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Spring Diary: Chapter 3

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Liza Blue

April 26^th:

The woods are now teeming with yellow rumped and palm warblers. The noise level has risen to a surrounding white noise, but instead of standing befuddled in the midst of a cacophonous UN debate, I can begin to sort out individual strands. Most of the songs are from the quintet of song sparrows, yellow rumped warblers, ruby crowned kinglets, robins and goldfinches. And every now and then, I can pick out something new, which is how I found the new warbler, waterthrush and vireo today. The blue headed vireo is interesting since between my original field guide and my new Peterson guide, the bird has quietly changed names from the Solitary Vireo to the Blue Headed Vireo. I imagine committees of impassioned birders, arguing forcefully for some sort of name change, and the undercurrents of vicious politics. Perhaps, “I will vote for your blue head if you vote for my yellow rump.” Oddly the Latin name remains the same, vireo solitarius. Perhaps the Latin name is etched in stone. And the name blue headed vireo is only somewhat descriptive, as the blue is sort of a dark dusky blue. If I were going to change the name, I would really go for it and use one of the wacky color names that you seen in clothing catalogs. How about, Gun Metal Headed Vireo, or Storm Tossed Marine Headed Vireo.

New Birds Seen

Black Throated Green Warbler

Northern Waterthrush

Blue Headed Vireo

Pied Bill Grebe

Northern Shoveler

April 29^th

The last few days have been windy and darn cold and I have not seen much, though today did turn up a few new species. I think that birds do not flit about in a heavy wind and the wind drowns out the sounds of the bird songs. It is difficult to rely on visual cues alone, since it is harder to pick up the sudden movement of the bird among branches that are already swaying. I am pleased with the yellow throated vireo, since this is a bird I have only had pointed out to me once, and this is my first solo effort with this vireo.

Yellow throated Vireo

Turkey Vulture

Northern Parula (by voice only)

April 30^th

It continues to be cold; there was even frost today. A north wind has discouraged any new arrivals, and the current residents are silent. I did see an Eastern Towhee (another mysterious name change from the more descriptive Rufous Sided Towhee), and a few water birds. The yellow legs is a migrating water bird that comes in two sizes, greater and lesser, and otherwise is indistinguishable. It is very difficult to tell relative sizes unless the two birds cooperate and stand side by side for comparison, but otherwise it is just a toss up. My field guide says that the ankle joint of the greater yellow legs is much more prominent, but that hardly seems adequate to hang your hat on.

New Birds Seen:

Yellow Legs, greater or lesser, you pick ‘em

May 2^nd

Another day of minimal activity. With nothing else to do, I dwell on my birdwatching technique, which involves a complicated series of movements. As I scan the trees with my bare eyes, I hold the bird guide under my arm. If I spot something, I quickly move the book to between my legs, scooch my glasses up unto my forehead and lift the binoculars to my eyes. This all must take place within no more than a second, otherwise the bird is likely to flit off somewhere. It can be difficult to find the exact spot with the binoculars that you saw with the naked eye, and sometimes you need to take a few steps from side to side. This means that with my otherwise fabulous system, I am trying to walk with a book between my legs. Old fashioned etiquette training required young women to walk with a book on their head, but I am sure that walking with a book between your legs was not considered stylish. If the bird is particularly provocative and I have to take a few large steps, the book just plops on the ground. Anyway, as awkward as this may sound, this system has served me well for twenty years, but this year I have one slight modification. I am using a new field guide. For twenty years I had used the Golden Guide to Birds, but last year I was told that this book was not professional enough. My new selection was a Peterson Guide. Roger Tory Peterson is a giant in the bird watching field and revolutionized field identification in the 1930s by helpfully pointing out key features. All birdwatchers stand on the shoulders of this innovative naturalist. This current edition is very sleek with a handsome glossy cover that is intended to be somewhat waterproof. The problem is that this book is too slippery for my system. As I try and take tiny steps the book slips down between my legs – a major distraction. I definitely need improved traction, either in my pants or on the book. Here is yet another use for duct tape.

New Birds Seen:

Green Heron

Blue Winged Warbler (song only)

Rough Winged Swallow

Sora (song only)

May 1^st

Today starts the beginning of bird banding at Shaw Prairie, so for the moment I have abandoned my usual route. Thirteen mist nets are set up in the morning, and then checked each hour for the unfortunate birds that happen to fly through. Every hour, the team of volunteers checks the nets, extracts the birds, puts them in a muslin bag, and then returns to the central station where they are weighed, measured and banded. And then after thanking the birds for their forebearance they are happily released. The banding information is submitted to a national database to gather information on migrating patterns. I am somewhat equivocal about the banding process, since I am a little hesitant to handle these fragile looking birds, many of them weighing no more than the heft of 4 pennies. But these looks must be deceptive, since the birds have survived a several thousand mile commute. One of the attractions is that you spend several hours in the company of very knowledgeable birders, who so far seem extremely patient with my naïve and silly questions. Since you get an in depth look at these birds, you can also confirm your somewhat tenuous sightings. For example, I was able to confirm that what I was calling a swamp sparrow really was a swamp sparrow. One of my concerns was that the swamp sparrow did not exactly match the book, and I was startled when I was told that the picture in my Peterson was inaccurate. Like any spectator sport, you cannot tell the players without a scorecard, and I was aghast to think that my scorecard, the standard Peterson, was basically wrong. Many birders like to use multiple field guides – since the birds can be presented different ways, in different poses and some even use photographs – so that a final identification represents an amalgam of Gizzes from different sources. But toting multiple copies into the field is problematic. My cousin Terry likes to use three guides at once, and his system involves wearing cargo pants with deep pockets. So when he walks around, he has a virtual library clunking around his knees. But for a single reference, I thought that the Peterson would be the best. I am told the Sibley is the new standard.

New Birds Seen:

Northern Oriole (song alone)

Brown Thrasher

House Wren

May 2^nd

I again stand at the precipice of the slippery slope of the honor system, as I must decide whether birds identified only through netting can count on my life list. This strikes me a little bit like going to the zoo instead of Africa so I dig in my heels and stand firm. This means that the Sharp Shinned Hawk, which had the misfortune of being netted twice, and with whom I exchanged meaningful glances, is not yet on my life list. However, other raptors seem to abound today. There are several red tailed hawks and kestrels gliding over the fields. The sun just catches the kestrel and his blue wings and red tail are perfect.

New Bird Seen:

Common Yellowthroat

May 3^rd

Another cold day with few birds. To protect the birds while waiting to be banded, we put them inside our fleece jacket. It is an odd sensation to feel the fluttering bird against my beating heart.

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Spring Diary: Chapter 2

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Liza Blue

April 10^th

During the winter, I have also spent some time reading some of the bird watching literature. Some of these books tell stories about amazing encounters in the woods, with compelling first hand accounts of a Goshhawk snatching a bird in mid air or the struggles of a nesting pair of owls, and it can become easy to assume that no walk is complete without witnessing some amazing visual act of nature. But these stories represent the distillation of many hours in the field and the simple truth is the more time you spend outside the more things that you will see. And like golfers or fisherman, even if you have the yips or you snag the trees, you most certainly have spent a nice day outside. My husband is the coach of our senior women’s ice hockey team, and one of his all purpose bits of advice is “if you keep putting the puck on the net good things will happen.” As I walk past the oak grove I again see the two Great Horned Owls, but this time I notice a nest in the crook of the tree. And in it are one and maybe two owlets. I just shot the puck on the net and a good thing happened.

New Birds Seen:

Eastern Bluebird

April 13^th

The migrant warblers are beginning to arrive. The first arrivals are the yellow rumped warbler and the palm warbler. Let the party begin.

