I guess it's been maybe three summers ago now that I ventured out into the front yard with my new digital camera and decided to see what interesting things I could find. I had been exploring the macro feature so I'd been taking pictures of bees and crickets and having a pretty good time, and then I went over to my white rose bush (Pope John Paul II, big blossoms and wonderful fragrance, if you're a rose lover) and saw something I'd never seen before:
My reaction was something like "WTF!!??". There it was, staring at me, looking like it was going to pounce and rip my face off at any second. I'm not ashamed to admit it, spiders freak me the hell out. They can be fascinating from a distance, but they'd better not even THINK about trying to touch me. Ew ew ew ew ew ew.
Anyway, I'd never seen a spider like this before. Pretty much anyone who lives in the NW, or I guess anywhere besides the Sahara or Antarctica, is used to spiders. You know, like those giant black ones that like to park on the ceiling right over your bed? Or maybe they just do that to me. Either way, I really do NOT appreciate it. That's just sadistic.
But I digress........so, this was something I'd never seen before so I got online and found out that it's a Crab spider. This is a large family of related spiders that use ambush hunting instead of webs to catch their prey. Apparently my yard is home to the genus Misumena, commonly known as flower crab spiders. This site has some great info and pics: http://bugguide.net/node/view/1957/bgpage
So I spent day after day running out to the yard during that summer looking for more of these amazing little beasts and suddenly I was seeing them everywhere! I got this next shot one day when the current resident of my white rosebush had just caught a bee and was having a grand time sucking the juice out of that poor thing. Spent a good hour on it, then callously tossed it to the ground. Oh, cruel spider, how cold is your heart......
Since my yard has flowers in abundance, I started finding crab spiders just about everywhere I looked, and this genus has the ability to alter, to some degree, the color of its body to match the flower it's sitting on. Like this little guy lurking on a sunflower:
And this one on the brick-red rosebush in the back (Hot chocolate is the name. Very hardy and disease-resistant):
Apparently the overall body colors of the kind of spider I have are limited to white, yellow, and pale green, but you can see that this one has stripes on its legs and body that match the flower color. Here's the same spider a few days later. Om nom nom nom:
I even found a baby practicing its technique in the spikes of an echinacea:
One of these days, if you happen to have a good camera, go out in your yard, or to a park, or a public garden. It's amazing what you'll find when you stop and look. There's a whole little world out there, going about its business under our feet, all around us. Explore it, enjoy it, get lost in it. :)
So Thursday evening I went to see the Krishna Das & Deva Premal & Miten Tour at the Crystal Ballroom. This concert, like any other, would not be to everyone's taste, but I really enjoyed it overall. There are two videos below if you want to know what sort of music it was. I also was prompted to think about several things that made me consider the ways in which I have changed over the years.
Let me first set the scene: If you haven't been to the Crystal Ballroom it's a huge, well, ballroom. High, high ceilings, ornate walls, and a wood floor with springs underneath, which apparently has something to do with ballroom dancing and can be quite unsettling to walk on if you're not prepared for it. Now imagine this room filled with hippies. Not the kind you're thinking.......in fact I'm pleased to report that I did not catch a single whiff of patchouli the entire night. Seriously, if I never smell patchouli or Nag Champa again as long as I live........
Anyhoo, these were not, for the most part, the young hippies you'd imagine in their patchwork skirts and tinkly ankle bracelets and beaded dreadlocks. This was real hippies, the folks who are now grandparents and CEOs and librarians and college professors. Rotund, round-cheeked ladies in their ankle-length dresses and batiked shawls, gray-haired guys with respectable sweaters and pressed slacks. This was the first time I've experienced what I would consider a hippie festival that was attended almost entirely by grownups. All my past festivals have been drum circles and unleashed dogs and naked kids running amok, Guati-pants and jester hats, dudes trying to trade handmade pipes for a couple hits of acid, insidious clouds of The Official Fragrance of Peace chasing you like some soul-sucking banshee. And seriously, who made the rule that patchouli is a required part of the uniform? Kids, there are a lot of scents in the world, and many of them are quite lovely. You really should try a couple of them some time. Unless you're afraid to be different.........you know, as you rebel against conformity.
