Sister Pang comes to town

Last weekend, my sister Pang came to St. John's. She took the Redeye flight from Vancouver on Thursday, arrived on Friday afternoon, and left again on Sunday afternoon. All while fighting a dreadful cold/allergies. What a madcap adventure.

All my worrying was all for naught, the weather was stunning when she got in. It felt like spring, without a cloud in the sky. Not ones to take the capricious Newfoundland weather for granted, we hopped into the truck and headed for the hills immediately. All the outdoor tourist destinations were a hit: Signal Hill and Cape Spear in all their glory. The Atlantic Ocean was quite impressive that day.

After a wonderful Indian feast (made by the one and only Chef Clark), Pang was taken down to her very first Traditional Irish Music Session. The delighted Pang had the whole town under her charms, of course. Curse her and her ways. I wish I were more like her.

The next day, St. John's decided to show off all that it was capable of, first with some cold rain, then some tiny snow drizzle, followed by ice pellets, and then finished with a dump of snow... all the while the wind changed directions like a hummingbird (or something of that nature). The still delighted Pang seemed to find it all very quaint, having come from Vancouver where the temperatures have been over 14C. We went shopping down Water Street. After another amazing Chef Clark dinner of herb-encrusted lamb on a bed of potatoes and grilled vegetables, we shared pints at Yellow Belly and chatted. It was a lovely weekend.

Sunday came all too shortly and poof, just like that, she was gone. I miss her but I guess I'll see her in a month when we get to Vancouver. xoxo

Parthenogenesis... who knew??

When we were 16 or 17 years old, my friend Kristel and I went down to a (now defunct) pet store on Marine Drive in North Vancouver and bought two stick insects each. Each were 50 cents, about an inch long, and very cute. We placed our little stick insect babies in empty jam jars with holes punched into the lid for air, inserted a twig for climbing, a few leaves for food, and went home with them. A low maintenance pet, we thought.

Every day I stared into the jar watching as they munched on fresh leaves and grew. And they grew big. An adult stick insect was just over 3 inches long. And ugly. Boy, were they ugly. But they were fun to take out and let crawl around my palm.

Disaster presented itself very soon after the purchase of the phasmatodea. The problem was that every couple of days, baby stick insects would hatch. Perfect miniatures of the two I'd purchased. I was unfortunate enough to have purchase a male and female breeding pair of stick bugs. Two turned into ten, which turned into twenty, which turned into a hundred, which turned into hundreds. And I mean HUNDREDS. There were so many stick bugs in that jar that I couldn't open the jar to give them leaves anymore for fear that they would overflow and pour into our apartment like a Plague of Egypt. In the end, I shamefully stuck the jar on the balcony so as to not witness the death of all those poor stick insects. Equally unfortunate enough to have purchased a breeding pair, poor Kristel ended up with Moses's Locusts. I believe she and her family were stepping on them all over the house for days.

We never bought them again.

Just now I was surfing the net, aimlessly following link after link while hitting my head trying to decide what to do with my life, when I came across a study of the evolution of asexuality in walking stick insects.

WHAT???

I went to the ever-useful google.com and googled "Stick insect asexual" and it spat out some link to the San Diego Zoo Animal Byte's page, which in turn spat this sentence out at me: One of the most interesting things about stick insects is their ability to reproduce parthenogenetically. This is a form of asexual reproduction where the unfertilized females produce eggs that hatch into females.

WHAT???

I then went to the equally useful Wikipedia.org and typed in "Parthenogenesis" and found out that my stick insects did not necessarily need a male stick insect to reproduce. There is no way to tell, but I could have had 400 female stick insects dying in that jar. Even if I did have a breeding pair, it would explain why they reproduced twice as fast! I also found out that parthenogenesis occurs in a bunch of other invertebrates, some reptiles, a few fish, a couple sharks, and even turkeys! BIRDS! And apparently, artificially induced in a mouse.

Hear that! A Komodo dragon does not need a daddy.

It turns out that of the 300 species of stick insects raised in captivity, the most common is the Indian or Laboratory stick insect (Carausius morosus). And they reproduce parthenogenetically...

The things I should have known when I was 16.

A Fort Kind of Day

There is a howling wind outside, bringing with it a barrage of ice rain against our windowpanes. The skies are grey and full of cold. It is miserable out there but I am quite happy here in my warm, yellow living room. I haven't left the apartment once today. Poor Dave has had to leave a few times, once to pick up the truck (which was sent off to get her exhaust between the manifold and the muffler replaced) and once to let the dog out to do his business. Someone's got to do it, just as long as it's not me.. hehe

I haven't been terribly lazy. I spent most of the day doing the laundry, cleaning, packing, and a few other boring domestic duties. I don't mind doing them... I'd rather clean than cook. It's a good thing for me that Dave would rather cook than clean! He started making baguettes last week. They are incroyable! Seriously. I don't think I will ever buy a baguette again, his are that good. He made some amazing paninis with them today with tomatoes, spinach, cheese, whole seed mustard, and avocado. *drool*

My sister gets in to St. John's on Friday and I'm really really excited! I hope the weather clears up a little, I don't think I'd like for her to come to St. John's and be forced to stay indoors. I guess there's always the pub.

It's one of those days when you can't get warm (no matter how many sweaters you put on) and I need to do some work on the computer. It's a good afternoon to put on some music and build a fort out of the couch cushions. Maybe I can lure the man and his dog in and we can camp out and apply for jobs together.

Procrastinating Bliss

David's off at Nautical Nellie's playing a session with the b'ys, the dog is moofing in his sleep, and I'm fed up trying to figure out how to fashion a custom-made Google Map (the goal is to have one replete with GPS location points to track our progress cross country) onto this blog thing so I'll let you in a little secret about our unemployed lives:

We play video games in our spare time.

SHOCK

Yeeeah, but it's a really cute XBox arcade game called Castle Crashers. Much fun.

Our soon-to-be-not home (집) in St. John's

This is a Google Street View image of the front door of our apartment on Gower Street (with El Jefe parked handsomely in front). We live in the top two floors of the blue building.


Views down the street and of our balcony behind the house..



The view from the balcony...

An Introduction

This is Bowen. He's a registered Australian Cattle Dog, whatever that means. I think that means his father and grandfather were champions. He turned two years old on March 12. He's a good boy... most of the time.


This is Dave. He's half Quebecois, half Ontarian-of-Scottish descent. He was born and raised in Quebec City, and has lived most of his adult life in Montreal. He's a stellar cook and a fantastic Irish musician. He also loves collecting random chunks of vesicular basalt from all over the world.


This is Gabby. She's half Malaysian-of-Chinese descent, half Korean. She was born in Kuala Lumpur, but moved to Vancouver when she was 8. She's lived in a variety of Canadian cities since then. She loves dinosaurs and birds of prey, and is very meticulous. She LOVES food, especially the food that Dave makes.


This is El Jefe. El Jefe is a 1989 BJ73 Toyota LandCruiser from Japan (right-hand drive, yeah-huh) but has spent quite a lot of time in Canada. Since coming into David's possession, El Jefe has been all over North America, as far south as Mexico City.

Currently, they live in St. John's, Newfoundland. That's on the east coast of Canada. Dave was doing some stuff out that way and Gabby followed him. Then, due to a number of circumstances, they've decided to move to Vancouver, BC... with Bowen in the Jefe.

This is (hopefully) the story of their adventure.