But he stuck around long enough to pose once more.

Just when I was thinking it was a dull evening, with my walk cancelled yet again, a loud thud came from a window. On the ground, a bird with wing askew, looking dazed. This happens more often than you might think.

Sometimes they die in my hand. Sometimes, they stay the night indoors, safe from the neighborhood cats, and are put in a protective shrub in the morning. Tonight, after blinking a lot, and settling its wing back in place, this guy took off.

It is tempting to overload a homemade burger. No one limits you to one slice of tomato or three slivers of onion. Before long, the burger is five inches high, maybe higher because you use bagged salad for the lettuce. It is a two-handed meal.

I want to read The Devil’s Larder, mentioned earlier, a smallish book, during dinner. It will not sit flat on the table. I can wedge it between the bottom of the table and my crossed knee, but turning the pages is impossible.

Behind me sits a stack of picture frames, waiting patiently for me to realize that they have been there for months, and need tending to. They are not quite the right size for the job at hand, being 5x7s, but heavy enough to hold the pages down.

I read slower, eat faster, and when the burger is gone, I go to the freezer and find that the ice cream is mostly firmed up except for the very middle. It is just right.

Great, mmm, um, ah, kind of hard to scrape it from the sides, which is the coldest part of, mmm, the freezer bowl. Gosh, I wish I could share some of this . . . wait, what am I saying? Ummmm, needs a mmmhmmm, bit of chilling, to get more ice cream-like, and ah, um, maybe a little less sugar.

Is filled with obstacles, if you are as distracted as I am. Instead of the whipping cream, I added half-and-half - they come in almost identical containers. Maybe I can make soup with that mixture. If only it didn’t have 3/4 cup of sugar added.

Should have saved the filmy part, which was like the skin that forms on top of pudding.

Today’s the day! Checking the recipe that came with the machine, I see that a cup of milk is needed. While I have a unique form of lactose intolerance, I can have milk that has been heated.

The plan is to heat it, and chill it since the recipe calls for cold milk. The pot goes on the stove, the milk goes in, and back I go to the computer. Some minutes later I decide the birds are being unusually loud on the roof, pecking at the vent, and why is there a peculiar burning smell.

Note to self: when milk is allowed to heat beyond its comfort zone, all that is left is a flexible white film clinging to an angry-looking pot. Oh, and it makes a lot of noise spreading itself all over the burner and stovetop.

The President of the United States’ umbrella malfunctioned . I want 11 planes up there right now , and I want those clouds gone!

Thanks Vladimir. Now, we’ve been having a rain problem here in the Bay Area . . .

From Erin’s blog , Life in the Village.

Maybe it was just sick and tired of being penned up.

The ongoing conversation:

You (to body fat): Get out.
Body Fat (old): Will not.
Your Liver: I’m in charge of fat-burning around here. Old BF stays.
You: (to body fat): I don’t care. Get out.
Body Fat (old): Bite me.
Liver: Send some New Fat in, and we’ll talk.
You: What? Eat New Fat?
Liver: It takes New Fat to help get rid of Old Fat.
You: I can live with that.
Body Fat (old): Damn.

The woefully bare arsenal against drug-resistant bugs just got a bright new addition. A recently discovered protein molecule from pigs, when combined a similar human one, works against strep bacteria.

Scientists hope that further research will provide other agents to use against MRSA and other infections that attack the skin.

Reading The Devil’s Larder , a great treat.

An octahedron inside a tetrahedron inside a cube inside a dodecahedron inside an icosahedron - the All Five puzzle has been created by Dr. Wayne Daniel, a physicist who’s been making puzzles for 40 years.

He has made 20, and they are available for $400 each. I want one.

Joseph V. Restifo comments:

$400 is a little steep. Why doesn’t some kids’ toy store (e.g., FAO Schwartz, Zany Brainy, Toys ‘r’ Us, even Wal-Mart) try to market them on a large scale, so the price can be more reasonable?

I agree, but perhaps Dr. Daniel is thinking of them more as artworks. Chuck Hoberman’s designs are featured in museums, but are also sold in toy stores. Maybe it’s the perception of limited audience appeal.

Researchers find that the fungus-farming termite’s ancestry lies, like humans, in Africa. And, like us, they migrated successfully into other countries.

Antibiotic-defying bugs are getting better at dodging weapons, with MRSA leaping out of hospital confines and into an unsuspecting general community.

Now we hear of MDR, or multi-drug resistant bacteria that are currently found in nursing homes and hospitals.