talking too much, laughing too loud, snacking all the way
Sara...
...is a happy, ordinary, middle-aged, suburban woman who paints odd pictures, gardens in a straw hat, lives with the love of her life, is owned by one cat and the ghosts of several others, and walks a little funny 'cause she has a fake leg. She started this website because there's more to life than what we lose, and we need to let each other know what's possible, even if it's only a happy, ordinary life.
Make sure the subject line of your correspondence is clear and specific. I do not open e-mails from strangers unless I can tell in advance that I want to read them.
Well, it's been a little over a year since we commenced our exploration into the possible viability of Hallowe'en-technology-based bottle-grown replacement limbs for amputees. After giving weekly reports for a few months as we tweaked variables and refined our hypotheses, the experiment eventually became stable enough that we could leave it alone for awhile, see how the subject would do under stable conditions over an extended period.
We left the test subject in its container in a relatively dark location with a constant temperature of approximately 69°F where it would not be disturbed.
Today it is time to check our subject's progress. We had hypothesized that the subject might be light-sensitive, that it might actually prefer darkness as a growth environment. Though we cannot observe any dramatic changes over the course of the last nine months, some changes can be appreciated with the naked eye.
First, the subject does appear to have grown.
We can even detect stretch marks.
It is as yet unknown whether growth is due to time or darkness or both; however, subject does seem to display a marked pallor. At this time we can only speculate whether this pallor is the result of light deprivation or simply the result of bloating, the stretching of the subjects pigmented external material without the addition of more pigment.
It is also worth noting that we have now obtained a lab rat named Igor.
We expect Igor's candor and perspicacity to be of tremendous use to us in this and coming trials.
You can see a recording of an interview with Igor in a previous post.
Okay, it's bigger. Lots bigger, maybe as big as it has been yet, maybe bigger still. Something about being previously swollen seems to have increased its ability to absorb water quickly, possibly by stretching its innate porosity. We will find out over the coming months whether it is able to get even larger than this.
But tonight I know you are only here to see what's going on with the Santa clones. So without further ado, let me show you:
As perhaps you can discern, the clone formerly known as "Tiny Santa" (henceforth "Tall-Hatted Santa") has in fact gotten taller than the clone formerly known as "Big Santa" (henceforth "Wide Santa"). Taller, however, is not bigger, and even if it were, it also does not necessarily equate to dominance. (If you don't believe me, ask any giraffe. Ask it how it feels in the presence of a hungry lion.)
Both Santa clones have outgrown their ability to flip inside the bottle. A quick glance at their position last week will show that they used to both be able to stand upright in the bottle with the bottle laying on its side. This is no longer possible.
Unfortunately, Tall-Hatted Santa achieved his current height, largely hat height, while standing on his head. If I'd noticed in time, I might have done something to prevent this, perhaps shaken the bottle until both Santas were oriented with their heads pointing bottle-capward, but as noted previously, I am not the most skilled mad scientist ever. I am also busy with many things besides mad science, making me not the most focused mad scientist ever. Hélas.
What has made Tall-Hatted Santa grow so much, so fast? Did he feel the need to outstrip Wide Santa in the consumption of resources? Did he fear there wouldn't be enough for both of them? Or was it more personal? Did he feel like less of a Santa clone if he wasn't "winning"? Maybe it was all just vanity. On the other hand, perhaps he felt physically threatened or overwhelmed by Wide Santa's wideness. Was Wide Santa bullying him? Or maybe Tall-Hatted Santa just felt thirstier in the past week than Wide Santa. Who can say?
The Santas are not talking, at least not to me. My true love says they hate me, something about being stuffed in a bottle full of water where they are at the mercy of my idle hands when I feel like shaking something, where they are constantly peered at and photographed in undignified positions, and yet doomed to wear cheery little smiles on their faces no matter what. Eh, whatever.
