The Life Experience ~ Summer '10

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice

• Flash photography really does damage exhibits.
• I knew about the state dinosaur, but I had no idea Utah had an official state cookware. Upon learning this, however, I did correctly guess what it was: the Dutch oven.
• The story of Marco Polo bringing noodles to Europe from China is a myth.
• Every year in Teton National Park at least one family assumes that “bear spray” works like bug spray. So before going on a hike they line their kids up, and … well, I hear the park’s clinic is very good.
• Never try to do a road trip after missing a day of Zoloft.
• There are petroglyphs like EIGHT FEET off the road to Moab. Why have I never seen them before?
• Grendel was a velociraptor!
• Okay, maybe not.
• In the study of prehistoric animals and so-called “transitional fossils,”* the question of whether an animal was reptile or mammal is settled by checking the jaw and inner ear apparatus.
• Psittacosaurus was a great dinosaur—basically a badass parrot.
• Those Wheel of Morality bumps at the ends of kids’ TV shows—Knowing Is Half The Battle, And Now A Message From The POWER RANGERS!—have a distant ancestor in medieval theater, when people would perform stupid farces in churches and conclude with a sudden random promo for Christianity. “And so the shepherds found out their friend had stolen the sheep and pretended it was his son, and they all had a good laugh, in conclusion Christ Child.”
• Speaking of Power Rangers and tolerance, David Yost left the show one day when the homophobic taunts of the crew, who apparently never watched those bumps, got to be too much for him. AND UPON LEARNING THIS, ALL THE PIECES OF MY SHATTERED CHILDHOOD SUDDENLY FIT TOGETHER. All I had known of those dark times was that suddenly Billy was no longer on the show, and so I was no longer watching it.
• Ear drops are more trouble than they’re worth.
• Pets don’t always live their full life span.
• Neither do people.
• Even when you know it’s coming, death is a shock.
• Losing a twin is more traumatic than losing a non-twin sibling.
• Dad is a Led Zeppelin fan.
• Magnetic clasps for necklaces are expensive, but totally worth it.
• Ngila Dickson is my new hero: she designed the costumes for Lord of the Rings, and thus had to figure out what each culture would wear. Also, she had to have each costume made around forty times—and in the case of the hobbits, she had to weave the fabrics twice so they’d fit the same on both the actors and their smaller doubles.**
• YES, CORN IS GRASS.
• Quad-ruled notebooks are the best kind for clear thinking.
• The Hawaiian Islands were, in fact, plagued by wild cattle after Captain Cook introduced them as an ill-advised gift to King Kamehameha I.
• Major depressive disorder is insurable, but PCOS isn't.
• Glass stovetops can be hazardous additions to any kitchen.
• Mint is a thug. Never plant it in your container garden. And thanks to the Awesome Power Of The Internet, not to mention kitmf , I didn’t even have to learn this the hard way!
• The Northern and Southern Air Temples were run by monks, while the Eastern and Western Temples were run by nuns. Just as I suspected!

*This phrase always bugs me.  All fossils are transitional fossils, really.  But it does make sense for the transition of our nomenclature.

**She also gets bonus points for something I noticed a while back: she does the same thing to differentiate Rosie Cotton that they do in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to set Belle apart from the villagers. Notice how both Belle and Rosie are the only ones in their villages to wear blue.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, another term for bear spray, which is sold in bear-heavy national parks, is "bear mace." It does, in fact, stop menacing bears cold, but it does not work on QUITE the same principle as bug spray ...

Glass stovetops have worked well for people I know--they clean off easily and heat more evenly. However, they also BREAK easily in some case.

The cattle thing was a follow-up on that movie Dad and I watched, Castaway Cowboy. The people in the movie insisted you couldn't get cattle off the island to sell them. I wound up trying to figure out how you get cattle ON Kaua'i.

Actually, mint in our garden is rather nice--we just have to periodically beat it back into the Designated Mint Area, which is loosely defined anyway. But in a container? CHAOS!