Summertime and the living is organic chemistry

What kind of idiot takes o-chem all summer long?  You'd have to be as thick as a very thick piece of wood to think that THAT was a good idea.  Lordy. 

But for real this time, I am in Seattle all summer.  Now, there are good things about Seattle.  For example, there are a lot of puppies around here.  And also sometimes whales.  The problem is that is raining 99% of the time and then must mildly overcast and 50% the other 1% of the time.  So....that really puts a damper on things.  But at least my skin stays nice and consistently moist.  Excellent for cultivating fungus! 

                                              And remember, illegal things are not legal.

stop saying the word gummy!

If I could have one wish or one invention, it would be Gummi-vites applied to Microsoft Excel.  Don't you just hate taking vitamins?  Escpecially the ones where you have to chew highly compressed chalk in the shape of cartoon heads?  Why is it so hard to be healthy?  Why does my mom do this to me?  Isn't there another way?!?  There is!  Let's all take a minute to thank the genius who invented gummi-vites--the candy with nutritional value! 

Now let's all take another minute to write the inventor of gummi-vites a letter demanding that they come up with some similar mechanism for eating your excel spreadsheets.  I just can't get mine to taste good.  But more importantly, I can't get them to do a damn thing I want.  Also, I don't know what I want.

Please mail your suggestions to:

Bridget Bradshaw
c/o Friday Harbor Labs
Library, desk by the light with all the dead flies
Friday Harbor, WA
98250

The fact that it would be backwards never occured to me.

This is what I've been working on for the last couple of minutes.

In the you double-you


For those of you who enjoy consistent downpour, this is your time to shine!  It certainly is a good thing I chose NOT to bring my rainjacket!  Because who spends time outside, am I right?  So here I am sitting in the lab, mentally prepping myself to go out into the great concrete outdoors and wander into somewhere where the hot chocolate comes with generous amounts of whipped cream. 



This is the most recent picture of me I could find.

Also, you know what's funny?  I feel like an island person now, even though I'm a mainlander--born and raised.  But as I look down on my nasty nasty salt encrusted boots and a pair of pants I found in my room from a couple years ago and the flannel and coat that I've been wearing literally without fail for the last 6 days (that's correct, I wear them in bed and the shower.  just kidding!  I haven't showered in more than 6 days), I think that I now have more in common with an islander than a mainlander.  The city is too big and people wear shorts over tights and shoes that have never seen dirt and aren't wearing 90000 layers.  I have a minumum of 3 layers every day when I ride to school in Friday Harbor.  I think this is because everything is a short enough walk that you can stay under awnings most of the way to and from school on the ave. 




Here are things I am looking forward to when I am back for good:

1.  Thai food

Here are things I am not looking forward to when I am back for good:

1.  Spending money
2.  Going to school (category: real)
3.  Having homework and sitting in suzzalo.  I need to find somewhere else this year.  Too many bad memories.
4.  Cars
5.  Cement
6.  Noise
7.  Nights that aren't clear or dark
8.  People that are normal (category: annoying)


And in actuality, I am also glad that I have good friends back in Seattle to have dinner parties with and that I can hopefully hang out in the Burke like a little goblin all the time and actually not care about school so that I can make time to bike and run and row and go back to doing things that I can't do when I get too into my own research.  In short, it will be nice to take a break from caring so much.

But I will miss boat days.  Beats a land day any day.

Jellies

I've been sitting in lab 5 for about 12 hours now.  I have little to show for it--namely a stupid powerpoint and empty bags of tortilla chips, apricots, and chocolates.  I think I've gotten 5000 times my daily recommended amount of sodium.  I've drunk almost no water and had black black black tea this morning.  Yet it is somehow hard for me to motivate myself to ride home through the black black black forest, up the long long long hill to go home.  Where I will inject myself with more sodium if I feel up to the task of boiling water.  No guarantees.  I suppose it would be irresposible of me to sleep in the lab, but I have to be here in 10 hours anyways...so, what's the big deal really? 

This is what I'm going to be for Halloween.  I gotta figure out how to do it though.

If I had a camera...

If I had a camera, I would have taken pictures of:

-The strawberry rhubarb pie sack from Sunday.
-The way too sweet beer bread from last night and right now.
-The billions of dinner plate jellyfish (not the actual name of jellyfish) washed up in Griffin Bay.  Jellyfish are so weird.
-Velma the cat curled up on my keyboard while I watched the Life Aquatic.
-The Harbor Porpoise dissection this morning.
-The sunrise yesterday.
-The waves we were bobbing around in on the centennial yesterday trying to count birds and mammals.
-The other Bridget.  There's two of us. 
-The Golden-crowned Sparrow that hit a window at lab 5.  I kept it and it is in an inconpicuous bag in the freezer.
-The red fox that sat by our van for awhile and waited for us to feed it.  What a sucker.

-Let's be realistic--even when I have a camera, I NEVER take pictures of anything.  Except food.  Most notably, spilled food. 

Anyways, heading home Friday night.  I have to load up on extremely warm clothes in preparation for being cold and probably wet for a week on the Thompson.  I should also probably go to the doctor. 

too much booty in the pants

Today is a Monday. 

Yesterday, I did not check my e-mail.  I did not use the internet.  I sat around all morning, made the pie crust.  It made me wish that I had hands like a food processor--fast and deadly sharp.  Then I rode my bike up past False Bay and over towards American Camp.  I went for a long run through the field down to South Beach and then up the ridge by Jackle's Lagoon.  I could see the Olympics outlined in the haze.  The water was still.  Then I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie that was more like strawberry-rhubarb flavored sugar-soup in a pastry bag. 

I woke up sore this morning.  So I used this new leg-jiggling strategy that has all the exercise pros a talking amongst themselves:

The weird gross noises that sound like someone hitting a geoduck with a baby are just me laughing.

  

Jet packs on my ARMS, jet packs on my LEGS, jet packs EVERYWHERE

Do I cook?  Do I clean?  What do I do with free time, a dead phone, limited internet access, and no friends? 

The time has come to resort to the old time acts of fun-having: long walks through the wet woods.