Here’s a bit of the last post translated to squid courtesy of squidsquid.com:

My first week of squidiversity, I was swimming back to my dorm one night when a seaweed spoke to me. True story. It asked me where I was going, and if I wanted to party. Oooh, I just inked. Not a very stunning conversationalist, that seaweed. Then I noticed its proximity to a fraternity deep-ocean dwelling, and the walkie-talkie taped in a crook of its branches.

quiz results on my squid heritage, also from the same site:

Results: You may be small part squid, or other aquatic animal. If you also enjoy balancing things on your nose then its likely you have seal heritage.

And finally, here is an invisible octopus from youtube. An octopus is not a squid.

It would get tricky at order counters if everyone could throw their voices like ventriloquists. Okay, who really ordered the latte? In team meetings and conferences some people would criticize like crazy and then deny it was them. I think that strategy blows chunks! Then there would be the pranksters who would pretend to have fallen down wells or on the subway tracks. Please! Though you can’t see me, I need your help! We’d have to add extra people to the police force. Or maybe not, if the police could pretend to surround badguys with fewer officers. Put your hands in the air, there’s nowhere left to run!

My first week of college, I was walking back to my dorm one night when a tree spoke to me. True story. It asked me where I was going, and if I wanted to party. Not a very stunning conversationalist, that tree. Then I noticed its proximity to a fraternity house, and the walkie-talkie taped in a crook of its branches.

NOTE:  Flickr link now fixed.

Every day, I try a different route. I think everyone else does, too, since there is no rhyme or reason to the traffic patterns, nothwithstanding my little pairing of “commute” and “ill-repute”. My one audio book is all used up so I went to the university library to see what contributions it could make to my mental health and well-being. No fiction, but I came away with a number of juicy tidbits: Richard Pryor (I cheated and skipped ahead to the “Wino meets Dracula” track, which is as funny as the title suggests); Great Speeches of the 20th Century (Nixon resigned before I was born, but now I can hear him toss in the towel for myself); and poets from the turn of the century reading their own work (including Browning in 1889, even though the jacket admits that it will be unintelligible).  Yes!  Unintelligible poetry! If only more of it were that way.

This weekend we went on a long wildflower hike, which has also done its part to shore up my mental health and well being. The cacti are competing with the shrubbery for most colorful display. It’s so strange to see vivid, near-transparent flower petals opening amid the spikes. Here’s a teaser. We have more pictures up on Flickr, including some Grand Canyon stuff.