an awesome Hill Country trip!

This is one of the things I love about being a writer. Well besides the fact that I just get to GO to cool places, I also get paid to do it! Doug and I have talked about a camping trip for a while, and we finally found a good weekend to do it. Then I asked around, to see if I could land a couple of assignments because that would turn a relatively inexpensive camping trip into an opportunity to do some extra fun stuff and get paid for it! (Course I still have the hard work of writing it up - but that's not so bad). I got not one but two assignments! One is to write a feature on bats, and another is a general travel story about the areas I visited. Coolio! So here's a photo recap of our incredibly awesome fun-and-action-packed trip!

We love making silly faces! Just about to embark on our 3 day trip to the Hill Country.
Our first stop was the cool eatery Vivo on the east side of Austin. This shot is a bit dark but there's a waterfall behind Doug, and the outside patio is bedecked with greenery. It has great atmosphere and awesome food! Their motto is "Better than sex Tex-Mex" - LOL.

Doug forgot how to use a fork :) He ordered the quesadillas, and I ordered the California chicken nachos, which were topped with alfalfa sprouts & pico de gallo, and were really yummy!
Doug has a bite of sprouts - lol. He's turning into a chia pet!
Quit taking pictures of me so I can finish this darn message! ;)

The peeps at Vivo eatery give every woman a rose after their meal. Nice touch!

Doug playing an oversized guitar in Austin. We had about an hour to walk around down 6th street before meeting up with a biologist from Bat Conservation International for my stories.
Me and Doug on the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, overlooking Town Lake. About to see a million bats emerge! This weekend was our 6-mo anniversary, and we didn't even plan the trip because of that! :) And Doug wore this Pink Floyd shirt the day I met him. Good choice! :)
Mylea Bayless of Bat Conservation International talks to Doug on top of Congress Ave bridge as we wait for the bats. I had just completed my phone interview with Discovery Channel Earth Live which will air sometime soon!

A view of Town Lake. Some people watch the bats from boats and kayaks.
Bats! This was taken by Doug, at Austin's Congress Ave bridge.

Being silly in the car! We did Mad Libs as we drove. :)

We stayed at the the Fredericksburg Inn & Suites the first night after seeing the bats in Austin and even made it in time to lounge in the not-quite-hot-enough-but-still-nice hot tub! It sits on 5 acres and has a historic building as part of the hotel. These sycamore trees were by a creek running through the property.
The first view of Enchanted Rock from a distance - taken by Doug. We drove there Saturday morning to pick our tent site and set up camp before heading to Colorado Bend State Park to hike and swim.
Me, just arrived at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area about to set up our tent.

Prancing in the rocks at Enchanted Rock. Darn shorts keep falling down! Doug titled this pic on his myspace "The wild Wendee is very rare to spot" or something like that - lol.

Our tent site was awesome! #25 :)

Next we drove to Colorado Bend State Park, which is about an hour away from Enchanted Rock. We got there for a 2pm guided hike to Gorman Falls but got there early with time to swim and play in the swift but shallow Colorado River.

Kissing again! :) They should just attach us at the lips :)

Me and Doug in the Colorado River, Colorado Bend State Park, happy!
Me hiking the trail to Gorman falls.
Me and Doug at Gorman Falls

Gorman Falls
Kissing again!

Gorman Falls. Gorgeous!

Next we headed to the Old Tunnel WMA (Wildlife Management Area), a pseudomaternity cave where mostly female bats roost but also some males. The females don't give birth here like they do at Austin's bridge, but leave to give birth and then come back a few weeks later to raise their pup. Doug is waiting for dusk so the bats emerge.

A view of the "old tunnel" that provides shelter for up to 3 million bats. There were only around 1 million at the time we visited because the babies weren't born yet.

Bat crossing sign at Old Tunnel WMA. TX Parks & Wildlife biologist Nyta Hensley gave a most excellent and informative 20 or so minute presentation on bats. It was really great!

But first... before we watched the bats we grabbed a burger at Alamo Springs Cafe. It's right next to Old Tunnel WMA and you can have an awesome meal while waiting for the bats. This is Mike Tangman, the owner of possibly the best burger in TX!
Burgers up! Alamo Springs cafe outside of Fredericksburg, near Old Tunnel WMA where people see millions of bats emerge- the best burger in Texas?

Our meager campfire didn't last long, but at least we succeeded at starting one!

Some cool rocks at Enchanted Rock St Natural Area. The next morn we hiked to the summit.

Another silly self-portrait while hiking Enchanted Rock.
Doug on summit trail, heading back down the rock.
A vernal pool thingie on top of Enchanted Rock. They were very lush this time. Must have rained recently.
After we packed up our tent, we headed to browse the shops in Fredericksburg but I didn't take any photos! Then we headed to the Sauer-Beckmann Living history farm at the LBJ National Historic Park not far from town.

A view through the homestead window at the Sauer-Beckmann farm.
Don't touch! Ha! All this canned stuff is actually grown and canned etc by staff who work at the farm. Pretty cool!
Award winning wine! Last stop, Becker winery near Stonewall, not far from Fredericksburg.
Bunny Becker at the Becker winery outside of Stonewall, Texas.

We enjoyed a $5 wine sampling session! :)We look like we had about 5 glasses of wine here rather than 5 tiny sips... but alas it's just a bad picture :)

bats bridges camping and enchanted rocks

Gorman Falls at Colorado Bend State Park, Texas Hill Country.
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I feel bad about not blogging more. Funny how it comes in waves. My Animal Planet blog and my book and the kids have kept me triple busy!! I had several flashes of insight in the past week though! I can't remember them though, probably because it's 240am!

I am super excited about going on a ROAD TRIP tomorrow with Doug! It's our first trip together, and my first trip anywhere in a long time. Needless to say, I feel like I'm long overdue. It started as a planned camping trip, but then I ended up landing a couple of assignments. I love when that happens! So that makes it a business trip per se, but as always a total blast of a business trip - lots of outdoor adventures!

I'm writing one article on bats, and one general travel article. The plan is first to head to Austin, eating dinner at the coolest restaurant - Vivo - that my friend Deb introduced me to last time I went there and visited, and then head downtown to walk around a bit. Then we'll meet up with a biologist from Bat Conservation International just prior to the big event - the emergence of nearly one million Mexican freetail bats that roost in the Congress Avenue Bridge over Town Lake. I've seen the amazing spectacle twice now, but it's Doug's first trip to Austin and probably first time seeing a vast cloud of bats ascend into the night sky, so I know this will be quite an exciting event for him to see it for the first time. I will be doing a podcast live from the bat scene for Discovery Channel Earth Live as I did previously for cassowaries in Mission Beach, Australia and sharks in the Coral Sea. (Even though I'll record it live, the producer edits it and it will go online sometime next week or so... I'll be sure to post a link!)

