About Me

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Since 1984, my light commentary, Marginal Considerations, has been a feature of Weekend Radio. Moving into the 21st century (yeah, I know - a decade late and more than a dollar short), it may be time to explore the format known as "the blog." (Still on the radio, BTW.) I am the author of A Natural History of Socks, illustrated by the late Eric May, You May Already Be a Winner (and other marginal considerations) and The Nonexistence of Rutabagas, plus maybe 1K features, essays, book and arts reviews in newspapers and magazines nearly everywhere, except perhaps Kansas. I live on Lake Erie one city to the west of Cleveland with too many musical instruments, several large plants and no cats. My front door is purple. I collect dust, take up space and burn fossil fuel. I kayak, knit, hike, sing, canoe, write choral music and play hammered dulcimer, but not all at the same time. I read too much and don't write enough, but what's new?

Friday, September 23, 2011

Paddling the Pokamoke, and more

Been on vacation . . . and I have the laundry to prove it. I have kayaked and driven the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, bits and pieces of Maryland and Virginia on the way to and from. The boat is back in the garage, the unpacking is mostly done and I have sand in my shoes.

The highest of the highlights, as promised -

Best paddle:
The Pokamoke River, a twisty-turny waterway through the country's northern-most cypress swamp, from Snow Hill (yes) to Pokamoke City. The water is extremely tannic - looks like cafeteria coffee - which means mosquito larvae can't live in it. NO MOSQUITOS! Bald eagle, other birds, turtles, and lots of tree knees. Cool.

Best road surprise:
Driving up the skinny finger of VA that isn't attached to anything but the MD border, from Cape Charles to Chincoteague in the company of 370 motorcyclists. (There really is only one road - US 13.) I started out before they did, they passed me, I passed them, etc. Kind of a day-long do-si-do on wheels. It was an annual rally, a fundraiser for some Christmas-gifts-for-kids project.

Best off-road surprise:
An installation by sculptor Patrick Dougherty at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. A collection of hidey holes, a walk-through labyrinth of playrooms crafted of saplings. Titled "Meadowmorphosis." A little punny but I like the piece. See it on the front page of http://www.stickwork.net/

Best dinner:
Bill's, one door from the corner of Main Street and Cleveland (yes) in Chincoteague. Eight broiled, couldn't-be-fresher, cooked-just-right, plump and velvety sea scallops; red skin potatoes cooked with ham hocks and mashed with smoked cheddar; and Granny Smith apple cole slaw. No need for dessert.

Best motel:
Rittenhouse Motor Lodge. Tucked in the piney woods off Rt. 13 near Cape Charles. Big room, clean-to-a-fault old tile bathroom, two chairs in front of every door. Classical music, stacks of books and antiques in the office and an utterly charming 83-yr-old host. Well, and coffee, of course.

Best campsite:
not this time

Best sign seen:
50% off fudge jewelry (for lack of a comma, blessed amusement.) Hoping the 50% they took off was the sticky part. (Says my friend Karen, "Everybody knows you don't wear fudge after Labor Day.")

Best wildlife encounter:
a red fox on a sand bar in the marsh near Jane's Island State Park (MD). OK, I was amazed by the up-close-and-almost-too-personal fox sighting but it's a sand bar - where were the daiquiris??

Best beach:
a tie  - Assateague National Seashore for the breakers and one amazing sand castle; the Atlantic side of the NASA site onWallop's Island because it's not open to the public so nobody else was there except me and the 10 people I was with. And I found a perfect moon snail shell.

Totally unclassifiable:
the giant signboard (somewhere in Maryland, I think) on Perdue Stadium - Chickenstock LIVE. What? Are they racing chickens? Is this avian NASCAR? Or are they making soup? Out of LIVE chickens?? I wonder if the PETA folks know about this . . .

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Scientist create real invisibility shield

Looking through the chaos I laughingly refer to as my files (I was searching for my poetic license - I think it expired), I came upon a newspaper clipping from October 2006 with this headline:
Scientists create real invisibility shield.


And I quote: " . . . researchers at Duke University have developed  . . .  a primitive device that hides objects by bending electromagnetic waves so that they flow around the object . . . (I seem already to have something in my house that hides objects, especially my cell phone.) Because none of the waves is reflected back at the observer, the object is invisible . . . "

Holy Harry Potter, Batman! OK, so you can't exactly walk into Target and buy an invisibility cloak just yet (and if you could, they'd doubtless be out of my size), but it sets me to thinking what I might do if I could walk around completely unseen. What kindnesses or good deeds might I perform in my ultimate anonymity?

To be honest, I'd probably just do some serious eavesdropping. Not very noble, I know, but there are many domestic scenes, meetings and backstage situations where I would just LOVE to know what goes on when I'm not around.

Or, I could sneak into people's homes to see what the house looks like when company isn't expected. Not naming names here, but it seems that everybody I know has a nicer, better kept house than I do. I'm betting that if I could see what the place looks like on an ordinary day, I might get over that. Of course, sneaking around in my invisibility shield, I'd have to avoid klutz moves like cracking my shins on the coffee table or catching the corner of a cabinet with my hip, the kind of thing I do on a regular basis even in my own home.

Apparently that would not be my only difficulty.  " . . . cloaking a Romulan spaceship, a tank or even a human would produce a serious limitation," the piece goes on to say. "Because all the incoming light is bent around the cloaked object, anyone inside would be left, quite literally in the dark . . .   Any device used to provide vision for the occupant would itself be visible . . "

Well,  I'm in the dark most of the time, but if I can't see the house I'm sneaking around in, the whole thing definitely loses some of its cool, don't you think?

That's the trouble with life. There's always a catch.