My winter tutorials on bird songs are also paying off, since I recognize the sweet song of the Eastern Meadowlark in the open field. The rolling churr of red bellied woodpeckers is also easily recognized. The beginning birdwatcher will be intrigued by the name of this bird, since the bird’s most obvious characteristic is its flaming red head; bird field guides indicate only the faintest blush of red on its belly. I presume that the nameless naming committee wanted to get the concept of “red” into the common name, but that the red-headed woodpecker had already dibs’ed that name, and so they went with the belly as a weak second choice

New Birds Seen

Eastern Meadowlark

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Palm Warbler

April 15^th

As I begin my walk, I now routinely quickly scan the oak trees for the owls and probably see them about one half of the time, sometimes in the nest, and sometimes perched on a nearby branch. The odd thing is that they are always staring straight at me. When they are off the nest, you can appreciate their molting, as their baby down is slowly being replaced by mature feathers. While the new feathers ruffle in the wind, the down fluffs up in the wind, looking like a wad of soft brown lint. I also pause to check for the meadowlark song in the field on the left. Knowing the songs helps you triage the birds; once the birding gets hot and heavy in a few weeks, it will be impossible to try and identify every bird that sings, and the practiced ear will be able to pick out what is new or unusual. I have also gotten very familiar with the bright song of the ruby crowned kinglet. The song is long and varied, and on the bird tape you always hear it in toto. But in the field you hear it in bits and snatches, and at this point, I can recognize the song from a couple of syllables.

New Birds Seen

Blue Grey Gnatcatcher

Wood Duck

April 18^th

I had always assumed that the swallows darting about the water were tree swallows, and while it is probably true that 90% of the time 90% of the swallows are tree swallows, today I focused on the 10% of the 10%. Trying to do a careful examination of swallows is somewhat dicey, since if you attempt to follow them circling and wheeling with your binoculars, you run the risk of vertigo and nausea. Therefore, it almost better to observe with the naked eye, and I suddenly realized that some of the swallows were smaller and some had forked tails. The forked tails were easy – those are barn swallows, but the smaller brown ones are either bank swallows or rough winged swallows. One stopped long enough to get the binoculars on it and to see the tell tale brown necklace of a bank swallow.

Bank Swallow

Barn Swallow

April 22^nd

The black and white warbler is like an old friend that I see every year, but despite having committed its song to memory – it sounds like a rusty wheel turning – I realize I have never heard it sing. The rough legged hawk is a new species for me, and fortunately its markings are so distinct, I feel comfortable in the identification. Hawks are generally only seen from below, and with different molts and morphs I sometimes give up on the project.

New Birds

Black and White Warbler

Rough Legged Hawk

Rough Winged Swallow

April 24nd

I have now come to a crossroads in my birding ventures. So far I have concentrated on the low hanging fruit of the birding world – warblers. Their characteristic colors and songs make identification fairly straightforward, but now I must come to grips with the sparrows. There are many of them and they all look alike, sometimes collectively referred to as “little brown jobs,” and somehow their songs are not that memorable. While many of the warbler songs are turned into cheerful verbal representations (yellow warbler = sweet, sweet, little more sweet; chestnut sided warbler = pleased, pleased, pleased to meet ‘ya) with few exceptions there are not many mnemonics for the sparrows. Plus they tend to be grassland birds, and can easily disappear between the stalks, limiting any type of close observation. I feel comfortable with the basic sparrows, which include those commonly seen at your feeder – the house sparrow, white throated and chipping sparrow, but for the others I have tended to throw up my hands in despair. Today on my walk I came across a sparrow that looked somehow different, it just had a different “Gizz.”. This birding expression (although I have also heard mushroomers use it to separate edible, palatable and lethal fungi) is apparently derived from the military term G.I.S, standing for “general impression and shape.” It describes some innate feel that the bird is somehow different. Although a Gizz may be innate, it is certainly informed by the practiced eye. And even though I have no experience when it comes to sparrows, I felt that this was something different, and since the sparrow was cooperating by walking down the path, I had a chance for thoughtful analysis. However, I was stricken to realize that I had forgotten my bird book. I tried to remember as many features as I could.

April 25^th

Well, I think that it was a Fox Sparrow, based on its longer tail and reddish hue. But the question is whether I should add this unconfirmed sighting to my life list. The Fox Sparrow is certainly common, it is just that I have never seen one. There are many who keep competitive life lists, and there are even contests to see who can see the most number of birds in the continental Unites States in any one given year. Some of my winter reading focused on these contests – Kingbird Highway, The Big Year and Wild America, among others. In these contests the truly competitive birder will drop everything and hop on a plane and fly to see the stray migrant that shows up on our country’s margins. Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman, is the most entertaining, since this is the account of a teenager who dropped out of school and hitchhiked across the country and up to Alaska chasing stray birds. In the 1970s, his budget for the entire year was about $1,000! While I am certainly at the very casual end of birding, I still feel that I am bound by the honor system. I am reminded of playing solitaire card games as a child, and the overwhelming temptation to bend the rules just a little bit. I watched my younger brother Tim playing one day; he was playing the basic solitaire game where you have seven cards across and you are trying to play everything up on the aces. I overheard Tim say under his breath, “On Wednesdays, you can temporarily have an extra eighth space for a ten.” He then slid the ten over, the game opened up, and he triumphantly announced, “I won!”

Although I am conflicted, fox sparrow is now bird No. 213 on my list. And while I’m at it, I am pretty sure that other bird was a swamp sparrow. I stand on the edge of the slippery slope of the honor system.

New Birds Seen:

Fox Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Pictures courtesy of Allen Siegle

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Spring Diary: Chapter 1

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Liza Blue

March 31

The calendar says that Spring begins March 21^st, but for all practical purposes, such as planting a garden, playing golf or outdoor tennis, you really need to wait another month. The rush of migratory birds also doesn’t begin to arrive until late April through Memorial day. But I am restless and anxious to take my binoculars and get outside. Like a farmer spending the winter poring over the seed catalog in anticipation of spring, I have spent portions of the winter listening to bird tapes to hone my birdwatching skills for the upcoming migration. I have popped my CD of Easter and Central Birds of North America into the car CD player, nestled alongside the CDs of my children. And amidst the umpteenth trip to soccer practice listening to lurid and probably misogynist rap songs, my bird CD queues up and suddenly out comes the startled loud quack of some obscure duck. My daughter is horrified and rolls her eyes. But after many hours in the car I feel primed and ready.

My first walk takes me along the south edge of the Open Lands at Melody Farms, across the Skokie ditch and into the Middlefork Preserve and a little loop around a pond and then back. A walk of no more than an hour at a very slow pace, but one that seems to encompass a variety of habitats, from an oak grove to an open grasslands, wetlands, a pond and a small trees and bushes. I do not see too much on this blustery day, but do stop and dwell on our year round birds such as goldfinches, sparrows and cardinals. I also spot a muskrat doggedly paddling across the pond, and a tawny woodchuck disappearing into a rotten log. Along the shore, I notice dozens of turtles, presumably trying to shake off the torpor of winter, and gearing themselves up for the task of mating. I presume that these are all painted turtles, but just as I try and puzzle through the subtleties of different warblers, I wonder if herpetologists are seeing many different species along the shore and hoping to see the endangered Blanding’s turtle. Spring must be a heady time for herpetologists too and I wonder if “to go herping” is established jargon, similar to going “birding.”

As I walk back to the car, I notice the hum of traffic to the south of me, the chugging of a train to the west, and above me a large airplane lumbers to O’Hare. And to the east and behind me, the open space is lined by oversized houses that look as if they could accommodate a mid-sized embassy. And yet, here is a small sliver of wild habitat which will soon accommodate a teeming wildlife. I feel fortunate to be in a community that has such a commitment to preserving their Open Lands. I resolve to take this same loop of walk every day, or as much as possible to record the oncoming spring.

