While I am not familiar with the origin of 'angry as a hornet,' it strikes me as a southern proverb. It finds itself shelved alongside 'frog strangler' and other sayings that tie in creatures we find in nature that somehow describe our situations and innermost thoughts and feelings. These colorful expressions are of our doing, the creatures were not at all involved in the negotiations when we were so brilliantly forming these sayings. It doesn't seem entirely fair, but I suppose that is a burden that birds, amphibians, insects, etc. must bear. Then again, perhaps the joke is on us; we depend upon them to communicate our emotional language to one another.

My mind wanders back to hornets. Are they always angry, or is it simply that their exhibition of anger seemingly goes to the extremes of poisoning its target of discontentment? I found myself questioning this as I was sitting at my back door, reading... then quickly became distracted by two hornets (while I am not sure exactly what they are, this is what I am calling them) that appeared to be arguing.



When they become angry with one another, do they sting their hornet victim? It would seem odd that one could poison the other. Logic would dictate that a hornet would not be affected by the sting of another hornet. But then, nature is not logical. Maybe hornets do not hold natural antidotes to hornet stings. It then came to my mind that I did not really know how hornets reproduced. I have some reading to do.

Considering the anger and competitiveness of insects begs the question of how mosquitoes interact. Andrew and I spent a good part of yesterday morning discussing mosquitoes, and we soon came to realize that I would need to do further research before forming an opinion on their place and my perceived lack of their contributions in this world.

I once read that the strongest athletes help out his/her greatest rival, thus making the rival that much better and increasing the standard at which both hold themselves... ultimately motivating the first athlete to become ever stronger. This came to mind when we were on the topic of mosquitoes. Would a mosquito act in this way? Or would one competitive mosquito decide to bite another one to gain more blood? Can a mosquito bite another mosquito and effectively drink its recently attained blood supply?

Thankfully, I was soon distracted by a couple of plants I'd adopted from a local nursery. As I was repotting them, I dug my hands into the warm potting soil and realized that it was life. Simply life. I felt as a surgeon of sorts, digging my hands into the blood that plants required for being and thriving... then my mind was back to mosquitoes and their lust and reproductive need for blood.

Choose your towels carefully

Friday evening was certainly not the first time I'd considered my favoritism for particular bathroom towels based on color, which of course was correlated with each towel's personality.

The green towel - green, of course, being my favorite color - is the king of all my towels; it is only to be used on days that I expect good fortune. It would be disrespectful to use it otherwise. And it is only to be washed with the smallest amount of bleach in order to preserve its power, exhibited by its rich green color.

The orange towel is a fairweather friend of sorts. I really don't keep up with its best care, but I do appreciate its presence when I am heading out for a trip and it is my last option to pack. We don't have much in common, but I do appreciate its vibrance.

I feel a bit sorry for the yellow towel, as it is somewhat drowned out by has-beens. You see, yellow used to be my favorite color many years ago, so all of my old towels are yellow. Rather, were yellow. They have had more than their fair share of bleaching, so they are a worn out, exhausted shade of yellow. So, while the new yellow towel is promising, it does fall into the unfortunate circumstance of being related to its substandard relatives of mine. It can be difficult for a flower to get noticed when surrounded by weeds.

Blue towel is good for weekends, as it is such a fun-loving color. He gets the light bleach treatment, too.

The red towel, by nature of its color, has control issues. We have come to an agreement that it gets used on Wednesdays, as Wednesdays are when I engage in weekly operations team meetings, and a little back-up of someone (rather, something) with power issues is rather encouraging and sometimes reassuring.

So you can imagine my confusion when I arrived at home on Friday evening and found the floor between my bedroom and record room covered in water. I couldn't use green or blue out of respect... red was in the laundry... I had some has-been yellow and the good yellow and orange. It felt as if I had to pick which child to send to war. Why did this happen? Were the towels really the best choice to remedy the situation? Did I even have the proper towels for such a task?

As this rain continues, I hope we can figure out ways for my towels to maintain their integrity while also taking care of domestic issues.

English Morphine

It's even capitalized on both words, as if it is an actual formal item that one would include on a grocery list for shopping on a Tuesday afternoon. At first read, it sounds like a harder version of morphine that a regular user would have to ever so carefully titrate up to in order to tolerate. On second read, it sounds like the name of the next Placebo album.



Morphine would sound like muffins if you were speaking in a cloud or carwash. But the idea of the writer of this list expecting to pick up some English Morphine rather than English muffins lends to the magic of interpreting strangers' grocery lists. And that it was actually written as "Morphine" on the list means the only cloud this writer likely experienced was the pink one she felt before relapsing.

This list is clearly written by a female. The handwriting, vegetable items, decided periods on ends of items, and corrected writing... it just speaks female, older woman. Older woman because if you look at the handwriting - look at the way she moves from letter to letter... example: corn. See how the end of the c leads to the bottom of the o. The writing of this o is a sort of backwards approach to how children are now taught in handwriting (an o would start at the top rather than bottom). She actually uses an ampersand in her writing on the celery & milk entry. Many folks born after 1955 don't regularly use these in handwritten notes (however often still used in typed notes) unless otherwise formally taught.

