I have a very different, more personal blog post today and what I ask is that you share its information freely with anyone you know who is over forty and gaining a longer list of prescriptions, as we all tend to do with each visit to the doctor or the specialist. Or share … Continue reading →
Category Archives: science
here comes my next book!
Here’s the cover of my next book, a thriller/science fiction yarn set in the university town of Isla Vista, California. Imagine a strong smart young woman in Southern California planning to become a scientist, who notices the gradual disappearance of the local homeless, and a sequence of strange events concerning ducks– which mount to a personally threatening … Continue reading →
Posted in: Blog, education, publishing, science, writing
Gifts
Every so often after I’ve spent hours out in the studio painting, there’s a message waiting on the machine when I walk into the study. Hit the button– I hear the tentative young male or female voice on the recording and then a rush of words. “Professor? You won’t remember me. I took your class…” … Continue reading →
About Blood Draws and How to Make It Easier for the Lab Vampire
I just saw a “veinviewer” image posted on Facebook–it’s a fascinating new technology that facilitates finding a good vein for a blood draw. From a nurse I know, I understand there’s research being done that demonstrates the ultrasound as a means of locating deep veins for lines, or that can be used for obese patients. … Continue reading →
We’re Back
We’re back. I didn’t know we were going until about a week beforehand, so I never told you, but now I will. We flew over to Boise, Idaho for the annual Botanical Society meeting. http://www.botany.org It’s been seven years for my husband since he last attended a Bot Soc meeting, and then he went only … Continue reading →
Ketchup Packets are Immortal
We walk in the evenings, carrying a bag or two, and pick up the trash on our way. Bottles, coffee cups, straws and all the debris left from fast food meals. Our neighborhood roads are relatively quiet wandering routes, with hilly profiles, so I find it interesting that we can normally fill at least one … Continue reading →
After Isla Vista: Commencement 2014
(I co-wrote this commencement address, a version of which was given last weekend at a UCSB graduation ceremony.) This was the year. A year of change, of disorder, of assault, of murder, of the world moving without us, without our approval. A year of feeling the deep violation of our space and our peace. You have … Continue reading →
Posted in: Blog, education, science, social and anti
Of Paintings, Permanence and Picnics
Here are two twenty-year-old sketches for paintings, done in ink on paper. The originals measured about seven feet by four, each, though I’ve cropped the images because of the torn bits and the logs I put down to keep them flat for photographing. If you saw the entire original photos you’d also see the … Continue reading →
The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry
The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry, now there’s a title for you. I went on a search, one of my erratic repeated sniffings for the book I remember from my second grade days. It was a book my father owned because he was teaching agriculture and agronomy to classes in the Nigerian University. Brown buckram … Continue reading →
glorious food
I sit here at the computer patting my warm sleek black cat who purrs as though it all means something. But cat, I’m procrastinating. There are soaked kidney beans to be boiled then baked this afternoon in slathers of molasses, packed with sweet onions and mixed with mustard. There are chicken thighs to … Continue reading →
