wideeyedfunk

Tag: archaeology

  • Numb.

    The leaves on the ground are red and orange and gold and wet in the rain. The air stinks of fall, of soil going to sleep and grasses falling into dormancy. The squirrels stash nuts on my hose reel, on the little ledges of decorative trim all over the house, in the compost heap. Hamish the Corgi races smiling through the fluttering heaps of leaves at top speed, he thinks the rustling noises make it seem like he is going faster, faster, faster. Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog stands at the back door testing the temperature with her nose, holding one dainty foot above the rain-wet stoop. Maybe, maybe not. She can’t decide if she really wants to go outside.

    I should feel something when I look at all this charm but for the next day or three or four I’m numb. Numb at best. A many-months long project finished up this morning when the grant proposal was submitted. I balanced working on it with other writing projects, other lab work, the start of archery season, and the rest of the WideEyedLife.

    Consequently, the life isn’t feeling WideEyed. It feels more like dragging the self with shattered nails and scraped raw nerves up splintered steps to the office and chaining the hands with rusty, clattering blood soaked manacles to desk and keyboard, moving fingers up and down and hoping something useful comes from the hacking and clacking while paired hounds of leftover stress and residual anxiety howl in my cold and shivering emptiness.

    Nice.

    Tomorrow’s a new day. I’ll practice smiling in preparation.

  • …time is passing at an accelerated rate –

    I looked out my office window this morning and saw yellow maple leaves scattered all over the yard. The borage in the garden is barely clinging to abundant life. The bees are a little less busy in the blooms. It isn’t summer anymore.

    Time is passing.

    Normally I don’t think much about the seasons changing, except to contemplate on the untidy lack of straightness in our planet’s axis relative to the orbital plane. That bothers me kind of a lot. Things should be straight, not at weird angles making everything all tilty and awkward and winter and summer.

    But I keep noticing – time is passing.

    Yesterday was trash day. Our junky old dishwasher didn’t last even an hour out on the curb. And that’s fine, except that I would be willing to swear that it just was trash day the day before that. It only comes once a week so if every day is trash day in my mind, what is happening to the days in between?

    Time is passing in a blur of researching and writing and analyzing ancient tools and remnants of dinners eaten thousands of years past. There’s joy in the accelerated time phase. I’m confused a lot and rely on daily lists written in a little purple Moleskine. When the lists fail to direct my actions, I stand and pat my pockets, “where am I going?” I ask WideEyedResearchAssistant B. “Upstairs to the talk,” she tells me. I stagger out of the lab to find the seminar room.

    I sort of wonder how long this superquick passage of time will last.

    What day is this?

  • I dreamed of flesh eating beetles.

    I dreamed of flesh eating beetles and mortifying tissue and woke with the sense memory of the smell of decay.

    I blame the Turdus migratorius from yesterday. It wasn’t his fault, poor little robin, that one of the students found him dead on the road and collected him for the lab. It certainly wasn’t his fault that a skilled graduate student showed me how to skin and eviscerate a little songbird using his carcass. We recorded data for science and the permits, and plucked and skinned and removed blobs from inside him using forceps. We wrapped him in cheesecloth (did the cheesecloth company ever imagine such a use?) and put him in the lab fridge to dry out for a couple of days. It made me think of dry aging a nice roast. Might have to hit the butcher later.

    The dermestid tank, the flesh eating beetle habitat, was right next to us while we worked on the bird. Did they watch us prepare their supper? The larvae will creep through the cheesecloth and snack like crazy when we put the robin in there on Saturday. Just think, while you are enjoying your Saturday morning coffee and pastries before tackling the weekend chores, the dermestid larvae will be tying on bibs and settling in for the smorgasborg.

    We’ll have a nice clean skeleton in a week or so. That American Robin, number UBZA-002, will contribute to federally funded research about mutually impactful human and environmental relationships for generations. He’ll visit schools as part of a science class lecture about archaeology. He’ll teach graduate students about bird skeletons. He is transforming from performing flight with wings through physical space to causing flights of mind through ideas and hypotheses.  Is that some kind of bird rapture?

    The WideEyedSpouse won’t let me keep the dermestid tank here in the WideEyedHousehold. He says keeping flesh eating beetles in the basement is like housing a zombie. “If I fall down or something when I’m working out, next thing you know my leg is gone,” he argues. “Er…” I have no response.

  • Return from Rat Islands

    “Get in the shower Robinson Crusoe, you aren’t in the field anymore,” the WideEyedSpouse sounded a little snarky.

    “I’m still cleanish,” I whined. So what if I didn’t feel it necessary to shower for the third day in a row. “You know,” I told the Spouse, “you can be too clean.” The Spouse looked me over, “yeah, well, you aren’t.”

    I took a shower.

    I’m now two weeks back from living in a remote field camp and running a multidisciplinary research program. I am remembering to flush the toilet regularly and I don’t wake up wondering where I am anymore.  I have been warm, dry, and well-rested for days.

    I miss the field.

    The aching beauty of the landscape.

    Corvie Bay North.
    Corvie Bay North, Kiska Island.
    Tiny, higher elevation young delphinium.
    Tiny, higher elevation young delphinium.
    Segula.
    Segula.

