you'd only damage the tape if you were to rewind and listen again and rewind and listen again, so you would flip the tape, listen to a Smiths song, and then flip it back again? And you were fifteen years old? Of course you do!

I woke up listening to David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" for the first time in a very long time Sunday morning. My dad had put it on in the living room while preparing breakfast. He's a Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech employee and member of the Mars Science Lab team; Sunday was, of course, the day of the rover's landing on Mars, and Jason, Roscoe, and I had driven down to LA the day before to be there with the rest of the family for the big event. Gushing about my dad's super important and awesome role in the team would compromise the certain level of anonymity I like to maintain on this here blog, so suffice it to say I'm incredibly proud of my dad and his team's accomplishments. Here's a little Bowie for them; their rover, Curiosity (aka Johnny 5); and the decades of technological and scientific advancements their mission will (continue to) give us. Bowie salutes you as you take us five million steps closer to answering his question!

Shulie Photographs Love Creek

My (good-natured) passive aggressive berating in my last post inspired Shulie to finally go through all the photos she took on our excursion up Love Creek from a couple of weeks ago, and she's posted a select few on her photography blog.

Photograph by Shulamit Seidler-Feller, source.

I've made mention of a certain memorial up Love Creek Road in the past. I want to write about it myself in the (near!) future, but Shulie's beat me to the punch, and has some really lovely things to say about it in her own post that are worth reading. I highly recommend that you go check out Shulie's post on Love Creek -- and the rest of her blog, too!

Thank you, Shulie, the photos are beautiful!

Fourth Postcard of the Summer

So this completely terrifying mondo-postcard came in the mail today. 

Why doesn't the Virgin have eyebrows? WHY?? (Isn't it terrible that
the Virgin and Roscoe are looking at you at the same time? )

It was sent by my friend Shulie, you see. She drove up from LA with a friend for a super quick visit a couple of weeks ago, which was wonderful. We ate tacos and drank kosher Spanish wine, and then had brunch the next morning and napped and took a quick drive down Love Creek Road, the most famous road in Ben Lomond.*

Wasn't Jean Paul Gaultier the one who had the super embarrassing drunken, anti-Semitic meltdown at a Paris café?
And was fired from his fashion house and had to go to French court? And looks like a pirate? EXCELLENT. 
UPDATE 8/01/12: NO! It was John Galliano -- thanks for spoiling my fantasy, Shulie! 

Shulie took some photos** at the toy box memorial I alluded to in a previous post, and a couple more further down the creek. She's promised to share them with me (HINT HINT SHULIE), and I'm just dying of curiosity and anticipation.

Thanks for the monstrous Virgin, Shulie! It's already up on the fridge, right next to Eva Perón and Ché!

***

* I'm seriously starting to think that Love Creek Road needs its own tag. Okay, done.
** Did you know that Shulie is a very talented photographer? And that she has a photo blog? Go and see!

Weekend Update: Fear, the Sublime, and Roscoe at the Dog Beach

It's another beautiful weekend here in Santa Cruz -- sunny, mild weather, with a nice breeze. This generally isn't the best dog beach weather (it's so perfect that it brings out all the sun bathers and small children; neither of these things go well with active dogs), but we found a nice strip of Its Beach untouched by the sunbathing masses. It's true, there were lots of gnats and smelled like poop; we made due. 

Roscoe made a new friend who likes to chase as much as Roscoe likes to be chased. EXCELLENT. All in all, a successful outing without any knocked over children or invasive sunbather sniffing (at least not by my dog).

TAIL TWINS. 

In totally unrelated news, I've been working on a new syllabus for my teaching portfolio and it is, sincerely, awesome. I have stacks of monster and horror theory books all over, and I'm having too much fun crafting a monsters curriculum for a course that doesn't even exist (yet; let's keep our fingers crossed and work a little woo-woo magic).

Later today I'll be skyping with Emily and K over a bottle of vinho verde rosé, a bowl of spaghetti and clams (!!!), and stack of Emmanuel Kant and Edmund Burke. SUPER. Good food, good company, good philosophy of fear and the sublime. 

