#silentsunday
Lizards and Salamanders
There are lizards here.
There’s a brown Anole who by virtue of the brown must have been scurrying through the leafy underbrush. They are usually bright green like the one who was inspecting Trudy’s shoulder yesterday, having descended from the canopy to cast a dubious glance her way. But this one is brown almost orange. There’s also a juvenile Spiny Lizard walking among the sticks on the ground — we have many sticks. We have many Spiny Lizards.
And although I haven’t seen them today, I know the salamanders are here. Because I see them slithering like snakes in crevices and leafy places when you least expect them. Like right over there by that limstone wall, right over there where the leaves are gathered. They must be somewhere in there, don’t you think?
I Got It!
“How do we do this one?” she shouted in exasperation from the middle of the room.
“Which one?” he asked without looking up as he finished scribbling some notes.
They were studying for a test. “The hardest one of the year,” he had warned them. This group was working hard (in contrast to the table in the corner).
“Problem 3,” she said as he walked up.
“Ok, watch,” he said. He went to the board where he had discussed that problem minutes earlier with a different group.
“We have a hole at x=3, right?”
“Right…” she said tentatively.
He reached up and erased some of the previous work and began explaining the function that remained.
“If you…”
“Wait wait wait,” she shouted. “I got it!”
And she turned and started explaining it to the others at her table.
That qualifies as a good day.
Two And A Half Months Late
We went to Boston last week. Finally.
Two and a half months after that riotous day (January 6). The day when Lila arrived. A day we frankly had thought would never come. For two and a half months we watched the grandparents chat as the pictures and stories of other visits notified us of our absence 24 hours a day.
For two and a half months we sat helplessly halfway across the country watching her grow up before we could even get there. But last week, we finally got there.
We took most of the day shifts, giving Ben and Sam some down time, some nap time, some time to hang out in a way they won’t be hanging out for the next … say … 18 years (although let’s not tell them that … oops).
Oh, we suffered while we were there.
Rocking, Feeding, Cuddling. Helping with baths. Holding Lila on our shoulders where her hot little head would nestle contentedly against our necks. Or nestle perfectly into our elbows where she would fall asleep (as long as we were standing or maybe sliding in the magical rocking chair in the back room). As she began making real eye contact. Began babbling. Began smiling with sparkling eyes.
Oh, we suffered so.
Dark Matter and Epicycles
I could talk to Carl about theoretical things. He would patiently listen as I went on about monoids and their relationship to simple iteration problems, standing with a smile on his face, nodding supportively as I waved my hands and got all excited at the whiteboard that was (conventiently?) hidden from the rest of the software team.
And we would talk about physics, which he studied in school and evidently missed.
One day I mumbled something under my breath about dark matter — how I thought it was a bit hokey. How in my (amateur!) opinion the term was not so much a theory of the universe as it exists but rather elegant hand-waving to explain something that no one knows quite how to explain. Like, oh … say … epicycles. Carl smiled and nodded politely, betraying no opinion on the matter one way or the other.
…
So today I’m reading this article interpreting Kuhn’s revolutions and paradigm shifts as applied to dark matter. And feast your eyes on this:
This is not a recipe for a scientific revolution, but for a thousand years of dark epicycles.
Huzzah!
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