Birds Seen:

Cardinal

Robin

White Throated Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow

Song Sparrow

American Goldfinch

Red Winged Blackbird

Mallard

Canada Goose

White Throated Nuthatch

American Tree Sparrow

April 5^th

Blue winged teals have also arrived, and I am fortunate to see one in flight, which is the only way you can see the trademark blue, since the blue wings are folded neatly out of sight when paddling on the pond. It is a lovely pale blue accented by a stripe of handsome green. There are also several mallards calmly paddling around, and without the distraction of other birds, I spend a few moments appreciating their familiar, but nonetheless stunning beauty, which is too easy to take for granted. Their brilliant green head flashes its iridescence as they turn their heads in the sun, and their bodies, which I might have once dismissed as a muddy brown, now appear as a very lovely creamy mocha and gray. I have more of a problem trying to drum up appreciation for the Canada Geese. I think of these birds as the suburban version of jumbo city pigeons, as they increasingly parade around our open fields and soccer fields. My daughter is apoplectic at the thought of heading a soccer ball that been rolling around in goose poop. They can also be fairly aggressive with young in tow, and at times that have reminded me of the those creepy flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. But the truth is that we have basically laid out a big green welcome mat for these opportunistic birds.

New Birds Seen:

Blue Winged Teal

American Crow

April 7^th

These past few days have included a mixture of both warm balmy days suggestive of spring and a few extremely cold days, more reminiscent of November. My tally of new birds is still limited with the exception of a pair of Great Horned Owls. As I walk through an oak grove, I suddenly become aware of two rather large shapes and lifting up the binoculars I come face to face with the penetrating eyes of these large and impressive owls. The owl looks at me briefly and then casually dismisses me and takes off. And though there are few migrants, I feel a sense of anticipation in the air. The resident birds seem to be more relaxed now that the gritty survival of winter is over. The Goldfinches sing enthusiastically and bound through the air and I spot one in mid molt, with the bright yellow summer colors replacing the drabber winter brown. The trees are budding and while there are few leaves, I can sense the impending green and spot several ripening cottonwoods that will soon be adorned with Baltimore Orioles. I feel the same sort of anticipation and queasy anxiety as the hostess of a party. Busy with preparations and planning before the party, there is the moment of calm when everything is organized, the table is set, the hors d’oeuvres are just coming out of oven, the ice is in the ice bucket, and yet nobody has yet arrived. What if all the guests have forgotten to come or simply choose not to? Clearly, I can take no credit for the tipping of the earth, the warming of the sun, and the laying of the feast, but I would like to be thought of as a thoughtful and gracious host nonetheless – and I hope that the migrating birds will feel welcome in this patch of open lands.

New Birds Seen;

Great Horned Owl

April 9^th

A couple of new migrants have arrived – Tree Swallows and Ruby Crowned Kinglets. It is extremely tempting to give birds human characteristics. For example, the Ruby Crowned Kinglets are often described as nervous as they flit from branch to branch. Tree Swallows swoop and dart over the pond and at first look like playful enthusiasts having the time of their life. But after a few close mid-air collisions, I begin to think that they are reckless adrenaline junkies. As I progress along the pond, I become aware of flitting to my right and as I scan the bush, I see one, then two, then three birds, and I realize that I have stumbled across a flock of Cedar Waxwings. Now anyone wanting to assign human characteristics can have a field day with Cedar Waxwings. These fairly large sleek birds are impeccably tailored, with subtle hues of browns, greys and yellow. At the tips of their tail and wing is a brilliant streak of red and yellow, respectively. These accents are like a handkerchief neatly poking out of the pocket of an exquisitely tailored Saville Row bespoke suit. The waxwings sit upright on the branch with perfect posture, and calmly survey their surroundings with the utmost confidence. The combination of good looks and confidence is quite appealing in any animal, including the human male and the only disappointment is the thin reedy twitter of the Waxwing – not the expected deep baritone. The song is a weak “psst”, sort of like a feeble substitute teacher trying to get her students to quiet down.

New Birds Seen:

Brown Creeper

Ruby Crowned Kinglet

Tree Swallow

Cedar Waxwing

Pictures courtesy of Allen Siegle

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My Hat in the Ring

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Liza Blue

Over the past two years we have buried both my parents in the family plot at Lake ForestCemetery, joining my brother, grandparents, great and great-great grandparents. While the plot was certainly filling up, it appeared that there was plenty of room in front of the monument that was the plot’s centerpiece. I figured that this little piece of real estate was ours, and that we could put people where ever we wanted to. However, a head cemetery guy emerged, called a sexton, who said in no uncertain terms where we could and could not bury our parents. The sexton was put in the unenviable position of the arbiter over various and potentially warring factions of the family; in fact certain long lost members of the family had already laid dibbies on different parts of the plot. Furthermore the sexton said that for our family there was only enough room to put one additional headstone, which my parents would have to share. I’m sure that if I wanted to get into it, I could make the case that our branch of the family got short changed a bit on this valuable piece of real estate.

There were plenty of other restrictions as well, all of which were designed to make upkeep of the cemetery more efficient. This mostly meant that there could be no impediments to mowing, and thus no additional decorations on the headstones which could potentially fall off and ruin a lawn mower, and no birdfeeders staked into the ground for the same reason. Potted flowers could only be placed in plastic containers since metal containers could ding the mowers. Oddly enough, there were also restrictions on what type of containers you could bury the cremains in. Specifically urns had to be sturdy and impermeable to water, so that you could find them intact on the odd chance that you wanted to dig them up. Similarly, only certain types of coffins were allowed and they had to be buried in a water tight liner. Again, the mowing took precedence. If the coffin rotted out over time, without a liner, it would create a large sinkhole that would be difficult to mow.

All of these restrictions piqued my interest in the Lake ForestCemetery, which I discovered was somewhat unique – it is amongst the dwindling number of non-profit community-run cemeteries. The cemetery is also situated on an absolutely gorgeous wooded piece of lake front property that I am sure had developers drooling, and the city waving goodbye to huge property taxes, if developed. The only full time staff member was the sexton who reported to a volunteer cemetery commission. I thought that this would be the ideal entry position for someone who wanted to give back to the community and get involved in local government. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring and propose my candidacy for cemetery commissioness.

I filled out an on line questionnaire, which I had to leave embarrassingly empty – prior government experience (none), financial experience (none, in fact I have never balanced a check book), horticulture experience (none, except for the fact that impatiens are a particular pet peeve), other civic experience (none, as I say I was seeking an entry level position). Even so, I was eventually invited to my first interview by the caucus committee of my ward. The first question was obvious – why was I interested. I explained my recent experiences at the cemetery in a very positive light and then commented that the cemetery was one of the unique distinguishing features of Lake Forest. I tried to address my obvious lack of qualifications with a spiel about my transferable skills of intellectual curiosity and analytic ability, assuring them that I would be up to speed in no time. I even gave them my reading list of the “American Way of Death,” by Jessica Mitford and other internet research, and really laid it on thick about how the cemetery was an asset to the community.

Phew, I had passed the first round of interviews, and was then invited for the second round in front of the entire caucus of about 50 people. They seated me in a little chair on a platform and I readied myself to be peppered with questions, but it seemed that nobody knew what to ask. I gave my pat statement about how the cemetery was a unique feature of Lake Forest, and then there was silence. Finally someone asked, “How can the residents enjoy the cemetery if they are not buried there?” Well, this was something of a puzzler, but I suggested that the cemetery was a very beautiful and tranquil place to visit, but did not mention that as a kid I had gone to a birthday party that featured a treasure hunt amongst the graves.

Another pause, and the next question, “Who should be buried in the cemetery?” I was tempted to say dead people, but resisted the urge to be cheeky. I then recalled that this seemingly simple question put me on the precipice of a slippery slope, since there had been some discussion in the local paper about a prospective dead person who was denied permission to purchase a cemetery plot. Seems he was not technically a Lake Forest resident although he claimed that he went to church in Lake Forest and bought his groceries here. Although the local paper touted this as another example of elitist Lake Forest, the sexton had pointed out that the cemetery was supported with local taxes and thus, like the beach, should be limited to true residents. The sexton pointed out that the man could become eligible to purchase a plot if he elected to live in the local retirement community. There were still potentially troubling questions about the duration of the qualifying residency, when the plot was purchased, and when the plot would be used. Summoning my feeble political spin moves, I merely noted that these tough issues were exactly why the Cemetery commission was so important and needed thoughtful, deliberate people. I might have tried to sell my thoughtful nature by cupping my chin in my hands as I rested my elbow on my knee – sort of like the Rodin sculpture, The Thinker.