Walking with Mr. Coe: Roadside Blackberries

The early mornings have been cool and misty in the Santa Cruz mountains over the past 5 or 6 days, long-sleeves and knit hat weather -- welcome relief from the mega-heat blast we got last Saturday: high 90's, no wind. It was like being in an oven. I prefer this week's weather much more. Roscoe and I have been taking advantage of the morning cool, taking our walks through the neighborhood before the mist and gloom burns off mid-day. 

Ben Lomond is covered in blackberry bushes -- they grow wild along the backroads and even on highway 9 -- and the berries are just now starting to ripen. EXCITIIIING.

Here's an extra enormous blackberry bush along good old Love Creek Road. It's more of a hedge, and runs along the road for quite a bit. Roscoe likes it.

Oh yeah, that's a happy dog.

Mr. Coe has lots of favorite stops he insists that we make throughout town. They're all generally pee-mail stops, of course.

Roscoe, checking his pee-mail at one of his favorite telephone poles.
Note hidden sign in the background.

And now for some more weird and wonderful signage. Above and below, "No Trespassing: Keep Out" signs. 

"Private Property: Keep Out" JUST STATING THE OBVIOUS.

And here's a sad one:

She whistles like: tweet tweew.

I really hope they find their lost cockatiel. Whoever made this sign (and the tens more I found posted all around town) did a great job of covering all pertinent information: Sily doesn't talk, but she does have a distinctive whistle. That's good to know. I hope they find her.

Prolonging the Spooky with Andy Warhol

I woke up to a wonderfully dark, spooky, and overcast morning up here in the Santa Cruz mountains, and now that we're approaching noon, it's all burning off and giving way to a sunny day. In order to prolong the spooky, I leave here for you an incredibly unnerving 4 minute and 28 second video of Andy Warhol eating a hamburger. 

If you read the video description on YouTube, you'll learn that this scene was filmed for a Danish art movie, that Warhol preferred McDonalds, and that this video comprises "a classic ASMR trigger scene", which I did look up* but can't say that I experienced. The only thing triggered for me was major Andy Warhol discomfort. You're welcome!


Note: Warhol never actually finishes the burger, he leaves the last bite in the wrapper (!!!).

***
* Man, oh man, oh man, oh man, have I stumbled down the internet rabbit hole into a whole new world of strange.

Third Postcard of the Summer

My sister got back from her trip to Iceland late last week. We had a video chat date over the weekend, and when I thanked her again for sending her postcard she said, "Oh, you haven't gotten the second one yet?"

Just got it in the mail. 

I think her message says it all; there really aren't any other words. 

Kitchen (mis)Adventure: Octopus Toast

I had a truly decadent and wonderful dinner at home Sunday night, and it was made all the better -- because I'm a lazy person -- due to the fact that I basically didn't have to do any cooking whatsoever. 

I mean, toasting toast and puréeing vegetables don't actually count as cooking, do they?

I've been hoarding two cans of imported (Spanish) baby octopus, packed in olive oil, that I bought at the Westside New Leaf in Santa Cruz a couple of months ago. They cost me millions of dollars (not really, but you know what I mean), and I've been waiting for a special occasion to crack them open. Well, Sunday evening rolled around, Jason was out,* and I decided that that night was the night (I only opened one can though, I'm a hoarder after all).

I made myself a nice batch of basic gazpacho, and toasted two pieces of bread. I slathered one in hummus and left the other one plain for the bowl of baby octopus I prepared with magic parsley from the St. John's Eve herb garden and lots of lemon juice. EXQUISITE. 

Kitchen (mis)Adventure success! I enjoyed it all before a lovely Skype date with Sarah T, after which I instantaneously crashed out while watching the opening credits to an old episode of Bones on Hulu. JUST ANOTHER PERFECT SUNDAY EVENING.

***

* Jason loathes, loathes, loathes seafood, which I find disappointing and am trying to slowly remedy. We're still working on tuna and (small) shrimp, so I knew that octopus would be way too much way too soon. ALL THE MORE FOR MEEEE. 

