Musings

My First Blogger Award!

/ mariezhuikov / 6 Comments

liebster-award

I guess I have arrived. My blog got nominated for its first award by another blogger – the Liebster Award. Thank you Nimi, blogger for Simple Moments in Life!

One of the things I love about blogging is the opportunity to read personal stories from people living all over the world. Although Nimi lives in India, even U. S. readers might be surprised at how much they can relate to her world.

I remember enough college German to know that liebe is the German word for love. I assume a Liebster Award means a person loves the blog (or the blogger!) The process of this chain-mail-letter-like award is to answer questions posed by your nominator and then to nominate ten other bloggers for the award. The goal seems to be to increase readership for the nominee. Here goes with the questions:

  1. Define yourself in a sentence.

You would go and make the first question impossible, wouldn’t you? I’m much too complicated for definition in one sentence.

  1. Who’s your favorite author?

This question is impossible, too. I have several favorite authors and poets, and I read a wide range of books. My favorites include: Terry Tempest Williams, Diana Gabaldon, Margaret Atwood, Sigurd Olson, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Louise Erdich, and myself. (Yes, I like my own books, too!)

  1. What kind of music do you like?

Again, I will give a plural answer, because I like several kinds: alternative rock, classic rock, classical, jazz, folk. Stop asking such hard questions!

  1. What gives you the greatest happiness?
    Oh shoot. Just kill me now, will you? No one thing gives me happiness. It’s a combination of things. And mostly what gives me happiness is giving other people happiness.
  2. What’s your dream holiday destination?

Lately I’ve been thinking about Bermuda and Scotland/Ireland. Maybe the Jersey Shore.

  1. To you, blogging is __________________

. . . Like publishing my own newspaper. I’m a journalist by training, so that appeals. It’s also an outlet for a different kind of writing than I am able to do during my day job as a science writer or my night job as an eco-mystic romance writer. Mostly, I blog just for fun and to share.

  1. Whom do you draw inspiration from?

Argh — there you go again! I get inspiration from more than one person – my friends, other authors and poets, my dog, nature. The trick is to be open to the inspiration.

  1. What’s your favorite snack?
    Ooooh, this one I can answer in the singular! Chocolate. Hands down. Oh, but it pairs well with wine. Okay, wine and chocolate. Sorry, two answers.
  2. Your all-time favorite movie?
    Okay – this one I can truly answer with one thing, no fooling or sneaking necessary: The Princess Bride.
  3. Two things about yourself that you love.
    What?! I just got used to answering with one example, now you want two! I would say I love my indomitable humor and my ability for compassion. Oh, but then there’s my creativity. Shoot. Sorry, that’s three.

I would like to nominate the following blogs for the Liebster Award:

Jennifer’s Journal https://jenniferkellandperry.wordpress.com/

Spiral Visions https://lisaspiral.wordpress.com/

I would nominate Writer in Soul, but she only accepts cash awards (Smile) https://writerinsoul.wordpress.com/

10 Years a Single Mom http://10yearsasinglemom.com/

Things my Ex Said http://thingsmyexsaid.com/ (although it has more followers than the Liebster rules allow, and so do some of the others I’ve listed, I’m sure.)

Travelling the World Solo https://wwellend.wordpress.com/

Joshi Daniel Photography http://joshidaniel.com/

Northern Visions Media https://northernvisionsmedia.wordpress.com/

Kwentokoto https://jehanforro.wordpress.com/

Notes from the Coulee https://bobnellis.wordpress.com/ (Although he hasn’t posted anything in a while. Get on it, Bob! You were my inspiration to begin blogging.)

I enjoy reading your blogs and seeing your photos, and look forward to more. There is no compulsion to accept if you have a no-award policy, or if you’ve already won this award from someone(s) else.

Here are my 10 questions for you:

  1. Why did you decide to start blogging?
  2. What gives you comfort?
  3. Do you have any pets?
  4. What’s a recent book you read that you liked and why?
  5. What’s your favorite meal?
  6. Does the current place you live in feel like home or is there someplace else that feels that way for you?
  7. Where do you find your inspiration?
  8. What makes you laugh?
  9. What haven’t you done in your life yet that you’d like to do?
  10. If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

Rules: Once you are nominated, make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you. Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post, too.

Nominate 10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.

Ensure all of these bloggers have less than 200 followers.

Answer the ten questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make ten questions of your own for your nominees.

Lastly, COPY these rules in the post.