For the final question, I was asked what I would do to make the cemetery better. I knew that I had to tread carefully since I did not want to reveal my super secret agenda of greening the cemetery, certain to be a long shot since the city did not permit solar panels or small discrete wind turbines. My feeling was that we should be able to sprinkle relatives’ cremains anywhere we wanted to in our plot. I had a book called “Cool Green Stuff,” that profiled a few novelty ideas for green burial. One outfit offered to mix your ashes with birdseed and then coat several birdfeeders for a novel approach to recycling. Another described an ash-filled ceramic ornament that is suspended from a tree with a biodegradable thread with a 1-3 years lifespan. One of the appeals of this device is that no one can predict when the thread will break, sending the urn smashing to the ground and spreading the ashes. Knowing my family, the scatter time would be subject to intense wagering.

I also had ideas about greening up the landscaping. My friend Marion pointed out that you could reseed with low mowing turf, as long as you were willing to let the grass grow several inches higher. If you didn’t need to mow, the maintenance costs would plummet and then there would be no need for coffin liners, thus opening the door for other options for those preferring full interment. Perhaps due to her deep commitment to organic gardening, Marion is not an ashes to ashes person, but more of a “worms crawl in and worms crawl out” kind of gal. The Ecopod would appear to be the perfect container for her. About the size and shape of an oversized violin case, it is made of 100% recycled paper. With a very low profile, it would not create a substantial sink hole as it gently disintegrates.

The interview was over in 20 minutes, and I heard the next day that the caucus had been impressed enough that they had forwarded my name to the mayor for his final decision. The mayor was a lame duck due to leave office in one month, but was charged with making these key executive decisions before he left. I was assuming a rubber stamping was in order. But I heard nothing for over six weeks. Then one day my husband noticed the new appointments to the city commission published in the local newspaper. Frankly, it did not occur to me that there would be others seeking this lowly post, but apparently I had competition. There it was in black and white, the mayor had appointed someone else (I am told it was a friend of his) and had not even given me the courtesy of a call. Clearly, the cemetery would not be needing my services. I turned to my husband and said, “Just think, you married a cemetery commission reject!”

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop). The number of asterisks indicates the number of letters, and one of the missing words will rhyme with the previous or following lines. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rule and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

How We Bury People

King Tut was embalmed to ****** the flow of blood and body rot,

Mummified, placed in a pure gold coffin and hidden in a plot.

He was decked out in pure silk, embroidered with golden stitches,

And then sealed up tight so that no one could ****** his riches.

Personally, I would gather my family, friends and other celebrants

And fling my ashes to the wind midst doggerelish ******.

Answers: stanch, snatch, chants

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Mergers and Acquisitions

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Liza Blue

Along with the crossword puzzle, the Wedding and Celebrations section justifies the hefty price of the Sunday NY Times. Back in the 1960s, I used to peruse this section in the remote possibility of recognizing a name. Beyond that, there was always plenty of snickering at the east coast WASP elite that was featured, with ridiculous inverted names and crazy nicknames with Roman numeral appendages. With a shriek of delight you might find that Goddard (God) Bruce IV had married Bleeker Cate. The wedding announcement of yore would then go into excruciating detail on God and Bleek’s attendants, the wedding dress, what they ate, and then with a great flourish a recitation of their impeccable blood lines.

Now, some 40 years later I have returned to the wedding announcements, and things have changed. Gone is the East Coast preppy St. Grottlesex aristocracy, replaced with something more akin to a nationwide meritocracy based on the NY Times’ closely guarded decisions regarding who’s in and who’s out. Ancestry is sometimes included, but in this era it smacks of gratuitous name-dropping. Once recent announcement featured a nice looking young man named Teddy Roosevelt V – well okay maybe we will give him a break since he can’t help but name drop, but how about the bride who claims she is a direct descendent of Peter Stuyvestant, the last governor of the colony of New York who died in 1672? Seems to me that 337 years is way too long to dine out on his name, which is now more recognizable as one of NY most historic slums. Then there is Sage Lehman who feels compelled to say that she is the great-great granddaughter of Meyer Lehman, the founder of Lehman Brothers. This name might have lost its cachet with the tattered collapse of this venerable institution. Tatiana Papanicolaou just has to let us to know that she is related to the developer of the Pap smear.

I would imagine the wedding beat is a lowly editorial post (but I’d do it for free). Does the fresh scrubbed journalist appreciate the power of picking and choosing among the competing nuptial applicants? Did Tatiana (perhaps Tati Pap to her homeys) get selected for the Times based on her kinship to a Pap smear? Personally, I think that her lineage would only be relevant if she had the great good fortune to marry Vitto Chlamydiolo instead of the rather staid Thorne Perkin. But the bigger question is who wants their wedding announcement published in the first place? Is it the status conscious mother-in-law whose family has an unbroken record of making the grade since the Great War (the Civil War, that is)? Or maybe couples legitimately seeking the cachet of a Times wedding announcement due to accomplishments, or triumph over adversity? Or is it simply the result of a wee-hours bar room bet?

The wedding section always profiles one couple in depth including several color pictures. This must be a real coup, although I can’t figure out what sort of status it might confer. Often, a wooing storyline involves a saga of multiple lost opportunities with sparks flying at random meetings over the years, but either the couple is geographically challenged or hooked up with someone else. Another typical storyline is a “meet cute” anecdote, illustrating the wonderful coincidences that can turn life on an absolute dime. I was excited to read about a couple who randomly met squished together on a rush hour subway; she was instantly besotted to see him reading the book “History of Philosophy, Volume IX.” Romance blossomed and voila! here are Dixie and Jeffrey in full color in the NY Times. The profile improbably included a close up picture of the bride’s back, featuring some sort of complicated straps that only partially covered up her tattoos, one of which memorialized a “Buster.” Whoa, momma – the old gray lady of journalism must be shuddering at the thought of a bondaged bride brazenly displaying her tats.

The rest of the wedding announcements are all carefully scripted per instructions of the NY Times, who insist that, “Those posing for pictures should be neatly dressed, and should have their eyebrows at the same level.” And it appears that everyone follows these instructions to a tee – in some pictures the couple’s heads are so aligned that it appears that they are affixed with a jumbo staple gun. The black and white picture is then followed by about three inches of text, all of which could be considered mind-numbingly boring to the casual reader. However, I have found that with a little imagination, you can turn this into a marvelous sociology exercise; the trick is to imagine that the sparse text is the initial concept of a Hollywood script and your job is to supply the back story.

In the first paragraph you learn who married the couple, which would seem to be of minimal interest, except that occasionally you get interfaith marriages where you can sense a hint of a contentious tug-of-war over the ritual, “ the service was performed by Rabbi Berman, who incorporated Lakota traditions…” Meredith and Gareth apparently nixed the religious part of the ritual and were married by Barry, “a Humanist celebrant.” Maybe I could qualify for that role – according to the website you just need to be a dues paying member for one year (http://www.humanist-society.org/celebrants/inquiry.html). But if you are looking for something quick and dirty I would recommend becoming a universal life minister (http://www.ulc.net) which requires no cost and no faith. Next the announcement will let you know what colleges were attended (still mostly Ivy league) and even whether or not the blessed couple graduated magna or summa cum laude. And the fact checkers must really be on their toes; once I spotted a correction in which a summa got downgraded to a magna. Probably some jilted suitor called that one in. And then you can ponder the potential marital stress if the wife graduated magna and the husband was only cum.

