More Microscope Fun

Song: “Mit Lille Sorte Æg” by Gorilla Angreb

Mood: 6.5

Nightmares: 0

I was tired from not sleeping all that well again, but otherwise today went pretty well. It took me quite a while to get moving in the morning – I tried for a while to go back to sleep but even though I was tired, I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.

I did the same preparations again today to prepare myself for doing my exercises. A bit of light, leisurely stretching, and doing breathing exercises seems to be really helping. Listening to nature sounds to help block out the world around me is helping a lot, too. My exercises went pretty well today – I’m glad I tried some things to see if I could get them working again.

It was quite pleasant out this morning so I did my walk before it started to heat up. I got out to the parking lot at the mini-mall and walked the perimeter of the parking lot four times before I turned around and hustled home. I’m still very uncomfortable with not being able to see the house, but I REALLY want to get to the point where I can pick up a couple of groceries every so often. My plan is to actually enter a store (probably the grocery store) and walk around in it for a minute or two before heading home. Wish me luck…

I sent out a whole bunch of texts today and had quite a few good conversations. I try to send out an amusing picture or little video each day during the work week and say hello. I like to think that some of the recipients of might see my texts and smile a bit during their day. Plus, I enjoy sending them. One of the people I text with the most is a good friend who used to be my supervisor at work ten or so years ago. She’s since retired and moved far away but we’ve been keeping in touch. She is the best supervisor I’ve ever had. I told J a couple of times that if the phone rang in the middle of the night and that particular supervisor was yelling to offer me a job over the sounds of gunshots, explosions, and screaming, I would wake J up and ask her if I could go.

My mom called today and we had a good talk. My sister’s new cats have been fascinated with her and haven’t left her alone since she arrived, but everything seems to be going well. My nephews are growing like crazy. Mom also sent me a text with the email address for that cousin I met for the first time on Saturday. I think it would be interesting to keep in touch.

I spent a while looking at the DVD stuff again. The novelty has worn off.

Most of the dandelions out on the lawn have gone from the yellow flowers to the floaty-blowy seeds. I plucked one and decided to see what it looked like under the microscope. I also took some time and set up my microscope camera so I could get better pictures than just holding up my phone to the eyepiece.

So here’s the dandelion with most of its fluff still attached. The brown parts in the middle are the actual seeds – the fuzzy white parts catch the breeze and float to another location:

Here’s a photo of the part where all of the fuzziness emanates from, and some of the filaments that make up the fuzziness.

Here’s a 100x view of the ends of some of the filaments. They almost look like they have serrated edges.

Here’s part of the seed pod (the brown part). It amazes me that these organisms evolved the ridges, hooks, and little spikes over hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

And here’s the same shot, illuminated from the top. The colour and texture of the pod is pretty interesting. It almost looks like some kind of insect.

And the part of the seed pod that’s farthest from the fuzzy end. Again, the texture and colour are easy to make out, and I wasn’t expecting that the seed pod ended in two protuberances like that.

Playing around with the microscope is both interesting and enjoyable. There’s no shortage of things outside (or inside, for that matter) to look at, and nature never ceases to amaze me at how incredible (and, occasionally, disgusting) it can be. There’s a creek nearby – once summer is here and the water is moving pretty slowly, I think I’m going to see if J wants to walk there with me to collect some plant and water samples. Seeing the cells stacked together like bricks in a plant is amazing, but there’s something special about watching little protists bumbling around inside a drop of water and going about their business.

J has tomorrow off but she has some paperwork stuff she wants to get done so I’m not sure yet what we’re going to be doing. Black Panther showed up in the mail today so maybe we’ll have time to give that a watch.

Stay safe.