Last Few Weeks

It's been a while since we updated and for that, to the seven or so people who read this, I apologize. It's not that we haven't been doing anything interesting, just not anything particularly interesting to people who do not happen to be us, which most of you are not. So, starting back and working forwards, we had our MN peeps over for Sunday dinner a few Sundays ago. They brought their 1.5 year old over for some crab risotto and cupcakes. The last time we'd seen him he was wearing a spider costume and begging for candy in laughably poor English. His grammar and diction have improved considerably since Oct. We were especially impressed with his ability to differentiate between his height-disparate moms. To their chagrin and the delight of everybody but the hardest of the hard hearted social conservatives, he calls the taller mommy "Big Mama" and the shorter mommy "Baby Mama." It's doubly funny since Baby Mama is also the biological Mama so Big Mama also calls her baby mama Baby Mama. The cupcakes were universally lauded.

I sit in on a meeting for an Alzheimer's disease grant being submitted by some higher ups my department. My coworker and I are not directly involved in the grant, but the boss likes us to sit in since we will probably be involved with it at some point down the road. Since we don't have any explicit responsibilities at this point, we usually sit there and crack wise about aspects of the research and a certain eccentric member of the grant team. To wit, I have a love hate relationship with zombies. I hate them because I generally have about 3-4 nightmares a year in which I am being chased by them. I'm sure a second year psychoanalysis student could tell me what that means about by deepest darkest fears but I probably wouldn't want to know. On the other hand, I love zombies because they are awesome and it is fun to discuss strategy for surviving the coming zombie apocalypse with others who know the mythology. Anyways, back to the grant committee--part of the project involves obtaining brain samples from people who died of Alzheimer's disease from the Boston University Brain Bank. It's like a sperm bank but for brains. My coworker and fellow zombie enthusiast and I discussed whether a very enterprising zombie might have the mental capacity to climb the ranks of academia with its zombieness undetected and eventually land the holy grail zombie jobs--brain bank curator. I mean, the usual zombie M.O. for brain acquisition is to just lumber about in a large group and overwhelm victims with sheer numbers. Surely at least one zombie from the right tail of the zombie intelligence bell curve might have thought:

"What am I doing? I wander around 24-7 with all these other decaying shlubs, attracting the attention of the shotgun wielding living and for what?! MAYBE one bite of brains if I'm lucky enough to be one of the first on the scene of a fresh kill? F-that, I'm gonna enroll in night school and get my degree in neurology. Five years, I'll be swimming in brains."

Flash forward five years...
Boss: "Johnson, where are those new samples? You said you'd have them cataloged by Tuesday!"
Johnson, wiping mouth: "New samples?"


The issue also arose as to whether the available brains were frozen or preserved in formalin. This begged the question as to whether a zombie brain bank worker would have a preference. Most zombies probably wouldn't care, but remember that this zombie is the smartest and presumably most sophisticated zombie in the world and might be a true connoisseur of brains. "Ah yes, 70, no wait, 71 year old female...above average intelligence...and I'm getting just a hint of vascular dementia on the finish." Then we realized it was a pointless discussion since zombies only crave the flesh of the living.

I also was given what I believe to be my first bribe from a master's student whose thesis I'm grading.
It is from Things Remembered.

We went to the Museum of Fine Art last Saturday. The art was considerably better then the art in the Museum of Bad Art we visited earlier. Paintings of chubby naked 18th century broads abounded.

Which brings us to last night, it wasn't exactly like being at the dome but it wasn't exactly all that bad neither. Liz insists that I add the disclaimer that this picture was taken after a vigorous workout and there's absolutely no way she'd be caught dead, much less photographed, scarfing hot dogs and swilling beer on a Monday otherwise. If the Twins fail to win the world series I blame Morneau getting called out at first on that rocket off the pitcher's glove in the first inning of the first game of the season. Just sayin'.