Regardless, from now until such time as I may choose to drain the bottle and allow the clones to deflate, one clone will always be on his head, and since the bottle, subject to being knocked over by the resident kitty or an occasional stray breakfast-hoisting elbow, will not ever be stood on its cap for any significant amount of time, it looks like it's usually going to be Tall-Hatted Santa.
Perhaps there's another way to think about this. Perhaps Tall-Hatted Santa is actually made for this, what with the tall, ostensibly cushioning hat and all. Perhaps he is fulfilling his nature.
What do you think? Is Tall-Hatted Santa stuck, or is he just different? Is he pitiable, brave, or just living his life his way? I mean, we might assume that this fate would be any other Santa clone's worst nightmare. But maybe this Santa clone would have a thing or two to say about that. Maybe he's just happy to be floating at all.
If you were Tall-Hatted Santa, would you want want to be "fixed," or would you rather continue to grow unimpeded, with your own unique view of the table (and your bottlemate's ass)?
It's the season when more people think about gifts than any other in Western civilization. And here I am wondering what constitutes a gift vs. a dilemma.
Again.
Ho ho ho. Here's hoping you're enjoying whatever you've got as much as you can, and that things just keep getting better for all of you.
This week, the fraternal twin cloned Santas seem to be getting on quite well --
-- really extremely well, I think --
--so let's leave them for now and go back to the limb project.
Uncharacteristically continuing our experiment by daylight, which as you know is not always considered the best environment for mad science but the deleterious effects of which in this instance were mitigated by the muted silvery light of a massive snowstorm, I went to check on our test subject.
The subject had shrunk a little more, I think (again failing to take measurements, not really seeing the point in starting that at this stage). While not quite as small as it had begun, its texture was quite dry and foamy, very lightweight. I decided the time had come.
In preparation for this moment, earlier in the week -- but not on a Sunday night when the only store open would be CVS, whose selection of beverages contained in clear plastic bottles we have already found to be rather limited -- I purchased a clear plastic soda bottle containing something I felt would be less of an insult to my personal biology than anything containing high fructose corn syrup or phenylalanine.
That's as it may be, but what I did not expect was the profound insult my tongue would suffer. This stuff is really quite vile tasting. And yet somehow it has been produced, packaged, shipped and, ostensibly, sold to more than one person. I am curious to know whether anyone has ever tasted it without the probably ameliorating influence of vodka. Anyone beside myself, that is.
Naturally, needing a clear head for mad science, I tasted it without vodka, and this was the result.
(By the way, do you see that pretty little handcrafted blue ceramic sponge holder? You can get your own for a very reasonable price at Mud Stuffing Pottery on Etsy. Though it is definitely inhibiting the number of ecosystems our kitchen can support at one time, we've only owned ours a few months and it's already saved us money on scrubby sponges and reduced the number of unpleasant smells in our kitchen. But I digress.)
Even the residual fragrance of the "flavored" seltzer was disgusting, so I washed the bottle quite thoroughly with extremely hot water, hot enough to slightly deform the bottle shape, and grapefruit-scented detergent. Then I filled it with clear, cold, filtered water.
It was time to introduce the test subject to its new environment.
Voilà! The next phase of the experiment commences! Are you not excited? I know I am.
This week was actually quite inspiring in a number of ways. While waiting for the car to have a new headlamp installed at the mechanic, who was kind enough to squeeze me in without an appointment, I took a stroll around West Concord, through the tiny Christmas tree lot set up temporarily down by Nashoba Creek, and breathed in its incredible forest scent while hearing from the proprietress that all she could smell was the incredible bakery all day long. I went to the post office and mailed off our Netflixes and a couple of other items of interest. I wandered over to Debra's and stuffed my tote bag and, sadly, two other paper bags (don't worry; I recycle religiously -- no, really, religiously; this is even more important to me than chocolate suffragists) with organic produce and a few other needful things. And then, needing a new cheapo frying pan for our morning scrambles, I visited the home of all our test subjects, the West Concord 5 & 10, where I bought three frying pans, plus a cookie cutter, two spatulas (because you can NEVER have too many spatulas, and these were quite inexpensive) and a small wire wisk (see note on spatulas). And then a most wonderful thing happened: I was permitted to photograph for you The Hand, the very hand which has inspired the current stage of our experimentation.
