Back off, Bitch!

All my prayers to you folks taking on this bitch.

Observations on Photographing Insects

I showed my fledgling Flickr stream to Julie, a colleague, who didn't seem very impressed. Now, Elizabeth says she loves my work, but then again, she recently let me leave Einstein Bagels with a poppy seed wedged between my front teeth, so I'm not sure I can trust her. Anyway, Julie said, "It looks like you're trying to give insects personalities." I guess Julie doesn't anthropomorphize as much as I do. She is probably the type of person who reaches for the Raid before she lets the bug introduce itself. Even though her unenthusiastic response to the photos depressed me, I loved her comment because I am trying to capture the personalities of insects.

I have discovered that a number of fortuitous conditions must exist when photographing these little creatures, however. For example, the insect should contrast nicely with surrounding colors, not blend in with them. If the insect is itself vibrantly colored, then the background colors should be monochromatic. Dark colored insects photograph best in bright sunshine while light colored insects need an overcast sky or partial shade. And of course I have to get the bug within the crosshairs and focus before it decides to fly off. There are just too many variables when I am in pursuit of a bug. As a result, I sometimes get shots full of personality, but no matter how I crop them [the only image "adjustment" I allow myself], they aren't good enough for the stream.

Case in point, I went to Lukas Nursery, which was overrun with swallowtails. I took this photo of a black swallowtail atop Florida azalea:


When I see this photo I am reminded of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver; I can hear the butterfly asking, "Are you talking to me?" The photo, though, is terrible: too much sun washing out the wing and leaf colors, too many dying flowers in the foreground, etc.

I shot another black swallowtail ascending over the same Florida azalea with wings like Dracula's cape flowing beside it:


Although I like the head-on angle of the butterfly, its I've-come-to-suck-your-nectar attitude, there are the same problems: wrong lighting, crappy foreground, etc. I have such a difficult time getting the little shits to hold still in time to focus that I get really bummed when I can't use the photograph for some other fault I neglected to avoid.

Sometimes, an otherwise great shot is ruined by an obstruction I can't remove:


I love this little guy atop a Mexican sunflower, especially his curled proboscis. But I have a problem with the crispy dead flower hanging upside down beside him. When photographing butterflies, I cannot move offending vegetation aside; such a blunder will, of course, cause the insect to fly away and me to miss the shot entirely.

Alas, I am still averaging one decent photograph per 25 that I take. Thank god there are no developing fees for a digital camera.

What They Say Isn't What They Really Mean

Today is the last real day of my vacation; I am expected to make an appearance on campus for the rest of the week, although classes do not begin until next Monday. So that I wouldn't find any nasty surprises in my inbox first thing tomorrow, I checked school email from home today. I found this note from the provost's office:

To: All campus faculty and staff
From: Your provost
Date: August 15, 2005 12:03 PM
Subject: Cafeteria

The campus cafeteria will be closed through Monday, August 29, so that workers can complete renovations to the floor. The library cafe will be open. We apologize for this inconvenience, but you will love the wonderful improvements!

This email might sound straightforward, but it is really administrator-speak with an entirely different meaning. You see, every major vacation the cafeteria closes for this very same "renovation." When the grease pit finally reopens, we find the original terra cotta tiles and dirty grout under our feet. I am convinced that the "renovation" is a desperate attempt by the food service company that runs the place to get the cafeteria up to food safety standards and fire codes. The cafeteria must not have passed the reinspection scheduled this past week. So now, on the first day of classes, the only sustenance other than junk food at the bookstore or in vending machines will be the crappy pre-made sandwiches the cafe sells. Welcome back!

I have worked here long enough that I can easily recognize administrator-speak. Let me share another example. My campus is off a busy street lined with apartment complexes. One consequence of the constant ebb and flow of tenants is people dumping unwanted animals. As a result, we have a terrible feral cat problem. All of the soft-hearted faculty feed the potentially rabid felines, attracting even more animals. One day three or four years ago, all of the cats disappeared. Our provost at the time sent out a campus-wide email to explain that the felines had been humanely trapped and driven to a "farm in Apopka" whose owner agreed to "adopt" them all. Some folks who cannot translate administrator-speak might have bought this explanation. Many of us, however, knew that the cats had either been poisoned or shot over the long holiday weekend. This way, the landscape crew could dispose of the bodies when no one was around to see the carnage. New cats arrived, of course. So every now and then the college contacts the generous "farm owner" to "adopt" some more.