Next is a drive to Frederickburg, the quaint little German town a little more than an hour away from Austin. We will stay in a hotel the first night - the Fredericksburg Inn & Suites which is set on 5 acres and next to a historic landmark. They have a hot tub!! I am hoping we make it there before they close it at 11pm. The next morning we have some wiggle
room but I want to try to do the 2pm hike to Gorman Falls at Colorado Bend State Park. The waterfall there is absolutely breathtaking. We took that hike and camped in that park with Sam's middle school class a couple years ago, and
I wrote about part of that camping trip in my firefly article that I wrote. We then have to make it to set up our tent at Enchanted Rock State Park, and then head to Old Tunnel Wildlife Management Area to see an even bigger emergence of bats - this time 3 million! It's right next to the Alamo Springs Cafe which has gotten reviewed positively in the New York Times, and some reviewers have even said they have the best burgers in Texas. A colleague recommended it to me before I checked out their website, so I decided I just have to try it for myself. (Pic from the top of Enchanted Rock at sunset to the right, Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp)

Sunday we will climb Enchanted Rock - which only takes an hour - and explore around the park a bit. Then we have to hit Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park and the Sauer-Beckmann Living History farm on the way home. I've never been there! Most of the places we are going to I've been, other than Old Tunnel WMA and LBJ, so it will be fun showing Doug some of my favorite places from the Hill Country. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous, so I hope that holds!

balance~life is good

El Capitan in West Texas ~
A view of Guadalupe Mts National Park from the outside looking in.
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

Life is good. That's a thought that went through my head several times today, and it's been a while since I've really felt that. I feel like I'm starting to get to a new balance. You know how when you start a new relationship, everything is new, and your schedule and your life changes.? You spend a lot of time learning and growing and discovering. Sometimes it's scary. Sometimes you're mad. Sometimes you're ecstatic. I know that the past year has been a crazy one for me. The past 6 months have been a joy. And yet relationships take work. I also remember my brother once tell me that they can zap the creativity from you. In some respects I can see that. They consume a lot of your creative soul and energy. And after the beginning of something new, when you start to feel the confidence that this thing just may stick around for a while, maybe for good, even, then you start to return the balance to other parts of your life, to readjust back to not the same old, but to a new normal. And so, it feels like I'm beginning to restore the balance in my life after the inevitable change the start of something new brings.

I've been back to the gym that I've been neglecting for the past few months. Spent more time with old friends. Started reinvigorating my self-introspective life. Reopened the gratitude journal. And tomorrow, I will once again start a master cleanse, the all liquid (all lemonade) cleanse that is so invigorating to the body and soul. Last year, I did the cleanse several times. Since I met Doug I haven't at all. I credit that to the fact that he loves my cooking, and social get togethers often involve food, and I've been hesitant to take that back out of the equation, because 10 days without food means 10 days without social gatherings - or at least ones involving food (though I plan to only do it for 7 days this time, maybe even take a break in between - we shall see).

But it feels like the balance is returning. It finally feels ok to do so, like the gatherings don't have to revolve around food right now, and that I can get back to my regular normal. I feel happy. Several very good things have transpired, not big things to share but just small things that I treasure in my heart. Mostly I feel blessed by this relationship, by my friends, by the amazing church that I have and all the resources they have available and the people who go out of their way to generously give of their time and love, and my wonderful kids.

Today Doug and I went to see Sharks 3D at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and got to stop by and say hi to my friend Dan, the Curator of Vertebrate Zoology there (he writes the Beyond Bones blog for the museum too). We also went to see the Burke Baker Planetarium show Black Holes. That wasn't the best Planetarium show I've seen, but it was cool to do a couple things. In between we walked to Cafe Express at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts around the corner. That is one of my favorite resturants, and it didn't disappoint. Doug is now a convert too! The food is delish!

I love that I can play by day, and work by night. I love that my schedule is so flexible. And so many times today and the past few days I've felt so very blessed by this relationship and specifically by the man Doug is. No one knows the future, but we have been through some bumps and are the stronger for it. He is truly a good man, generous, loving, kind, and I care deeply for him as a person. I love so much about "us" and it makes me smile. I've never been good at day by day, but that's where I'm at and it's now finally working well for me.

So anyway, after a good day out, I came home and wrote a couple upcoming posts for the Animal Planet blog, and caught up on some email stuff, and then got super sleeeeeeppppyyy.... but I had to update my blog since I am feeling so at peace and knowing me, an extremely emotionally voluble person, that may change in 10 minutes - ha! So tomorrow I have to take my trusty Subaru down to get some maintenance - she's got nearly 170,000 miles on her...prayers for her health are much appreciated! I have to make her last a while longer!

miscellany stuffage

Silhouette of trekkers and porters on a rest stop in eastern Nepal
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I'm going to do one of those quick bulleted lists again. I'm not sure why I'm not blogging as much. I'm also not on Facebook and Twitter quite as much as I was, and I'm getting way behind on emails (though I spent yesterday catching up some). I wish I could say I've been writing like mad, but it is more like just juggling a hundred balls at once. I'm sure you probably know the feeling. Kids, my new blog, my book, household chores, and spending some time with Doug.

So the latest...

• I'm particularly liking the blog post I just wrote for today for the Animal Planet blog, so check it out if you can! Ancient primate ancestor - Holy Grail or hype? I talk about the misuse of the hype and PR these folks are doing to promote their new finding, which may just do a disservice to science and the public understanding of it.
  
  
• I watched Star Trek with Doug, and thought it was really good! I watched Benjamin Button with the kids last night and it was good but not as good as I thought it would be. Then again, I was multi-tasking, going through my email and probably didn't pay good enough attention. I have now watched the first DVD of the first season of LOST, which Doug also introduced me too (like HEROES), and I'm liking it. We have a ways to go, with 6 seasons or so...
  
  
• I have a new online writing class starting up Jun 6th, so if you're interested please check out the writing class website, or email me for more info (bohemian_AT_wendeeholtcamp.com - change the _AT_ to@ of course!)! I believe it's a great class, a fantastic value for your money (some other writing classes online are double the price!), and as one of my recent former students, Hans Tammeragi, just emailed me to say, "Your nature-writing course was excellent technically and also very motivational ... the best writing course I've taken. I particularly appreciated your help with my essays. It obviously helped because I've had two essays accepted since then (one in Canadian Wildlife mag)."
  
  
• I have to go run some errands so that is all the exciting (not) news for now! <:)

I'm famous! :)

View approaching Daydream Island in the Whitsunday Islands, otherwise known as paradise... I miss Australia! Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I have some quick news to report, then it's back to the Powerpoint and talk I'm working on for Sam's school, some sort of still semi-amorphous topic on critical thinking, the reliablity of information, and objectivity in journalism. It's my last and final one since their private school gets out the following week. You heard that right - holy cow! It's almost summer vacation!!

