This article is asstounding…

Tags

bad jokes, fun, hilarious, humor, lululemon, pun war, Puns, silly, yoga pants

*PUN WARNING: This post was generated in a factory that also processes puns and bad jokes.  Contains puns and plays on words.

So, apparently there is a clothing company, Lululemon, that makes activewear, including running tights and yoga pants for women.  Only they have recently recalled much of their merchandise because of a little…problem.

Now, you may think it odd that I would post something about clothing, much less about a particular clothing recall, and it’s true that most of my own clothing is mismatch hand-me-downs and thrift items, but….butt…there have been so many great buns, I mean puns!, about this issue.

To get to the bottom of this matter, you should really read this NPR article because it is amazing:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/19/174731991/lululemon-vows-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-its-see-through-pants-problem?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130319

I myself have had a three day pun war with a friend on Facebook about the shear stupidity of the whole thing:

I posted about the Lululemon scandal, and he replied with: “Trying to lure me into another punning duel eh? Puns about buns no less (or more; I guess that’s the issue). I’ll pass rather than end up the butt of your jokes. I can see right through your plans.”

To which I responded: “Well, it wasn’t posted for anyone in particular (male OR punster), but so the world might enjoy the delightful collection of puns. Although (not to toot my own horn*), I seem to remember victory last time. Anyway, you know that my lab is ALL about studying good looking asters. *pun not intended?”

And he replied: “Actually, I think that article about See Through Pants is one-sided. If you think about it, the sheer fabric might make a good swim suit (less shear, i.e. drag) and give one a great feel for the water (Sea Through Pants) and freedom to easily seek relief (Pee Through Pants), with tear-away ability should they become caught on something (Flee Through Pants). As usual, pondering the flip side reveals new possibilities.”

And I answered: “Haha, I must admit defeat, although I think you win through shear luck. Somehow I always fall behind in these pun wars. Your prize is some pirate’s booty. Butt maybe I can call in reinforcements? My friend studies and even photographs large asters, maybe she’d like to throw her buns, I mean puns, into the mix?”

EDIT UPDATE!!

My friend commented:  “It seems my assistance is needed, although I feel I’m bringing up the rear. It’s not unusual for her to dump assignments on me. I feel the real victims here are these hose and thankfully this obvious crack in the company’s reputation will be rectified. I’d hate to see this company leave, but I love to watch it walk away.”

And the original commenter: “Hmm … your friend is pretty good at this. I need to quit this and attend to my work, but you gals are cracking me up.”

She answered: “Indeed I never assumed I’d stoop so low.”

Have anything to add in this worthiest of battles?

Morel-ly ambiguous

Tags

Appalachia, cemetery, edible mushroom, food, hiking, man my puns are great, morals, Morchella esculenta, morels, mushrooms, nature, Puns, recipes, wild forage

Once upon a time, I was hiking with a couple of friends through an old hemlock forest in the Appalachian mountains.  Appalachia used to be a lot less forested than its current state, and it is riddled with old homesteads, so much so that you can be 20 kilometers from civilization and stumble across a patch of tulips.  After spending a few minutes scratching your head, you will spot the remains of a stone foundation, perhaps an old hearth, and you will realise that, at one time, this was someone’s farm.

Well, my friends and I stumbled upon an ancient graveyard that day, one with head and foot stones so worn by time that only a few were legible.  The dates were from the 1800′s, which may not seem a lot to those of you in older countries, but is certainly respectable for the US.

As we meandered through the cemetery in respectful silence, I came across a large patch of the most coveted edible mushroom in the eastern United States: the morel.  Morels are a popular forage food here, and are rumored to be the most delicious wild mushroom (except for the truffle, of course, but you need a pig to find those).

“Oh, oh my,” I said, in some distress, “Do you think that I should collect these?”

My friends were concerned, mainly because the patch was right over the grave of a Revolutionary War soldier, “I don’t know…isn’t that kind of cannibalism?” they queried.

With a twinkle in my eye, I responded, “No, you’re right.  I wouldn’t want you to think that I was morel-ly questionable.”

“No, no…we wouldn’t question your morals, it’s just that–”

“No!  Guys. Morel-ly questionable?  Come on.”

…

“Face it, I’m hilarious.”

…

Well, guess what?  I just found another big old patch of morels.  Happily, they were on the edge of a babbling brook instead of in a cemetery this time, so they are edible!  Exhausted by the “im-morel-ity” of the campaign season in the US, I was happy to focus on a different sort of morel.

What's this? Aha, I see you there, you sneaky bugger! Morel (Morchella esculenta)

I rinse them but some people would call me heretical. Aren't they prettier than a truffle?

Sliced and extracted any arthropod friends.

Lightly sauteed in just the smallest amount of olive oil and a bare dusting of salt. Nothing else is needed!

I use them to make delicious omelettes, but there are many things you can do!  Check out this website for lots of morel advice: thegreatmorel.com.

PS.  Please do not eat wild mushrooms unless you are 100% confident as to their identity, or you know someone who can confidently ID them and you trust them with your life.  Morels are among the safest wild mushrooms, but please be careful!

Ticked off

Tags

field biology, Field work, nature, outdoors, parasite, Puns, summer, tick, wetland restoration

Shoulder high grasses in a wetland restoration area.

