Greg and Kat's blog

After catching a record 9 juvies on Sunday with Greg and his parents (his dad was thrilled!), Adam and I went out to see whether we could do the same on Monday. Not only did we not catch anything, but the birds that were around my traps almost became lunch to a passing hawk. There I was, watching as the one finch that showed any interest in my traps the whole morning was about to hop into a trap, and then whoosh, birds flying everywhere. I looked up from my binoculars, and a small- to medium-sized hawk landed near my traps scaring everything off, and then immediately took off. I’m pretty sure nothing was actually caught – there were a bunch of sparrows around where the hawk landed. I think it may have been a Merlin. It was bigger than a kestral and had blue on its wings (Oli, help!) Anyways, it couldn’t have waited the 2 seconds my finch needed to convince itself that it really wanted to go into the trap. No…. it HAD to attack just in time for my bird to turn around and fly out. Dammit! Anyways, it was pretty cool to see a predation attempt.

Monday was not a good bird day at all. When I got home, Adam called from school and said that some of the juvies that we had previously caught had conjunctivitis. Apparently House Finches are prone to getting this eye infection because they get these external parasites that make their eyes swell up. I ended up going back to school and catching all of the ones with puffy eyes (5 of them), and isolating them so we can treat and monitor them. Crappiness. Anyways, they seem to be doing better (I hope it’s not just my imagination). Luckily it seems to have only struck in one of the large flight cages, but we’re keeping a close eye on everyone.

Caught 2 more birds today though. Yay!

Over the last week I’ve received another 7 bug bites (including 1 on my face!). Total bite count: 50.

Yesterday was July 4th, American Independence Day. It was the first one Greg has celebrated while in the states. We started off the day working (yes I put him to work) cutting pine branches for my birds to perch on. But then we went to the July 4th celebration in the Carrboro Town Commons. Carrboro is a pretty small town, a suburb of Chapel Hill, which itself is pretty small. So the “celebration” included 1) lots of kids stuff (a bouncy room, a ball room, some kids’ arts and crafts tables, sack races, balloon tosses, etc.), which we didn’t participate in because we don’t have a kid, 2) a stage where there was local music (think old people local music, not good local music), and 3) a row of concession tables/trailers selling carnival food. So, the celebration for us consisted of eating corn dogs, a deep fried Snickers bar, and a funnel cake. I love carnival food. Then we went home and had naps. The end.

Since we got here in early May I have been looking for a nice large teapot. Nothing fancy. I think the one I have in Vancouver is from the Bay. I just wanted it to be big (like 6 cups) and functional. I drink a lot of tea. We looked everywhere here – Target, Walmart, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, etc. Everywhere! Nothing! It’s as if people don’t drink tea here. That can’t be though – they drink sweet tea! And there’s tea in the supermarkets. So I had all but given up, and figured I’d order a teapot online.

Then the other day we went to a store called “A Southern Season.” It’s similar to Gourmet Warehouse, but a lot bigger and not as expensive. They had a huge loose tea section, so I set off on a search for a teapot. I rounded a corner, and there it was. A whole wall of teapots! Apparently they all live together in one store! So, I am now a proud owner of a large, 6-cup green teapot. I almost bought the orange one, but since my new place is all orange-brown woods, I though it would be too orangy.

Now, I know, buying a teapot generally would not be blog worthy, but think of it as a happy ending to a long and kind of confusing quest. I wonder if everyone here knows to buy their teapot at this store?

A Souther Season also had a HUGE chocolate section. Almost half of the store! They had large cooled cabinets with Godiva, Moonstruck, Neuhaus (yes Suyoko, you don’t have to go all the way to Belgium, you can just come and visit me!), and a few other companies. Then they had countless shelves of different types of chocolates. As we always do when the opportunity presents itself, Greg and I conducted a little industrial espionage. Our friend Kelly is a chocolatier (www.badgirlchocolates.com), and sells yummy truffles, jellies and covered almonds. So whenever we can, we try other companies’ chocolates and scope out their chocolate molds to get new ideas that we then pass on to Kelly. This time we tried Moonstruck chocolate “cones”. These were ice cream cone shaped chocolate shells filled with thick flavored cremes. Greg had a peanut butter cone and I had a razzleberry cone. The tops were dipped in chocolate and then decorated (pics up in the gallery in the NC Food album). So, A Southern Season is my new favorite store!