Provosts and the like use administrator-speak because faculty can be a complaining bunch. Typically, faculty are willing to invest considerable chunks of time bitching about a problem rather than using that energy to solve the problem.

Case in point, our campus once "got green" and wanted to begin a recycling program. The administration told the tree huggers that recycling wasn't cost effective [while in reality no one wanted the work involved]. When faculty continued to moan and groan about how much the campus needed to reduce waste, an economics professor in cooperation with student volunteers did the research, contacted a waste management company, got recycling bins for glass, plastic, and paper, and then educated the campus about how and where to part with its reusable trash. He made money in the process, which he turned over to the college. After successfully running the program for two years, he got tired of all the work with no glory and stepped down as the program's coordinator. No one else took the reins and the program ended. Because the provost at the time didn't want to hear faculty complaining again about the need to recycle, he sent out a campus-wide email explaining that the campus' current garbage collection service had agreed to "sort the trash" to remove all of the recyclable items. Since the gripers have official notification that recycling occurs, they can't complain. But most of us have never seen the "recycle fairies" plucking out the plastic and glass, wiping them clean of ketchup and Pepsi, from the tons of garbage the campus produces. We know that no "sorting" happens.

On the one hand, I hate that my higher-up colleagues believe I am gullibly swallowing "floor renovations," "the farm in Apopka," and "trash sorting." On the other hand, I know that my fellow faculty feel that they are in battle with the administration and must win what they believe they deserve. Since they feel entitled to clean consciences with no actual work in the animal welfare or recycling arenas, they readily suck up the sugar-coated explanations the administration serves.

Forty-eight Hours of Hell ... And Counting

Termites are a fact of life in Florida; everyone has them. Since my neighborhood has wood frame houses raised off the ground, we are vulnerable to the swarming drywood variety, the slowest eating and reproducing of the three main species, the best to have if a house gets infested. Any type of termite, however, requires treatment, so tented homes are a common sight. After workmen drape the house with impermeable plastic tarps, dangerous gases are pumped inside, and since the air conditioning is off, the temperature rises to 120+ degrees Fahrenheit. Conditions inside cannot sustain life of any kind. Even the house plants die if someone forgets to remove them. So the home's occupants and many of their belongings must go elsewhere until the house is disrobed and safely aired out.

I am writing this post at my dining room table. Usually I can look up to see its smooth spacious surface marred only [if too many days have elapsed since the last house cleaning] by dust and dog hair. Today, however, every bit of the table top—except for my tiny, clutter-free corner here at the end, just big enough for the laptop—is covered by bags stuffed full of things from Elizabeth's house: wine bottles, cereal boxes, spices, vitamins, drugs, dog food, cat food, etc.

I am spartan, a real minimalist. I prefer bare surfaces and empty corners. I am having to live in conditions where every roomy area of my house now has Athenian-quality heaps of stuff. The top of the bed is buried under Elizabeth's possessions. Her giant face care basket is on the tiny bathroom vanity. Items tumble out of the refrigerator and freezer every time one of us opens the door. I have to sit on the floor to watch TV as the dogs have already draped themselves over my few pieces of furniture. Pet hair has quadrupled as Banana, the beagle, isn't a single-coat breed.

Normally, I would be writing at the desktop in Command Central, but currently, this room houses all of the cats. We were worried that they would be frightened under Elizabeth's house while the workmen were securing the tarps and then inadvertently gassed. They can't roam free in the house because four dogs together—all of them hunting hounds—tend to develop the "pack mentality," and we don't want Felix or Joey torn to pieces.

