When photographed in UV, they are black, not white. With infrared, they are invisible, because they do not give off enough heat for the film to detect.

Hair knows when you’re sick. A friend and I discussed this at great length long ago. But with this last illness, my hair knew before I did. Once it knows, every strand becomes a wire independent of the others and with only one purpose: to go the opposite way you want it to.

Even after you blow it dry the usual way, within seconds, it flips in many different directions, making you look like a deranged person. Which is why, when I wandered shakily out in the yard to water some of the plants (which have been drooping in the heat), I had to cower part of the time. Not because I was wearing pajamas again. But because the UPS man parks in the shade of our oak tree to eat lunch, and he can see over the fence how bad my hair is.

Not up to dinner yet, but a movie sounded good. Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, one that had been repeatedly recommended, but which I’d put off seeing. And of course, the ‘Oh, Yeah’ song. Even more beautiful.

I found two beetles in the hollyhocks, small with long snouts. Can’t seem to find out what they are just yet. For mantis #2. Mantis #1 is on her second fly of the day.

Jeff comments:

Weevils?

A real possibility, but I couldn’t find the exact one yesterday.

A ranunculus grows next to a canna.

Before I can get the lid closed, she has caught a fly. I really should give her a name. Kirstie? Rosanna? Uma? Oprah? Suggestions?

Remember when Bill Murray’s exercise machine goes berserk in Lost in Translation?

Now researchers say that brief, intense bouts of activity (well, maybe not as intense as Murray’s) are equal to an hour’s jog.

For those of us perennially pressed for time, that’s excellent news.

It’s true that they keep glasses from sliding down your nose. But if you should be so unlucky as to have a thudding headache for four days, you will not like the added pressure of these frames.

If you’re used to pulling off your glasses with one hand, be aware that these won’t come off as easily. If you do it enough, one day, a lens will remove itself from the frame.

My older, trusty pair of plain frames were lost in the upper reaches of Zellerbach Auditorium at Berkeley a few weeks ago.

Antonio Bru, a physicist from Spain, believes that the growth of certain tumors can be defined in an equation . Once this equation is determined, steps can be taken to produce a treatment program to halt the cancer.

A color-changing skirt , undies that record the airport frisking experience, a garment with trailing ends that double as cat toys.

Scat! Scat! Game over! Go away!

Sometimes, low tech works when high tech cannot.

In the days before Watergate, an young man unsure of his career directions and a high-ranking FBI official begin a friendship .

Working my way through three kinds of Safeway soups: chicken with wild rice, vegetable beef and baked potato with bacon. It is unfortunate, but I don’t like wild rice. The vegetable is fine, and am eating the baked potato now. On opening the container, it looked like liquified potato salad. I didn’t want to make the effort to read the long list of ingredients, but wonder what the little pickle relish-looking bits are.

a) wearing pajamas for 4 days (but clean ones)
b) complaining about my symptoms to total strangers
c) communicating in croaks and grunts
d) weight loss
e) waking up to find the pain on the left side is not a life-threatening inflammation caused by the remaining bacteria, which have concentrated on one organ, like my spleen

I woke covered with sweat in the middle of the night. Today I will go easy on the decision making, although yesterday’s perceived mistake turned out to be not so bad after all.

Surely, there are less painful ways to lose 5 lbs.

Conservation personnel and volunteers manage to get the whales back into deeper waters from where they were found in Geographe Bay.

So who actually has the time to piece shredded mail and bank statements back together? More and more, police are finding that meth addicts and identity theft go hand in hand.