It was late June.  I had been working all day in the sultry summer heat of a wetland restoration area in central Virginia, wading through shoulder high grasses.  I had checked endless numbers of tree tubes, recorded deer damage and germination success on each and every one.

In other words, it was prime tick season in prime tick habitat.

Trudging wearily back to my beat-up field vehicle at the end of the day, I knew I should do a tick check…but I was too tired.  I longed to head for home, where I could peel off my sweat soaked clothes, take an ice cold shower, and wash the dead insects out of my hair.

Some days are like that, particularly days that involve wetland restoration areas and germination surveys.

So, instead of checking for ticks, I slumped behind the wheel, put it in gear, and drove onto the motorway.

It wasn’t long before I felt something crawling along the sensitive hairs at the nape of my neck.  I cringed, reached up, and plucked it off.  Yep, a tick.  I rolled down the window and let her fly off at 100 kph (~60mph).  A tick has probably never moved so fast.

Then I made the mistake of looking down at myself…there were eight ticks in plain view, crawling about on my field clothes.

I must have been quite the sight, weaving down the highway at 100 kph, flinging tiny black specks out the window.  Eventually, I decided that this was hazardous behaviour, so I screeched to a halt in a skeezy petrol station, leapt from the vehicle, pulled off my shirt, and frantically flung ticks in all directions.

After I had calmed a bit, I looked up and realised that there was a gang of dangerous looking Mexican guys, leaning up against an old Ford pick-up, smoking cigarillos, and watching me through squinty eyes.  I jumped, flicked one more tick off the driver’s seat of my car, dove back behind the wheel, and peeled off, not bothering with my stinky shirt.

Despite all my efforts, I was still picking off ticks at every stoplight on the way home, albeit at a less frenzied rate.

I don’t know how many I found during that frenetic drive, but when I got home I bundled up all of my clothing and put it in the machine to wash, took an icy shower, checked myself carefully one last time, and went to bed.

Well, you can imagine how I felt when I woke at 2 am to a tick crawling across my eyebrow.

Nonplussed.

Buying thyme

Tags

Puns, thyme, time

This is a little non sequitur for my blog, given that it is not really a story or poem about nature.  I do hope you will forgive my little self-indulgences.  You will?  Oh, thank you.

I was shopping for groceries the other day, supplementing my forage foods (which are getting sparse this time of year) and it suddenly struck me that I was searching for an aisle in the store that had time.  I know this seems strange, but I found myself wandering up and down the aisles, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy time?”  That is what I was really searching for, after all.

I considered this; how would you sell time?  In little cardboard boxes with flashy advertising and too much plastic wrapping?  It would probably be that noisy cellophane so that you couldn’t open it early in the morning when your roommates were asleep.  (How annoying!)

Would there be bargain bin time?  Wal-mart brand time (“Great value!”)?  There would have to be organic time and locally produced time, painstakingly grown despite the late blight, and harvested despite the flooding.

Would you be able to buy time in 20 minute chunks?  An hour, two hours?  What would bargain time look like?  It would be painful time, or sad time, time that already seems too long.  If you bought quality time, would it mean that it was automatically happy time?  Or just productive time?

How much would you pay for time?  I thought, would I pay more for time than I make per hour?  I probably would, if it was good quality time.  Maybe Wegman’s time, scented with lavender.

I would probably change my budget around entirely if I could buy time.  I would save up for sweet two hour chunks that I could savor with the ones I loved, or savory times outside in the sun at this time of year, when everything looks like a Monet painting…that thought almost made me drool.

I realized, abruptly, that I was standing in the baking aisle, with a small bottle of thyme in my hand, and that I had been staring at it for goodness knows how long.  Time!  Thyme!  I was wasting time just staring at thyme, thinking about time and buying thyme.  Right there, all that wasted time.  I put the herb down on its shelf and wandered off with a feeling somewhere between frustrated and bemused.

How would the world change if we could buy time?

Trunk junk: misunderstanding innovation

Tags

Field work, Puns

As a field ecologist, I do not claim to be cool (except when the temperature outside is low).  As a matter of fact, I would like to emphasize the fact that I am proud of my nerdliness.  You may even call me a geek if you like.

One consequence of this “lack of cool” is that I am not always hip to the slang.  Sometimes, this gets me in trouble.  When I was working with some male undergraduates, I called the watering cans “my jugs”, which led to a decent amount of giggling among them.  It was only later that I learned that “jugs” is often used in reference to female anatomy.

My favourite story involving the misuse of modern slang also involves what I thought was some pretty clever innovation on my part.  You see, a field biologist has to be clever and innovative sometimes in order to solve problems in the field and account for last minute emergencies.

Field work in winter...very cold!

We were doing fieldwork in the dead of winter in central Pennsylvania.  We had to move snow from containers to experimental plots because we were investigating how overwintering plants would respond to the higher levels of winter precipitation predicted under climate change.  Unfortunately, we made a mistake and were one snow shovel full of a fully equipped team.

I dug through the back of the field vehicle looking for a substitute and found a Tupperware sandwich container lid, which I subsequently used to move the snow.  When relating this story to a friend later, I emphasized the important point, which is that a good field biologist always has a lot of junk in her trunk.

When the tears of hilarity stopped streaming from my friend’s eyes, I asked her if I was really that funny or if I had said something unintentional, at which point she illuminated the true meaning of “junk in my trunk.”

Trunk Junk.