So there I was, experiencing grooviness as an adult for the first time. It was pretty nice, I have to say. It was also a bit.......unsettling is not the right word, but I had to make some mental adjustments. There were younger folks wandering around, many of them obviously part of the same social group because there was the requisite hugging that hippies do. It's like a really friendly handshake, but groovier. I'll explain when you're older. So I found myself thinking that 25 to 30 years ago I would have been walking around hugging too, I would know who had the best buds, I would know about whatever get-together was happening afterward at so-and-so's house. But there I was, a 37-year-old who was not part of this clan. I don't think I look mainstream, but I look different enough that those young hippie eyes slid right over me. There was no trace of the recognition I would have once seen, that glimmer of "Hey, you're one of us". I'm not one of them anymore. And I think I'm just fine with that.
And then I was led to think about my ex-husband. One of the first things we bonded over was our mutual love of music that was, at least at the time, quite esoteric. My favorite at the time was Huun-Huur-Tu. One of his favoriteswas Krishna Das. There are times, now and then, when I am in a certain place or doing something and I really wish he was there to share it with me. So far I haven't found another man to fill that place in my life, but I still hope. :)
And maybe the people who know me well will understand what I'm going to say next: I went all by myself. Yep, just me. I never go to events by myself. Offhand, I really can't remember the last time I went to a concert or something large like this without someone with me; a friend, a boyfriend. It's hard to explain, but maybe some of you will understand. I'm timid, I always have been. I'm self-conscious, insecure. I feel totally exposed and awkward in a large group of people who don't know me. But this time I did it, and I enjoyed it. Sure, it would have been nice to have a special someone sitting next to me. Instead it was an old Jewish guy who was totally grooving out to the chants, which was pretty sweet.
So that was my night. I'm glad I went. It feels good to feel good.
Okay, I saw this video online this morning. It shows some motorcycle cops apparently trying to get a group of protesters to move along, to where I'm not sure. This protest was in response to the shooting of a man in Hoyt Arboretum the other day, which I talked about a couple of posts back. Watch the video, and then let me express some thoughts.
So I see several motorcycle cops trying to move a crowd of people in a specific direction. And they are being very intimidating. This is how police are typically trained to behave in non-violent crowd control situations. Have you ever seen mounted police clearing the streets after Mardi Gras? Now that's intimidation, and that's how they are trained.
What really disturbed me most was not the video itself but some of the comments left by viewers. Some of them confuse me, some of them downright scare me, and I have to talk about this because I think it demonstrates some pretty serious problems with our society. I will post some of the comments, names excluded of course, and then my responses. No one has to agree with me. I don't see myself as some mighty fountain of wisdom or truth. It's just how I think and feel.
"the cop clearly felt like he had to instigate the situation, he drove his motorcycle into the protestors to harrass them, not serve and protect, these cops are ignorant dirty cops."
Okay, this person seems to believe that the cop deliberately hit the pedestrian's bicycle. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Ignorant and dirty? I don't really understand what this is supposed to mean. "These cops", which I guess means every cops who was involved in crowd control that evening? They are ignorant and dirty. I'm guessing that whoever left this comment doesn't know any of these officers personally and does not have firsthand knowledge of their personal hygiene habits, so that part makes no sense. As far as ignorant.....ignorant about what? If people are going to stand up and say what they believe, I wish they would make more of an effort to speak concisely and accurately.
"They are probably breaking laws everyday themselves, which is so common, and the fact that we have a cop instigating violence into the crowd, there should be a criminal investigation into the total outstanding conduct of the police of that district.. Any good lawyer would stand up to these cops and screw them"
If you are aware of, and have evidence of, specific acts of criminal behavior by law enforcement officers, this needs to be presented to the proper authorities. I'm going to guess that this person doesn't have said evidence. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows? This kind of reminds me of some biopic I saw a few years back about the guys from the band Oasis. There was some video clip of Noel Gallagher talking about and defending drug use during a radio interview and one of his comments was "There's people in the Houses of Parliament, man, who are bigger heroin addicts and cocaine addicts than anyone in this room right now. And it's all about honesty at the end of the day.". The Prime Minister made a statement soon after saying that if any member of Parliament were to be found to be using drugs he wanted to know about it and they would be prosecuted and removed from their positions immediately. Gallagher later made a statement that he was just trying to make a point, and actually had no personal knowledge of drug use by any member of Parliament. So I look at the comment about cops "probably breaking laws every day" and I think, are you speaking from personal knowledge here, or are you just talking out your ass because throwing a fit and being self-righteous is more fun than researching facts?
