The tadpoles have become a minor obsession. To tell you how bad things have gotten, I've actually been doing science on their behalf. I've been reading up on what they need to survive as far as food and water conditions – temp, pH, etc.

First, food – I read that the only thing they'll really eat at first are these little parameciums and protozoa, collectively called infusoria, that can be found in brackish water that has organic material in it – mature aquariums have them, as do ponds and other standing water. Water that's had cut flowers sitting in it is good, too. As it happened, I had access to all three of these sources – from the aquarium, the carnations sitting in my kitchen window, and the red cup of water out on the back deck. I combined the various types of water into a quart jar (resulting in a stinkade of impressive putrescence), added some dried-up lettuce and celery leaves, and a snail that was in the bag my neons came home in, and set it in the front window to grow tiny bugs.

Next, tank water. Thanks to the warmer weather, the temp's pretty much where it needs to be. As for the pH, I busted out my spa's test kit and found that the alkanity of the water they're in is a little too high – their ideal is 7.4 and they were at 7.8 or so. How could I get it down where it needed to be without risking use of something that might harm the tadpoles, or spending more money on aquarium chems? Out of curiousity, I also tested the infusoria water - and found that it was off-the-chart acidic. Eureka! Using the test kit again, I calculated the correct proportions of aquarium and infusoria water that, when mixed, would produce water of the ideal pH – and also contain all the protozoic pabulum my wee frog fry needed.

Yesterday I busted out Bill's vintage Bausch and Lomb microscope, which had been sitting in our garage thickly coated in dust. Amazingly, the light source still works fine and the lenses are clear as a bell. We didn't have any slides so I MacGyver'd one out of some clear poly sheet ripped from a snack food box. I put a drop of infusoria water on the makeshift slide, focused in it – and I'll be damned if there weren't all kinds of parameciums darting around in the water - round ones, oval ones, ones with all the little bits I remembered from biology class; cilia and vacuoles and nuclei – oh my! There are other critters as well – our favorites are some little guys that Wee says look like some splattery orange amoeba-esque tech company's logo (the name of which I'm blanking on at the moment….) In sum, plenty for the tads to munch on.

So yeah – I've gone and assigned myself a biology project. I fear I've broken the surly bonds of geek girl and powered straight on into computer-free Science Nerd. What the hell, though… My prediction is that I'm really on the cutting edge of the latest propellor-whirling trend – a backlash against this whole silicon-centric geekdom and a renaissance for good old fashioned life science!

What? It could happen. In the mean time, I'm having fun with my tiny pals, so it's all good. They're terribly cute - their eyes take up half their body; in the shine of my light-up magnifying glass (which Wee very kindly procured for me yesterday), they sparkle like green/gold/copper glitter, and they're big enough for us to see little speckled patterns on their backs, the proto-organs growing inside, and tiny white spots where their back legs will someday bud. I know they run on pure instinct, but it still seems to me like they chase and bump into each other on purpose every now and then as if they're playing (or, more likely, competing for snacks). I harvested a second batch of eggs this morning – so it's Tadpole: The Next Generation, coming soon to a screen near you!

It's tadpole madness at Casa del Tessenwee. 11-count-em-11 wriggling commas with eyes. The miracle of life! At least until they eat each other or something.

Design change, woo! Tess poke-n-hopes her way into figuring out how to alter stylesheets! =)

It's brighter, anyway - gotta give it that.

Also, I realized that I've been referring to our male frog by the wrong name - Instead of his proper name - Freewheelin' Franklin Freak, Esq. - 've been calling him Freddy, which was in fact our dearly departed algae eater's name. Frankly (heh), I doubt he cares, but I thought I'd set the record straight.

Thanks for all the thoughts, etc. on the "Shockabuku" entry. I've taken it down because, frankly, I meant to earlier - it was really more of a self-pitying rant than a cry for advice, although I do appreciate the perspectives that people provided. All is well in Tessland and I'm already getting caught up on stuff. I'm generally an even-keeled sort; I think posting the entry itself was representative of the "low point" that Wy mentioned, and now I'm rather self-conscious about the whole thing. So, moving on now...