A Little (Nano) Science Fiction for Your Sunday Evening

For your viewing pleasure, here is the first episode of the Nano SciFi Tales series by director Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes [2003] and the very recently released Extraterrestrial [2012]). Each Nano SciFi video is under 21 seconds and totally and completely charming. 

I can watch this one video, in particular, over, and over, and over. And laugh out loud as it ends, every single time. Enjoy!

Catch the rest of the nano videos at the WOPP YouTube channel, here.

Cuchi Time: Campus Fauna

After sending a final email, turning off my laptop and packing up my things, I stepped out of my office door late Friday afternoon to see this: 

Two Bambis, ambling along.

You know, just some deer roaming around the university footpaths, nibbling on the lawn and landscaping. They generally come out to feed in the early mornings and later in the afternoons.

People are surprised when I tell them that I teach at a campus with half-domesticated deer roaming around. I tell them that they're our version of the pigeon. Only bigger. More dangerous. More on that later.

New students, particularly, are delighted to see the deer when they first come to campus. "How cute!" they say! "They're adorable!" they insist!

Doe and fawn. "Super cuchi!!!!" yell my students.

My students think I'm a super weirdo when I first share my disdain for the campus deer population. But, in time, they grow to understand.

The deer are just everywhere. And lots of them. And they aren't scared of humans, so they just wander in and out of foot paths and -- worse -- bike paths and roads. This doe below had just waltzed out into the road in front of my moving vehicle before I stopped to take her photo. Here she is, grazing along the side of the road as my car idles alongside her. Could. Not. Care. Less.

Much like pigeons, deer are a lot mangier and not quite so Bambi-adorable up close.

I know I sound like a crazy old person, but I think that the deer population on campus is a major liability -- not only do they cause bike and automobile accidents -- and the bike accidents are particularly devastating -- but they attract large predators as well. I've seen a handful of mountain lions on campus over the years (I don't have any photographs, but that probably has to do with the fact that I was too busy pooping myself each and every time), all drawn to "lower" campus in search of an easy snack. And have I even told you about how aggressive and scary young bucks can be? Especially during mating season? Scary, scary, scary.

Magical 7pm light cutting across the great meadow. 

The photos above and below, of young bucks grazing in the great meadow, were taken from super far away, using my camera's zoomiest digital zoom.

Yes, they're beautiful. I can't deny that.

Yes, magic.

I just wish that they weren't such a nuisance.

Grumble, grumble.

At least the cattle that are brought to campus to graze every summer and fall are fenced in.

Quintessential campus view. Those familiar with the UC Santa Cruz campus will
immediately recognize this view across the Monterey Bay. 

FYI: The photos of these multitudes of deer (and the final photo of the cattle ) were all taken in the span of 15 minutes late in the afternoon, Friday, July 20. Fifteen minutes!!!

I was lucky enough to leave before dusk and not run into any marauding raccoons (our version of the gutter rat?), by the way. I won't even get into the raccoons...

Found: Medieval Underwears

This post's found objects weren't discovered by me, but by archaeologist Beatrix Nutz, a lady PhD candidate with a fantastic name and a jackpot dissertation.

Source

The University of Innsbruck announced Wednesday that archaeologists (lead by Nutz) have discovered a fantastic cache of medieval household detritus and miscellany used in the early 15th century as insulation under a floor at the castle of Lengberg in Eastern Tirol, Austria. The preliminary report lists:

more than 200 coins, 160 coloured playing cards of carton belonging to more than four different decks*, objects of iron and alloys, bones, horn, glass, ceramics plus more than 50 pieces of writing from amongst other things accounts, chits and litergical texts.** 

This list doesn't even get into the treasure trove of 15th century textiles that's caused international interest: a fully preserved male hose, embroidered lacing and silks, pleated shirts, fragments of hats and linen headgear, and -- most exciting -- four bras.

Comfy looking bras at that.

