hey love, I'm an inconstant satellite

Early morning is not my proper habitat at all. I prefer getting up to a sun already bright and staying awake into comforting darkness. When I'm forced to see it for an actual reason, though, I love the dawn very much. The soft, pervasive smell of evening primrose having spread through the damp night air would be enough. Sunrises are wonderful, and what happened today was wonderful too: dark cloud, not too chill, me biking down by the lake to get to the lab. The lake was the color people always say is steel-gray, but it's much too soft and deep for that. It's more like the color that one always thinks must be underneath a blue cat's fur, though the fur isn't that color any more than water is.

Coming home, more people, more light, and one downright balletic Doberman Pinscher, running-flying and dancing in circles as its owner thudded along.

Now let's see if I can go back to sleep.

Flying on Tuesday: skies like opals; two Great Lakes!; a rosy-tan dam half in shadow (as we raced away from the sun), making a lake-thallus spread in thick forest; fields with sashing between and fields without, some like old-style sequencing gels.

(My best guess on that last is that it's some crop sown in separate rows and harvested a row at a time. Cabbages or something?)

rushthatspeaks came to get me at the airport and take me home. Met gaudior and presented the awesome books I'd brought (Amy Unbounded ashcan series, which I'd found just before leaving, yay!, Ancient, Ancient, and Disappearing Foods). Watched some Community and now understand why the entire internet loves it so.

Wednesday: good conversation, still successfully eating with slightly less mild foods, reading books (Flower of Life even v4!, Three Science Fiction Novellas, Linnets and Valerians; all excellent). Walked down to Harvard, where some historical scientific instruments lie hidden in a science building -- great stuff, including a very 50s-looking cyclotron control panel that the signage implied was used until 2001 and several really fine orreries.

I'd seen the glass flowers before, but we really got to look at them and marvel in detail this time. And I found the name of a mystery flower I saw in Hawaii in 2009: Petrea volubilis! They also had an amazing mineral collection, with a special exhibit on meteorites.

Dinner was replanned at the last minute due to the wonders of wild-caught food; still delicious. ("The nematodes pose no health risk but rather an esthetic problem for the diner.")

Today: quiet so far, as hosts are busy with necessary endeavors creative and otherwise. Read (Little Butterfly), messed about online, washed dishes, made a cunning plan, soon will go out and wander a bit. Minimal engagement with work as it seems PI may have decided my paper can fuck off for the present; it's like she just NOTICED all the problems I've been telling her about for a year, sigh.

Indoor extension cord.
Nails.
Terra cotta pot feet.
Small logs.
Big sticks.
Lead-acid car battery.
Dust and pollen like whoa.
[ETA:] Sword fern.

My rotation talk over lunch today went really well -- I had a couple of interesting ideas to add, though I doubt they're going to pursue them very hard. Hopefully I left a good impression despite being sick twice this quarter and getting kind of a slow start. Nice conversation with the PI afterward; I have a committee member if I want one. Finally, a tour of the fish room! I put together my notebook and said goodbye to everyone, which was surprisingly sad considering I haven't spent all that much time there. The sun came out for me a little as I left, though.

Other cheering things: A hummingbird. Senrid in at library, a box from Powells at home. Kitty feeling okay. Delicious juice smoothie. Breathing with my mouth closed.

On a slide of fine lake mud in palynology class, where we were looking for pollen and spores: an entire dead Daphnia.

A pair of black jersey capri pants with the popular dropped waistband, unusually made in three gathered tiers -- with giant cargo pockets.

Two people going to the library in oddly pixelly desert-colored camouflage, who then drove away in the brightest little yellow SUV you ever saw.

Just beside the library steps, one tulip of deep lipsticky blue-red with a sultry black throat hangs just an inch above a patch of strappy periwinkle anemone petals and soft, deeply divided leaves.