Skip to main content

Incomprehensible Women

Ben is studying Biology this year. He is in 9th grade and Biology is the first step in a long list of science courses that he has to complete on his quest to become a Marine Biologist.

We all really enjoy the microscope. Every time we have to put some icky thing on a slide for viewing, everyone in the family comes running to take a peek. It is really interesting to see all the shapes, squiggles, and tiny creatures magnified.


This week's project took some incubating. First, we had to walk down to the pond to get some scummy water. We were supposed to use a baby food jar, but as I don't have babies, baby food jars are no longer in plentiful supply around here. So I used a canning jar, which is a good deal larger. I figured we'd have plenty of extra in case we needed it. Next, we had to "feed" the pond water some egg yolk. Then we had to cover the jar in newspaper and let it sit in a dark place to..... um..........breed. We have left it sitting there on the counter like a potential stink bomb all week.

Our science book warned us that when we opened this jar it would stink. Pond water + egg yolk + darkness = smell. I think I could have figured that out on my own, but I guess some people need to be given a head's up. So I told Ben to take the jar out by the dumpsters, prepare a slide and then dump the contents on the ground out there. I knew if I didn't tell him precisely where to go, he would have just barely stepped outside our back door and ditched the stinky water right outside the door where we would all be complaining about the stench for days.

When Ben came back he said (with great delight), "They were right! That really stunk!"

"Where did you put the jar?" I asked.


"In the kitchen sink."


"Did you put any dishwashing liquid in it?" I asked.


"No." Of course not.


So we head into the kitchen to soak the jar. Ben picked it up and handed it to me. "Smell it," he instructed.


"Ew! NO!!" I said, snatching it out of his hands and dousing it with Dawn and hot water before the scent could waft up to my nose.


He gave me one of those baffled looks and said, "That is just one of those weird things I will never understand about women!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o

A Week After Surgery

Katie went back to the surgeon yesterday to have her foot checked.  It was the first time we saw the stitches.  When we saw her after surgery, her foot was already wrapped up in three inches of gauze and it's been wrapped like that ever since. The doctor decided that the sutures were not quite ready to be removed. There are stitches in the side of her foot where they inserted one of the screws.  The surgeon told us that she has to be very, very, very careful not to put her foot on the ground.  Any pressure at all could cause the screws to shift or break and that would be very, very, very bad. They knew we were going out of town for the wedding this weekend.  In order to protect her foot as much as possible, she was put in a hard cast.  It will come back off on Monday so they can check the sutures again.  This cast has a very limited time to be signed! Katie may not get to have a lot of people sign her cast  but she currently still has the initials of the sur