ALL THE NOMINEES ARE FREE TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THE NOMINATION.

The Neanderthal in Me

/ mariezhuikov / 5 Comments
Neanderthal image from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom.

Neanderthal image from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom.

I figure a birthday is a perfect excuse to discover more about myself, so I sent my spit in the mail to 23andMe, a company that tests DNA. Each person’s DNA contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, thus the company’s name. And if you order one DNA test kit, you can get additional kits at a discount, so I requested one for my son, too.

Although several companies provide personal DNA testing, I’ve been watching this company for a while. They first came to my attention when I worked for a major medical center and one of the founders gave a presentation there. Back then, their DNA test cost too much for me: $500. But now the price is only around $100.

The doctors at this major medical center (which shall remain nameless) expressed concern that 23andMe was providing medical genetics results but no genetics counseling. They thought it was irresponsible to give people possibly alarming information without giving them a means to interpret it.

Turns out, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration thought the same thing in 2013, prompting the company to no longer provide medical results. Instead, they have limited their offerings to ancestry DNA and, as an exciting added bonus, you can discover if you have any Neanderthal DNA lurking in your family tree. If you wish to share your information with others who have used the service, there’s also the chance you could find relatives you didn’t know you had. And you can participate in research surveys.

So my son and I sent our saliva samples off. The company said it could take six weeks for results, but we started receiving ours in about two weeks. I’m still waiting for the final round of info, but here’s what I’ve learned so far:

  • I have more Neanderthal DNA in me than 66% of the population. Most people of European descent have a smidgeon of Neanderthal DNA, a relic of when our ancestors migrated out of Africa and mixed with the Neanderthals living on what eventually became the European Continent. My son has more caveman DNA than 98% of the rest of the population. Hmmm, what does that say about my ex? (Smirk.) And if you’re really enthused about your inner Neanderthal, you can buy a T-shirt on the company’s website proclaiming your Neanderthal DNA percentage.
  • There were rumors of Native American blood on my mom’s side of the family, and this test confirmed it. There’s not as much Native American DNA in my genes as we thought, but it’s fun to know that its there. There’s even a tinier bit of Middle Eastern DNA in me.
  • The biggest chunk of my ancestry is from English/Irish/Scottish stock. This must be why I feel I have a Gaelic soul (see previous blog post about this). The next largest chunk is German/French. A tiny bit of Scandinavian rounds it out.
  • Singer/author Jimmy Buffet (who is Wastin’ Away Again in Margaritaville) is a distant relative on my mom’s side. I hear he has a thing for islands. I am an isle-o-phile, too. Maybe it’s in our genes. (I also like margaritas!)

As I am a bit of a science nerd, this was all very fun to learn.  I hope that someday the company will be able to provide medical DNA results again. I gave them permission to store my sample in hopes that they can test it later for this purpose.

Yes, it is rather scary that this company now has genetic information on gobs of people, and although customers can sign off on how much of that info they are willing to share, in the end, the company has it and could do whatever they wanted, I guess. In my case, curiosity won out over paranoia.

Mother’s Day is coming up. Maybe dear old mom would like to embrace her inner Neanderthal?

Marie Versus the Cockleburs

/ mariezhuikov / Leave a comment
An ant receiving honeydew from an aphid. Image credit: Wikipedia.

An ant receiving honeydew from an aphid. Image credit: Wikipedia.

I’ve been in a fifteen-year war against cockleburs and deadly nightshade in my back yard. After my latest experience today, I fear the weeds are winning.

At least once or twice each summer, I take to the terraced land in my back yard to rid it of the worst weeds. The area isn’t mowable, so I’ve just let it grow. It’s held together by rotting railroad ties that I intend to replace with brick walls someday when my ship comes in. My ship is far out to sea yet, so I just do what I can to control the weeds.

I can live with tansy, but because young children live in the neighborhood, I pay particular attention to the nightshade, which grows bright red poisonous berries alluring to small children. And because my dog Buddy has hair that attracts burs with an unnatural magnetism, I hack the heck out of the cockleburs. Being averse to herbicides, I do the work by hand — except for one summer when I was lazy and wanted to see if chemicals were more effective. They weren’t.

Last summer, something halted my rampage against one cocklebur plant. I was just about to cut the five-foot tall stem when I noticed black ants and green aphids all over it. I was transported back to fourth grade when my class watched a black-and-white science movie about how ants farm aphids on certain plants.

