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An aside: I irrationally get very annoyed when people swing extremely wide around me into the other lane while I'm riding my bike, assuming they think I am a horrible bike rider. "You don't need to give me THAT much room!" I think. This is silly because I AM a horrible bike rider, and they SHOULD give me that much room. Plus, when I'm driving, I give all bike riders a wide berth.

For the fourth of July, I made a feast: Deviled eggs, potato salad, peanut-butter noodle salad, beet salad with feta pecans and orange dressing, strawberry daiquiris, and cornmeal-whole wheat biscuits!

Cornmeal Whole Wheat Biscuits
1 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c cornmeal
1/4 c flax meal (if you don't have, just use 1 1/2 c flour)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
2 T sugar
5-6 T cold unsalted butter
1/2-3/4 t salt
3/4 c buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter till coarse breadcrumbs. (Optional: add 3/4 c grated cheese, bake at 425 instead.) Add 3/4 c buttermilk, mix into dry till just moistened. Gather dough and knead 5-10 times with floured hands. Roll 1/2" thick, cut 2" rounds. Bake 10-12 min. Yum!

Dear Seattle Transit Authority: It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work. The same distance takes an hour and a half on the bus. I want to take the bus. But my time is valuable too, and I can't justify two extra hours in transit a day.

Dear Washington Department of Transportation: Traffic is horrible stop and go on 520 until the carpool lane ends and it drops to just two lanes. Is this just correlation or is it causation?

Dear Kaiser Permanente: I've spent my past three lunch breaks trying to get a written and not just verbal referral. Your hold music sucks--you need more than three songs, clearly. Have you never had to issue a referral before?

Things that are right: I saw a kid so excited to get to the ice cream truck he jumped an eight foot fence in two bounds.

I rode a sloth (with Dad's help) at the La Brea Tar Pits. (OK, this was April.)


Robin had her hair and makeup done by a fancy salon who used her as a model.


We had a nice picnic at the headlands after visiting the de Young.


I've created a shrine to Art Nouveau over my bed in my new room.


I visited the UW arboretum on my last free day before starting work since it was a gorgeous, hot day.


A huge patch of the arboretum was devoted to different varieties of azaleas, separated into the historical periods of hybridization. This red flower was from the 60s-70s.




I saw these turtles as I followed an indistinct path along the waterfront.


Saturday, I rode the other direction to a beach with a grand view of these sailors in front of the Olympics. The hill back up was a challenge.

It's almost halfway through the year, which means it must be time to post the 2008 secular / scientist / humanist / atheist calendar I made. (I thought I posted it back in January, when I made it, but apparently not.) It includes secular, humanist, national, and environmental holidays and events; natural events (including moon phase); birthdates of important scientists; and some important historical events.

2008 Secular Humanist Calendar [pdf] (1Mb)

I've returned to the wet climes of WA, and now live in Seattle! Adventures soon to follow.

My internship is ending in a week--as a happy final note, I got to tag along and photograph bobcat kitten surgeries yesterday! The four carnivore biologists homed in on the kittens in their den by locating their mother using radiotelemetry, then after the mother got spooked and jumped the den, we interns and a volunteer veterinarian joined them to implant radiotransmitters in the kittens.

My parents came to visit last week, so I dragged them pitfalling one day.