I'm completely tickled and honored that Dr. Isis printed my essay "On Being a Woman in Science" as the third in her "Letters to our Daughters Project" on her Scienceblogs.com blog, On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess. She's a pseudonymous professor of physiology at a major research university. I tried to get this essay published in many outlets, but no one bit. So it's gratifying to finally see it somewhere other than my own blog, where I think I posted it a while back. And it's gotten some cool feedback in the comments; finally, others who undersatnd the dilemmas of being a woman in science! I love her blog. It's very witty and smart, and she writes about stuff that is very much relevant for any woman professional, not just scientists, but definitely these issues come out more in science because well, maybe you just have to go through a science graduate degree to understand that.

Dr. Isis introduces my letter with the very kind paragraph:

Today's letter comes from science journalist and biologist Wendee Holtcamp. Wendee is a freelance science writer published in Scientific American, Audubon, Smithsonian and others. She is Animal Planet's news blogger and a contributing writer for Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. She was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Rice University, achieved Ph.D. candidacy, but left the program after a divorce. Her blogspot blog is here. What I adore about her is that Wendee embarks on amazing adventures, swimmming with sharks and climbing in Nepal, while also being a single mother to two teenagers.

The first letter, by Pascale Lane, MD, I emailed to Savannah! It was fantastic and hilarious. It said in part:

Why does this 5 letter word have such power over women? We are raised to be "nice." Malicious, unpleasant, and selfish are the opposite of this goal; however, this means that demanding equality may appear bitchy! At so many gatherings I have heard women ask how they can get their needs met without being called a bitch (generally these women spell the word rather than say it). The short answer? You cannot! Anytime you assert your needs and put yourself ahead of someone else, others may call you a "female dog."

When my daughter was starting middle school, I explained the world to her in my own warped way. I give my students the same advice. If you have a voice that gets heard in the world, someone will call you a bitch. If you perform acts of kindness and charity, someone will say that the bitch is showing off! If you show more spine than a jelly fish, someone eventually will brand you a bitch. Accept it. If someone calls you a bitch, you are probably doing something right.

I also wanted to mention that Jill Mueller in her Barefoot Badger blog wrote about her time traipsing around the rainforest in search of cassowaries with me, In Search of the Cassowary., while I was researching my Wildlife Conservation Magazine article, Saving Big Bird. She was an intern at the School for Field Studies Center for Rainforest Studies in Australia, where I'd given a talk in May, after my shark expedition. Jill is interested in doing science/environment writing also and I said that she could "shadow" me, so to speak, as I write my story on cassowaries when I returned in August. It was a fun time!

Random things

Central Park, New York City. I love New York!
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I don't have the energy to write a real blog post, but I feel I'm getting behind on keeping everyone up on the latest. So taking the lead from my daughter, who did this on her blog, I am going to do a bulleted list!

• I took Sam to see the Disney/BBC movie earth with his 7th grade class today and it was phenomenal!! The footage is just gorgeous and seeing it on the big screen was incredible. I had watched almost all of the Planet Earth shows on Discovery Channel (in fact, if you didn't know, I wrote half of the animal profiles in the online animal guide!), but this had about half new footage and a great storyline. It takes you all through the earth's major biomes, following the lives of several wildlife species. It includes some funny footage, and some dramatic and breathtaking. Two thumbs up! (OK and that was a very extensive bullet, I get it).
  

• I am learning how very fast I can write! Penning five blog posts a week (on the Animal Planet Animals in the News blog) is quite a feat for me! I am a slow writer, or so I always thought. Writing can be like pulling teeth at times. I sit and stare at my computer screen. But this is different. Research, write, fact check. I've been cranking out stories at double speed because I want to get a backlog of some stories in case I get sick, and also because my book draft is due in a month, and I need a bit of breathing room to get the bloody thing done!
  

• I have written about all manner of cool topics on the blog! They include fluorescent puppies, the Great turtle race, cloning the woolly mammoth, resurrection spiders, and the fact that birds, it turns out, can get down to James Brown (that is, they can dance to a synchronous beat). Upcoming topics include newsy stuff on chimps, worms, Galapagos penguins, cassowaries and more.
  

• I am listening to The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner on audio CD. He's an NPR correspondent and he wrote a book about traveling to the countries that research has shown to be the happiest. So far he's gone to the Netherlands, Switzerland and Bhutan. am enjoying his wry sense of humor. He even invented a word I love - conjoyment which is a cross between joy and content.


• In an attempt to reverse my "feeling down" of late (though it has lifted mostly for the time being) I did two things which bring me joy and which I used to do and haven't in a while! I went to Zumba again, th eone taught by my awesome friend Trish who is so full of energy and love and joie de vivre someone in the class deadpanned (I don't know about Trish. I think they need to do a drug test). The sceond thing is I got together with my girlfriends! Charlotte was in town visiting froim Colorado and she had an informal get together at Wazabi Sushi bar and it was so great to see everyone. Most of my time these days is spent writing, writing and writing some more. I spend any free time with Doug, and/or my kids.

Trish, Me, Georgia, Charlotte and Kate (Amy had left just before)!

So there you have it!

birds do the weirdest things

Nazca boobies on Espanola Island, Galapagos Archipelago
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

Birds do the strangest things. For the past four or five days, every morning at the wee hours of the morning I've been rudely awoken by a whacking on my bedroom window. The first morning, I was like, what the heck is that?! I woke with a start, then heard it again. Something was flying into my bedroom window. Over. And. Over.

And did I mention over again?

I opened the blinds, and it abated for a short time. I fell back asleep for about 15 minutes, only to be awoken by the same noise. Whack! Thrash! A bird was just smacking its beak and body againt my window. "What is its problem?!" I thought. I got my butt out of bed, and walked out my backdoor in my underwear and a shirt I was sleeping in, grabbed the broom by the back door, and started whacking the broom at the bush. I realized the bird was nowhere in sight. I realized I could see my neighbors windows, and that meant they probably could see me from the right angle, so I went back inside. Probably would make a great viral Youtube video - Animal Planet news blogger goes crazy in underwear trying to off a cardinal with a broom! Ha!

I went back to bed, hoping I'd deterred it. Made it choose another home to haunt. I like my beauty rest!

Fifteen minutes later - whack. Whack. Whack.