"um, i think...who would ever side with the freaking police who spend all their time pulling people over and giving them tickets for parking on the wrong side of the road, when freaking kids are killing each other on the streets., its just fd up..cops suck sometimes."
Wait, that's all cops ever do? Pull people over and hand out tickets? They don't investigate anything? They don't arrest husbands who just beat their wives to death? They don't have to look at murdered babies and women who have been raped? They don't respond when someone breaks into your home? They don't go home at night and cry with frustration, and drink to block out the horrors they've seen? Well, who's doing all that stuff then? And which kids are we talking about here? The ones killing each other on the streets.......police don't investigate that? I could have sworn they did. Or maybe they're supposed to use their psychic powers to predict the exact time and location of every gang shooting and get there in time to stop it? Maybe that's the problem....the cops are refusing to look into the future and prevent crimes that haven't happened yet. I don't see what this person is trying to say. Are they just mad because they got a ticket and now the whole police force deserves condemnation?
"It further showcases the mentality of the Portland Police Bureau - these people were protesting the police shooting of a homeless man (who the PPB originally said was brandishing a knife, and now say it was a "razor blade"), and what do the police do? Try to run them over."
Sigh. Okay, first of all, I can assure you that if the cop intended to run him over, dude would have been fully run over. At :11 you see the front wheel of the motorcycle hit the rear wheel of the bicycle. At :12 I see the officer hit his brakes. As in, he stops. I'm not understanding how Stopping = Running over. So the cop fully stops his motorcycle, and as far as I can see the pedestrian whose bike was hit was not knocked down, there was no contact with anyone's body, and I hear in the background "Look what you did! Look what you did!". Um, I think he bumped into someone's bicycle. I honestly cannot see anything here that's worth freaking out about, but maybe I missed something. Just so we're clear: Applying the breaks equals a deliberate attempt to run someone over. Everyone got that? And by the way, how many of you would not be in any way frightened by someone threatening you with a razor blade? It would scare the living shit out of me. Just saying. Razor blades can kill people. Fact. Did the cops have any other way to handle the situation? I have no freakin' clue! I wasn't there!
" Should of used a brick. Fuck power hungry crooked cops."
This comment referring to one of the protesters who lobbed a bicycle at the cop's head after he bumped the other dude. Okay........soooooo, if a cop hurts someone (or just bumps into them) it's bad. But if someone hurts a cop, it's really good. Because cops aren't human. Bet you didn't know that. Yeah, they're kind of like Jews in that respect: they pretend to be human, but they're really an evil sub-race trying to control the world. Yes, I also think that's a completely stupid, horrible, and wrong thing to say, and it was actually very difficult for me to type it, but an unfortunate number of people seem to think this way. Oh, how easy it can be to see a group of people not as individuals but as some nameless faceless mass who can be seen as having the same thoughts, the same ethics, the same morals. And all deserving of the same punishment when a few commit wrongs.
I will admit freely that there are absolutely police officers who are very dangerous, screwed up people. They are violent, racist, aggressive, sexually deviant, maybe psychotic or sociopathic, and these people absolutely should not be cops and there need to be better means of preventing these people from working in law enforcement. However, there are also police officers who are honest, honorable, sensitive, dedicated.....everything a cop should be. Why doesn't anyone stage a march when a police officer does something wonderful? When a cop drags someone out of a burning car or saves someone from being raped or beaten to death? We get all up in arms, grab our balaklavas and bongos and head to the streets when a cop does something wrong, or possibly wrong. But when they do something right, when they save another human being's freakin' life? Eh, who cares? Why bother showing appreciation, it's not like they have feelings. It's not like anyone should feel appreciated for risking their lives every damn day.
It's so damn easy to judge. I do it, we all do it to some degree. But I think many people just don't think about stepping back and looking at an issue from different angles. They don't think to investigate, to look for facts, to look for different perspectives. I'm not just talking about police behavior, I mean any sensitive issue. There are some people, I think, who really don't want to look at facts. I think perhaps some people enjoy being angry and indignant. They like feeling morally superior and self-righteous. And hey, that's just fine, as long as you know what you're talking about. If someone says "I know that man was unarmed and could easily have been apprehended without use of force", okay!!! I'm all for that!! But "Um, cops suck".....yeah, not so much. used to think along the same lines, though not in a violent way. Then I married a cop and I understood more than I can ever say.