I have already had to clean up blood, however. Bug and Pequod got into it yesterday, an argument over a bone, position on the couch, Yo-Yo's attention—I'm not sure what. Both dogs are covered in puncture wounds on their necks and front legs. Apparently, they have worked out their status issues as they are less growly today. I still keep a full water bottle within reach in case I have to hose either of them off again. And, of course, I also have a bottle of Febreze, as four dogs—three of them high-energy basenjis—tend to get so excited during play that "accidents" occur.

I can only pray that the workmen are back this afternoon to untent the house. I am resigned to another night of Pequod and the Banana shaking their dog collars on the hour every hour after 4 a.m. in an attempt to make everyone in the house eat breakfast on their schedule. But if my prayers are answered, we will be humping all of Elizabeth's things next door tomorrow. Her father said that at least this summer break while cohabitating we have electricity, a luxury we went without during Charley last year. I suppose he's right, but boy, am I looking forward to the return of my clean dining room table.

Elizabeth isn't having any fun either. She swears that she will write a post titled "The Ninth Circle of Hell." As she is always claiming that she will write posts but then doesn't follow through, I am not linking to her blog until I actually see the goods, but if she does manage to crank something out, I will, in fairness, provide a link so that she can tell her side of the story.

It Was an Orange Day

I spent the morning at the Harry P. Leu Gardens with my camera. Although I took 85 shots, 81 of them got dragged to the recycle bin after I dumped the day's haul into the computer. *Sigh* These four, however, make me relatively happy:

One-Year Anniversary

Charley makes landfall at Punta Gorda, Florida, Friday, August 13, 2004.

At this time last year, I was glued to the TV, watching the approach of Charley, a category 4 hurricane. I wasn't a hurricane virgin last summer. I had lived in Florida since I was five and had experienced numerous tropical storms and two hurricanes, David [1979] and Erin [1995]. Usually, a named storm meant at most one day of cancelled school, twelve hours without electricity, and an afternoon spent picking up moss and twigs from the front yard and unpacking the lawn furniture and trash cans stowed in the garage. Ever since Andrew hit South Florida, causing thousands of people to live in tent cities for weeks and scaring the rest of the state into better preparation, I made sure I had bottled water, batteries for the flashlight, a jar of peanut butter, a package of crackers, and plenty of dog and cat food. Here in Orlando, experience had proven, hurricanes were never as bad as the newscasters predicted; they were mere annoyances. Charley completely changed my thinking.

Elizabeth brought the Banana and Pequod to my house, where we decided to ride out the storm. Even before Charley hit the west coast, wind gusts in Orlando were flattening the grass against the ground. Shortly after the monster made landfall in Punta Gorda, we lost power inland, and the wind started to threaten more aggressively. So we evacuated the relatively spacious living room to huddle for three hours with four dogs in the cramped hallway, the only part of the house without windows. Here we hoped we would be safe from debris crashing through the windows. The wind blew so hard [gusts of 105 mph] that the house felt as if it was stretching on the cinderblock foundation. Elizabeth and I kept chanting "StabiliTrak, StabiliTrak, StabiliTrak" when the gusts cranked up to 9+ on the fright-o-meter. [Elizabeth had just bought a Volkswagen Beetle with StabiliTrak, a feature that keeps the car from tipping over in adverse driving conditions. We visualized the wind blowing harmlessly over the roof of the house as it would over the top of her new Beetle.] Although the two of us were scared, the dogs all slept peacefully on the featherbed we threw on the wood floor.

Throughout the storm, we kept hearing BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! We mistakenly thought transformers were still blowing; it wasn't until we ventured out of the house in the daylight that we learned that the noise was giant oak trees toppling over into the streets and sometimes, unfortunately, onto neighbors' cars or roofs.

When we emerged from the house at first light, all I could say was "Oh my god, oh my god" over and over. The neighborhood looked as though it had been bombed. We could not leave as every street was blocked by a fallen tree. Phone service still worked, however, and when I called my mother late in the morning, her answering machine picked up, which meant that her neighborhood already had power! That her development also had buried electric lines didn't strike me as important. I was certain that the men from the utility company were just around the corner ready to restore our electricity. I kept listening for the squeaky brakes on their big, rumbling trucks. How they were going to pull the power lines from under mammoth fallen trees didn't occur to me either. That first morning, we exchanged a few words with our fellow stunned neighbors and, since there was nothing else to do, began clearing small limbs from the road. For this storm, the tree debris was overwhelming; I didn't own enough garbage bags to collect it all.