Pics of the new log cabin apartment are up too!

Greg and I like food. Not in a “we need food in order to live” kinda way. More like we’re foodies. We enjoy trying different kinds of food. So, since we’re in BBQ country, we’ve decided to immerse ourselves in the local BBQ culture. For Greg, this means selectively falling off of the pseudo-veggie wagon every so often. But hey, we’re only here for a couple years, and really, he’s only here for a couple months! We’re taking pictures of all of the interesting places we eat. They’re in the gallery under 2006 – NC Restaurants.

NC BBQ 101
Keith had explained to us that BBQ in North Carolina can be a point of contention. You see, there are two styles of BBQ in NC. The Eastern style, which is vinegar based, and Western style, which is vinegar and tomato sauce based. Chapel Hill is right on the border of the two, but most of the BBQ places here serve Eastern style. BBQ here is pork. Specifically, pulled pork shoulder, or slices of pork shoulder (I think it’s shoulder. Greg or Kelly, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).
Adam is from Lexington, NC, which is west of here. Lexington is apparently the Western style BBQ capital of NC. It hosts a yearly BBQ festival, and the town with a population of about 25,000 people swells to hold 150,000 people on the weekend of the festival. I’m hoping that I can convince someone to go with me this fall. Anyways, Adam has told me that while there are a few places that serve Western style BBQ around here, they’re not very good, and we should drive west to taste “the best BBQ”.

Country Kitchen
I think Greg has already blogged about this little diner that’s around the corner from our apartment. It’s the little diner that is only open for breakfast and lunch, and is run by an Asian couple who serve “Southern diner food,” i.e., biscuits, grits, greens, fatback (not really sure what that is), fried okra, etc. I think the picture is in the “Tour of Chapel Hill” gallery folder.

Mama Dip’s
The second local place we ate at was Mama Dip’s. It was recommended to us by Ted, a grad student in Biology, and his wife (Andrea? Can’t remember now). They’re from Alberta, and Ted was one of the grad students I had lunch with when I visited last year. Mama Dip’s serves “Southern home cooking”. We’ve gone twice now (haven’t taken a picture yet though) and have had pretty good food. The puller pork was pretty vinegar-y, but still good. It didn’t taste very BBQ-y though. I realized later, that’s probably because it’s not BBQ-ed. I think it’s stewed, or pressure cooked, or something. Interestingly, it actually tasted a lot like Filippino pork adobo, but with a little more vinegar and a little less soy! So, here I was in the South, eating what felt like Filippino home cooking. Greg had chicken and dumplings the first time – also good. The second time I had fried chicken and gravy (chicken is smothered in gravy). Good, but difficult to eat because you can’t pick it up like regular fried chicken – too slippery. For some reason Greg ordered salmon the second time we were there. The hushpuppies (fried cornmeal and onion balls) and fried okra were really good too.

Allen & Son BBQ
This BBQ place was one of the places suggested by Emily from something she had read about the food around Chapel Hill. The decor inside was definitely interesting – sort of a mix between country-kitch and hunting lodge. They had a mounted deer head, a stuffed fox, and all sorts of other things that I don’t remember. We were hoping to take a picture of the inside, but it was too dark and the flash would have gone off. This place was an actual BBQ place. We had the pulled pork plate (with potato salad and coleslaw) and fried catfish plate (with hushpuppies, fries, and coleslaw). The BBQ was really good. Only slightly vinegar-y, but with a nice smokey taste. The potato salad around here has a lot of relish in it, and so is very acidic. We’ll have to remember to not order it anymore if there are other sides available.

The Waffle House
This is part of a chain that serves fried chicken and waffles, hashbrowns that you can add stuff like onions, mushrooms, and peppers to, and other diner food. They all have jukeboxes that have songs about the Waffle House on them. We didn’t actually order waffles at the Waffle House. Greg said it was too late in the day for waffles. I’m not convinced there is actually a time of day for waffles, but whatever. We each had the bacon, egg and cheese plate with hashbrowns. Me on toast, Greg in a wrap. mmmmm… yummy, greasy diner food.
The problem with sampling all of these places is that it’s really fatty food – almost everything with the exception of the BBQ itself is deep fried or greasy. Yummy, but not so good for the waistline or the heart! Have to eat more salads when not sampling the local cuisine!