And I have to say something else: Nothing I could ever do would enable me to understand what it's like to be a black person, or Hispanic person, or Arabic person, or any other non-white person living in the city of Portland. Yes, I have seen firsthand that, at least sometimes, non-white people are treated differently by police officers than white people. Does every single cop in the city behave this way? I have no idea, I have never had the opportunity to watch every single cop in the city in action. Yes, people treat different kinds of people in different ways. It's how this behavior manifests itself that matters. Yes, there are police officers who will pull over a nice car because a black person is driving it. My last ex was half Japanese and he had black hair and fairly dark brown skin. During the 6 or so months he drove my old Mazda he was pulled over at least 3 times in town for "random checks". During the 8 years I, a white female, drove that car I was not pulled over once. That definitely says something, I cannot and will not deny it.
So how 'bout it? Is there anyone who would be interested in organizing a thank-you march for all the law enforcement officers who do a good job and sacrifice their safety and family lives for us? Or should we just take them for granted and only acknowledge their existence when they do something wrong? It's a serious question, though it is tinged with some bitterness. I've seen the toll the job can take on a person and their loved ones. They're not all bad. Some are, but many are not. They're just people, they're just like us.
Didn't everyone do this at least once back in school, when you all grab an edge of a parachute, list it up as high as you can, and then pull it down and all try to run underneath and giggle your butt off?
So why on earth don't we do stuff like that anymore? Well, besides the fact that most of us don't happen to have an extra parachute laying around, I can't think of a good reason why I haven't done this in over 20 years. I loved it! I giggled 'til I almost peed my pants! Why do so many of us lose our sense of play as we get older? Sure, we get busy, we have jobs and kids and obligations, but I know I could find an afternoon to play like i did when I was a kid. Have to be a bit more careful of course, what with my back always going out and my knees making those icky crunchy noises, but you know what I mean.
Why aren't we out in the park playing with parachutes, or playing Twister (again, risk of back injury, but I accept the danger) or squeezing our flabby old carcasses into swimsuits and getting out the old Slip n' Slide, or building forts out of sofa cushions and old bedsheets? Okay, those of you with kids might play a bit more than I do, but I think a lot of us have forgotten how to play and just be joyful in the moment, be silly and spazzy and fall down and scrape our knees and climb trees and roll down grassy hills until we're too dizzy to stand up.
I guess I'm just missing that time in my life more than usual today. The sun's coming out, the grass is green, I smell spring in the air, and I want to go out and play. After which I will probably have to take a mega-dose of Advil and try not to move for a day or two, but I think it's worth it :)
So my parents just surprised me this morning with a copy of "Identification Of Pathological Conditions In Human Skeletal Remains". I'd first seen this book a year or so ago when one of my professors at Clark, Dr. John Lundy, loaned me his copy for a few days, and ever since I've been lusting for it, but the price tag of roughly $150 kept it out of reach. Bless my parents.
This book is a surprisingly engaging collection of photos and analysis of the various diseases, injuries, infections, and congenital and nutritional disorders that can affect the human skeleton, often it quite horrifying ways. I don't yet know what the legal implications might be of scanning and posting pictures from the book, so I will hold off until I find out. It describes and illustrates the potential skeletal effects of everything from syphilis to tuberculosis, cancer to malnutrition, fractures to trepanation. The specimens seem to be mainly from a period between around 1500 A.D. to the late 19th century, though there are some that are much older.
I have to admit that as I sat in the park today, reading away and enjoying the sunshine, I realized that I had forgotten how absolutely heartbreaking this book can be. The detached scientist in me is fascinated by bone, the beauty and elegance of its structures, and how it can heal and adapt when confronted with the most horrible traumas and infections, but the other part of me that is far more empathetic just wanted to cry. I can't even imagine what life could have been like for a teenager whose face was being eaten away by syphillis, or a young woman whose spine was bent at nearly a 90 degree angle due to the destructive effects of tuberculosis, or the middle-aged woman whose scalp was torn off when her hair was caught in a weaving machine and who lingered for 8 months until finally succumbing to overwhelming infection, or the man whose skull was pried apart by an enemy's sword, and yet he clearly lived for many years afterward with this awful gaping inch-wide fissure in his head. All these people whose joints are calcified masshapen masses, whose skulls are pitted and fissured, whose fingers have rotted away. It breaks my heart, and also amazes me, that so many of these people survived for years with conditions that must have caused constant pain, that left them barely able to walk, to eat. I can only assume that they had someone to care for them, but there must have been many who did not, and it's such an awful thought.
