Didju know?

While we were eating Thanksgiving dinner my family and I got into a fascinating conversation, swapping random facts back and forth. I know, I know, we're nerds, but I love playing "Didju Know" - In fact, I've decided to drop Geology as my major and just go into Random-Fact-Maker-Upping instead. I think I'd be really talented at it.

Did you know . . .

In Brazil, there's a species of cockroach that eats eyelashes, usually those of young children while they are asleep.

Carli + Robyn + Frosting = . . .

Good times. And a VERY messy kitchen.

What should I do with my life?

Dear Blog Readers,

Lately I've been pondering deeply what I should do with my life, and I'm pleased to announce that I decided yesterday: I've decided that I am tired of trying to make a decision so I'm going to let you all decide for me! Ha ha. I've created a poll (pictured at right) and I will leave it up to you to vote for what you think I should be when I grow up. You have six days left to make your voice heard . . .

My idol

I have found a new idol in life. And no, he's not an incredible actor, or a brilliant scientist, or an inspired leader. He probably can't sing worth a darn, he's not particularly attractive, and I highly doubt he ever even went to college. He has never published a life-changing book, he never invented anything that revolutionized the world, and he was born, raised, and probably died in the blooming town of Anthon, Iowa (population 649) so few people have probably ever even heard of him. So why on earth is he my idol, you may ask?


I will tell you. His name was Charles Osborne and he had the hiccups for 68 years. They began one fine day as he was picking up a 350 lb hog to weigh it for butchering, and they just never stopped. These weren't occasional hiccups either - he hiccuped on average 40 times a minute, though they gradually slowed to only 20 times a minute near the end. It is estimated that he hiccuped over 430 million times throughout his life. Then another fine day when he was 96 years old, the hiccups just miraculously stopped, and he died a year later.


So why is he my idol? Because he was without a doubt the most patient, long-suffering person on the planet. If I had the hiccups for 68 years I would shoot myself in the foot, probably after the first week. Yet Charles Osborne somehow tolerated them for nearly 70 years, and even managed to live an almost normal life, marrying twice and having eight kids. Hmmmm . . . so maybe I should change my idol to his wife who apparently put up with his constant hiccuping for 68 years . . .

Let's be friends . . .

Recently I've made some new friends. I really like these friends and I look forward to the time we spend together every day. They have brightened my life ever since that first awkward moment when I reached out to them and tried to jump into the middle of their lives. I understand them a lot better now, though I still don't approve of all the decisions they make.



My group of new friends sure seem to make a lot of decisions which complicate their lives. For instance, in the last week alone: one of them rashly got married after his father died and then cheated on his wife with his best friend (oops a daisy), one of them became severely depressed and almost drowned but luckily was rescued and made a miraculous recovery, one of them got engaged and is now going through with a wedding she's secretly dreading, and one of them is slowly falling madly in love with a woman who has had a bad accident and now doesn't even remember her own name. And this is only the beginning - the relationships between all of these people are so complicated and intertwined that it's anyone's guess what will happen next, or who will fall in love with whom next.




Unfortunately, I may never find out either. Alas, my roommates and I have now finished Season 3 of Grey's Anatomy and have been unable to find someone we could borrow Season 4 from, so we may never find out how everyone's lives resolve. Farewell, my dear friends! It was a pleasure to get to know you, even for such a short time. I have laughed with you, cried with you (mostly when you made foolish decisions), rejoiced in your achievements, and been disappointed with you when the women (and men) you love have rejected you and the people you love the most have died. You made me appreciate my own uncomplicated life so much more. I will never forget the life lessons you have taught me, or the tender moments we have shared together during the past two weeks. I miss you already.

Great Halloween Costumes . . . Past and Present

Today as I was attempting to do my math homework, the screensaver on my computer kicked in and started playing a slideshow of my pictures. And since my math homework wasn't particularly enthralling, I let myself get quite distracted laughing at the funny pictures I've collected over the years. In particular, there were several pictures that came up of past halloweens that made me giggle and so I decided to commemorate this blog post to halloween costumes past and present.


This year my roommates and I decided to be creepy clowns for Halloween. All except our roommate Carli, who decided to be . . . our ringmaster??