On Wednesday I was walking to the University Employee Clinic to give them a copy of my immunization records (I need it to get a swipe card for the hospital where I’m learning HPLC). I was walking along in the 90ËšC heat, when I came across a gravelly section. No problem, I’ve walked through gravel millions of times in my life. Well, this gravel had some bigger pieces in it. Still, it’s gravel! NOPE! Some of it was gravel, some of it was embedded rock jutting out of the ground, resembling gravel! So, as I saw and stepped over a large-ish piece of “gravel” with my right foot, I must have dragged my left foot a bit too close, and the pointy rock clipped the inside of my pinky toe and wrenched it outwards. If it was gravel, my toe would have probably still been stubbed. But it wasn’t it was a freakin’ rock, a boulder even! So, the inside of my pinky toe was purple and the toe was swollen. Unfortunately, with all the pain and annoyance, I forgot to take a picture. But trust me, it was a very dark purple.

The worst part was that I still had to walk to the clinic and back. So, on my way back, I saw a bus. I figured I should take this bus instead of walking all of the way back (it was probably the distance from Cornerstone to the West Mall complex, and it was stinkin’ hot). So, I get on the bus and ask the guy on it (driver was not there) whether this bus went in the direction I wanted to go. He said yes. The bus took off, and nope, it didn’t. It brought me back to the Clinic, and the closest stop was actually past the clinic! @(#*&(#*%)($^!!! So I trudged back to Biology in the heat, soaked the shirt I was wearing, and that’s when discovered my toe had turned purple and swollen. Crappiness! At least Greg was around, so he drove by and picked me up so I didn’t have to take the bus. Luckily, it’s not broken, just really bruised.

As for science, we caught 5 juveniles yesterday, but none today. We did catch an Eastern Towhee, a female Cardinal, and a bunny (pics posted soon)! Adam actually caught the bunny by running after it and scooping it us in order to move it away from the street and into the woods so it wouldn’t get run over. The bunny was really cute. Loud, but cute!

Today was very strange. It started off with me deciding to go to work late. These days late is 7:45. Craziness! Anyways, I walk out the door of our townhouse, which happens to be by the complex’s recycling containers and one of the dumpsters. There they were… two practically new chairs and a slightly worn large end table. When people move out here and they have “extra” furniture, they leave it “by” the dumpster. So, I got 2 new chairs and an end table! I think the table is read wood too! Yippee! And, I wasn’t even late for the bus after hauling the stuff back in to the apartment.

For the last half week I’ve been working hard trying to catch birds. After all of those early mornings and 13 mosquito bites later (Total bite count: 43; mostly around my ankles because I wore capris one day and forgot the bug spray), we got 3 adult females. For some reason there were tons of birds out, but none were going in the traps! Tomorrow we put 12 potter traps out, and if these damned birds want any seed, they HAVE to go into the traps to get it. Anyways, we put up traps at a new location, and were watching them for a while. We we were looking for the ideal spot, we came across the LARGEST beetle I’ve ever seen! It was like the big slow beetle in The Lion King. I freaked a bit because I thought maybe all of the beetles around here looked like that. No, turns out Adam, who has lived here all his life (well, about an hour west of here) has never seen a beetle like this. Whew! Anyways, there’s a picture in the gallery. On our way back to the lab I found a dollar on the ground! Yippee again!

HPLC is going well. I’ve got peaks, and I know which peaks are which! One of my compounds is missing and so I have to tweak the solutions to pull it out from the “junk” peak that comes out first. That’ll be this week’s HPLC mission. I could have started that today except that when I went in on Sunday to do what I ended up doing today, I found out that the swipe card that the PI gave me didn’t actually work. So, even though I wanted to do HPLC on a sunny Sunday, I couldn’t get onto the floor where the lab is! Oh well!

Oh, and I bussed to the mall on Saturday. Even with the car I don’t feel entirely comfortable driving to the only decent mall here. You need to take the highway to get there. While I can drive on the highway, I don’t like the cloverleaf on- and off-ramps, and the off-ramp from the mall is a cloverleaf. So, I forked over $4 for the bus (all-day pass) and went shopping. I’d forgotten how cheap things are here (in the states) when they go one sale. I got a Pottery Barn silver clock for the office for only $5. It was regularly $30! I definitely felt good after that. And we NEEDED it (have to say that or else Greg will have a fit).