Those of us in the comfortable, middle-class modern world can easily forget how blessed we are to have antibiotics, emergency rooms, machines that can see inside our bodies, clean operating rooms and skilled surgeons, but there are also millions of people all over the world who don't have these things, who still die of rampant infections, bacterias, venereal diseases, malnutrition, parasites. I think this is one of the many reasons that I've chosen to study the remains of the dead: to see so much suffering in the living would, I think, be more than I could ever bear.
I'll will try to find out if I can reproduce some of the illustrations here, and if so I'll post them as soon as possible.
For some reason I suddenly found myself wide awake at 4 a.m. this morning so I took my grumpy self upstairs and got online. I went to Yahoo to check the latest local headlines and saw this article:
Now those of you who don't live nearby probably have not heard of the officer-involved shootings that have occurred in the Portland area of late. I've been searching on Google for a while and have yet to be able to find any concrete reports on the number of officer-involved shootings in Portland over the last, say, ten years or so, so I can't really form an opinion on whether the number seems excessive or not, but there have been several highly publicized cases that have drawn quite a bit of attention and controversy.
I feel like the protesters in the above article may have been a bit hasty. The shooting only occurred yesterday afternoon and is still being investigated, so I'm not sure whether these people were protesting known facts or just assuming that the officer who was involved had to have been in the wrong. I'm not saying that shooting someone is a god thing, but there seems to be an attitude developing in the city that worries me.
All of this really centers around my own experiences with law enforcement and how my views have changed over the years. Yeah, I was once a little hippie who thought cops were storm troopers who liked to push people around and pick on the little guy. And then I became very close to someone who worked in law enforcement and my perspective shifted radically.
If you've never been a cop, or been related to or close friends with a cop, you probably don't know, and maybe haven't stopped to think about, what their lives are like. I think many of us forget that police officers, like everyone else, are just human beings. They get specialized training, but that doesn't make them superhuman. It doesn't make them immune to sadness, rage, fear, depression, stress, panic, emotional exhaustion. Think about it.
Imagine yourself in a job where you are routinely cursed at, screamed at, insulted, spit on, peed on, and vomited on. At any moment you might be confronted with someone who wants to punch you, stab you, shoot you, beat you to death. On any given day you might see women beaten so badly they're unrecognizable, children beaten, burned, sexually abused, murdered. Drug addicts dead under bushes, in parks, under bridges.....people who were once someone's baby, and now they're just a lump of flesh that, likely as not, no one will come to claim.
Imagine yourself in a job where you're surrounded by people who might need you at any moment. If you don't arrive fast enough someone might die, or kill. Or you might race through traffic, siren blaring and heart racing, to find that an elderly person thought they heard a burglar outside for the 11th time this week, or someone doesn't want to pay for their dinner because the cole slaw wasn't to their liking. You think people don't call the cops for things like that? Oh I assure you they do.
I have no idea what exactly happened today that resulted in a man being shot dead. All the news reports have said so far is that there was a man with a knife. There are two reason why I'm not forming any opinion on the rightness or wrongness of the actions taken by police today: One, I don't know what happened. I didn't see it myself and I haven't a yet seen any media reports giving much detail. Two, I know that there are times when taking someone down by force is the only option. I can't even speculate on why the officer chose to fire, but I accept that there are some very legitimate reason why he or she could have decided that there was no other option.
I guess the basic thought behind all this is that it is very easy to judge the correctness of someone's actions in a situation that you yourself were not in. It is very easy, not in small part thank to what information the media chooses to present to us, to see police officers as trigger-happy, violent, racist. And there are probably a number of cops who are. Just like there are some doctors who should not be doctors, some teachers who should not be teachers. In every profession there are those who are clearly not suited to their position, who may be downright criminal, and these folks often gain the most attention, which unfortunately tends to draw attention away from all the others who do their jobs wonderfully, skillfully, carefully.