The reality was that we didn't see a single city/state/federal worker until three days after the hurricane. They didn't arrive en masse until four days after that first appearance. Until then we sweated, cheered the neighbors with chain saws who helped to clear the roads, learned to navigate four-lane city streets without the help of stoplights, and profusely thanked employees of restaurants that were open, grateful for a few minutes of air conditioning and hot food. [On day two post-Charley, when no nearby business had regained power, Elizabeth and I shared the most disgusting meal of Chef Boyardee ravioli straight out of the can with warm Coke. When Chick-fil-A finally opened, we almost kissed the employees.]

On day eight, I was walking Bug in the last light of the evening before pitch dark descended. Utility crews had been working all day, but I didn't have much hope of power being restored any time soon. Suddenly, the street lights winked on, and from down the block, I could hear Elizabeth crying, "Sparky, your house has light!" Bug and I ran home to find cool air seeping from the air conditioning vents and the empty refrigerator humming in the kitchen. We got to enjoy the beauty of electricity for eleven days, until Frances arrived on September 1.

On Safari in the Neighborhood

What I have noticed since purchasing my camera is that there are plenty of subjects to photograph. Since I am hanging around town this vacation, I decided to shoot suburban wildlife. In Florida we call all the little lizards chameleons, but their true name is anoles. This one guards the gate into the backyard:


We are at the height of the growing season, so many plants are in bloom, attracting a number of species of butterfly and bee. This butterfly was sucking down nectar in my friend Elizabeth's lantana:


As Elizabeth's hibiscuses are full of aphids, ladybugs are easy to find:


Unfortunately, the ladybugs are no defense against the grasshoppers:


The bees have been behaving themselves better, so I have gotten some nice closeups:


By far, I believe that the photo below is my best insect shot. I wish I could say that I studied the owner's manual for the camera and learned how to use the "Sports" mode correctly. But in reality I just got lucky, or perhaps God finally wrested control of my fingers. I am calling this photo "Worshipping at the Altar of Jasmine."

Bees, Butterflies, and Lady Bugs: The Insect Conspiracy

I have had a fascination with bugs all of my life. My parents got a dog, hoping to reduce the jars of insects I snuck into the house as a kid. If I hadn't taken a wrong turn in high school, I would have become a scientist instead of an English teacher. Even today, I encourage spiders to weave webs in the corners of my house so that they can catch the termites drawn to the lamps when I open the door at night.

One reason I wanted a digital camera was to document the diversity of life in my backyard. Flowers hold still, so I am having the most luck with them:


What I have discovered about insect photography is that it is far from easy. This past weekend I tried my hand first with bees which, I discovered, were downright rude. A bee would settle on a flower, but before I could focus the camera, it would dive head first into the pollen, wagging its butt at the lens, refusing to give me more than a shot of its abdomen. Because of the painful stinger, I knew better than to jiggle the branch to hurry it along. I would patiently wait, my eye squinting through the lens, for the little shit to emerge, and just when I had to scratch my nose or shift my weight, the bee would rise from the flower, buzz the camera like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and fly off, leaving me with no picture or just bee blur, like this:


Butterflies were more polite but equally hard to photograph. Flit is the verb I associate with butterflies; it is a verb that does not denote speed. While I was chasing a butterfly with a camera, flit became zip like a UFO, dive bomb like a kamikaze. Everyone should try photographing butterflies just one time to gain more respect for the pictures in National Geographic, where the insect has clear, perfectly extended wings.

This morning I had better luck with a lady bug, although I am disappointed in myself for such hackneyed pictures:

I Knew Better

One of my rules is never to check school email on the weekend or on vacation. Students can think that I am concerned about their papers and problems 24/7, but in reality, I make an effort to have a life separate from work. Regrettably, I broke that rule today and found an email from Tera, the unfortunate recipient of a B in freshman composition.