    Uncomplicated comforts.

    Bathing with a view. Corvie Bay Camp.
    Bathing with a view. Corvie Bay Camp.

    The pure joy of a job to do, unencumbered by conflicting imperatives.

    Heading home.
    Heading home.
    WideEyedFunk in 40 degree wind and rain in a cliff edge archaeological feature. I love my job.
    WideEyedFunk in 40 degree wind and rain in a cliff edge archaeological feature. I love my job.

    But my gardens here in Buffalo are in bloom . Hamish the Corgi and Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog are here. And the WideEyedSpouse once again has my back against the world’s troubles. Home is good too.

     

     

  • The third crane on the Fish Dock.

    My phone binged at me while I was stopped for an unloading school bus on Homer Spit. I watched the cutest collection ever of tiny-wee Xtra Tuff boots splash down into a puddle at the bus exit. I glanced at the console where my phone rested. “Third yellow crane in,” the message said.

    YellowCrane

    The flashing red lights eventually quit blinking and I turned left onto Fish Dock Road. I putt putted the overloaded minivan between forklifts hauling fish bins, hoses, and hairy-faced men in overall Helly Hansens. Their Xtra Tuffs weren’t particularly cute. My minivan rental did not match the lifted pickups parked all over the place.

    There it was, the Puk uk.

    Image by C. Haupert 5/7/2014.
    Image by C. Haupert 5/7/2014.

    I walked over to the skipper to introduce myself. “Hi,” I stood next to him looking down into the Puk uk. “I’m C….” I told him. He glanced at me. “I figured,” he said.

    My logistics handlers were already loading the WeatherPorts, fuel, and other gear. The skipper craned the stuff onto his foredeck using the Fish Dock crane – you pay for the cranes in 15 minute increments. We weren’t in a rush, but time was money so no standing around chatting.

    Image by C. Haupert 5/7/2014.
    Image by C. Haupert 5/7/2014.

    I unloaded 25 bins of food and science equipment from the beleaguered minivan to plastic lined brailer bags. Hopefully the many layers of plastic between our food and the Bering Sea/North Pacific will keep everything safe and dry. I don’t like to think of the oatmeal and rice swelling into a rancid mass in the coming days.

    TotesAtDock

    I hopped down onto the boat deck to help Paula the Deckhand guide the brailers and then unload loose bins and gear from a fish bin the skipper lowered onto deck over and over again. Paula made a European noise in her throat. “What IS all this?” she gestured to the lumber, propone tanks and dozens of plastic crates. “Life and science for 9 people for a month,” I told her.

    Paula, left. WideEyedFunk, right. Image by C. Haupert 5/7/14.
    Paula, left. WideEyedFunk, right. Image by C. Haupert 5/7/14.

    It was over in two hours. I shook the skipper’s hand, “See you in a week,” I said, “Smooth sailing,” I told him. We’ll meet up again on Adak.

    WideEyedFunkHomerAK

  • Indiana Jones may have been a little smelly.

    Think it through. He packs a gun and a whip in the smallest suitcase I’ve ever seen. There just isn’t room for spare socks and underpants.

    He wears the same pants, shirt, and hat throughout every field expedition. That suitcase is too small for a couple of clean sets of clothes.

    If you add it all up, he must have been really amazingly smelly. So smelly that it defies belief that he could sneak up on even the sleepiest, slow-brained guard.

    I am speaking from a position of deep knowledge and experience here. I just packed up my gear for a field session in the far northern wilderness. Gun, whip, hat – sure they are in the bottom of the crate if you want to think so. Let’s say that the moment I learned the grant support came through I checked the loads on the revolver and tossed the whip into my packing crate, then finished off a couple of fingers of whiskey.

    Or, you can picture me huddled over the computer monitor late into the night filling out over 100 forms for the university and the federal government so that I could legally perform the field research and justify spending the money. Exciting indeed. There may have been a couple of fingers of red wine involved.

    IMG_0208The packing crate, duffel, and day pack are downstairs lurking in the front parlor. Hamish the Corgi doesn’t like them. Miss Tibbit the Useless carefully monitored each item as it went in. Wiggins the Ancient Cat is considering peeing in the duffel. Or the crate. He can’t decide.

    Where ever Wiggins does decide to wee, he’ll be weeing on SEVERAL extra pairs of socks. I cut down on the collection this year and included only 16. So I like clean socks. I’ll be gone for a while.  I won’t provide details but there are also plenty of underpants. And some extras of everything else. Plus, my eucalyptus oil for dabbing on my belt.  I like to sniff eucalyptus all day and it aroma-protects me from colleagues who pack more like Indy. Way back in the 1990s, a colleague told me that they didn’t see the sense in bringing underwear to the remote field work because it just gets dirty anyway.

    We were out in the wilds for two months that year.  Yaaaah.

    Think good weather thoughts in a northerly direction. Think good garden thoughts for the WideEyedSpouse as he is stuck here with my perennial beds and vegetable dreams. Talk to you on the other side – unless I manage dispatches from the far beyond.

    WideEyedFunk, Buffalo NY, May 1.