I gave up, and got up for the day. The first couple days I thought it was just a morning thing, but then I realized that anytime during the day when I went back in my bedroom for various things, every single time that dang bird was doing this same thing!! I think it has seriously lost its marbles. Or if it hasn't it will after all that head-whacking! I finally saw that it was a bright red cardinal, so likely a male is seeing its reflection in the mirror. But that does not make it any less annoying and maddening when you're trying to sleep. On various mornings, I have whacked back at the window, opened the window blinds, thrown my teddy bear at the window, and ran outside to scare it off. It's a persistent little bugger. It always comes back. I thought about getting my son's BB gun...

But seriously, I couldn't hurt it. I felt bad when I stepped on a garter snake's little head while running on the greenbelts the other day. I rescue spiders and bugs from certain demise inside my house (cockroaches are an exception!) I don't like hurting anything. So I came up with my brilliant idea this morning - and it worked! I got my ladder out, took an old sarong I'd gotten in the Bahamas, and thumbtacked it over the crescent window that the cardinal had been hurling itself at. I also had a backup. I took my son's stuffed owl and placed it in the window sill.

Problem solved. I put this up at about 7am and got to sleep soundly until 9am. Hallelujah!

life and love

A fur seal pup in the Galapagos Islands. The mom leaves the pup alone while she feeds at sea, and comes back to shore and must to find the pup by its cries and scent. Sometimes I feel like the helpless alone pup like this - am I the only one?!
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I have to admit, as I mentioned in a recent blog post, that I had been feeling pretty down lately - really a lot worse last week. It has been a lot of up and down over the past few months. This really is not all that new. We all have ups and downs, right, at least that's pretty standard for me. But I started feeling a real sadness in my soul and I couldn't quite identify where it came from. I also realize it's been a while since I have been very raw and honest on this blog, which is sort of my trademark. I decided when I started it that I would be open and honest about my feelings and about life. As I like to say, I want a life of radical honesty and transparency.

It becomes challenging to do so, though, when other people are involved. I can't write about my present feelings and emotions without mentioning the people who are intertwined in my life and who affect my moods. I don't want to do that to people who may not want to be talked about. I try not to talk about my children too much, to protect their privacy, and the same goes for those closest to me. I may tell stories about things that happen to me, but it's not obvious in any way who that story happened with. I do that on purpose. But when you're dating someone, as I am, it's kind of obvious who you're talking about! Right? After my break-up with the man from Australia I dated, I decided that although I may put photos and the like up, I wouldn't really talk extensively the personal nature of my relationship.

However it feels like it's time to say a little something. I am realizing that my downs have mostly been related to confusion and communication issues in this relationship. There's no doubt that they can have a real toll on the heart and soul and mood. I am someone who didn't really date much before I met my ex-husband, who I met at age 20 (and oh don't we think we are so old and worldy wise at 20?). My ex and I had a whirlwind romance, and were engaged after 6 months. We got married two years later but we lived together for nearly all those two years. And we were married for 10 years. The intensity of that closeness happening all so quickly had long-lasting effects on our relationship - not good ones. We didn't have a chance to learn one another's idiosyncracies slowly. Today, we are great friends and I'm so grateful for that. But we also shared a lot of communication breakdowns from the start.

During the marriage, we went to counseling and read books and I learned so much about communicating tools and techniques, and about the differences between men and women, and about prayer and about growing in spiritual maturity and understanding of my faith. And I learned, post-divorce, that a lot of what I may have once "blamed" on him turns out to have been a lot me all along. True there are always two people involved in every relationship. But it's also a good and illuminating thing to truly shine the light on oneself. However, it can also be very painful. And it is a lot easier to understand with one's mind than to implement them when it counts - in the heat of the moment.

Since my divorce I've really only dated a couple of people. And the relationships didn't last long, and the two more 'serious' ones were both long distance. So here I am, 5 years after my divorce with someone who lives here near me, and feeling like a teenager who doesn't really know how to date. And similarly to my relationship with my ex, D & I have gotten very close very quickly. I love that man, he is such a good soul. He is warm and loving and kind and gentle and sexy and sweet. And we sometimes frustrate the hell out of one another. And when that happens, it makes me want to run for the hills. But I really don't want to. The more I know him, the more I love him. I see so much beauty in his character.

In the deepest part of me, I want to stay put, and learn to implement all the tools and techniques - including praying and seeking God's will - in real time. Oh God it can be challenging! I'm so blessed by his patience with me. Because I tell ya, sometimes I feel like a big huge loser with all of this. Shouldn't I be more mature by now? Shouldn't I be more secure? Shouldn't I be able to make myself happy and not allow someone else to affect the state of my emotions? Would that it were so simple. I can do that, I can make myself happy when I'm sad, but it feels like the only way involves moving on and clearing the plate of a relationship, and that isn't something I want to do. So my mind goes into self-torture mode... Sometimes I think I want that, but in the deepest part of me, I don't. I don't. I don't!!!

And day by day I'm learning that through his loyalty, and through my own. I'm learning about myself, and about what I believe true love to be - selfless giving to another person and seeking their own best, and loving them despite flaws, and forgiving. And through that, we bring joy and acceptance and peace into one another's lives and souls. D&I do that for each other, at least I can speak for myself anyway, and despite some turbulence at times, it truly is beautiful and lovely. I don't know the future. I don't even know tomorrow. I am only just learning to understand the geography of my own heart.

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks.

Hugs rule. Doesn't my face look kinda like the lost little seal pup? LOL.
Being dorks!
Grilling chicken at my house the other week. I call this is my "I don't need a man grill." :) I put it together from like a zillion pieces out of the box, with no help!

Doug made me dinner! It's usually me who makes him dinner so this was an awesome surprise - what a sweetheart. Then we watched HEROES Season 1 episodes.

Kisses rule too!

It was a beautiful day the other day and we went to his apartment's pool for the first time this year. This photo cracks me up! (And after the sun, came the rain... it totally flooded last night!)

I love this photo. A bit out of focus but cute.

Animals in the News!

I am proud to say I'm now Animal Planet's news blogger! Five days a week I'll post articles or blog posts rather about various issues related to wildlife and pets. Check it out!

http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news/

My first two posts are "The Great Turtle Race is on!" and "Resurrection spiders." Stay tuned for tomorrow's story! Also check out my official bio "Meet Wendee Holtcamp."

Saving Big Bird- cassowaries!

Mission Beach, Queensland, Australia - where the rainforest meets the reef, and where the cassowaries hang out... I loved this place!
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

My latest article - on cassowaries in Australia - is out! It's my first article published in Wildlife Conservation Magazine, and sadly it will be my last. May 2009 is the magazine's final issue. It was a fantastic magazine, and I am sad to see it go, another victim of the sorry state of our economy. The article is not found on the WCS website linked above but I did reprint a PDF of the article below. Check it out!

Saving Big Bird: A cyclone forced endangered cassowaries out of the rainforest and into the danger zone. Wildlife Conservation Magazine. May 2009.