You know how most girls use Halloween as an excuse to go around in public wearing outfits that should really only be seen on your wedding night? Yeah, not me and my roommates - we prefer to dress up as diseases. Please meet Leprocy, Spanish Influenza, Black Plague, and Jaundice.


And then, of course, there was the year that my roommate and I dressed up as trains. We had to go to a stake halloween dance and we had the brilliant idea that if we dressed as trains with giant BOXES around us we wouldn't have to dance with anyone. No such luck, though - some boy asked me to dance anyway. He learned his lesson when he tried to spin me and got whacked with the back end of my train engine, however.


This one is one of my favorites. Any guesses on what my little sister and I are being? Yeah, that's right - we're Little Red Riding Hoods. My mother is so clever.


Let's not forget the year I was a crayon . . .


And, of course, the year I was a mouse and my brother William was a leopard. That scary creature lurking in the background is my father. Classic.

I've been pondering . . . Magpies

The other day as I was happily walking home from campus I saw a magpie hopping around on the grass in front of me and it prompted a life-changing chain of thought for me. I believed (incorrectly as it turns out) that magpies were part of that devious group of parasitic birds that sneak their eggs into other birds' nests so that they get out of doing all the work of raising their chicks themselves. Initially, I thought this was incredibly tricky and insidious of magpies, but the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that magpies were really quite clever. See, magpies must realize that they would not be able to take care of the eggs themselves, so they give their eggs to other birds to raise. Also, I began pondering how dense other birds must be that they don't even realize the deception that took place. Think about it - what other mother could leave her children for a few minutes and come back to find that an extra child had mysteriously appeared and not even question it? Other birds must really not be too bright. Yep, I have definitely decided - if I were a bird, I would be a magpie.

After I had this whole illuminating train of thought which led to my self-discovery, I did some research about magpies and other birds and I found some interesting facts which I would like to share with you so that you, too, can be enlightened.

• First of all, I owe an apology to magpies. They do not, in fact, belong to the group of parasitic birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests. In reality, they are shining pillars of parenthood in the bird community. After the baby birds are strong enough to begin moving about on their own, the parents even close up all the holes in the nest (thus imprisoning the babies) and feed them through little holes in the nest until the chicks are able to fly. This might seem cruel, but actually it's a precautionary measure for the babies' own good, as it keeps them from trying to fly off prematurely and falling to their doom.
• While magpies are not parasitic, there are a lot of other birds that are. Cuckoos, for one. These devious little birds will lay one egg in another bird's nest and then actually steal one of the mother's own eggs so that the mother doesn't notice a change in egg count. The whole substitution process takes less than 15 seconds. Not only that, but cuckoos are able to mimic the color and pattern of the eggs of whatever bird they choose to victimize so that the eggs all look the same. Scientists are still mystified by how the cuckoos are able to manage this.
• Another interesting parasite is the Honeyguide. When these chicks hatch they have a lethal advantage over the indigenous baby birds - they are born with a deadly hook-tipped beak, which they use to murder all the other babies. The beak even falls off a few days later after its purpose has been achieved, and the poor, dim-witted parent birds then devote all their time and energy to raising the Honeyguide chick that murdered their children.
  
• Another interesting bird is the black eagle. These birds always lay exactly two eggs, and the second egg is always doomed. One egg always hatches a few days before the other and so the first bird to hatch systematically pecks the second bird and steals all of its food until it finally succumbs to death. Interestingly enough, as I was writing this blog my family started to eat dinner and when I turned to the table after finishing the thought I'd been working on, I realized that my brother William, having finished his pork chop, had decided to devour mine as well. I have decided (and William even agreed) that if he were a bird he would be a black eagle. It's a wonder I ever survived my childhood.
  
• I would like to conclude with an uplifting bird to contrast the disturbing birds detailed above. Surprisingly, parrots are incredibly fair when it comes to feeding. Although the eggs all hatch over a period of about five days, the parrot babies are scrupulously fair and ensure that even the smallest baby bird gets it's fair share. The older, bigger babies will even share their ration with the younger birds to make sure that they all grow up strong. The result of this is that after about three weeks all the birds have roughly the same size and strength and its impossible to even tell which of the birds were the runts of the littler.

Well, this concludes my diatribe about birds. I hope you all found it as enlightening as I did and now view the bird world in a new light.