taggers, guavas, bees, and barbeque

Today I learned to ride my bike down the front steps, right at the hour when everybody in the neighborhood paraded by with their dogs. I may, after living here for two years, finally get to know all the neighborhood dogs. And for the record, it's April, and the palo verde trees are blooming, and this time last year I couldn't even go outside, much less ride down the stairs.

In other news, I learned that taggers have started using craft-store glass-etching products to tag windows, and if you get any of those chemicals on your hands, they go in straight through your skin and start leaching the calcium out of your bones, which is apparently quite painful. I wouldn't expect that particular brand of tagging to really catch on, but I'm not a teenage boy.

In less destructive news, my parents' guava tree looks to be a pineapple guava, and the Master Gardeners of the University of Arizona Pima County Cooperative Extension think that's a fine thing to plant in Tucson. The only drawback to planting a guava tree in my yard is that then my parents won't have anyone to pawn off all their yummy guavas on.

Speaking of food sources that require the help of bees, the NY Times says in an article about bees getting lost that beekeepers feed their bees nutritional supplements "akin to energy drinks and power bars" when they're traveling around the country to various fields. Canadian bees apparently don't get lost nearly as much, but they don't get driven all over everywhere and fed as much weird stuff. That's not exactly conclusive, but if I kept bees, I think I know what I'd be doing.

In yet more food news, barbeque will kill you! And broiling and frying! Ok, I actually have to admit that I'm not sure that if I let my hash browns get too brown, I get in trouble with them. So huh.