  • I know I would paint better if I had a pair of Dickies painters pants.

    Wine: Does Not Impair My Ability to Paint Awesomely.

    I own a nice brush. I bought quality paint. I sanded and primed properly. I’ve painted ceilings, walls, trim, floors in 5 different states, 6 different domiciles. Satin, flat, matte, semi-gloss, stain, paint stain, epoxy, and varnish. Interior, exterior, basement, attic, kitchen.You name it. I’ve painted it. And while I’m no pro, I can lay some paint.

    But you know what? I was standing in Sherwin Williams the other day waiting for my paint to shake and I saw that their Dickies painters pants were on sale. It was a really good sale, only $18. That’s a great price for any kind of pants, an exceptional price for magic skill infused painters pants. I didn’t buy them.

    Here we are, a little more than 24 hours later and I am commencing with painting the bathroom. I am all geared up in my ladies Carhartts and I am feeling ill-prepared. Queasy that I could do better.

    Don’t mistake the situation. The ladies Carhartts are good, solid pants. They lived in 3 states with me. They traveled to 3 continents with me. They knelt with me inside them in the mud of a 4,000 year old whale hunting household in Chukotka. They crouched with me in 27,000 year old cave deposits in Portugal – where they also worked with me on a 100,000 year old Neanderthal beach camp. These pants and I have spent weeks on survey in the Western Aleutian Islands.

    Now, here in Buffalo, they are paint pants. But the trouble is, the thing that keeps bugging at my mind, they are FIELD pants really. Not paint pants at all.

    I just have this terrible feeling that I do injustice to the pants by painting in them, and injustice to the bathroom paint jobs by not having the proper pants on for the job.

    The magic pants!

    UPDATE, REMARKABLE UPDATE: From 1,500 miles away, WideEyedCousin D had my local Sherwin Williams store put aside a set of painters pants just for me. WideEyedCousinD, I thank you, the paint thanks you, and the house is ever-so-grateful. The Carhartts just want to hug you.

  • Worm Bin Chronicles: Inception

    WideEyedSpouse says, “We are not having a worm bin in the kitchen.”

    WideEyedFunk answers, “Mm hmm.”

    The Worm Bin. In the Kitchen.

    I bought Worms Eat My Garbage in June of 2009 and I don’t know why. The Spouse saw it sitting on the sofa and instantly, no pause for contemplation said: “We are not having a worm bin in the house.” I simply did not acknowledge that he spoke.

    Kiska Harbor and the 2009 camp.

    Several weeks later two colleagues and I were lounging around on Action Packers in our tiny weatherport on the shore of Kiska Harbor. Outside of the weatherport Kiska volcano loomed over us to the north (albeit invisibly because of the low clouds), the waters of the harbor ruffled in a stiff, rainy wind, and the Kiska Island Valor in the Pacific National Monument layered over the hills around us as far as the eye could see. My colleagues were on Kiska Island to map WWII features. I – along with Brian H. who wasn’t present for the worm talk – was there looking for much older Aleut occupations. Anyway, three of us were in the weatherport waiting for potatoes to boil and for the simple pleasure of being inside, sheltered from the vastiness of the western Aleutian Islands.

    The topic of worm bins came up. I can’t remember who brought it up. But it is exactly the sort of topic that might arise in one of our field camps. Debbie C. was deeply intrigued. Of course she had heard of them. I mentioned the book. Janis K. actually had a worm bin, had had it for years. Debbie and I leaned forward on our Action Packers as Janis described the formation and care of her worm bin. I think I took notes. I looked at Debbie and she looked at me – oh yeah, we were getting worm bins.

    I came out of the fieldwork that summer intent on having a worm bin. But as it turned out, the WideEyedHousehold was going to move 1,500 miles in a few short months. The Spouse said, “I am not moving a worm bin to New York.” I sort of heard him on that one. Besides, I figured they had worms back east.

    Time passed. The worm bin lingered in the back of my mind. We bought a house and I built a compost area but it didn’t satisfy. I needed a worm bin. And then the miracle happened. My neighbors across the street mentioned that they have a worm bin. In the kitchen. Have been running it for years – no trouble, no smells, just great. My heart pounded. I hardly dared to ask…my neighbor offered me some scoops of her worms. Oh yeah.

    I told the Spouse. He said, “We are not having a worm bin in the kitchen.” I said, “Um hmm.”

    Inside the bin. The wellspring of nightmare horrors.

    Three days later I dumped a bunch of junk out of a bin in the basment, drilled some holes in its lid and handles, and headed across the street for my worm scoops. Ever since, two months and counting, there’s been a worm bin in my kitchen. So far, the Spouse has only had one nightmare about it. Apparently in his dream he was reaching in to feed the worms and one leaped out of the nesting material and burrowed under his finger nail. I guess in the dream he managed to tourniquet his finger and the worm wiggled out, but his success in solving that small dream problem hasn’t made him like the worm bin any better.

    We’ll see how it goes. For now, there are several dozen? hundred? WideEyedWorms munching away on tender veg scraps in my kitchen. And one WideEyedSpouse who prefers not to think about it.