Lightning strikes and a new queen

Last night we stood sweltering on the ninth floor astro turfed rooftop of a friend's new office building near the Yonkers waterfront, with views north south and west. We watched the clouds gather and then watched the light turn pink and golden, at which point we went inside to watch as the lightning sundered and slashed the darkening sky. Lovely lightning.
So here is a question: will the metal in my knee attract lightning? Is titanium any different from any other metal in its electrical conducting properties?
Is there any knowledge on this very important subject, especially important to those of us who are attracted to thunderstorms? (Are they now attracted to my knee?) Those of you meteorologically, or metallurgically, or medically knowledgeable, please advise.

CSB took advantage of this hot and sultry day to inspect several of the hives.
One of the three by the blueberry patch (I used to name the individual queens: Camilla, Beatrice, Lena Mary, Dana, Virginia - mostly for dead relatives and old girlfriends of CSB. But definitely not his ex-wife. But as the apiary has grown, that system has gotten too cumbersome – even CSB has a finite number of old girlfriends – and so I just refer to them by their region in the garden, their proximity to blueberries or grapes or the field.) had a small collection of supercedure cells. One supercedure cell was open from the bottom, and presumably somewhere in the hive a new queen is walking around. Is she mated yet? How many drones died to give her their dynastic seed?
The other cells showed signs of being opened from the side, which means that the first queen to emerge killed those wannabe queens.
Below: Bees clustering around Slovakian bee hive sign from WW.

Saints Claud and others

You probably know Saint Claude as the patron of toymakers, but what you need to know is that the Saint Claud we celebrate today, he of Besançon, didn’t really catch on until about 400 years after his death in 699 CE, when his body was found to be INCORRUPT.

Being much in favor of composting, of things biodegradable, of dust unto dust and ashes unto ashes, the whole concept of INCORRUPT bodies as a direct line to sainthood is one I have trouble with, and hence it will occasionally be referred to in these pages. On the face of it, an INCORRUPT body seems impossible (absent mummification), but the annals of hagiography are so full of them (the bodies) and the instances are so often documented by reliable sources, that one just has to wonder.

The main thing you need to know about Saint Philip the Deacon is that he was personally responsible for the conversion of Queen Candace of Ethiopia’s favorite eunuch.

"Personally, it was upsetting to see all our hard work turn into a huge penis." So said a Nyack H.S. senior. See the Journal News.

What is therapeutic?

The physical therapists are lovely.

One is a football (“not your football”) player from outside Dublin who tells me that the recumbent bicycle is Grand and the electrical stimulation is Grand.

The other one is a runner and diver (Am I intimated by athletic females? Yep. Always have been, always will be.) with a tongue stud.

ME: Do you mind me asking if you have a tongue stud?

PT: (Sticks out her tongue). I do.

ME: Do you mind if I say something in the maternal vein? Since my daughter had a tongue stud too?

PT: Not at all. My mother hates it.

ME: My daughter ended up having lots of dental problems. She basically killed these two teeth here (I demonstrate the two lower front teeth).

PT: My roommate did that too. (Smiling). But I don’t knock it about. Some people play with theirs and slide the ball up and down between the teeth (She does not demonstrate.) but mostly I forget it’s there.

ME: The dental work was very expensive, and painful.

PT: (Still smiling. She does have very nice teeth.)

And miles to go before I sleep

From the NYTimes 6/3/08: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost’s former home for a beer party and severely damaged the house are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment. Using “The Road Not Taken” and another poem as jumping-off points, a Frost biographer, Jay Parini, left, hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways, and the redemptive power of poetry. Said the prosecutor, John Quinn, who asked Mr. Parini to teach the classes, “I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people’s property in the future and would also learn something from the experience.” Twenty-eight people were charged, mostly with trespassing.

What can I say? What can any of us say?

Serial (The Quickies), Part 2

2. Had George Whitby considered in which act he would hurl himself from the heights of the Family Circle down to the pampered depths of the Orchestra? His bereaved sister assumed he had planned to commit suicide before Otello so tragically kills Desdemona, and because he did not, because it came afterwards, she assumed that his courage had faltered and that second thoughts had delayed his jump. Sara Whitby, once she developed this assumption, could not stop thinking about it. She thought about it day and night and what little sleep she got was tormented by it. She had been perfectly aware that her brother was depressed, but given that he had lost his job and that his magnus opus had been rejected by its thirteenth publisher, she considered his depression situational (as opposed to what?) and felt justified in thinking that his spirits would improve with the passage of time and a new job. George had never been what you would describe as a cheery fellow. Neither he nor Sara had much time to spare for the cheery souls of this earth. Life, like good operas, was tragic, and they knew it.

Saint Wistan's hair

People get weird about hair.
Victorians collected their lovers’ tresses and used them for art-under-glass. Read any stash of nineteenth century love letters and you will find yourself inhaling very old hair clippings.
Some people gag when confronted with flowing locks.
Others can’t imagine ever cutting their hair.
SAINT WISTAN (namesake of W.H. Auden, btw) has an exceptionally weird hair story.
Even Butler describes it as a “very extravagant miracle.”
Wistan (also Wystan) was murdered for having the temerity to oppose a marriage between his widowed mother and his godfather. Some say this opposition was for dynastic reasons, others that it was for spiritual reasons. Either way, it is redolent of Hamlet.
But that was just the beginning. Every year, on the first of June, a CROP OF HUMAN HAIR sprouts in the spot where Wystan met his end (He was scalped). It is visible for only an hour. What Butler finds exceptional is that there is contemporary verification (9th century) of the miracle, by one Thomas Marledge, an abbot and “reputed man of credit”. He and his fellows saw the hair, “felt it with their hands, and kissed it.”