True blue

In Chapel Hill, when the UNC basketball teams are in the final stages of a tournament, everyone in town wears blue. It's hard to say exactly what true Carolina blue is. Most of what you see hereabouts is an innocuous light blue; it's on the busses, the fire trucks, and seemingly every T shirt in town But the paint on the court at the Dean Dome is slightly different, with a tinge of turquoise. That happens to be a color I love, and I'm always looking for stuff that's exactly that hue. Last week I spotted some nail polish, exactly the right shade. So I splurged on a professional manicure and got blue nails. I though it might be a good luck charm, and besides, I was bored. Well, the kids fell apart in overtime (remember, they're just kids!), and a palpable atmosphere of gloom settled on Chapel Hill. But the women are still in the game, and I'm wearing blue fingernails until they win the championship.

Smuggling crocodiles

I've already noted a story about mice hurling themselves from a cliff and cows felled in a chicken coop, but I can't resist this strange and wonderful animal story from Israel.

JERUSALEM: A woman was caught with three crocodiles strapped to her waist at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked "strangely fat," officials said Monday.

The woman's odd shape raised suspicions at the Rafah terminal in southern Gaza, and a body search by a female border guard turned up the animals, each about 50 centimeters (20 inches) long, concealed underneath her loose robe, according to Maria Telleria, spokeswoman for the European observers who run the crossing.

"The woman looked strangely fat. Even though she was veiled and covered, even with so many clothes on there was something strange," Telleria said.

The incident, which took place on Thursday, sparked panic at the crossing.

"The policewoman screamed and ran out of the room, and then women began screaming and panicking when they heard," Telleria said. But when the hysteria died down, she said, "everybody was admiring a woman who is able to tie crocodiles to her body."

In her defense, the woman said she "was asked" to carry the crocodiles, said Wael Dahab, a spokesman for the Palestinian guards at the crossing. She was permitted to cross without the animals.

The reptiles, which had their jaws tied shut with string, were returned to the Egyptian side of the border.

Dahab said the animals were likely meant for sale to Gaza's small zoo or to private owners. The crocodiles would fetch "good money," even in the impoverished territory, he said. In Gaza, the animals can fetch about $500 (€375) — roughly two months' salary for a low-ranking policeman.

This reminds me of the ubiquitous fable about the frog (sometimes a turtle) and the scorpion, which has many versions. at least one of which is attribiuted to Aesop.

Here's the one I like best:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of the Nile, and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "Did you forget? This is the Middle East."

Not enough ears

Contemporary technology poses an anatomical challenge.

I've been thinking about the interplay between my ears and my eyes lately. Sometimes I wear contact lenses, sometimes I don't. If I'm wearing contacts, I still need to wear sunglasses or reading glasses or reading glasses that morph into sunglasses. That's one set of temples atop my ears. No problem.

If I'm wearing glasses, it gets a little more complex. I am both astigmatic and far-sighted. (So far, laser surgery can't fix that, so it's not an option.) The lenses for my glasses are hideously expensive, so I didn't want to invest in prescription sunglasses too. I figured I could turn them into sunglasses with those little clip-on things. It didn't take me long to figure out that if I happen to be driving around, or have long fingernails or arthritic fingers (all of which I've done or had, at various times), it's almost impossible to get the clips fixed in the right position. Of course there are the cheap plastic ones that flip up and down, but when they're in the up position, they look ridiculous. Consequently, I decided on a pair of sunglasses that go right over your regular glasses. They're actually decent looking, if you like Hollywood style. But now I have two sets of temples squished between my ears and my skull. It's already an ouch.

I have pierced ears, and it's unusual for me to leave the house without earrings, even though I often forget to put on a watch and end up using my cell phone to find out what time it is. But the cell also adds to the equipment I'm supposed to schlepp around on my ears. Most of the time that I'm using my cell, I'm driving or shopping - activities for which I really need my hands. So I use my Bluetooth headset, which stays in place because it has a silicone attachment that fits in the same uncomfortable place as the temples of my glasses and/or sunglasses. Also, if I'm wearing big dangly earrings (the fashion conscious refer to them as chandeliers), there is a theoretical risk that they will get tangled in the functional parts of the Bluetooth. So far that hasn't happened, since I seldom wear chandeliers if I'm not going someplace special.

Still any of these combinations are at least possible, if uncomfortable. The problem is that I now have an iPod, and I love it. So at the same times that I'm likely to be using the Bluetooth, I want to listen to music. How I might do this totally escapes me, so I have to make a choice.

It's a good thing I'm not deaf.