Occupations make up the majority of the text, including both the couples’ jobs along with that of both sets of parents, and potentially step parents. This is where your back story can get really interesting, because the NY Times will also cattily let you know if someone is unemployed. A typical entry might read, “Until three months ago, Bleek Cate worked as a kindergarten teacher …” Now when the wife is unemployed I see three possible story lines. Perhaps Bleek has resigned her job to resolve some sort of geographic incompatibility, or perhaps she has simply lost her job, or most cynically, you can imagine that her job was only a stop-gap until she reached her goal of marriage. Now she is ecstatic to wave good-bye to a regular paycheck and settle down to a life of undiluted wedded bliss. But we all know that this is a potentially disastrous scenario – even the wedding section provides a glimpse of the financial sector woes. Another entry might read, “Until recently Goddard Bruce was a vice president and financial analyst at Lehman Brothers.” Who would want to subject themselves to this type of humiliation? But then I realized that the wedding pages of the NY Times are just as good a place to network as any. In two short lines and at no charge, you can inform the entire NY Times readership of your qualifications and immediate availability. Some entries show how the financial collapse has ripped through entire families. Melissa Frey is the stepdaughter of Caleb Koeppel who until last year was a partner in the Koeppel Companies, a real estate investment company (was he ousted by his relatives?), and granddaughter of Alan Greenburg who was chairman of Bear Sterns. Ouch!

Typically the wedding couple will have high profile jobs, but Elizabeth Rounds and Joel Pinkser are puzzlers. Elizabeth is a marketing coordinator for a construction company assembling introductory packets for prospective clients. I’m sorry, honey, but this sounds like a glorified secretary. Joel, 30, will begin working as a tour guide with CitySights at the end of the month. As nice as they might be, you have to ask what qualified them for a coveted slot in the wedding announcements. Perhaps it was Joel’s mother who was a well known writer of soap operas. Ranging from Pap smears to soap operas, the Times editorial decisions keep me guessing. I could definitely see a Law and Order episode involving a botched bribe to get into the wedding section.

Lawyers and doctors seem to be overrepresented in the announcements, both among the married couples and their parents. A common scenario is the wife who works as the office manager for her husband who is a doctor or dentist. While this probably represents some cozy partnership extending beyond the home, your screenplay could just as easily suggest that the wife needs to keep a tight rein on her husband midst all the steadily younger and perkier nurses. In general, the jobs of most the mothers tend to be stereotypically woman’s work – in education or the arts, or the mother might have some sort of kick-ass volunteer job, like a ballet board member, or a hobby that poses as a job. Teddy Roosevelt’s V mother, for example, “is a free lance writer on the subject of endangered primates and eco-tourism.” My interpretation is that the enduring Roosevelt wherewithal has permitted her to be world traveler, but this may come to an abrupt end – because now we all know that her husband Teddy IV is (or potentially will not be) an investment banker at Lehman Brothers.

Some of the more touching announcements are professional couples with very humble origins, judging by the jobs of the parents. Take the marriage of Linda Law and Jim Mui. Linda’s father is an internist, her mother the practice manager. In contrast, Jim’s mother is a seamstress at Lookout Sportswear while his father owns Cherry’s Chinese food. Plenty of story lines here in this clash of culture and class – potentially a dysfunctional bridal dinner and other family events.

The choice of one’s life partner is always an interesting story, but marriage of same sex couples still adds a frisson to the back story. Phillip and Douglas met in 1967 and were finally married in 2008. One can only imagine the trajectory of this relationship through the climate changes of the past 42 years, to the total glory of public recognition of their partnership through marriage and inclusion in the NY Times. John and David live in Los Angeles, but John grew up as the son of a minister in rural North Dakota. I just want to put my arms around them both in celebration of their triumph over a presumably tortured childhood. But the best is perhaps Damon and Charles who participated in a double wedding. Their marriage was immediately followed by marriage of Damon’s father to his gay partner of 16 years. Bravo! In the movie parlance, that story line is optionable.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters, like post, stop, and spot). The number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following lines. Your job is to solve hte missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.

The ******* NY Times has been the arbiter of class and culture throughout the ages,

Selecting wedding announcements to be published in its Sunday pages.

The austere responsibility is left to the discretion of shadowy *******

Who must select the winners midst the clamoring nuptial competitors.

As * ****** through the listings, I saw no pattern that was clear,

Who knows, the tipping point might be kinship to Pap smears.

Answers: storied, editors, I sorted

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Brain Food

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Liza Blue

Sitting in the shelves of everyone of my first cousin’s homes is a copy of the cookbook, “Have Fun with Herbs,” self-published by my grandmother in the late 1950s. So I thought it would a fitting family unity exercise to dedicate a weekend when all of us, spread across the country, would concoct one of the recipes and then share our experiences in remembrance of my grandmother on her 110^th birthday.

As I perused the book, I realized that while being a cherished family item, “Have Fun with Herbs” was seriously flawed as a cookbook. There were many instances where the temperature of the oven was omitted, and that maddening phrase, “cook until done,” was frequently used. Its dated quality was charming; it seemed that many recipes focused on the novelty of frozen vegetables. For example, the recipe for “String Beans and Mushrooms” called for a package of Birdseye French Style frozen beans and a can of mushroom soup. Other expressions included eggs that were “high and scarce,” presumably describing the high price and scarcity of eggs during World War II, or “an egg of butter,” referring to an estimated quantity of butter in the era before quarter pound sticks were wrapped with tablespoons conveniently marked. My cousin Susie thought that the theme of the recipes was to add wine early and often, while I detected that many of the recipes included the unhealthy trifecta of butter, cream and eggs.

I was hosting a smattering of local relatives and had considered a variety of unique menu items for our memorial meal. A buffet of tripe and tongue seemed to fit the bill, but this proposed menu was greeted with outright hostility by the senior members of the group. When asked which he preferred, Uncle Frank said that he would prefer not to come, and my father begged to have something different. I got the message and was secretly relieved, since wrestling with a big slab of a tongue, or working with slitherly tripe was a little off-putting.

I then focused on my fond memories of the desserts served at Sunday lunches at my Grandmother’s house. My usual seat was at Granny’s right, and she would give me the initials to dessert and let us guess. There was some sort of homemade strawberry ice cream that was somehow held together with melted marshmallows, and Junket with chocolate shavings served in little Pyrex dishes. But HM, good ol’ honey mousse was one of the favorites and I decided to make this for the dessert. As I reviewed the recipe I was not surprised to see that it consisted of honey, eggs and cream and gelatin. The amount of cream in the recipe seemed overwhelming for this health conscious age, so based on Susie’s observation, I made the executive decision to substitute a cup of sherry for one cup of cream.

Then the recipe called for placing the sweet creamy concoction in a mold – and I found just the thing. At Christmas time, I had gotten a catalog from the Anatomical Supply Company (1-800-ANATOMY) which primarily sold posters and models of body parts -i.e. the circulatory system, the ankle, etc – for doctors’ offices. But I also discovered that they sold molds of body parts as a novelty, and I purchased molds of the left hand and a brain. Buloop, bloop, bahloop, the honey mousse was poured into the brain and allowed to set. Working with gelatin can be a little dicey, as too much or too little will result in pure rubber or bloop, respectively. But as lunch time approached, I was pleased to note that a slight jiggle of the mold revealed a good consistency. The next challenge was to get the mousse out of the mold in one piece. My young niece Della and I secretly went into the kitchen and sort of vibrated the thing and then used a little knife around the edges. Holding our breath, we tipped the mold on to a plate. With a whoosh, the brain plopped on the plate in one glorious and glistening piece. The Anatomical Supply Company had helpfully provided recipes with their molds, and the brain mold suggested that watermelon jello would produce a most life like brain. They obviously never considered the attributes of honey mousse – the ecru colored honey mousse shimmied and shimmered on the plate – if this mousse was any brainier it would have been Einstein’s. We gave Uncle Frank the honors of serving dessert – and told him that since he rejected other organ meats for the entrees, we had found a suitable substitute for dessert. The poor man was initially panic-stricken at the sight of the life like human brain, but then he erupted in peals of laughter. As predicted this mousse packed a wallop – the diluted creaminess was more than compensated by the alcohol content – and our group of 10 could barely polish off the frontal lobes.

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the previous or following line. Your job is to solve for the missing words based on the above rules and context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

******* are meant to be broken is my basic cooking strategy and scheme,

So I when I made honey mousse I added liquor instead of cream

And then I put it a mold of a brain that was anatomically correct and *******,

So that when it was served, it looked like a perfect human sacrifice.

