a church, xylene, a little black snake, and some eggs

Today I learned that according to the locals' comments on today's Dear Abby, judging by appearances, the pastor of The Cool Church (warning: noisy sound effects) is very obviously gay. Since The Cool Church is very much against gayness, this could turn out to be pretty entertaining down the road.

In other news, scientists like to test fish to see what chemicals accumulate in the food chain, but now they've found a class of chemicals that include a host of pesticides and musk xylene, a synthetic fragrance used in soaps and perfumes, that accumulate in people and Arctic land animals, but go right though the fish. There's going to have to be some rethinking of some safety standards, and let me not pass up this opportunity to point out that pesticides and synthetic frangrances will kill you.

I mean, musk xylene, and people couldn't figure this out? Uh, oh... can't... stop... making... fun... *errrgh* ....

Ok, back under control. I also learned how to scare the heck out of a little black snake. I was tramping along a trail this morning minding my own business when I came across the back end of a little black snake that was rooting around in a hole on the side of the trail. I stopped and admired it for a minute (it was very industrious, whatever it was doing), and then I stepped past it. It apparently heard that, so it yanked its head out of the hole, took a good look, and bolted.

In other wildlife news, the most recent daddy bird is currently not sitting on three eggs. One is dirty and may be the one that was left before. Another looks fine, but the last one has dings in it that don't look to have leaked, but, as a baby bird, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be in that shell. We'll see what happens.

And one more thing - I feel a whole lot better today that I have lately, and so does the lady who lives sort of near here, so something has changed, and it's not just me.