The four-foot nature preserve

I live in townhouse in an area called Colony Lake, which is in the not-upscale part of Chapel Hill. My place was a real find; it wasn't even on the market when I convinced the owner, who had suddenly up and moved to Chicago, to sell it to me. The place was a disaster. Ms. Islam, the former owner (yes, that was her real name, which seemed unfortunate just after 9/11) had put the condo on the rental market, but somehow neglected to pay the gas bill. In the terrible November storm of 2001, predictably, the pipes burst. The ceilings came down, along with a vast quantity of pink insulation. The hardwood floors looked like cardboard, as did the kitchen cabinets. But it took me about five minutes to decide that this was where I wanted to live.

What makes my place unusual (considering its modest price) is that it's all on one level, with high ceilings, and a sweet fenced-in deck that overlooks the lake, when the gates are open. When I first looked out there, you couldn't tell there were gates at all; the entire fence had been engulfed by a rapacious Carolina jessamine. There was another little patch of earth, about four feet wide and eight feet long, between my bedroom window and the fence. It had been totally overtaken by ivy, lots of ivy. When I started hacking at it with heavy duty shears, I realized that two camellias had been overtaken by hedera helix. (I know the Latin names of plants, but that's another story.) And way back in the corner, there were two eggs, one cracked open, the other still intact, but almost fossilized.


I figured out the origin of the eggs one Carolina-blue April morning (nothing could be finer), when a pair of mallards appeared atop the fence, peering intently into the corner where the eggs had been. Trust me, it's very unsettling to see two ducks standing on a fence four feet from your bedroom. This remarkable phenomenon continued for several mornings, which got my Wink, my cat (also known as Wink, the Magnificat) remarkably excited. I suspect I had done too thorough a cleanup back there, however, because the ducks apparently didn't find the corner a suitable nesting spot and went AWOL a few days later.

The ivy kept growing, of course, and by the next spring, it had completely carpeted the four-foot garden again and was climbing up the side of the house. I was working a nine-to-five by that time, and not paying much attention to what was going on out back, so I didn't notice that the ducks (maybe the same ones, maybe not) had returned and built a nest alongside the fence, shielded by bags of dried manure, topsoil, and such. There were six eggs in it. Mama duck spent most of her days sitting there with what I considered saintly patience, and we struck up a relationship of sorts. When I came out with her special treats, she quacked at me quietly. I was thrilled. I was going to be a grandmother to some ducklings. I decided that once they were hatched, it would be folly for her to take them down to the pond, where they would surely be attacked by turtles. So I bought a big rubber feeding trough at the farm supply place, filled it with water, and put in on the deck. I intended to have a swimming pool for ducklings. (Yes, I know I’m a little odd sometimes.)

The eggs never hatched. Some creature invaded the sanctum and destroyed the eggs, one by one. Mama duck went away.

But this spring I think I'll have a more successful nursery. Last autumn a temporarily landlocked sailing friend needed a place to store a damaged spinnaker. We stuffed in into a big canvas bag, and tossed it in the four-foot garden. Last week I noticed that a pair of wrens was flitting about each morning, with various bits of fuzzy stuff in their beaks, perching on the camellias, and then diving into the top of the sail bag. Sure enough, they've built a very nice nest in there. It's sort of amazing. There are two layers, with the soft stuff on the bottom and some fairly sizeable twigs laid neatly across the opening, forming a protective grid.


I think this spot is going to be hard for predators to get at, since they can't see it from the ground. So every morning, Wink and I take a look out the window. No eggs yet. But I'm hoping.

More about John Edwards' hair

Yup, it's hair spray, all right. Take a look.

Southern hair and John Edwards

By now, Anne Coulter's idiotic comment about John Edwards has probably been blogged to death. But I think I know what, outside of her general hatred for liberals, might have prompted such an assumption. It's his hair.

Men in the South, particularly the upscale ones (lawyers and such), all have the same haircut. It's parted on one side or the other, fairly short except on the top which sweeps across the skull and skims the forehead. There are neat little sideburns that mysteriously merge into the overall style. It always looks exactly the same. I think guys like Edwards adopt this haircut at puberty and go, as they say down here, "to the arms of Jesus" with the same style. It often looks like it's been treated to a liberal dose of hairspray, although I have no idea if it actually is kept in place by something with chemicals in it.

The haircut is so "pretty" that it prompted this spoof, starring Edwards in a Breck shampoo ad, so I'm clearly not the first person to notice this.

If Ann Coulter finds John Edwards effeminate, she's never seen him walk up the stairs onto a stage wearing jeans. Trust me, this is one sexy guy.

Ann Coulter has nice neat hair too. I guess that's the only positive thing I can say about her.