As I mentioned in comments from a couple of entries ago, the frogs are officially parents-to-be - the eggs are sprouting. I'd scooped up the peppercorns into a separate container (good thing, since it appears that the others were subject to - what would you call it when one eats one's own children - pedophagy?); now about a half-dozen of them have developed into little apostrophes within the transparent sphere of their eggs. I'm not sure what I'm going to need to feed them when they hatch in a few days, but plan to surf the web and go to the pet store to see if they have anything appropriate. I give them about a .027% chance of making it, but it's kind of a fun science experiment.

Also, Freewheelin' Franklin has turned into quite the crooner in the past couple of days. Last night he was singing for hours. The sound is basically just one long rasping note that kind of sounds like one of those noisemakers with the metal box that spins around on a stick. I probably would have mistaken the sound for a filter pump noise if said pump hadn't have been turned off at the time. I'd read that amorous male ADF's sometimes busted out with the rhymes for their ladies, but it was still funny as hell to hear it. This page has a .wav file that sounds just like it (the 831 KB one), except that Franklin tends to let out just one long buzz instead of a few at a time.

Not a bad source of entertainment for $2.49 each, these froggies of mine. Way better than those sea monkeys I always wanted!

Heh... so I did my first Fark Photoshop entry... I'm so proud of it, I could weep.

I had to post my pic under Wee's name, because I was... well, sort of banned from Fark for posting an offsides pic. Dumb newbie mistake, really - who knew that a image of someone's brain getting eaten by maggots would be considered excessively offensive? It was on-topic, at least...

Anyway, to help you scroll down to the right place, mine was posted at this time: 2003-06-22 05:52:49 PM

I am teh Funny.

I've recently discovered that Franklin and Phineas were not destined to be brothers.

My first inkling as to the true dynamics of their relationship came when I caught the two of them in a clinch last week - Franklin had wrapped his arms around Phineas' waist (such as it is) and was holding on tight; all four of Phineas' feet were flippering rhythmically as they sat there, and I couldn't determine if the twitching should be interpreted as "Yes, baby, yes!" or "Someone get this asshat off me already." I tapped the glass and they broke it up. A couple of days later I saw them doing the same thing at the back of the tank, but they were more mobile - Phineas cruised around on the tank bottom while Franklin rode along boogieboard-stylee. Obviously, these two were up to some funny business.

A quick Google session soon provided me with a crash course in African Dwarf Frog Amour. The boogieboard clinch is apparently called amplexus; the male frog rides around on the female, prompting her to gestate a bellyful of eggs. Accordingly, Phineas has gotten really fat in recent days. There's no actual bumping of uglies in frog sex; the female shoots eggs out into the water and the male shoots out sperm to fertilize them. Supposedly this happens while they float around near the top of the tank doing little spirals (rather sounds like a scene from the newest Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas...).

However, the frogrobatics seem to have occured while I was napping, because this morning I looked into the tank and noticed that the surface is riddled with tiny black dots that look like poppy seeds. Frogasms have occured; the eggs have landed. Phineas has taken to floating at the surface, limbs splayed wide like shoots sprouting from her pale flowerbulb of a belly, as round as if she'd swallowed a pea. At first I thought she might be ailing because she looks pale and bloated and isn't moving much - but then I realized that this description was just as apt for many extremely pregnant human females. She swims around every now and then, so I believe all is good in the hood.

So there it is. Freewheelin' Franklin and Phineas Freak are getting their freak on - the Adam and Eve of our household, issuing forth wee peppercorns of love.

So I cleaned out the fish tank today (I suppose I should call it the frog tank now, since the frogs outnumber the fish two to one. Or did when the day started, at least.) Here's how it went down:

Unhooked filter tube from filter grid and removed lid from tank.
Toted tank over next to kitchen sink.
Scooped out a few inches worth of water (checked for critters before dumping) and removed bowl decorations in preparation for capturing and transferring occupants to temporary holding bowl.
Looked in tank to pinpoint location of frogs.
Saw one frog.
Did not see second frog.
Looked in tank again.
Still one frog.
Inspected decorations in case frog clung to one of them on the way out.
No frogs.
Repeated tank inspection approximately 27 dozen times, each time theorizing that I'd just been looking at the wrong angle or something, and that upon reinspection there would be two frogs.
One frog.
Emptied the kitchen sink of all dishes with thought that perhaps other frog did mad Superman-style leap out of tank when back was turned and was now huddling dejectedly in a puddle of last night's beer and chunks of World Famous.
No frog.
Peered into garbage disposal, thinking, "...?"
Put hand in garbage disposal.
Pulled hand back out in horror at unidentified nastiness encountered in dark scary place.
Decided that if frog was somehow in there, had only his damn self to blame for what was to happen next; got the water going and and flipped on the disposal.
Turned disposal off.
Thought to self, "What if frog was in there, but turned off disposal too soon, so that frog did not have quick thorough death but instead is only shredded and not-quite-dead?"
Quickly turned disposal back on to mercifully finish off frog if applicable.
Shuddered.
Went back to see if frog had magically appeared in tank.
One frog.
Inspected tank-toting route in case frog somehow snuck out without notice while tank was in my hands.
Sighed and gave up, caught singular frog and algae-eater (alas, poor Freddy... but I'm getting ahead of myself) and deposited them in temporary bowl.
Scooped rocks away from filter grid at bottom of bowl and removed.
One frog.

The little bastard had somehow managed to worm his way under the filter grid when I moved the tank, probably through the hole where the tube goes. This probably should have occured to me, but instead I spent over a half-hour in complete brain cramp over the impossibly missing amphibian. "He has to be there! He's not there. Where is he? He has to be there! He's not there. Where is he? He has to be..." The influence of a fair-to-middling hangover may or may not be pertinent to the question of why I remained in a state of flabbergastitude over the disappearing frog trick for so long. None the less, I must say I'm happy that he reappeared and was not, for example, julienned by the Dispos-All.

However, not all denizens of the tank were destined to survive this day. Upon completing the tank cleaning, refilling it and depositing the the Freak brothers back into it, I soon noticed that Freddy was acting strange - twitching and spiralling around jerkily in the water. I realized that something about the new water - change in temperature, pH balance, whatever - was sending him into shock, so I quickly grabbed the net and got him out, plunking him back into the temp bowl. Woefully, however, by that time Freddy had given up the ghost and joined Master Bluto in the Great Watery Beyond. Sorry about that, pal.

The frogs seem fine, though, which is a relief. I gave them some salmon bits tonight in apology for the stress and the loss of Freddy. The first time I saw one of the frogs eat, I thought it was dying. They eat as if they're having seizures - a series of violent twitches forward which shove their mouths into the food and vice versa. They loves them a tasty bit of fish, I've found. I briefly considered freezing Freddy and chopping him into tiny froggy canapes, but soon concluded that feeding a fallen soldier to his comrades in tank would be rather an offsides thing to do.

Rest in peace, Freddy. May you spend a blissful eternity sucking celestial scum off the Pearly Gates.

I just realized that I'm remiss in failing to announce the untimely passing of Master Bluto Wasabi Cap'n Bob Betta this past Sunday.

He succumbed to what I believe was a combination of velvet (a type of parasitic infection common to Bettas) and sort of white body fungus that can take hold when they're sick and lose the gelcoat that covers their scales. I began treating him as soon as I noticed the fungus, but it spread literally within hours, and by the time he went to the Big Pond in the Sky he looked like something that had been left in the fridge about a month too long. Nasty. We performed the traditional burial at sea.

Pescadito, I'm glad to report, is still faring well. We've had no more farewell-cruel-world incidents, and he's lacing the water surface with bubble nests, which are a sign of a well-adjusted boy betta. Bettas are apparently quite enlightened in terms of gender roles, since it's the male that creates the nest in which the wee fry hatch and grow. Their procreation is strictly a one-night stand affair, apparently - the female cruises by and drops off some eggs, and she's on her way. As I anticipate no romantic interludes in 'Dito's future, however, I just hope he doesn't grow to realize that his efforts are in vain and go all kamikaze on me again...

So here's my first effort at a TrackBack...(or possibly my second - not sure if the first one worked so I deleted the entry and started over). How exactly this blog feature works is kind of confusing to me; I feel like such a wannabe geek... albeit that, according to the official Geek Quiz... , I'm at least a "Major Geek" (my score was 36.68639%. Give or take.).