I gave a talk recently at my son's private school called The Tree Huggers Revenge: Why People Need Trees. I created a PDF of the Powerpoint but unfortunately it turned sideways... so I haven't bothered to upload it. It was all about the studies showing the many benefits trees and forests provide, but in it I also talked about the tropical rainforests specifically and my visits to both the Australian rainforest and the Amazon rainforests. I showed the kids photos of the cassowaries I saw and the awesome Aussie rainforests which look like a sort of magical wonderland with all the tree ferns and fan palms. I just love that place.

The three visits I made to Australia last year made me feel so alive, and made me think, "Pinch me, is this really my life?!" I think that perhaps my lack of adventure and travel lately is part of the problem contributing to my poor mood. I really crave the ocean, and the forest and adventure!! The only adventure I had recently, to Oregon and Washington, ended up with me snowed in... I will have to ponder how I can make a grand adventure a part of my near future. Here are a few more photos from my trip to the rainforests near Mission Beach. More are at my August 2008 blog archive.

Oh and don't forget to listen to my live podcast I did for Discovery Channel Earth Live while I was over there!! It's not long - just 4 minute or so long segments!

Fan palms in the Australian rainforest.
Another view of the fan palms, looking toward the sky.
Verdant ferns in the Aussie rainforest.
Beautiful sunrise over the ocean in Mission Beach.
Beautiful pink water lilies in what one naturalist called the "cassowary love spa"
Close-up of a rainforest fern.

depression

Bumblebee on lavender, Green Gulch Organic Farm, near San Fran CA
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I'm listening to the audio version of Brooke Shields' book Down Came the Rain: My journey through postpartum depression. I picked it up at the library the other day, along with 2 other audiobooks and wasn't even sure why. I figured I'd pop it in and if it was boring I'd stop and listen to one of the others. But the truth is, I've been transfixed. It's a good story, and she narrates it herself. I remember watching Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon. I was only 10 years old back then when it first came out. I loved that movie. It's funny I did a bit of googling about the movie to refresh my memory and I read that there was "Christian opposition" to it. I didn't grow up in an overtly Christian home so I didn't experience any of that. I never even heard of such a thing - opposition to movies or books or various ideas or anything.

Even though it's now rated R (I don't think movies were rated back then, though) I was allowed to watch it, and saw it as a very natural love story of how something like that perhaps could happen without the cultural rules and mores. And of course people that young definitely did those kinda things back long long ago. (OK I just reread that and I do not mean people today do not have sex at age 14 or 15... obviously. I meant sorta thinking that back in, say, cave people time, there were surely very different cultural norms...)

Anyway, I am more concerned about the effects of kids' exposure to violence and also the type of incessant negativity and criticism and tone of voice that takes place on many sitcoms than I am of sexuality. I think that most of these natural type things can be watched with the appropriate discussions. I don't actually watch actual TV myself, pretty much ever, but do rent TV shows on DVD, the latest being HEROES which I'm loving!

Anyway, I am enjoying the book. It talks about her struggles with depression after a long journey with infertility and In-vitro fertilization. Her baby was born just 3 weeks after her father died, and a couple years after a close friend had committed suicide. Yet she never thought she'd be prone to it, because depression wasn't something she'd ever dealt with in the past.

I never suffered from postpartum depression. But I have had bouts of depression at other times, most notably in high school after the date rape and after my divorce. And the truth is, the last few weeks I've felt very low, and very overwhelmed. It's bodily in nature and also heavy on my soul. There's not any acute reason. It's just a general feeling of overwhelm - my book deadline approaching, deadlines for so many things, financial stress, relationship dealings, life-in-general. But it's really getting me down. It's affecting my motivation. I am doing my best. I'll get through it.

teabagging and thunderstorms

Thunderstorm near Big Bend National Park, Texas
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

"Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work."
- Gallagher

It's thundering here in Houston right now, and we've got a tornado watch going on. I must say that I am a bit scared of thunder and intense weather like storms. I think it's just the massive scale and total helplessness one feels in the face of such intense power. Yes I'm inside a nice, supposedly safe brick house and for that I am eternally grateful. But in the most intense of storms I've been known to hide in my closet... I just do not like the really super loud thunder. It's pretty black and dark out there at the moment and it's not going to abate anytime soon, according to the weather peeps. Give me snakes and spiders any day!!

I have spent the day playing catch up. I have found that since I've spent more time twittering and facebooking, my email tends to get neglected. I am one of those people who likes to stay on top of my email and keep my inbox to a manageable level - less than 100 emails in there is a good number. I like to give everyone a personal response who emails me. It's not always easy to stay on top of email! It's a great thing to catch up with while watching a movie.

Yes, I'm the Queen of Multitasking. It brings to mind something I heard from I think, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk, about doing one task at a time and focusing on it. Enjoy it. Be present. He said something like if you are eating but you are thinking about baseball, you are eating....baseball. It was funny especially because I was listening to it on audio-CD but.... the point has stuck in my mind, though I have not yet incorporated that too much into my life. I do sometimes. But not often. An interesting thing to ponder...

At any rate my favorite items in the news that I've been ranting about on Facebook include the teabagging protests (ha ha) and the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry said at a "tea party" protest bagging event - go get an urban dictionary Fox News- lol) that Texas could secede from the Union.

Say what?! I was FLOORED when I read that he said this. This is not just some random nutjob saying this. This is the governor of the 2nd largest state in the United States!!! He also said that it was not just right-wing extremists protesting, but if it was, he was right alongside with them. Ahem. Yea. Okay. First of all, although Texas original Constution said we could secede from the Union, we lost that little privilege after the Civil War. Second, a Supreme Court case ruled secession illegal.

I must say that one of the funniest things I have read in a very long time (add her to Black Hockey Jesus - and it was he who recommended her to me) The Bloggess had a freaking laugh out loud funny blog post on the teabagging issue. Without further adieu, please visit: The time I got verbally assaulted at HEB. Bwa ha ha ha!! Here's an excerpt:

Then when I was checking out the bagger asked me if I was “going to any teabagging parties today”. Like, WTF? And the cashier was just looking at me waiting for my response and I was all “Uh…no” because I was too shocked to say anything else and then I got home and thought maybe teabagging means something else now but no, I googled it and it still totally means the same thing.

As always Jon Stewart's Daily Show has some outstanding and humorous coverage The British actor John Oliver interviewed some protestors who had really no clue of the ridiculously outlandish and inappropriate comparison they were making to what happened with British Rule compared to American taxes. God Bless America!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tea Party Tyranny
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Shall the Fundamentalists Win?