Fashion experts (and academics and researchers, I'm sure!) "describe the find as surprising" as the bra was commonly thought to have been invented in the late 19th century/early 20th century as a replacement for the corset.*** Not so; looks like the bra came first, then the corset, then the bra, again, reinvented. Comfy always wins.

Though the treasure trove was unearthed in 2008, the university only made the news public this week, after extensive research, carbon dating, and DNA testing of the found textiles and the recent publication of an article in BBC History Magazine.

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They used DNA testing to determine the sex of the person who wore these underwears above, which I find awesome and also horrifically embarrassing for whoever wore them. Note to self: wash all articles of clothing before using them as insulation material/dying. Though they look like fancy, lady's bikini bottoms, Nutz told reporters that they were most likely men's underwears as women didn't wear any at the time. 

"Underpants were considered a symbol of male dominance and power," she said.

But who wears the fancy bikini underwears now!!!

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* What would I give for photo images of some of those playing cards? I wonder if any of them belong to an early tarot/tarocchi deck...

** Check out the article at Medieval Histories Magazine. 

*** Read the Washington Post article here. 

Second Postcard of the Summer

This postcard from my sister came in the mail for me and Jason earlier in the week. 

mmmm Icelandic fleece.

She's in Iceland right now, taking part in a graduate field institute program and scaling glaciers, crawling through lava tubes and ice tunnels, inspecting mineral hot springs, visiting the mid-Atlantic ridge, being interviewed on Iceland's national television news broadcast... you know, totally awesome stuff.

She's been updating us almost daily with photos and emails about her trip, her international cohort of earth science grad students, the group's geothermal research and excursions, etc. and and it sounds amazing. Elena's also been indulging me, personally, with wacky and wonderful anecdotes about "Troll Tours" and the night her group ate a "traditional Viking Dinner" at a place that I imagine to be the Icelandic version of Medieval Times. She said they ate rotten shark, that it's an Icelandic delicacy, and that it was awful. I just laughed and laughed... 

photo taken by my sister, Elena

Elena took this photo for me a couple of days into her trip, in the capital, Reykjavik. We're pretty sure that's a yarn store. I am so pleased by the succession of "wares and attractions" advertised: elves, excursions, trolls, wool, northern lights, ghosts. YOU KNOW, JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS. I really, really love that so much of Iceland's tourism is wrapped up in monsters, ghosts, and folklore. I want to travel to Iceland, just to visit this yarn store and go on a Troll Tour. 

Ever since she started planning for the trip, Elena and I would occasionally sing to each other "Welcome to Icelaaaaaand...", the opening line from the mock-Björk song from that one Kristen Wiig SNL sketch. The more I learn about that country, the more sense Björk makes. Both are equally delightful!

Cuchi Time: Tiniest Spinner

The prettiest, finest, little spider webs have been popping up all around the yard this week. They're so fine, in fact, that I often don't notice them until I'm about to disrupt them somehow -- in the case of the so-fine-its-invisible-to-the-camera web in the above photo, I didn't see it until I was about to walk right through it. Good thing it's teeny tiny maker was there to catch my eye. 

I generally think that spiders are pretty horrible, but this micro-specimen seems harmless enough. It's made itself a pretty web, is staying outside, is too small to be scary... not much more I can ask for. Do your thing, sir. 

Let's see what else is going on in the garden:

 My one Lily of the Nile is about to flower, which is exciting. 

Even better, the spindly little peach tree in the front yard -- that was pretty sickly when we first moved in two years ago -- is gracing us with a mega-load of peaches this year. This is all thanks to my dad, I'm sure. He's like a fruit tree wizard; his pruning skills are magic. Whatever he prunes is super happy through the next year. The tree is so prolific, in fact, that I'm a little worried that all this extra weight is going to snap a limb or two.

The peaches are almost ripe enough to pick from the tree. Maybe in a couple of days. I'm being especially vigilant because I know that the blue jays (my arch nemesi) and squirrels (disgruntled tree nesters) have their eyes on them too. Last year, they got to the one peach the tree produced and I was dismayed. NOT THIS SUMMER, YARD DWELLERS.