Getcha Fluff On

I took some time off from cell migration yesterday to volunteer at the "What The Fluff?" Fest in Union Square, Somerville, which honors the invention of Marshmallow Fluff by Union Square native Archibald Query 90 years ago.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the crowd was in enthusiastic good spirits. There was a good mix of kids, adolescents, parents, and old folks; a combination of Somerville "townies" and cheerful hipsters from all over the place. They had games, like a bowling lane with Fluff jars as pins, bands (including my friends the talented B for Brontosaurus), burlesque dancers, a baking contest, and shenanigans such as the Fluff Lick-Off, the Fluff Beauty Contest, and the Blindfolded Fluffernutter Challenge. We were beating contestants off with sticks - there was no shortage of people willing to get sticky! (Yes, I know, everything I say about the Fluff Fest sounds dirty ... but it was really - even including the burlesque - pretty wholesome family fun.)

Verdict: Union Square is the best of the non-T-associated "squares", pretty much kicking Inman's ass when it comes to community events. (I remember when I first moved here and Union was pretty grotty. Back then even Inman wasn't so gentrerrific, though, either, and Davis was still up-and-coming.)

Next year any Bostonians should make sure to check it out! Seriously, all the good stuff is on this (the red) side of the river.

This is too weird (but is in PNAS so it MUST be true!)

Whoah - microgravity transforms Salmonella into super-virulent germs?

Off The Hook (For A Little While)

Whew: I'm out from under the shadow of the black clouds of Having To Give Group Meeting that have been lowering upon my house and feel bouyant with relief. It was fine. I've been taking my PIs advice (don't tell him!) and making figures of every experiment as I go and that totally saved my life yesterday when I was putting together all my slides.

It's beautiful Indian Summer here in the N. E. Clear blue sky, hot sun, and balmy cool nights. The moon is full and luminous this evening and rose to shine into my window. The sun is setting earlier now, making the late afternoon seem more busy - so much less time to dally before twilight.

Confession: I was pretty psyched to watch "Beauty and the Geek" this evening. I know, I know. Shuddup.

Urban Wildlife Update

I was walking across the BU bridge today and stopped to look down at the river, which was muddy green and wrinkled as a prune with little wavelets. As I stared down, a big dark fish leapt up in a whale-like arc and flopped back down into the water! How about that? I thought. Was that really a fish? The fish are jumpin and the cotton is high ... I thought about when Tilda and I went camping in the Olympics in Washington and I swam across Bear Lake. Great fat black fish kept jumping up to nab at passing insects and ploinking back into the still water, whose mirror surface was almost black in the long Western twilight. As I reminisced, another fish (or maybe the same one) leapt out of the river close to the othre bank; so it was definitely jumping fish I saw today, which I have never seen before in the dirty dirty Charles.

In other news, giving group meeting on Tuesday. Vague hope that I will be hit by a taxi tomorrow (settlement plus postponement of presentation! cha-ching!). Have I started making my ppt slides yet? No, I have not. Did I know this was going to happen? Yes, I did. Do I regret watching all of North and South: Book Two on DVD yesterday? Not really ... (oh, the Hazards and the Mains, dastardly Elkanah Bent, crazy Virgilia, that stirring soundtrack ...)

I Heart Turtles

I went for a run today at lunch time, down in the Fens, and what did I see? No less than fifteen painted turtle sunbathing on logs in the pond! I wished I had had a camera. They had their little necks all stretched out to the sun. So cute!

P-Town 6: The Last Hurrah

Joolya, for the love of all that is noodley, the graduate retreat is over - your hangover has got to be gone by now - there is no excuse for this anymore. It is seriously time to put away the laundry!

Awwwww, but maaaaaaaa ....

I'd tell you all about my weekend - but what happens in P-Town stays in P-Town!

9/12/07

I managed to get through the whole of yesterday without acknowledging the date at all, except for a quick reminiscence about riding my bike to work on a very sunny morning six years ago.

Take that, terrorists and people who want me to be afraid of more terrorists! Fuck all y'all; I block you out of my consciousness and think instead about my coworker's baby, site-directed mutagenesis, and small GTPases. I win.

Anyway. That's all for now.

Lab Notes

I saw this note on a common use centrifuge rotor today. What I most enjoy about it is the parenthetical commentary, which seems to have been written by someone other than the note's author (based on the crossed 'I' and less pointy 'A's).

Not known: whether anyone has risked it yet...

Joolya Resolves To Be Fit And Hard-working From Now On; No Seriously, She Means It This Time

This morning I joined the jogging throng. I hate, hate, jogging but it wasn't actually so bad now that it's over. I forgot how good a morning workout feels. Not to mention, the best part of it: the post-work out morning coffee. Ahhhhhh .... it can't be beat. When I was in college I'd get a lift from my mom, really early, and hit the gym before going to work. Then after my shower, I'd stop for a latte at this coffee stand which was a branch of the best espresso place in the city and that rush ... oh wow. I've never tried heroin but it can't be much better than this wonderful combination of endorphins+caffeine+mild dehydration+slight ketosis. Talk about euphoria! So I terminated my maiden voyage jog at the best coffee place in my neighborhood and had a blissful iced coffee on the walk back home. All is right with the world, and everything is sublimely beautiful.