Picture Uncle Franks’s anguished scream as it ******* the room

The poor man thinks he has to eat what only cannibals consume.

Answers: recipes, precise, pierces

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Law and Order

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Liza Blue

I think that every generation of children has a touchstone television show whose ingrained theme song immediately brings back their youth. For me, it was Leave it to Beaver, and then later with my younger brothers, most definitely The Dick Van Dyke Show. Every night at 6:30 we would watch the opening credits and try to guess whether or not Rob Petrie would trip over the ottoman as wife Laura greeted him in a dress, heels and pearls. The Brady Bunch, the Cosby Show and maybe the Wonder Years were favorites of the next waves of children. In contrast, my children spent their formative TV years in the 90s, when warm family sitcoms seem to have evaporated. If you asked them, the standout TV show of their youth would have to be Law and Order. In it is original version this show was divided in two parts; the first half hour was devoted to police work and nabbing the perp or the perv, and the second half consisted of a court drama, which often hinged on legal maneuvering and plot twists. Subsequent spin offs included “Special Victims Unit (SVU),” which introduced the viewers to the term the morbid fascination of sex crimes and “Criminal Intent” which focused on the eccentric detective Bobby Goren. With three different versions, and reruns on cable, there was no shortage of Law and Order in our household. The opening voice-over for the SVU show refers to “particularly heinous crimes,” and I know my kids are going to have a leg up on the vocab section of the SATs if the word “heinous” shows up!

When my daughter was 8 or 9 the stated bedtime was 9 PM, which really meant that 9 PM was the starting point for negotiations. Disliking prolonged bedtime rituals I worked out a deal where if she agreed to go to bed before 9 I would put her to bed, along with the requisite back rub and story. However, it she wanted to go to bed after 9, that meant she was a “big” girl and could put herself to bed. The original Law and Order started at 9, and as the syncopated theme song started, she was faced with a big decision. In her innocent voice she would ask, “Please can’t I just stay up just long enough to see who gets murdered and then you can still put me to bed?” Distraught psychologists estimate that by their teenage years, American children have been exposed to some 10,000 murders or other scenes of violence. Most of ours came from Law and Order.

My mother always waxed nostalgic over her favorite show Perry Mason, which by the 90’s had faded to late late night cable TV. My parents had grown bored with their TV menu, which consisted of the Antiques Road Show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and the History Channel, which we renamed the “Hitler Channel” due to its focus on WWII footage. Therefore, I suggested that they might like Law and Order. I carefully explained the time and the channel and even called them to remind them as 9 PM approached. The plot lines of Law and Order had started to veer towards socially relevant stories on racism or police brutality, etc, and I hoped that this night would involve a ripe plot line about a dysfunctional family with twists more reminiscent of Perry Mason. Everything started well, and then I was horrified as I realized that the plot line was devolving into a particularly sordid affair of a mother and 14 year old daughter who shared the same boyfriend. Uh-oh. At one point Lenny and Mike got a search warrant of the family’s apartment, which included a search of the laundry hamper. Using a pencil, Mike extracts a pair of dirty underwear from the heap and holds it up in the air in front of Lenny. With evident disdain and a slight perception of a sniff, Mike says, “I think that there is fluid in these panties, bag em!” This was clearly too much for my parents to bear. Just think, poor Rob and Laura Petrie were forced to sleep in separate single beds because a queen bed was considered too risqué in the 1960s. From then on, we would refer to the Special Victims Unit (SVU) as the “Fluid in the Panties” show.

Lest you think that I have wasted umpteen hours of time, I would like to impress you with the legal knowledge that I have gained along the way. First, throw away everything that you were wearing when you committed the crime, including the boots with the telltale wear pattern on the soles, the expensive cashmere item that you can only buy at one store in all of New York, or that coat with the distinctive cat fibers on it. Get rid of it all. Never, ever let the cops in the door, even if they say there is a gas leak or they are raising money for orphans. Once they are in your house, they can look around all they want. Demand the search warrant. Also, never leave the house to talk to the cops, it’s best that you talk either through the screen door or with just a crack open and the safety chain on. I’m pretty sure that there is some rule that cops cannot come in the house to arrest someone, but they can arrest you when you leave the house.

If you do get hauled into the “big house” for questioning, either wear a pair of latex gloves or don’t touch anything. These crafty cops might offer you a grimy Styrofoam cup of coffee for the sole purposes of getting your prints and comparing them to those found on the scene. (It is slightly disquieting to me that my prints are already on file with the government, since I was fingerprinted when I worked at a VA hospital as a medical resident.) Don’t sneeze, because in general, fluids are more informative than prints, don’t let your hair fall out because they can do DNA on the hair follicles, and don’t bite anyone, since they can match the bite pattern with those at the crime scene. I can’t really give you knowledgeable advice about whether or not to “lawyer up,” but I might recommend it simply because it would be so dramatic to yell, “Get me my lawyer,” – presuming you had a lawyer in the first place. And while there is much talk about the right to privacy, you really don’t have any. There are cameras everywhere, at the convenience store, ATM machine, at intersections taking pictures for speeding tickets, your EZ pass records your coming and going, etc. And just like PigPen, wherever you go there is a cloud of dust following you, an efffluvium of epithelials, fingerprints, fibers and fluids that can pinpoint your every move. We can no longer go gently into that good night.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the words will rhyme with the previous or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

Staying up to see the murder on Law and Order is one of my daughter’s desires,

And to watch Elliot Stabler, the sensitive SVU detective she most *******

With a ******* tucked into his holster or in the belt around his waist,

He has not backed down from the violence and cruelty he’s faced.

Unlike the line up, it’s hard to ******* the evidence used to nail a perv,

With epithelials, fiber and fluid, they usually get the sentence they deserve.

Answers: admires, sidearm, misread

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The Same Old Story

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Liza Blue

The basic plot lines of forbidden love, the overwhelming desire for what you can’t have, undiluted jealousy have been the fodder for umpteen movies, cheap paperbacks, great works of fact and fiction, and certainly scads of episodes of Law and Order. But you add in the detail that the basic tawdry love triangle included three astronauts and now things get interesting. Astronauts are NASA’s finest, whose steely intellect was certainly supposed to supersede any distracting and cheap emotions. We have been led to believe that these rocket scientists do not put their pants on one leg at a time. And yet, here is the story of a women so besotted by another ‘naut that she raced cross country to confront her rival in the airport parking garage.

One can only imagine if this love triangle had played out in the tight confines of a space capsule. We have all heard about the cachet of love at 30,000 feet involving a stewardess and an incredibly tiny airplane bathroom, but love in zero gravity would certainly put you in elite and rarified company. From the lunar mssions in the 1960s I recall a tense thirty minutes or so when the space capsule would slip from sight and communication as it circled around the moon; 30 minutes when the tightly wound astronauts briefly escaped the all seeing supervision of NASA. And here is where the passions could play out – as the capsule emerges from the blackout, the revenge would be revealed to the stunned scientists at mission central. A ravaged space capsule with one dead astronaut and the other two in a disheveled and amorous embrace.

This plot line is plenty juicy, but then of course there is the captivating detail of the diaper. The love crazed astronaut was on such a tight time schedule that she could not spare a minute to go to the bathroom on her cross country drive, so she simply donned a pair of diapers. It turns out that astronauts are different than you and I; they put their DIAPERS on one leg at a time.

Ah, potty humor, another eternal humor device, a universal guilty pleasure that has been used to provoke snickers, teehees, chuckles and guffaws from Chaucer to Shakespeare to the space age. The fact of a diaper would have certainly sufficed, but we were given the irresistible detail that this was no ordinary Depends, but a NASA-issued space aged diaper. It also brought to the fore the persistent nagging question of how astronauts attend to their bodily functions in space, but I doubt if any thought the solution was as prosaic as a diaper. Apparently diapers are standard issue for astronauts during take off and reentry. This is the 3 hour period when the astronauts are totally encumbered by their space suits which are air pressurized and equipped with a parachute in case they have to eject. Personally, I think that the space suits are just for show as I can’t imagine any hope of survival if you had to eject from a hurtling space craft. Anyway, while taking off and re-entering, astronauts are basically lying on their backs with their legs above them, resulting in blood pooling in the torso. The heart interprets this as fluid overload, and sends signals to the kidneys to unload fluid and produce more urine. While this might be an elegant physiologic explanation of why astronauts need to pee while awaiting lift off, let’s not forget they are also plenty nervous.