Here was an ant-aphid farming operation going on in my back yard! How could I destroy it? Yes, I know that aphids are also considered pests. But the ants milk the aphids and live off their nectar (also called honeydew). How could I obliterate such ingenuity? Such industriousness? I couldn’t. I let the plant stand, intending to chop it down in late fall once the ants went into hibernation or whatever ants do.

But I didn’t chop it down. I forgot about it, until I saw the plant today, standing tall and prickly in my back yard, burs just itching to reach Buddy. Guilt-free now that no ant farms were involved, I chopped it down, plus the remnants of a few neighboring plants that I missed last year. I disposed of them in my yard waste container and went into my house, feeling satisfied at a job well done. I had completed my war on noxious weeds and was ready for another round with the coming summer.

Any feelings of victory were short-lived, however. As I sat down to take off my shoes, something prickly and round was lodged under my butt. You guessed it, the cockleburs had the last say.

Yo, Dorcas!

/ mariezhuikov / 10 Comments
Some of my female ancestors.

Some of my female ancestors.

My ancestors had weird names. I was looking through a genealogy book for my mom’s side of the family recently, and came upon gems like “Experience.” Actually, there are several “Experience”s, and they were women who lived in the 1700s. Tell me, how can you make a nickname out of “Experience?” Spiery? Expy? It just doesn’t work. Maybe they didn’t use nicknames in the 1700s.

I know that names of virtuous traits were popular then – such as Prudence, Virtue, Hope, but Experience? Maybe it meant the opposite of Chastity? (Smirk)

Then there was Dorcas. And there are several of those poor women in my tree from the 1600s and 1700s. The name connotes whiffs of Dork and Doofus. I was so curious and disturbed by this name that I had to look up its meaning on several baby name websites.

One said: Dorcas — Derived from the Greek dorkas (gazelle). The name was borne by a Christian woman of Joppa who devoted herself to works of charity. She was raised from the dead by the Apostle Peter and converted many to Christianity.

Another said the name was used in America. The Aramaic version is “Tabitha” and that it means gazelle. In the bible, Dorcas was called Tabitha by the Jews.

Personally, I like Tabitha better, too.

With names like Ephraim, Menzies and Ruben, my male ancestors didn’t fare much better. There’s even an Ebenezer.

I suppose in the far future, should I be so lucky to still have descendants, they can laugh at my name, Marie. The urban dictionary (my favorite dictionary!) says it’s the French version of Mary. It’s a universal middle name. Also that it’s “the name for that irresistibly mysterious girl whom you see around often, yet know nothing about. An outrageously cute spontaneous person. Lovable, extremely intelligent, and slightly eccentric. Often resembling a nymph of sorts. Beautiful and trustworthy.”

Yeah, a nymph. That’s me! Actually, my mother told me I was named after a Catholic nun who took care of her when she was in the hospital having me. Sister Marie later left the order. Maybe because she was such a nymph.

Rockin’ the First Day of Kindergarten

/ mariezhuikov / 6 Comments
Five-year-old me wearing my cowgirl outfit from my Grandpa. I suspect the card is from him, too.

Five-year-old me wearing my cowgirl outfit from my Grandpa. I suspect the card is from him, too.

Last night, I attended a performance of “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” – a play about the associations between women’s clothing and emotions. It reminded me of how my childhood friend and I rocked the first day of kindergarten.

When I was young, my grandfather owned a western goods store in southwestern Minnesota. He sold saddles, boots, and clothing. When we visited, I loved the smell of leather in his store, and riding the ponies, mules, and horses he kept on his land.

For my fifth birthday, he sent me and my neighborhood best friend, Jody, cowgirl outfits – shirts, short skirts lined with white fringes, cowgirl boots and western hats. Mine was blue and Jody’s was red. We were both horse crazy and loved those outfits — so much so that we decided to wear them the first day of kindergarten together. We wanted to be stylish, yes, but we also wanted to catch the attention of the boys by twirling our short skirts so they could see our underwear. We must have been pretty provocative five-year-olds!

Our first day of kindergarten went as planned, including the twirling. I don’t recall if it garnered any male attention, but for me, the cowgirl outfit was the first of many favorite clothes yet to come. And it made what could have been an intimidating experience into one of confidence and fun. Do you have any favorite clothing memories?

How I Fought for my Mole

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments
Cindy-Crawford Style Noted

Cindy Crawford and her mole. Image from Style Noted website.