At any rate - just wanted to say that I'm gratified that the hookup I offered up for the "Dancing Barefoot" promo effort seems to be a source of some excitement.

So there's some song you've heard a bunch of times, and sometimes you sing along, even though the words don't always seem to make a bunch of sense - at least, the words you think the singer is singing... and then, one day, you read the actual lyrics, and you realize you've totally misheard one of the lines and were singing something totally different, and probably kind of bizarre. My friend, you've created yourself a .

Some of the ones that spring to my mind first are not radio songs, but songs from commercials... If you grew up west of the Rockies, you might remember commercials for Cal Worthington car dealerships? "If you need a car or truck, go see Cal? If you need a car or truck, go see Cal? Buy a new car for your wife, she will love you all her life, go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal"? These commercials featured Cal himself, resplendent in his signature ten-gallon white hat and matching white suit, posing amidst his cars with "his dog, Spot", the latter of whom was represented by a variety of exotic animals. For this reason, I believed he'd incorporated animals in his song as well. So, where the song went "go see Cal", I thought he was singing... well... "pussy cow." As in that's what he was calling the customer to whom he was singing. Like "pussy cat", see, but with a cow. "Buy a new car for your wife, she will love you all her life, pussy cow, pussy cow, pussy cow..." Yeah, I know... but let's bear in mind that I was only, like, 7 years old, and my mind had yet to sink to its current gutter level. "Pussy cow" seemed like a perfectly reasonable term of endearment to someone growing up in a cowtown like Klamath Falls.

Another one was the "Transformers" commercial - "Transformers, more than meet the eye/Transformers, robots in disguise"... I heard "disguise" as "in the skies". Transformers, robots in the skies! It was kind of a scary image, like the scenes from the future in Terminator, or War of the Worlds. Robots in the skies - run for your lives!

So let's have it - what are some of the songs you've created your own mondegreen for?

Stress, stress, stress.

In the manufacturing world, the buyer is the person who transforms design and planning into actual physical product to feed the production line. In other words, we have the potential to be either a saving grace or a major blockage in the pipeline to the entire manufacturing effort. One slip on delivery can result in a whole crew of assemblers sitting on their asses (the dreaded "line down" that all manufacturers fear), and thousands to millions of dollars of billable shipments falling behind schedule, sometimes with customer performance penalties on top of it all.

Right now, I feel as if I'm much more the clog than the Roto-Rooter. I'm behind, behind, behind on everything – partially due to unrealistically short lead times requested by the planners (often prompted by insanely aggressive delivery promises made to customers), partially due to backlogs on the suppliers' parts… but also, sadly, due to my lack of proper prioritization and initiative to get things moving. I've been slacking, ladies and gentlemen, and there's no excuse for it other than general ennui and lack of psychological motivation. This job is, to say the least, not the sort that gels well with being a chronic procrastinator, and yet on my list of personality flaws, procrastination is pretty much right at the top. (I've been meaning to work on my promptness issues, I just haven't quite gotten… OK, crappy joke, never mind).

I guess there's a part of me that's just tends to chafe under the yoke of constant, unrelenting pressure to get several things done at once (and save money doing them!) - as much of a multitasker as I am by nature, still the pressure of having many irons in the fire simultaneously can be tough to bear. Worse, my reflex response is to drag my heels on the things that seem onerous - which, sadly, tend to be the most important things as well. Obviously, I realize that I'm screwing myself in the long run by behaving this way – in fact, I pretty much exponentially increase my stress levels by leaving things to the last minute and then scrambling frantically to get them done. But it just seems sometimes as if I need that sense of panic kicking me in the ass in order to motivate me. There's a song in the play "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" where Charlie's lamenting over a book report:

"I'll get a fresh start tomorrow
And it's not due till Wednesday
So I'll have all of Tuesday
Unless something should happen.
Why does this always happen,
I should be outside playing
Getting fresh air and sunshine,
I work best under pressure,
And there'll be lots of pressure
If I wait till tomorrow…"

This could be my theme song. Procrastination via denial and justification, followed by motivation via fear of consequences, with a lovely glaze of guilt over the whole mess. Sad way to conduct business, really. But there it is!