I have experienced first hand that NASA tries to anticipate everything, and thus it was no surprise that they had invented some special diaper. In the early 1990s I attended a boondoggle conference on medicine in space, which included both NASA representatives and a bunch of cosmonauts flown in from Russia in the spirit of détente. The focus of the conference was what sort of medical capabilities would have to be built into a 5 year mission to Mars. For example, what would happen if one of the space travelers developed appendicitis or an abscessed tooth? There was much discussion of how to equip an OR in space, including some sort of device to clip the surgeon and equipment to the OR table so he or his scalpel wouldn’t float away in zero gravity. Another session focused on whether or at what point a mission could be aborted if an astronaut developed cancer or some other life threatening illness. While the marines and other armed services embody the culture of “no solider left behind,” the discussants concluded that space age travel is an exception, and the astronauts would have to understand that there was no turning back once they were at least halfway to Mars. The final discussion centered on what to do if one of the astronauts actually died on board, i.e. what was the obligation to bring the body back to earth versus turning someone’s loved one into an eternally orbiting piece of space junk? Storing the body turned out to be somewhat complicated due to decomposition, but in their can-do spirit NASA determined that they could certainly engineer special body bags. With this point resolved, the next and last issue was how many body bags should be included on the space ship. The panel concluded three body bags should cover a worst case scenario.

So NASA makes diapers, and the question is how are these diapers better than their earthbound counterparts? What is the point of difference, absorbancy, durability, comfort? Stories abound of government contracts for $10,000 screwdrivers and $100,000 toilet seats, so in her mad cross country dash, the crazed astronaut might have absconded with thousands of our tax dollars.

One of the early marketing tactics of NASA was to point out that many of the innovations required for space would ultimately be translated into everyday products that Americans could enjoy. While I am sure that there are many behind-the-scenes technical marvels that grew out of the space program, the only tangible benefit I can recall from the space program was the powdered drink Tang. The manufacturers must have negotiated a lucrative deal with NASA, since this faux orange juice was relentlessly promoted as the official breakfast drink of the astronauts. At the time Tang was the first powdered juice drink, and coupled with the American fascination in the space program, I think that everyone felt a bit of pride in drinking Tang, even though it was totally wretched. Americans have long become jaded and cynical, but since NASA is perennially strapped for cash they might as well grab the publicity and sell the rights to someone to be the official diaper of NASA. Perhaps someone can once again capture the marketing punch of NASA ingenuity.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the previous or following lines. Your job is to solve for the words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

NASA ——- her courage and intelligence as one of a kind,

But recently it became apparent that she had gone out of her mind.

She ——- to catch the eye of a fellow hunky astronaut,

But her unrequited love left her totally distraught.

Her wild cross country race was borne from the depths of her ——-,

As she rushed to Florida to lure her rival into a mace-laced lair.

Now here is the part of the story that I find most enthralling,

She wore space age ——- so she wouldn’t have to stop when nature came calling.

Answers: praised, aspired, despair, diapers

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The Fruited Plain

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Liza Blue

This summer marked out debut performance as gardeners. Our new house came with a dedicated, fenced in garden and underground automatic watering system which would have been handy if we could ever figure out how to use it. We had a very casual and expedient approach; we got some seeds and simply threw them into the mulched ground in vague unmarked rows; the potatoes I planted were old forgotten withered things from the bottom drawer in the pantry. Over the next 10 weeks we were absolutely bowled over by our harvest. We can take minimal credit for this resounding success, which mostly reflects the resilience of nature in the face of our inattentive care. How can it be? We started with seeds no larger than the stye in my lower left eyelid that is currently driving me nuts. One month later we had a profusion of brilliantly colored radishes.

I had always imagined farmers in the winter poring over Burpee seed catalogs for lack of anything better to do. But I quickly realized this a well advised strategy. We were faced not only with mountains of radishes, but rows of lettuce, cilantro and arugula. Clearly we should have planted the lettuce in successive rows so that we wouldn’t be inundated all at once. And I am not sure why we didn’t appreciate that cilantro and argula are essentially both garnishes and multiple rows of each were clearly overkill. In a given year, I might eat one spaghetti squash, but there must have been 50 spaghetti squash out there all gleaming in the brilliant summer sun. I belatedly realized that the vines had extended through the fence, and there were even more spaghetti squash nestled in the lawn beyond, looking like oversized Easter eggs. I am not sure what we did right, but the unexpected payoff came one morning when I was at the farmer’s market buying raspberries. The true farmer looked at me and said, “Don’t I know you from somewhere? You look like a farmer!” I quickly looked down to see if I was wearing an apron, or had dirt under my fingernails. Perhaps there was a smudge on my face, but I took it as a compliment.

We were immediately faced with how to consume all this bounty. It just seemed so ungrateful to throw away produce that was standing so tall and proud. The first challenge was all the radishes, and I quickly decided to include them in everything we ate. Our most consistent dinner guest is my father, and so over several weeks I added radishes to everything we served him. I have come to realize that my father has very distinct and categorical tastes, but these can be overcome with a little imagination and sleight of hand. He is not keen on ethnic food and he will say, “I don’t like French or Italian food, is this Italian?” The taboo on French food is based on the fact that “those frogs” were never sufficiently grateful for being bailed out of two world wars. The Italians were simply on the wrong side of the war. However, I discovered that my father can’t really identify ethnic food. I can serve him a fancy chicken pizza with roasted radishes, and disguise its Italian origin by calling it a quiche, but then don’t tell him that a quiche is French. A beef enchilada can be repurposed as “a sloppy Joe with a different kind of bun.” My father is also not very up to date on food in general. One time I was sitting in the kitchen with my back to him as he was making himself a sandwich at the counter behind me and he asked, “Bobbie, what is glaucoma?” I answered that it was a disease of the eye that can ultimately cause blindness, and so on. I then turned around and saw the quizzical look on his face as he was holding a large spoonful of guacamole.

So I started cooking radishes, cleverly mixed them in with roasted potatoes, baked them in a quiche, put them on the grill in tinfoil with onions and whoever walked in the house left with a radish door prize. And slowly and steadily whittled away at our oversupply. But as soon as we finished the radishes we were confronted with endless spaghetti squash followed by potatoes. Potatoes are about as low maintenance as you can get. They grow quickly and take up a lot of room and thus don’t need weeding. And then when its time to harvest, you take a big shovel to uproot them, so there is a little surprise factor about what has been lurking beneath all summer long. I exulted with my first shovelful as I saw multiple little potatoes emerging from below.

I was instantly reminded of an incident with my mother, dating back to 1976, the bicentennial year. There were some orioles nesting near our house, and mother put out some red, white and blue yarn on the bird feeder, hoping that the orioles would weave them into a bicentennial nest. The yarn went unused, but we did spot the pendulous oriole nest hanging from a branch. As we stood there looking at the nest with binoculars, my mother said, “that nest looks exactly like a scrotum,” and then she walked away. That was the only thing she has ever said to me of even a vague sexual nature. And now nature had repeated itself with these unearthed potatoes. Midst the black earth clinging to the curly, kinky rootlets lay the diminutive globular potatoes.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e share the same letters like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the puzzle based on the above rules and context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

Adam and Eve on the Fruited Plain

Adam couldn’t help notice that while working in his ******

Something grew large then started to harden.

My God, it’s Eve, a gal who likes to strut her stuff.

Thus Adam was the first man to ****** at a woman in the buff.

His eyes ****** over her body, so supple and sleek.

He was left breathless by her beauty and unable to speak.