I have a skin condition (rosacea) that, if left untreated, will turn my face into a vein-strewn red mess. Years ago, I had an elective skin treatment to eliminate the broken veins that had snaked their way onto my cheeks and nose. It was a light laser treatment, which they said would “feel like a rubber band is being snapped on your face.” Let me tell you, it was a heck of a lot more painful than that! But the treatment worked well. Since some veins and other assorted age-related globules were beginning to appear on my face, I decided it was time to subject myself to more elective self-torture.

I went to a local plastic surgery clinic that has a skin care specialist. She took one look at me and gave me a facial to remove about seven years of dead skin. We discussed options for removing my globs and decided on the lamprobe, a device that uses high-intensity something or ruthers to zap the veins and bumps into oblivion. This option was cheaper than the laser treatment I had before, so I was all for trying it.

We discussed what she would remove on my face next week, once my skin recovered from the shock of the facial. Things were fine until we talked about the big juicy mole I have on my right cheek. Well, it used to be a mole until a couple of years ago when its color began mysteriously disappearing. Now it’s just a big bump.

I swear I could hear the saliva collecting in the skin care specialist’s mouth as we discussed zapping my mole. She wanted it to add to her collection of dead skin tissue that I’m sure she keeps on a shrine in a hidden room inside her home.

I panicked. Unlike the other unwanted spots on my face, my mole had been with me for as long as I can remember. It had become part of my identity. Sure, it wasn’t as sexy as Cindy Crawford’s mole, but I was uncomfortable at the thought of parting with it.

The specialist said I should think about it during the coming week, and let her know when I came back for the procedure. So I did. The more I thought, the more I knew my mole had to stay. But that old crone’s bump alongside my nose? That could go. All those bumps on my forehead? Those could go, too. Good riddance.

The day of the procedure the specialist showed me a small device (like a pen) that had a pencil-lead thin metal probe on the end of it. This is what she would stick into my skin, firing the high-intensity whatevers to zap my face.

Would it hurt? She wouldn’t answer that directly, instead saying how some patents “got tired” after the worst blemishes were zapped and sometimes decided to leave the rest for another time. That did not bode well.

She washed my face and we discussed again what would go. The mole? “It stays,” I said. I gave her the whole Cindy Crawford argument.

She countered with “But Cindy Crawford’s mole has color to it. Yours doesn’t. It’s just a bump!”

After further negatory comments on my part, she begged, “Are you sure you don’t just want it made smaller? I can do that.”

“We’ll see once we get to that point,” I said.

She began on my forehead and worked her way down my face. It @#$%^&*! hurt. Not as much as the laser, but enough that my back arched several times while the probe did its nasty work. Specialist Lady said I was doing wonderfully.

Somewhere in our conversation punctuated by small moments of intense stinging – like a wasp was having its way with my face — I asked her if anyone had ever tried to hit her because of the pain. She said a woman raised her arm once, but put it back down after the specialist called the woman’s attention to it.

When Specialist Lady arrived at my mole terrain, I knew by that point how much more it would hurt than the other things she’d removed. I turned a hard heart to her pleas and said no again. But I did let her take off a mole on my lower neck as a consolation prize.

However, it’s been a few days now, and my neck mole has turned into a colorless blob. I’m a bit worried it will stay that way and am regretting giving Specialist Lady even this bit of turf. Well, I guess if it stays a colorless blob, it will match the one on my cheek! Who knows? Maybe I’ll even become attached to it.

* * *

P.S. My  neck mole did eventually disappear, so the treatment worked!

A Sign of Spring

/ mariezhuikov / Leave a comment
The Lake Superior Ice Project yesterday.

The Lake Superior Ice Project yesterday.

I’ve been chronicling the rise and fall, and rise again of the Lake Superior Ice Project on Barker’s Island in Superior, Wis. Efforts have now begun to dismantle it for the season. I suspect this was spurred a bit earlier than planned due to the high temperatures (40s and 50s!) we are experiencing and that are in the forecast for the next week.

Yesterday, crews from the Superior Fire Department sprayed the formation with a hose to knock it down. Funny thing was, although the formation seemed to get skinnier, no knocking occurred. Ice Man Roger Hanson apparently did his rebuilding job too well, and now his creation can’t be destroyed!

The Lake Superior Ice Project today.

The Lake Superior Ice Project today.

However, this morning, the lower sides of the thing have disappeared, so it’s on its way to destruction. The shape reminds me a bit of a Madonna, spreading her robed arms in a benediction upon the parking lot.