Tera was my best writer in any class this summer. She was so good that I got her written permission to use two of her essays as examples of excellent student work. But she failed to turn in a required assignment that averaged as a zero, reducing her long string of As to a final grade of B. On Monday, when I received the last package of student work from the testing center and realized that Tera had not written the make-up essay to replace that zero, I alerted her by email that I needed the paper pronto. In Tera's case, the paper was a mere formality; if she just submitted something, I would have given her an A. But by the time I had finished posting grades on Tuesday, no essay had arrived, so I left Tera's grade a B and officially closed the summer semester.

Today [both a weekend and a vacation day, alas] I broke my rule, checked school email, and found a note from Tera:

From: tera.langley@_____cc.edu
To: sparky.lightbulb@_____cc.edu
Date: August 6, 2005 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: Missing work!

I'm not sure what happened! I still have a copy of the essay on disk. Can I print it and bring a copy to campus? I see that grades are already posted. Please tell me it's not too late!

Tera

No essay was attached to this email, so of course, no essay was ever written, and no essay currently exists on a disk. Tera is hoping I'll say, "Sure, it's not too late. I have nothing better to do over vacation than read your work. Bring me the paper!" Then she'll bother to compose it.

On the one hand, I could take that paper. Filling out a change of grade form is a pain in the butt, but Tera does have a "Get Out of Jail" or "Free Spin" card in that she did give me permission to use two of her essays as samples in the future. On the other hand, I absolutely despise being lied to and having students think I am some kind of moron who will believe anything. So right now, I am leaning towards a "Sorry, Tera, I needed it by 12 p.m. Tuesday" as my response.

To guarantee that I accepted the late work, Tera should have done one of two things: either send the suspicious "saved" paper with her email [I would have checked "Properties" to see when the document was created, but even if it had been written last night, I would have been so impressed that Tera had produced a paper potentially for nothing that I probably would have taken it.] Or Tera should have composed an email that said something like this:

From: tera.langley@_____cc.edu
To: sparky.lightbulb@_____cc.edu
Date: August 6, 2005 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: Missing work!

Dear Professor Lightbulb,

I am such a butthead. I got really behind and didn't have time to write that essay or go to the testing center to do the make-up paper. I was holding my breath hoping that my average could take the hit, and now I'm kicking myself for not getting that work done. I screwed up, but please don't think less of me.

Tera

I would have been so overwhelmed by the refreshing honesty that I would have said, "Get it written, Tera! I'll still read it."

Increasing My Vocabulary

One option in Corel Photo-Paint is Image > Transform > Posterize. Posterize isn't listed in my American Heritage College Dictionary, nor could I find a definition at Merriam-Webster Online. But here's what it can do:






Corel Photo-Paint Help says that posterize allows the user to "reduce the number of tonal values in an image to remove gradations and create larger areas of flat color."

Whatever! I just say cool.

Let the Fun Begin!

Today begins the 21-day break between summer and fall semesters; I don't have to be back on campus until August 24. This summer break I have no major ambitions. Last summer I did have big plans and then got to spend the vacation sweating the removal of a 50-foot, 100-year-old, half-rotten oak tree towering over the house as Charley churned its way to Florida, followed by 8 days with no electricity because my other neighbors didn't get their trees down before the storm. I now feel lucky that the oak cost only $3,500 to remove, a real bargain as the rip-off artists arrived a day or two after the storm and were charging $18,000 to cart away trees the same size, now lying on front lawns, the cars in the driveway crushed underneath.

Today my one big goal was to take a decent portrait of the basenjis. And so I give you the beautiful Yo-Yo ...


... and the handsome Bug:

I Would Prefer Not To

This summer I had a student who reminded me of the title character in Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener. Bartleby is the law firm copyist who reaches a point that when asked to do anything, he replies, "I would prefer not to." Bartleby even "prefers not to" get his things and leave after being fired. His boss actually moves the law offices to escape him!