Stained glass window depicting the empty tomb the Church of Angels in L.A. - Inscription says - "He is not here, he is risen!"
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I just stumbled on this 1922 sermon, later published as a booklet, written by Presbyterian Minister Harry Emerson Fosdick, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?: Defending Liberal Protestantism in the 1920s," while researching my book (on making peace between evolution and Christianity, which by the way is due very soon - agghhhh!!!) All I have to say is wow, wow, wow!! What a powerful and profound message, and also very interesting given that this took place nearly a century ago. It outlines some of the same controversies of fundamentalism vs progressive/liberal thought, and science versus religion.

Fosdick was investigated and later resigned from the Presbyterian Church after publishing this, but soon became a minister at a Baptist church, and then founded Manhattan's Riverside church. This was just three years before the Scopes Monkey Trial, and one of the Presbyterians promoting the opposing view of fundamentalism was the attorney in that trial – William Jennings Bryan.

Here are some quotes from the sermon that resonated with me:

"Science treats a young man’s mind as though it were really important. A scientist says to a young man, “Here is the universe challenging our investigation. Here are the truths which we have seen, so far. Come, study with us! See what we already have seen and then look further to see more, for science is an intellectual adventure for the truth.” Can you imagine any man who is worthwhile turning from that call to the church if the church seems to him to say, “Come, and we will feed you opinions from a spoon. No thinking is allowed here except such as brings you to certain specified, predetermined conclusions. These prescribed opinions we will give you in advance of your thinking; now think, but only so as to reach these results."

"...the Fundamentalists are giving us one of the worst exhibitions of bitter intolerance that the churches of this country have ever seen."

"...there is one thing I am sure of: courtesy and kindliness and tolerance and humility and fairness are right. Opinions may be mistaken; love never is."

"...there are multitudes of reverent Christians who have been unable to keep this new knowledge in one compartment of their minds and the Christian faith in another. They have been sure that all truth comes from the one God and is His revelation"

"...for the sake of intellectual and spiritual integrity, that they might really love the Lord their God, not only with all their heart and soul and strength but with all their mind, they have been trying to see this new knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge."

This was written just 3 years before the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial and during a time at which there existed a huge controversy between "modernists" and "fundamentalists" within the Presbyterian Church, which made up around 25% of Christians at that time. The split affected many other denominations as well, and led to the decline of Presbyterianism in the U.S. I was actually researching the history of the term fundamentalist, which is when I learned about this whole history - fascinating!! Fundamentalism arose at the Niagara Bible Conferences which were held annually from 1876-1897 where a fourteen-point creed was developed, and later distilled at the 1910 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to 5 fundamentals of the Christian faith:

• Inerrancy of the Scriptures
  
• The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14)
  
• The doctrine of substitutionary atonement by God's grace and through human faith (Hebrews 9)
  
• The bodily resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28)
  
• The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his pre-millennial second coming)

I actually hold to a fairly conservative ("fundamental") belief in all of these things other than the pre-millennial second coming (I believe that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod which I attend does not hold that belief either and they're a fairly conservative church). I don't necessarily agree with inerrancy of Scripture. Well, that all depends on how you define it, as there's a whole history around the use of that term, and it didn't even arise until this conference in 1910!!! Yet so many churches use that as "fundamental" to faith. I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and is useful for teaching... and so much more. Its history in coming together is very interesting. I think that some things will always remain holy mysteries this side of heaven. It's also pretty ironic that the Presbyterian Church today is definitely not fundamentalist!

Regardless, the fact that the controversy between science and religion, and conservative/fundamental versus progressive/liberal thought has occurred for so long is just fascinating....Now besides merely defining the fundamentals of the faith, the fundamentalists of that era did more, as they do today. They mixed in political and anti-science thought with the religious ideals. They opposed evolution, and (in effect) opposed educational learning about things like Biblical scholarship as they believed it led people away from the faith. Just think, demanding and requesting people not learn so their faith would not be weakened or lost. What kind of religion or faith can be lost by learning? That is a weak faith indeed, not much worthy of following. I believe Christianity holds up to scrutiny and I say to education of all manner - whether Biblical history, science, or any such thing -bring it on! We need Christians to be more educated about their own religion. We need society more educated about this faith that has so influenced America, Europe, and the world.

I leave with the question: have the fundamentalists win? Shall we let them?

Cross-posted at The Fish Wars blog

PS Hope you had a blessed Easter!!

Maundy Thursday and what love is

~ Hugs are beautiful ~
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

Yesterday I attended my church's Maundy Thursday service. One of the associate pastors gave the sermon and he's a very animated character and I always get a laugh or two during his sermons. I must admit I had never even heard of Maundy Thursday until I moved to Houston over a decade ago. For those who don't know it is the day Christians celebrate four things: the last supper at which Jesus started what would become Holy Communion, Jesus washing his disciples feet, Jesus' private agony in the Garden of Gethsemene because he knew he was about to be crucified, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot.

Most of the Maundy Thursday services I've attended have always focused on the last supper and the washing of feet. The time before Jesus' crucifixion was Passover and he took his disciples to a private room where he shared the Passover meal. The beautiful messages that follow in the gospel of John are known as the Upper Room Discourse. I absolutely love this part of the Bible, as it's very comforting to read Jesus words. He is so wise and kind.

Anyway, so you may have heard that Jesus washed his disciples feet. Well that was something that slaves did in that day, and Jesus was a teacher and it was unheard of for him to do something like that. So most of the disciples allowed him to, but when he got to Peter, who is very passionate and got out of line quite a bit, he said something like "No Jesus you will not wash my feet!" And Jesus replies, "If you don't let me wash your feet, you have no part in me." To which Peter then replies, in a complete reversal, "Then wash all of me, my head and hands too!"

You gotta laugh. He thinks he's being humble by turning down the offer of Jesus to wash his feet, but Jesus puts him in his place. Then he goes overboard the other way, ok Jesus wash all of me, thinking he's just the most dedicated disciple ever. But Jesus puts him in his place once again, saying that once you're clean, you only need to wash the feet.

I don't think I've ever heard my pastors preach on this what I'm about to say but I read it somewhere, or maybe I just discovered it on my own, I don't honestly remember. But the washing of feet and the conversation with Peter is so clearly talking about forgiveness within Christianity. Once we've accepted the way of Christ, as we understand it, our "whole soul" is clean. Our sins are forgiven, past present and future. Yet when we go walking around the streets, living our daily lives, we get "dirt" in our lives, and on our feet. We say things in passion, that we regret. We judge. We are not patient. We curse. We yell. We leave things unsaid, or undone. We sin. We may need forgiveness, but it's not the all-encompassing grace, because we've already received that. It's just a daily dose of foot washing type forgiveness by turning to our God and asking Him to clean us, to forgive us. But all we need on our continuing journey of faith is to wash our feet, to daily come to have Jesus wash our feet clean and return to the way of love.

