Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Don't Know Much About Ontogeny

Very early yesterday morning, when I thought everyone was asleep, I sat in front of my laptop at the desk KathyHowe instigated (I must say that I did a nice job making the desk.). I heard a slight noise. It's difficult to describe the sound. It was not a tapping sound, but like a light, very slight, thump, more like a vibration that somehow makes it through to the lowest register of one's hearing, the kind of sound about which one wonders if it was imagination or ... reality. And what would it mean if it was my imagination.

I looked a little to my right, wondering whether I would find anything "real." And there she was, Freddy the Frog, standing on her hind legs, her front legs stretched overhead, her little hands on the side of her aquarium, looking at me. Then she jumped into the side of the aquarium. Yes, I said "she." And I don’t mean this in the Germanic sense of the word, like this is a feminine noun for some odd and ancient reason that goes back to the days of Charlemagne. I finally determined that Freddy is a "she."

Of course, it is difficult to tell the gender of a frog by gross physical examination.

Sometimes this is made even more difficult by exposure to octylphenol, which is produced by the breakdown a chemical widely used in the pulp and paper industry, which is is also found in many common household cleaners and some personal care products, like shaving cream or spermicidal cream (Who knew?), and which can mimic estrogen, which, in turn, affects the growth of tadpoles and their metamorphosis into frogs.

Also, the weed killer, atrazine, causes male frogs to "have ovaries in their testes and much smaller vocal cords" (Emphasis added). I think that the last part of that statement is a misprint, which should read "much smaller male sex organs." This, of course, could be used by human males by way of explanation, if necessary, for a relatively benign or insignificant state of manhood. I've used this fucking excu

Damn, I've strayed from my theme here ... I mean, it would be very easy to go off on a tangent about anti-fouling strategies in marine systems and degradation of unfiltered complex hydrocarbons in water distribution systems by UV radiation ... If you want to get involved in this kind of stuff, I urge you to attend the upcoming Amphibian Conservation Summit, to be held in Washington, September 17th to 19th.

So, Freddy the Frog was standing there, pounding on the clear plastic side of her aquarium. Stacey has told me that the frog never did that when Freddy was in her office. So, Freddy did not try to boss her around. There you go ... the women stick together.

But Freddy, when in my custody, makes demands upon me. Freddy, when in my custody, keeps me awake and directs me to get her highness food. Freddy, when in my custody, makes fun of me ... well, she's laughing at me. I can tell. Bubbles, y'know.

Then Stacey cross-examines me, "You fed Freddy, right?" See? That's how I know Freddy is a female. I don't have to measure the tympanic membrane and compare it to the size of the eyeball to know her gender.

It's fucking obvious.

Posted by Bill at August 30, 2005 02:42 PM