And one more thing about canned corn: I have to give a high five to my English Morphine addict friend... canned corn is so much easier than ears of corn. Sure, ears of corn when schucked and grilled are so much tastier, but the volume of available good individual kernels of corn (for soups, salsa, etc.) that comes in cans makes it a pretty damn marketable item. Especially if the shopper is an older woman who doesn't have the time or strength (or teeth) to grill then slice off (or bite off) the grilled corn.

Heads of lettuce: not just one, but multiple heads of lettuce. Again, this speaks of an older individual who grew up in the Depression or perhaps more likely was raised in the Depression. She still eats plain lettuce and doesn't exactly see the value in other more expensive greens like spinach or mixed baby greens. And most other greens are now in bagged varieties, for which you pay much more per ounce.

Cherry tomato: I'm guessing this means a pint of cherry tomatoes, since it is singular. Have noticed that lovers of cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes are often folks who eat their fair share of vegetables, and often had or have their own home gardens. Yep, old lady.

Mushroom: let's just pretend she is talking about the vegetable. I mean, I think the English Morphine will be enough.

Cucumber: another item on which you will see handwriting that is not part of what is commonly taught now.

Celery & milk: for some unknown reason, these two are on the same line. With a period at the end. As in this is a definite need. Not just celery and milk. But CELERY & MILK.

apples: perhaps she does have teeth capable of eating corn on the cob.

As far as the paper goes, it is noticed that it is ripped at top and she only uses the bottom half for her grocery list (as it is guessed that the top half was already used). Another point toward a Depression era kid, knowing to waste little and make the most of anything - including free notepads. This particular notepad makes me wonder if it is a woman who recently lost her husband due to old age and she is looking to sell her house that they happily lived in for the past 58 years. The pain that would come with such a change in life and loss of love would help explain her need for English Morphine.

the hidden magic of grocery lists

A single grocery could be regarded as sacred as a personal journal entry that a pre-teen girl might write under the cover of a baby blue checkered bedspread with flashlight in hand. If you write in the dark, no one will see. If you write in the dark with a cloak of bedding, not even the spying ghosts can see. A grocery list reveals intimate details of a person's life that even his or her closest friends and family may not know about the individual.

Your over-the-counter sleep aid, the detergent used to wash your favorite gym shorts, the microwave popcorn habit you could never kick, the food you feed your adopted puppy, the coffee you buy to brew at home because the food you feed your adopted puppy tastes better than your office coffee, and exactly what sort of texture (and perhaps scent) of toilet paper you prefer to wipe your ass.

The items on a grocery list hold only a fraction of the story of the person behind it.



What sort of paper it was written on...
Stationery with a schoolhouse and a Bible quote
Hotel letterhead
A post-it
On the back of some unrelated print-out
Personal professional stationery
Back of a business card
Back of a napkin
Torn off piece of paper
Typed out master grocery list with items circled

Handwriting...
Manic, serial killer, all caps
Looks like your grandmother's
Obviously inked by an engineer
Carefully drawn letters of a control freak
Inconsistent, moody, identity crisis, multiple personality... or collaboration of more than one person
Written in a rushed, diagonal on the post-it fashion

Editing...
Place an "X" next to each item once in cart
Scribble through with fierce anger
Strike-through once
Leave alone, no written indication of whether item was picked up or not
Edit multiple times before even making it to the store
Other non-grocery list related items on list (phone numbers, directions, etc.)

Spelling and grammar and abbreviations...
R-berries
Deoderant
Veg
Desert
Frozen brocoli
Snack's

Categories...
Items in parentheses
Items with question marks
Items categorized by store and/or aisle
Items with no specifics: white soda; lunch meat

And any accompanying quirks such as hearts to dot the letter i, budget analysis for grocery trip, an EKG, and individuals' names linked directly to a listed item... always good.

I have over 5 years' worth of collected grocery lists that I'd like to share. Hope you enjoy as I add them.

There was some sort of explosion. It came out and divulged itself like a starfish eviscerating itself for a meal. Except more colorful.

It was a disordered rainbow and reminded me of the old Print Shop graphic of layers of colors that slowly moved from the inside out as the computer fed the image to the printer that printed onto the paper with holes in the sides and perforations between each sheet. This is one of my favorite dreams as a kid. There are certainly more memorable ones, like the recurring one of the orange tiger chasing me around the tree in my family's backyard. That one lasted for years and it was always the same.

I used to keep a dream journal of sorts: a spiral notebook kept at my bedside that I wrote in when I awoke from a dream... whether 11:52pm, 2:28am, or whenever. Upon waking, I detailed my dreams and often drew pictures of the images in my mind's dreams (crayons were kept on the bedside table for this reason).

That practice has not been followed in years. Yet I still recall my dreams from each night's sleep every morning. And, somehow, my dreams have become so much more vivid with each year of age.

The two basic categories of dreams are realistic and non-realistic. The non-realistic ones are so damn detailed that I can recall each square inch of my adopted 8-armed monkey... the realistic ones are the ones that trick me.

My dreams are so vivid that the realistic ones are often confused with reality. I actually had to sit down in our VP's office and ask him about travel dates... I'd had a dream that he sent out an email (written in his verbiage) about us traveling to CA on April 12-16. I nearly booked that flight... then decided to check my email for the email I read in my dream... never found it. It did not exist in reality. He didn't send it.

Chewing on cords does nothing.