I asked my friends what love meant to them and here are some things they shared.

• "Love is friendship set on fire." - Jeremy Taylor
  
  
• God (1 John 4:8)
  
  
• Caring more about their growth than your, or their, happiness. Not caring about them more than caring about ourselves. fine distinction.
  
  
• Love in marriage is both sides giving 100%, Love in relationships of friends & family means .... well it really is 1 cor. 13 but also in Psalm 139 we are told how wonderfully God made us we never put ourselves down but we hope the best for that person. Check Philippians 4:4 ....only God can change a person and only God can fulfill everything. I think I cannot put it into one sentence.
  
  
• I think we can't love anyone else until we love ourselves 1st. An incomplete person doesn't know how to love in a healthy way, and we can't look to others to complete us. Loving ourselves means accepting our God-given beauty & intelligence, our spirit & ability to experience joy. Then to love another is to want to make that person Feel our love & commitment to them & our acceptance of them - to give them the gift of a life-partner who will always be there for them. I think that's what God intended for us.
  
  
• "Only love is" - A Course in Miracles
  
  
• Allowing your partner complete freedom, which means not being possessive. Fostering a relationship that allows a state of egolessness. Being supportive but not smothering.
  
  
• love, n. a confluence of neurochemical imbalances affecting the primitive "reptilian" areas of the brain and creating irrational and sometimes embarrassing behavior
  
  
• Love backwards evolve?
  
  
• The Meaning of Love~
  
  Both light and shadow are the dance of Love. Love has no cause; it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets. Lover and Loving are inseparableand timeless. Although I may try to describe Love when I experience it I am speechless. Although I may try to write about Love I am rendered helpless; my pen breaks and the paper slips away at the ineffable place where Lover, Loving and Loved are one. Every moment is made glorious by the light of Love. ~Rumi
  
  
• Love is indefinable. :)
  
  
• What is love according to kids 4-8 years old.
  
  
• Love is a feeling. Feelings are fleeting. Yet love can be a commitment. I know I'm a better person when I love. I wonder if it has everything to do with grace. Even though none of us deserve the love we get or want...Love is forgiveness, acceptance, awareness of the "us" in all things, enlightenment, the ah ha moment, and definitely worth opening ourselves to and giving to others. Its late, I'm rambling but I might be on to something.
  
  
• Honesty, trust, and it's okay to be totally yourself. I haven't found true love, but these are the things I've found are true, at least with friends and family. I am guessing that romantic love is similar...
  
  
• Love is effortless, love is being able to be fully who you are, love is playful, love is giving the other person the freedom to be who they are, non-judgement,allowing them to have their own experience even if it might not be your cup of tea.
  
  
• Love is God
  
  
• For me, something my mom said to me when I was with her before she died REALLY strikes me as what love really is. I asked her about the 'wives submit to the husband' thing & she said to me that she AND my dad submitted TO EACH OTHER....& that is REALLY how it is meant to me. .....If u think on that, love IS akin to rowing a boat....If you BOTH row forward, that IS where you will go.If only one 'rower' is in charge, you just go in circles.....So I believe that love IS MUTUAL SUBMISSION,non?
  
  
• Putting someone's needs before your own.
  
  
• I realize I don't have an easy definition. The closest I can come is, Love is commitment, ie giving your all and your best to a relationship, as consistently as humanly possible.
  
  
• I don't know what the heck love is ... the only kind I truly understand is the love I have for my daughter, which like Charlotte says, is effortless and playful. But this is my favorite love-related quote, and one I keep close by.
  
  

  Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. - Rainer Maria Rilke
  

  
  
• My personal favorite and my own choice for defining love:
  
  

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

The Elusive Ringtail

Dried out basketflowers in Palo Duro Canyon State Park
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

My latest article is out! "The Elusive Ringtail: A new study sheds light on a little-known mammal in Palo Duro Canyon" appears in the April issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. It is also available online (ie the link above)! And here is a PDF reproduction of the article.

It starts out:

I’m walking through a field of basketflowers — robust, pale stalks that grow to my waist, evidence of a flush season long past, but now they’re brittle as straw. A few mesquite bushes green up an otherwise pale sea of grasses. Pocket
gopher mounds pock the reddish brown earth and tumbleweeds blow periodically across the roadside as if a tumbleweed factory churned them out, just beyond sight. In the midst of this quintessentially Texan landscape typical of the panhandle plains, a massive gash of a canyon slashes its way across the land — 120 miles long, 6 to 20 miles wide, and 800 feet deep.

Carved by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, the ruggedly beautiful Palo Duro Canyon arises where it seems it shouldn’t. Its striated rock layers tell history as the Grand Canyon does — covering four major geological periods spanning more than 240 million years. The canyon forms part of the eastern edge of the Llano Estacado, the largest plateau in the United States, which stretches westward into New Mexico. Water has worn caves, pillars, hoodoos, buttes and mesas in the rock, creating an enticing landscape for exploration. But the rocky escarpment and cliff ledges also create ideal habitat for one of Texas’ lesser known but most endearing species — the agile, rock-face-loving ringtail.

I brought Sam & Savannah on this trip which is always fun. We actually flew into Denver, Colorado and then drove to Palo Duro Canyon State Park near Amarillo, Texas which is about 5 hours away if I recall (then we drove back, for Easter last year with the Epperson family and we also went skiing!). We went out in the field with West Texas A&M University Professor Ray Matlack and his grad student Naima Montacer trapping mesocarnivores (meso=middle sized), which include ringtails, foxes and raccoons. Sadly I did not get to see a ringtail, because they are absolutely adorable!! However we did catch a raccoon, which they weighed and measured and Savannah even got to hold (it was anesthetized for that part). I blogged about it all with some other pics last March.

Naima just finished her PhD - yea for her!

During that trip, we also visited with the Epperson family, who were involved in the landmark Epperson v Arkansas court case, and my visit will be a chapter in my book. That is one that is already written! And as soon as I finish this piece on sharks, it's back to the grindstone on the book chapters.

And I'll leave you with this prayer that my pastor offered in church a few weeks ago. It is a modification of a prayer by John Baille from A Diary of Private Prayer which was written in the early 1900s.

God, You are from eternity to eternity, and are not at one time in one place because all times and places are in You; I would now seek to understand my destiny as Your child.

Here I am, weak and mortal, amid the immensities of this world. But blessed are You, Lord God, that You have made me in Your own likeness and breathed into me the breath of Your own life. You have given me your Holy Spirit that I am a new creation in Jesus Christ. So from this place I can lift up my mind beyond all time and space to You, the uncreated One, for the light of Your countenance illumines all my life.