Allow me to present it to you now. (Click to enlarge.)
I am informed by the owner that this is an extremely popular but also well traveled hand, having accompanied the owner to a variety of rock concerts including some by the Grateful Dead and possibly the Allman Brothers. (A third band was mentioned but, fittingly, I can't remember what it was. Equally fittingly, it may have been The Who.) I am further informed by the owner that a favorite pastime of The Hand's transporters to these venues has been to ask concert security whether it "could use a hand...because there's one strapped to the roof of the car."
Another inspirational event occurred on either Tuesday or Thursday afternoon, whenever the program Wired Science plays on the local PBS HD station. It was during the airing of this program that I discovered that there is actually a name for this particular field of mad science that we are messing with in my kitchen and dining room: "regenerative medicine." Even better, many people don't think it's mad at all.
Well, perhaps they would think it was mad if they saw how we are doing it. But you know what's really mad? "Printing" new organs grown from a person's own tissue using a simple inkjet printer. And yet...and yet...it's happening. Now.
Oh, yes, I simplify. But I am not making this up, and this is only one of the things happening in this amazing, dynamic field. Go visit the Wired Science website, or just watch this excerpt, courtesy of Wired Science and KCET (Los Angeles):
Mad! Wild and mad! And too, too wonderful for words.
(Even that first guy, who makes me pity the poor porcine for about the eight bazillionth time -- and also think of pigoons.)
If so, I have to say that it seems very, very jolly! I can't imagine what the creationists keep getting their undies in a knot about.
Okay, maybe it's not so jolly when you're not the one selected.
How big will Big Santa get? Will he suck Tiny Santa into his foamy bigness, subsuming him in his pallid, ever more featureless bloat, or will Tiny Santa be able to continue to grow separately at a slower, but sensible-for-him pace, retaining his individual color and other distinguishing characteristics and not relinquishing his integrity even as he, too, continues to collect resources from the environment?
I just want you to know that I drank an awful lot of root beer flavored, high fructose corn syrup sweetened soda this week, and all in the name of Mad Science.
Voilà!
Now, the problem is that the process that needs to happen before the next phase of our experiment can commence is taking its sweet time and may not happen at all. Regard:
As you can see, though significantly smaller than last week, the severed limb test subject, which I am starting to think about in terms of Cinderella's never mentioned third ugly stepsister's misguided attempt to avoid trying to fit into the glass slipper at all in a messy and ill-fated "Well, it used to fit me, but that was before" scenario, has still not attained the slenderness necessary to make it through the opening at the top of the now clean and ready soda bottle.
Squeezing did not extract further discernible moisture. Also, the limb overall now has an odd texture. Though mostly dry and yet still slightly damp, with an appreciably hard core when squished between thumb and forefinger, the texture of the limb reminds me of worn out elastic, sort of foamy and saggy. I just don't know how much further reduction in size is going to be possible. I think I'm going to need a wider mouthed bottle to proceed to the next phase, perhaps a juice bottle or glass cider jug. I shall wait until next Sunday to gauge progress and decide whether or not to go that route.
But we want mad science now! And the bottle is all ready! And my pancreas has gone through a lot this week to make it so!
No problem. Santa to the rescue.
While in the West Concord 5 & 10 yesterday on just the tiniest little bit of a spree, I discovered these items. I believe they are clone seeds developed from the epithelial cells of Santa himself. I believe they are instant, just add water and mix.
(No, that's not what it says on the labels, but I can read between the lines. This is the kind of nuanced thinking that grants me such potential in this field.)
I don't know what good it will do for amputees or the species in general, but can it really hurt to have fraternal twin Santa clones incubating in my kitchen/laboratory? Can it?
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