The snow is melting fast. Between the sculpture dismantling and the Apostle Islands Ice Caves closing for the season, dare we hope that spring is coming?

It’s Aliiive!

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments
The Lake Superior Ice Project.

The Lake Superior Ice Project.

The ice formation on Barker’s Island in Superior, Wis., is slowly “regrowing” after its collapse a few weeks ago. I took this photo yesterday. The formation (which reminds me a bit of the Crazy Horse sculpture in the Black Hills) is functioning as a tourist attraction, and is the subject of weekend light and music shows.

Fun With Words

/ mariezhuikov / 6 Comments

“Anger Tower” in Duluth, Minn. Photo by Sak Photography.

I bought my teenaged son a piece of furniture this weekend, and realized to my horror, that I had been mispronouncing the name of it in my head forever. I bought him a chest of drawers, which I had been thinking of as “chester drawers” since I was young. The salesman tactfully corrected my pronunciation.

Chester drawers — that’s what we called it in my house. I can blame my parents, I guess. Somehow, I’d made it into adulthood without ever needing to buy this particular piece of furniture because there were always plenty of chester drawer hand-me-downs from relatives.

This incident reminded me of two other tricky words. When I was in elementary school, I used to call the library a “liberry,” until some neighbor kid corrected me. Although I went to the liberry a lot, apparently it wasn’t often enough to learn its true name.

Then there’s the iconic local landmark of “Anger Tower.” The foreboding dark stone tower was built atop one of Duluth’s tallest hills. We could see it from my neighborhood before the trees grew and blocked the view. Because it seemed the kind of place where a person would be locked up if they got others angry, it made total sense in my child’s mind to call it Anger Tower. Or maybe it was where angry people lived. But I learned later in junior high school that its real name was Enger Tower after a local business man.

I don’t know. Enger Tower just doesn’t have the same ring. Sometimes real names aren’t as good as the made-up ones. Are there any word pronunciations that surprised you as you grew older?

Oops!

/ mariezhuikov / 4 Comments
The Lake Superior Ice Project came crashing down on Tues., Feb. 3 at 10:06 a.m.

The Lake Superior Ice Project came crashing down on Tues., Feb. 3 at 10:06 a.m.

An attempt at a world-record-tall ice sculpture came crashing down a few days ago on Barker’s Island in Superior, Wis. Of all times – it happened right when the “sculptor,” Roger Hanson, was being interviewed and photographed by the New York Times. In fact, because Roger is hard-of-hearing, the reporter had to alert him that something was amiss. Roger turned around from the interview just in time to see his creation fall in upon itself.

What his creation looked like before the collapse was a point of discussion between me and my office mates, who work in a nearby building. Before the crash, it rose 66 feet and had wing-like protrusions coming off either side (see my previous blog posting for photos). It struck me as vaguely menacing, so I called it the “ice wraith.” Others thought of it more benevolently and called it a “sentinel” – they thought it was guarding the estuary and harbor. Others called it a “blob.” Calling it a “sculpture” like the news stories do, just seems wrong. It is a creation, but it’s not like Roger is carving it. He’s squirting it.

Well, it’s clear that it is a pile now.

The crash is blamed on a thaw we had a while back. Although the temperatures dropped again enough for ice formation, I suppose the structure got brittle at that point. Roger started adding more water to the top of it instead of making it wider. Even to my unschooled ice sculpture eyes, it seemed precarious – like it needed more width instead of height. (But I speak from the benefit of hindsight.)

Although some are rejoicing at the crash of this hubristic endeavor, others in the community are upset. The project was drawing a crowd and even sported a gyros stand, and people seemed to enjoy watching the progress. Roger is such an earnest man, you can’t help but feel sorry for him. The city of Superior planned light and music shows, presentations, and even a fireworks display around the project for the next three weekends. (Feb 14, 21 and 28 at 6, 7, and 8 p.m.)

After the crash, the big questions were whether to build again and whether to hold the celebratory events. The answer? YES! Roger says he is going to rebuild, and has already started doing so upon the pile that was once his “sculpture.”

Poor Superior always seems the underdog next to the more populous and tourist-friendly Duluth across the bridge. This is yet another example of how the city just can’t win. But perhaps it’s also an example of perseverance and making lemonade out of lemons.

In my first blog entry about this project, I asked, “What could possibly go wrong?” Well, now we know! But at least nobody got hurt. And it makes for a good story. And looking at an ice pile IS sort of interesting. Especially when it’s lit up at night. (Grin.)