Let me keep in mind that my mortal body is but the servant of my immortal soul;
Let me keep in mind how uncertain is my hold on my bodily life;
Let me remember that here I have no continuing city, but only a place of sojourn and a time of testing and training;
Let me use this world but not abuse it;
Let me be in this world but not of it;

Let me be as one who has nothing yet possesses all things;
Let me understand the vanity of the temporal and the glory of the eternal;
Let my world be centered not in myself but in You. Whatever I myself can do, give me grace this day to begin; through Jesus Christ.
Amen.

I love Black Hockey Jesus!

Juvenile green sea turtle in a facility in Florida that I visited while a participant in the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment for journalists.
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I think I am in love. With Black Hockey Jesus.

OK no it's not romantic love. Certainly not erotic love - much as he he might like to think or wish or hope from his latest blog post - that his blog title Wind in Your Vagina might inspire erotic thoughts... but it's love nonetheless. And in writing this, I can not even hope to be half or even a quarter or a duotrigintillionth as witty and random and strange and poetically charming and moving as his blog is, but I can be inspired. (I also have to admit my boyfriend, on me reading the post to him, said, "Is he married? He seems like a perfect match for you.") Ha! I thought that was quite humorous. Was he jealous? Trying to pawn me off to someone more writerly than he? I had to wonder.

I must admit vainglory to having him write a whole blog post about me - Science. OK that is an exaggeration. It's not ALL about me. It's really about him writing about me writing about him. But he mentioned being wedged in between cyanobacteria and parthenogenesis and how cool that was (amidst a bunch of other
mildly insane random thoughts - I say this in the kindest of ways). When I read it I laughed out loud and had a grin you couldn't wipe off my face. Call it my own vanity, I admit it! Because he's just brilliant.

Anyway, if you get a chance, and I hope you do, read this completely gorgeous essay he wrote about his daughter on her 5th birthday. It will bring you to tears. Just reminds me of that amazing beauty of being a parent that you experience when kids are so young and innocent and wise and alive all at the same time. As he writes in the sidebar describing the title of his blog:

I took Jackson (9) to soccer practice, put Lucy (4) on a swing, and sat on a bench to read. Lucy screamed, “The wind, Daddy! The wind! It feels so nice. It’s nice in my vagina!” I looked at my daughter. She appeared to me in this context as the radical opposite of all dead things.

Profound! So here's his essay, 5, about his daughter. It is worth your time! Here's a snippet:

When I was 18-years-old I was not so happy. One time I stood on a dock that stretched way out onto a frozen lake. I cried icicles, clenched my fists, and screamed until my throat hurt. I screamed at the dark and dared it to come get me. I said Well come get me then! I am not so afraid of you! I wanted to run as fast as I could to the end of the dock and leap right into the dark. I was not so happy.

But many years later, when you were born, when you were no more than a couple handfuls of raging pink littleness, the very first thing you did was change everything. When I saw you I shuddered with my whole body. The room rippled. I gasped. The future filtered through your open eyes. Your wail rewrote the past. That shuddering ripple changed everyone I ever was. You ran all the way back to that dock and whispered in my ear Don’t you jump into the dark just yet, mister. You will one day be my Daddy.

WOW!!!!! It was reprinted in a magazine, even. And his commenters are so funny too! I guess witty writers attract witty readers. And some of them have even migrated and checked out my blog - hello Black Hockey Jesus fans! Oops, I just wrote Black Hokey Jesus. Hey BHJ, maybe you should add that to your Google alerts? (By the way my new love, BHJ, you gave me a great idea, to add my name to Google Alerts. I do admit to vainly Googling my name now and then...why not have them come to me?)

But speaking of science (and math) and Google, did you know that 'Googol' is the term for 1^100? It is also the word that the company Google meant to call their company but apparently someone there (or many people) couldn't spell. It was also a winning answer on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the UK. And other names for it are ten duotrigintillion, ten thousand sexdecillion, or ten sexdecilliard. Who even knew such words existed?! I learned these factoids when science writer Carl Zimmer's daughter recently wrote it out and it took 5 minutes to write all those zeros, and he posted this to his Facebook status updates. And I didn't know what the heck a Googol was, so I .... Googled it. Then I read the entry in Wikipedia. So there ya go. God Bless the internet! Back to shark parthenogenesis I go...

sharks and weiners

Left to right clockwise - Richard Fitzpatrick, Dean Miller, Mike DeGruy and M. Sanjayan on board the Undersea Explorer holding down a whitetip reef shark as they prepare to take data and film the documentary Mysteries of the Shark Coast at Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

I am not quite sure why I'm not blogging so much lately. The more time that goes by the more it seems overwhelming to begin to blog, so I better just do it. I've been insanely busy - but then again when am I not? I am struggling with the thought of my book needing to be completed by June 1. I got a whole lot done in the early months of this year and then sort of stalled due to other deadlines. I had that article on cyanobacteria due, and then Tuesday I gave a talk at my son's school called the Tree Huggers Revenge: Why People Need Trees. I am trying to put a copy of my Powerpoint from my tree/forest talk online but the PDF I made using Adobe Converter turned everything sideways. Harumph. Any ideas on how to turn a PPT file into a PDF without it turning weird like that?

Oh. My. God. I just laughed so hard at this essay about a dad and his young daughter's obsession with weiners on the blog Wind In Your Vagina by Black Hockey Jesus (don't ask, just read...). It will make you laugh!! Weiners.. The comments are especially hilarious too!! Such as, "She does have a point. It is considered polite to keep your weiner in your pants. Especially at a restaurant."

Speaking of weiners, I'm working on an article on shark virgin birth - aka parthenogenesis - and why sex evolved in the first place. There are costs and benefits, evolutionarily speaking, to sex as opposed to asexual reproduction. My article will discuss several recent cases of virgin birth in various species. The two that have been genetically confirmed are a hammerhead (bonnethead specifically) and blacktip shark but they've now found suspected and probable cases with white bamboo sharks and a whitetip reef shark - the same species I saw in Australia when I wrote the Discovery Channel Expedition Shark blog. That means that sharks that give live birth and that lay eggs can reproduce asexually. So why do they have sex? Why did sex evolve? That's the question of the hour...

One kind of cool thing that happened was one of the scientists that I interviewed for my article said that Mysteries of the Shark Coast was one of the best documentaries he'd ever seen (that's the documentary I was blogging about the filming of in the Expedition Shark blog), and thought it was cool I was there during part of the filming. This scientist is actually doing a similar project to what Fitzpatrick and colleagues are doing on Osprey Reef but on the Eastern Shore Board of the U.S. and he - and another shark scientist - invited me along with their research. Hell ya!!! Now I just have to find a magazine to give me the budget...