Weekend wrap-up

I don't quite have the cleverness to come up with a specific title right now.

The entomology program was interesting. It wasn't as much taxonomy and "how to know the bugs" as I was hoping, but it was still interesting.

The best line? The presenter was talking about honeybees (which are probably, IMHO, the most interesting insects, at least behaviorally, because of all their neat eusocial stuff). He was describing the two very-well documented "dance" patterns that a honeybee uses to let her sisters* know where flowers with good nectar are.

There's a round dance for close flowers, and a "waggle" dance for more distant ones. IIRC, there's information encoded in the pattern and direction of waggles that serves as sort of a road map for the other bees. The other bees start following the dancer, and as the presenter said, "Then you get a little conga line of bees."

That made me chuckle.

(*In case you didn't know, honeybee colonies are pretty much entirely female. There are the sterile workers who are all sisters (or half-sisters in some cases) and the queen. When a new colony is getting ready to break off, a new queen will develop and I guess occasionally male drones must develop (the drones mate with the queens and then die, and the queen can continue to produce eggs for over a year afterward.)

We also did go out just around the grounds of the visitor's center and do a "bug hunt." There were some solitary wasps (digger wasps) that use the sandy soil to make burrows in, and we saw what is commonly known as a "dirt dauber" but which is also called a "spider wasp" because it will catch and paralyze spiders (the ecological relationship is called parasitoidism) for their larvae to feed on. And a dung beetle, and a mantis, and robber flies (which are actually beneficial - I didn't know that - but they catch and eat houseflies). And some small butterflies. And velvet ants, also known as "cow killers." (They don't literally kill cows but they have, I am told, an extremely painful sting. They're actually not ants, they're a type of wingless wasp (although ants AND wasps are pretty closely related)).

I knew most of the bugs we found so I felt pretty good about that. (And again, it's one of those cases that when you stop and pay attention and look at something, you can see all kinds of detail - these insects were all out on the construction site for the new visitor's center or the adjacent lawn.)

***

On the way back, I planned to go to the grocery store in Sherman. But I realized I HAD to eat first (it was after noon by the time I got back into Sherman). I stopped at a new Chinese buffet (well, new to me. I guess they've been open for about a year). It was much nicer than the other one I'd gone to in town: cleaner, and also there was a bigger choice of food. Lots of seafood, which was kind of nice. (They also had a sushi bar but I'm not a sushi fan and anyway, I'd be suspicious of raw fish this far from an ocean.)

The fortune cookie I got, though: it said something like "Adjust finances: make a budget and stick to it."

That's not a fortune, that's nagging. (Don't tell me what to do, fortune cookie!)

I don't know if this is a new trend but it's not as much fun as the more cryptic or Barnum-statement fortunes of earlier.

***

Today I mostly took off, my sinuses have really been bothering me. I finished the first of the "Ninja" socks and began the second, and also knit a bit on Honeycomb.

I also decided to pull out - after over a year's neglect - the dvd of "AM and PM Yoga" and do a short yoga workout. (I'm starting to look with a concerned eye at my midsection. I think it's mainly slack muscles that need working. I'm not noticing any difficulty in how my clothes fit or anything, it's just, I don't want that to become a difficulty).

I'm chagrined to see how stiff I've become after not doing yoga in a long while. I suppose that's the problem with just doing one type of workout: you work certain muscles in certain ways and you almost get a little "musclebound." I was never VERY flexible and I always had trouble with tight hamstrings, but it seems worse now.

I'm going to try to make time to do the yoga again a couple times a week. (I kind of groan because I really don't need another "appointment activity" like my morning workout and my piano practice to nag at myself about, but maybe if I do the yoga before bed I will sleep better, and so maybe I can "steal" the 20 minutes or so to do the yoga workout from my sleep time).

I also, for good measure, started doing a few crunches and push-ups. (I try to do the military-style pushup, where you're on your toes and don't go completely down on your belly, not the "girly" pushup from your knees. I would love to be able to do a one-armed pushup but I doubt I will ever be quite that tough). I could really feel the pushups in my upper abdomen, so maybe that will help with toning. It only takes a couple minutes to do those so maybe I can get myself into the habit of doing those every day, maybe right after my regular workout when I'm in the right clothes for it any way.)

I started with 10 of each. I'm trying to think of that as a "good start" and not "pathetically few."

I will say even though I was chagrined at how stiff I was, I remembered after the workout why I had kept up with it in the past: I could breathe so much better and easier after doing the yoga. I'm not sure if it's that it gets rid of build up muscle tension, or if it stretches the muscles specifically involved in breathing, but it does help me breathe better, which is important, especially now, when it's been so humid.

It will also probably be good to keep me from feeling cramped up and achy from inactivity as well.