They say recognizing a problem is halfway toward solving it. That other half certainly can be a bitch, though...

My birthday started out as sheer crap.

I suppose one should account for the fact that having raging, flaming PMS does not a fun day make, even – or one might argue especially when – the day in question is one's birthday. Still, the inherent badness of the Curse of the Evil Ovary was compounded by a variety of equally annoying factors that, when combined, stepped up the Suck Factor exponentially.

One small example: when one notices that one has dry scaly-looking feet, and one is late for work, one really should still take a moment to consider whether one should attempt to moisturize them using hair balm which – while perfectly fine to use on skin as well as hair – happens to have silicon and silk proteins in it. For those that don't know, there's nothing slicker than silicon-based lubricant – that's why it makes hair so soft and smooth. This frictionless wonder is not so great, however, for surfaces that need a certain amount of friction to function correctly – like feet. Especially feet that are subsequently placed into slip-on woven-top mule sandals with shiny patent-leather footpads. The end result of this lack of prior consideration may well be that of one's feet repeatedly careening sideways off the sandals, the hard wooden edges of the sole embedding themselves into one's tender footflesh as one tries to hobble out the door in them anyway because they're the only pair of decent brown sandals one has and one is late and has no time to change. The stuff finally came off, but my feet were sore for the rest of the day.

Compounding the monthly troubles was another painful malady that we'll just label "misc" – mentionable only because it contributed substantially to my general sense of misery. The net result was that I felt terrible and desperately didn't want to be at work, even though my presence was required in order to tackle the various snafus du jour. I would have at least taken half a sick day if it wouldn't have appeared that I was just shirking duty to go have fun on my birthday. At lunch I went home to tend to some things – Bill was working from home, which I didn't know but was glad about because I was very much in need of comforting, especially after I burst into tears out of misery and discomfort and generally feeling sorry for myself. As cliché as it sounds, I so needed a good hug, and luckily for me, my favorite pair of arms were available.

Wee had gone to the trouble of making reservations for us at a nice restaurant that night, but given the circumstances we cancelled them and he instead made me a lovely at-home dinner with a bunch of sinful stuff that I requested, like hamburgers and tater tots and Cherry Garcia ice cream. He also outdid his usually excellent gift-selecting – I got three books that I'm dying to read: "The Matrix and Philosophy" (could there be a more fitting book for me, given my recent posts?); "Dark Star Safari" - Paul Theroux's latest travel book, about Africa; and "Deckscaping", to give me yet more inspirations for cluttering up the back deck. I also got the first season DVD of the brilliant BBC sitcom "Coupling", and my big present – joy! – was a Cuisinart electric knife. I've been coveting one ever since we started watching "Good Eats" and saw Alton zipping through turkeys, roasts and breads with the greatest of ease. Not one of these things was something I asked for or even hinted at – in fact I didn't know most of them existed – but they were all things that would have been at the top of my wish list had I known about them. Wee rocks! =) Later on, I got calls from my brother Thom (a very nice surprise, that), and my parents. We watched "Adaptation", which is a really clever movie – definitely worth seeing if you haven't already. I drank the better part of a bottle of champagne (hic) garnished with tiny homegrown strawberries.

So, as it turned out, my birthday went from bad to better to downright good as the day fell into night… and it's all because I have a very excellent husband watching out for me and making things OK.

I had a fun few pre-birthday days too – my girlfriends and I got together on Friday night for a birthday celebration of wine and appetizers and lots of good ol' gossip; on Saturday we had fun hanging out with Todd and Wy, and Wee made some kick-ass seared ahi on the grill; on Sunday I bought another frog to keep Freewheelin' Franklin company (the new frog's name is Phineas; the algae eater must therefore, of course, be Freddy. It's a theme, you see). The tank is all the better for having dual frogging action now. I'm crazy about the frogs, with their little webbed feet and aquabatic Tai-Chi poses.

Anyway, another birthday down. I'm older than I've ever been, and now I'm even older, and now I'm even older, and now I'm even older, I've older than I've ever been and now I'm even older, and now I'm older still…