I just wish more people would take more time to consider what the world looks like through other people's eyes, how it might feel to walk in their shoes. I wish more people did not see the evening news as complete and ultimate truth, and took the time to try to see what's really going on. It's so easy to judge, but what are we basing those judgements on? No, really, what exactly are we basing those judgements on? I think that there might be a police officer who is going to remember this day forever, and get no joy from that memory, and until you're in a similar situation, whatever that may have been, maybe just take a minute to consider what you might have done. What you really might have done. We like to think of ourselves always doing the "right thing" in various scary situations, but when we finally find ourselves in one of those situations we sometimes don't live up to our own expectations.
Ugh, I can't tell if I'm expressing myself clearly or not. I really shouldn't attempt to be coherent at this time of the morning. Well anyway, here's another article I found that was interesting. Not posting it as truth, just another perspective. Make up your own minds. Just try to do it wisely.
So last summer, sometime in late July or early August, I took a day trip out to the Western edges of Central Oregon, since I realized that in eight years in the area, and all the exploring I had done, this was a region I had yet to explore.Those of you who haven't ventured over there before, or who think of Oregon as nothing but lush forests, towering mountains, and endless rains, will be amazed and enchanted by the sights to be found over there. If you love geology, history, or just plain exploration, this is a trip I highly recommend.
Pick a clear summer day (early summer if you have a low tolerance to heat) and head East up the Gorge on 84. When you reach The Dalles head South on 197. You'll have realized by now that this is not the wet green Oregon that many of us are used to. The terrain in this area is a geological wonder: layer after layer of basalt, flood plains, ash deposits, you'll see it all as you wind through this harshly beautiful landscape. Pillar basalt is one of the more fascinating volcanic structures, and there's plenty of it to be seen.
This area also hosts stretches of the Oregon Trail, and I had to wonder what it must have been like to try to make a living in such a rocky, dry, somewhat inhospitable place. The heat was truly brutal when I was in the area, easily over 100, and I can't imagine farming, plowing, harvesting, herding in such a climate. As I understand it cattle ranching became one of the primary means of subsistence out there, but I am certainly no expert on the history of the area.
Keep heading South until you see signs for 97, or for the town of Shaniko. It's one of many little towns in the area that have maintained some of the frontier feel, and a few of the frontier buildings. All the buildings I saw were either restored for people to visit, or sitting on someone's private land. I always try to respect other people
Past Shaniko you hit the town of Antelope and head East again on 218. This will take you past some State-managed fossil beds, which are well-marked and worth pulling over for. Wander on 218 for a while and you'll go through the town of Fossil. At this point, if you want to start wandering home, look for signs for 19 North toward Mayville and Condon. This will get you back to 84.
There are all sorts of lovely sights along the way. I fell in love with this old barn and fence. There were the most wonderful smells in the air that day, brought out by the heat perhaps: mountain sage, dust, dry grass, the occasional whiff of cow, hints of pine and rust.
Along the way I caught sight of the rare Mountain Cow. They looked vicious so I kept my distance. They have those long, pointy teeth, you know........
Like I said, if you love geology this is the place to be. My untrained eye determined these gorgeous crags and spires to be old ash deposits, but please correct me, or add more info if you know it.
On the way back you might also see the wind farms rising over these glowing hilly fields. And If the timing and the weather are right you might get to watch a gorgeous sunset as you make your way back up the Gorge.
I can't describe how wonderful and lovely and eye-opening it was to go from green trees and mossy hills to stark yet lush hills, painted gold and red and deep green. Do it this summer. You won't be sorry.
P.S. If anyone's wondering, I did in fact take all the photos here, and I'm rather proud of some of them. I'm not ashamed to admit I like to show off from time to time :) Yes, they're clickable if you want larger views.
Just found out that the Wailin' Jennys will be coming to town!! I've heard them many times on Prarie Home Companion and have wanted to see them live for ages, and finally I will! If you aren't familiar with them, here's a taste:
Some of you locals may know of and appreciate all the great bands featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting. For anyone who hasn't explored the NW music scene, check out some of the bands featured here: http://opbmusic.org/performances
So about 5 years ago a friend gave me a big outdoor planter/bowl thingy and some goldfish. They were fairly happy out there in their big dish, next to the front door in the sun, but I finally broke down and decided to buy a real fishtank. The last time I had a fish was back in Nome. I was perhaps 5 years old, and of course my mom had to do the cleaning and feeding duties, since I had more important things to do like dig holes in the yard and listen to Jesus Christ Superstar on the hi-fi. Yeah, baby.....8-track deck, am/fm radio, turntable, fake wood speakers.. We knew how to live it up back in the day.