My Bartleby was a middle-aged woman named Tonya, whose stock response to any new assignment was "I don't understand." I would ask, patiently at first, "What exactly don't you understand?" But she never had an answer. Instead, she would say something like, "My niece is a straight A student at NYU and she doesn't understand this assignment either" or "I showed this to a lawyer at work, and even he can't figure out what you want me to do." I am long past being intimidated when students fabricate individuals who are meant to make me look stupid, so I asked what exactly these two obviously intelligent people couldn't figure out. But Tonya still didn't have an answer. I try not to say anything too crushing to students, so I avoided pointing out that her 24 colleagues in class—none of whom were straight A students at northeastern universities or lawyers—were completing those very same assignments without duress.

One day, Tonya asked if she could come to my office to talk about the course. Such a request is student code for "I want to explain all of my personal problems—in private so that none of the other students will exclaim that they actually have life worse. Then you can feel sorry for me and not grade my work so hard." At our meeting, she explained that she had two other classes, both in a strip mall school, which, if I am to believe 60 Minutes, was only interested in arranging exorbitant loans so that the students can pay for overpriced classes. Once students have registered, the school accepts pretty much anything as course work to motivate the students to spend even more money the following semester in their pursuit of a worthless degree.

In the short story, Bartleby's boss never figures out why his once promising employee becomes a vagrant whom the cops have to arrest and cart off to jail. I, however, did understand Tonya's mantra. What Tonya was really saying is "I don't understand why you are actually reading my papers. I don't understand why I have to make sense. I don't understand why I should have to proofread so long as the paper meets the word requirement. I don't understand why I can't just hand something in as I do at Strip Mall U. and get my A for the course."

Many people pay for classes not to acquire new learning or skill. They believe that their dollars—not their time, not their hard work, not their ability to demonstrate mastery—entitle them to a grade. A good grade at that! In effect, they would "prefer not to" learn. And honestly, I would prefer not to have them taking up a seat in the course.

Refusal of the Call

I am rereading The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and one new thing that leapt out at me during this reading was the difference in attitude between the hero and the one who refuses the adventure. Campbell claims that the hero regards the future as "an unremitting series of deaths and births," since each new adventure symbolically kills an old self so that a new one can emerge. The one who refuses the adventure sees his present life with its "system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages" as "fixed" and to be made "secure."


As I was reading this chapter, I began thinking about the difference between my step-father and biological father. Between the two, Dad at first seems the hero as he is the one who travels, changes jobs, and frequently introduces me to new step-mothers [I've had five]. But when I thought about his life some more, I realized that he really wasn't symbolically dying and being reborn during these changes, that he made the changes instead to fix and secure his comfortable life. For example, he was married to Laurie for seven or so years. They worked together in a small successful business my father started; they traveled, ate out, shopped, and watched a lot of TV. Laurie was unhappy despite having the money to do as she pleased and started gambling online. She managed to keep this fact hidden for a short time only, as credit card bills began rolling in. Rather than commit to the relationship or try to get her help, my father paid off the gambling debt and divorced her. He didn't want the complications of a "mental patient." He was married anew within a year to Angie, who likes to put in a few hours with him at the office, eat out, shop, and watch a lot of TV.

My step-father is not as worldly as my dad. A cowboy from Arizona, he did a stint as a cook in the Navy and managed warehouses most of his life. When he retired, he took up golf even though nothing in his upbringing prepared him either for the skill of that sport or the social graces to maneuver successfully at country clubs. None of that stopped him, however. He played with people who were way better at getting that little ball in the little hole, who were more educated, had way more money, and probably thought of him—at first—as a comical redneck. Eventually, his game improved and he made real friends with his golf buddies, who quit thinking of him as the foursome's bumpkin. When he couldn't stand the pain in his knee any longer, he had replacement surgery so that he could get back out on the courses. His greatest source of joy is volunteering at big-deal tournaments and hobnobbing with his golf heroes. He was willing to learn, willing to set aside the old ways of doing something to experience something new. He is more a hero in the Campbell sense of the word than my biological father.