But he already knew the ****** of something this big,

Quickly he ran to find a leaf from a fig.

Answers: garden, gander, ranged, danger

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I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttery

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Liza Blue

The quick trip to the grocery store was pathetically mundane. I was simply there to pick up the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, but at the egg case I found myself caught in a morass of conflicting humane, ethical, economic and nutritional decisions. I normally reach for the standard Grade A large eggs, but this time paused to consider the different egg options, which included the following:

Vegetarian – presumably to appeal human vegetarians who have extrapolated their sensibilities onto chickens, who when given the opportunity, are actually carnivorous grub eaters. This strategy may also appeal to those who are fearful of mad cow disease in chickens forced to eat icky meat byproducts.
Organic – appealing to those who believe healthier chickens will lead to healthier and tastier eggs. Organic eggs come from chickens that have not been exposed to pesticides or antibiotics, either personally or in their food.
Cage Free – While the term “cage free” is self explanatory, the deception is that the chickens are still tightly confined into a coop. While cage free may appeal to our humanitarian sympathies, it still sounds like a very grim existence. The chickens may never see the light of day and live in filth and an overwhelming stench, but at least they can stand up and possibly walk around. One carton proclaimed that not only were the chickens cage free but the eggs were “laid in nests.” The carton had a drawing of a chicken that looked downright comfy in a nest of straw. Generally suspicious by nature, I began to wonder whether the drawing was a gross exaggeration and if there was a standard definition of a nest.
Free Roaming/Free Ranging – It turns out the that the US Department of Agriculture has a standard definition of free range, but it falls woefully short of the pleasant concept of chickens frolicking in a farmyard, to wit: “Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.” The key word here is “access,” meaning that the chicken must be highly motivated to seek out the door, which may be way across the pen, which may not be visible and which may only be open periodically. And of course, what is the nature of outside – specifically is there any nature outside? Does the door lead to a blazing hot parking lot; is there any food out there or other enticements? Why would the chicken cross the pen to get to the other side?

One carton of eggs noted that the chickens got “lots of exercise.” I was curious about this notion and thus called the 800 number printed on the carton. I got a surprisingly frank answer from the customer service representative who said, “Lots of exercise – that’s more propaganda and hype than real exercise. The chickens just have to walk to get their food and water since they are not in individual cages.”

Another carton of eggs noted that the chickens had “access to clean water.” There’s that pesky word “access” again, suggesting that it is the chickens’ own damn fault if they don’t have the sense to take advantage of the luxuries that are provided to them. Besides, it also seems to me that access to clean water is a uniquely human requirement that may have little appeal to a chicken. Wild animals drink whatever water – muddy, silty, dirty – that is available to them.

After some deliberation, I selected Phil’s Farm Fresh Eggs, which showed a drawing of friendly Phil wearing thick black glasses and a porkpie hat, cradling a chicken in his arms. These organic, vegetarian, cage free, nest laid, American Humane Association monitored eggs were $3.56 per dozen, about twice as much as the cheapest and presumably cruelest eggs, but less than some eggs that were merely organic. The middle of the road is usually a reasonable place to start.

As you may have guessed, overthinking (particularly about words) is a favorite pastime on an otherwise do-nothing afternoon, so when I got home, I spent some time researching the rules of product labeling and “standards of identity.” While poultry and meat are under the purview of the USDA, processed foods are the responsibility of the FDA. With advent of cheap products and inventive advertising in the 1920s, the FDA sought to provide standard definitions for common products, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For example, consumers were duped into buying jelly that was basically nothing more than sugar, food coloring, and a splash of token fruit, the amount of actual peanuts in peanut butter was all over the board, and bread became the testing ground for all sorts of additives.

Among the first standards were those defining jams and jellies, but how to distinguish them? A popular song at the time of this debate was Glenn Miller’s, “It Must Be Jelly ‘Cause Jam Don’t Shake.” While this would seem to be a reasonable standard of identity, the FDA adopted an only slightly less subjective approach – i.e. consulting old family recipes dating back some 200 years, and determined that jam had to contain 45% fruit. Public hearings regarding the peanut content of peanut butter took 20 weeks and produced 8,000 pages of transcript. The “bread wars” were fought over the use of softeners in dough. Some bright marketer had discovered that consumers judged the freshness of bread by how soft it felt though the packaging, hence the use of softeners, which had nothing to do with freshness. Was this deceiving the public? My theory is that the bread softness expert realized that his skills were transferable to the toilet paper industry and began working for Charmin to deceive customers with their “squeezably soft” ad campaign. I think softness of toilet paper as assessed through the wrapper may be entirely due to how tightly the roll is wrapped, and may have nothing to due with the softness experienced by our most sun-deprived anatomy.

Once a standard of identity has been set, the manufacturer probably assembles a swat team of linguists to start dissembling. (It is likely that these linguists also moonlighted for Bill Clinton to instruct him on the subtleties of the definitions of “is” and “sex.”) For example, many standards of identity apply to nouns – like butter and chocolate – but there is no standard of identity for the corresponding adjective, such as buttery. So if a food is labeled “buttery,” this specifically means that it is not made of butter. One brave company decided not to play this silly game anymore and boldly named their product, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.” Perhaps the next generation product will be called, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttery!” Same for chocolaty – chocolaty foods are not chocolate. Also the word “fudge” is not formally defined and is often used as a surrogate for chocolate that is not chocolate. By the way, the current standard of identify for chocolate is the midst of a heated debate. The FDA has proposed that the cocoa butter in chocolate can be substituted by other cheap vegetable oils and diverted to more lucrative uses. Waikiki beach may be one possible destination. I went swimming their once and the place reeked of cocoa butter, and there was oily sheen in the water from all the tanning lotion sloughed off into the water.

A rule of thumb for the savvy consumer is to suspect any claim that is very specific. Bill Clinton was the acknowledged master of this type of legerdemain semantics. For example, Clinton stated that he did not have a 12 year relationship with Gennifer Flowers, but his denial only applied to the length of the relationship and not whether it existed or not. The most egregious example was his statement that “there is no relationship with Monica Lewinsky.” When this misstatement was offered as proof of perjury he responded by saying, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” If ‘is’ means is and never has been . . . that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”

Now let’s apply the same concept to Subway, who advertises that their bread is “baked fresh.” While it sounds like there is some minion in the back kneading dough, the word “fresh” only refers to the timing of the baking, but not the freshness of the dough itself. So even though the bread may be no longer than a day old, it can be made from ancient frozen dough. Similarly, the word “taste” can be adorned with many oxymoronic adjectives, such as “home made” or “farm fresh” taste.” For example, home made taste means that the product is not made in anyone’s home, it just tastes like it could be. “Fresh frozen” is another puzzling concept, but when applied to fish, means that the fish is frozen shortly after it has been caught, as opposed to sitting around for a while before it’s put into the deep freeze.

The other day I heard a McDonald’s ad on the radio for a new Southern style chicken that that when served with a biscuit was a breakfast item, and when served with a bun was a lunch or dinner item. The biscuit was described as a “fluffy home-made tasting biscuit.” Fluffy is a throw away adjective (see discussion of toilet paper above) and home-made taste is also meaningless. The bun was described as “an oh! so steamy buttery tasting bun.” Buttery tasting – another degree of separation from real butter – the bun does not have to be made from butter, and also does not have to be buttery, it just needs to taste that way.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like post, stop, and spot) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the words will rhyme with the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

You may think of baby chickens as cute and endearing

But one look at the cramped cages will leave an image tragic and *******.

You’d like to free these hens from this cruel farm juggernaut,

But cheap eggs for your omelet has a way of ******* this thought.

So chickens will have to defer their dream of a free range paradise

Until our country ******* a better balance between ethics and price.

Answers: searing, erasing, regains

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Spring Diary: Chapter 3

Spring Diary: Chapter 2

Spring Diary: Chapter 1

My Hat in the Ring

Mergers and Acquisitions

Brain Food

Law and Order

The Same Old Story

The Fruited Plain

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttery

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