And then one day my goldfish (we're still in my childhood, here) is discovered floating, thoroughly dead, on the surface of his little tank, so mom flushed him, I was sad for a few hours, and I went on my way secure in the knowledge that fishie just lived out his days and nature took its course. Little did I know. Not too many months ago, a good 30 years after my first pet had met his maker, my mother apparently forgets her original cover story and revealed that she was cleaning his tank one day and accidentally refilled it with hot water and cooked the poor little guy alive. Oh the cruel truths that adults keep from us!! Maybe it was best that my little mind was not polluted with images of a helpless goldfish screaming his last, but I am amused by how we are sometimes forced to rewrite bits of our histories.
So anyway, I hadn't really been interested in owning more fish since then, but here I was confronted with yet another little shiny life in my hands. I got the fishtank, watched the goldfish swimming around thinking their goldfish thoughts, but I wanted a little more color, so I took a deep breath and bought some guppies. For those not familiar with this lovely little creature, you can see some pics and info here: http://www.guppies.com/ They have gorgeous colors, the males more so than the females. And I soon discovered something that wasn't mentioned to me at the pet store: guppies, unlike many fish, do not lay eggs but instead give birth to live babies. One day a female is looking a tad overweight, the next day you notice a little swarm of teeny tiny fishies huddled in a corner of the tank trying desperately, though not always successfully, to avoid being eaten by their older kin.
Well, faced with this unexpected bounty of fecundity I soon invested in another tank. Then another. And oh why not one more? Ended up with five in the end; one for newborns, three for adults, and one for my oscar, aptly named Oscar, who is another story altogether. So I decided to see how these guppies got their business done, since they were clearly, judging from the number of baby-swarms popping up at regular intervals, involved in quite a bit of said business.
So here's the procedure: A male, his dorsal fin raised, his glorious tail flowing behind him, begins courting a female he finds irissistible. (It appears that male guppies live by the "bigger is better" philosophy of mate-selection.) He chases her around the tank mercilessly, waiting until he has her attention or she gets too tired to keep running, and launching into his seductive wiggle-dance. That's the only way I can think to describe it since that's pretty much what it is: he wiggles his shining form, flaring his glowing tail, displaying his little heart out in hopes that she'll give him some sign of acquiescence. It seems to play out something like:
Male guppy "Hey, baby, look at me. Hey! Look! Look at me! Hey! Baby! Why you runnin"? Hey!! Look at me!!! Hey!!!"
Female guppy "No! Leave me alone! Quit it! Leave me alone!! Go away!! Quit it!! Get this guy off my back!! Dammit!! No!! Leave me alone!!!! Dammit!! Quit it!!"
What this ultimate sign of acquiescence is I have yet to determine. Possibly be some form of subtle guppie body language that the human eye does not detect. Or it could just be submission due to exhaustion, though I prefer to think in more romantic terms.
So, by whatever mean, the female signals her willingness to cooperate and joyous boy-guppy releases a little cloud of guppy sperm, which somehow finds its way to the apropriate part of the girl guppy. Maybe she has a built-in suction device? Need to investigate this further. Anyhow, maybe a month or so later she gets alarmingly rotund, and sometime during the night (and it's almost always at night) she releases her brood, ready to swim and fend for themselves. She doesn't seem protective of them, but she doesn't tend to go after them either, maybe because I tend to overfeed my fish. I then must get my fish net thingy and scoop out these tiny babies one by one (you try catching a moving target that's 1/4 the size of a grain of rice) and transfer them carefully to the nursery tank where they can grow in safety and learn what it is to be a guppy, which looks like a pretty chill life from where I sit.
So all this leads me to thoughts of human mating rituals and how ridiculously complicated we tend to make things. All the nervousness, preening, grooming, stress, insecurity........is there anyone past the age of puberty who doesn't have some mortifying memory of an awkward, disastrous attempt at relating to the opposite sex? Ugh, I try not to think about it. Too painful. So wouldn't it be so much nicer if we could just do it the guppy way? Guy sees girl he likes, he does his little dance, she says "Oh fine, if it'll make you leave me alone" and that's that! No fuss, no stress, maybe some tiring chase scenes, but overall a much less traumatic way of doing things. Just a thought.
