All posts tagged: archaeology

Numb.

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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 …

…time is passing at an accelerated rate –

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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 …

I dreamed of flesh eating beetles.

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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 …

Return from Rat Islands

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

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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. 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. 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 …

Indiana Jones may have been a little smelly.

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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 …

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

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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 …

Worm Bin Chronicles: Inception

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WideEyedSpouse says, “We are not having a worm bin in the kitchen.” WideEyedFunk answers, “Mm hmm.” 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. 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 …