I have a digital stack of letters to get to next week, but for now I am going to take advantage of my Sunday night to finish Season 4 of Lost and recover from my weekend of domestic goddesshood and treachery.
Last week the Isis family was with the Isis family en large to celebrate the slaughter of winged things, thankfulness, and the transformation of gourd-like fruit into delicious desserts. One of the most challenging things about a career in academia is living away from the majority of my family. For the last 10 years I have had to travel at every major holiday. That means that it has been very important to have good, trustworthy, local friends to take care of las plantas de Isis and el gato de Isis.
Figure 1: El gato de Isis and her most common facial expression - disdain.I thought that we had found a trustworthy friend here at MRU. I really, really did. That is, until we came home Saturday after a long day of travel and found this:
Figure 2: Dr. Isis's first floor bathroom, full of balloons.
Sure, it's funny unless you've had a two hour drive home from the airport and have to pee so bad that you can taste it. Then it's only mildly amusing. Thankfully, the irrational need to pee is good for vengeful thoughts.
Figure 2: "Mommy, who came and left me all of these balloons?
The balloons quickly made their escape from their confinement and have since been found all over the house.
Figure 3: This could have been perpetuated by the jumping
Figure 4: Some made it to the family room. There,I swear that the male and female balloons began reproducing. Because Dr. Isis's home is all about equality and tolerance, there was no discrimination or propositions passed when some of the male and female balloons engaged in same sex mating with each other.While I think I managed to wrangle most of the balloons into the living room, random balloons can still be found throughout the house.
Figure 5: The Isis house has become like a nightmarish, fucked-up game of "Where's Waldo?"When I realized I was not going to win this battle, I did the only thing I could think of:
Figure 6: I made cupcakes. I am amazed that I can spend hours crafting a dessert and yet Little Isis prefers the cupcakes with the sprinkles from the box.And now, I am going to roll over, snuggle with a balloon, and watch a few
Until then, little muffins, my balloon awaits.
Education
Life Science
Comments
Whaaaaat? Why cancha call Palin a shrew?
Posted by: El Picador | November 29, 2009 11:05 PM
Every major holiday? Wow. Even if we're only talking about the Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter combination, that's a lot of travel every year. Is this only to visit the Isis side of the family, or is there some sort of division with Mr. Isis's relatives too? Do you ever actually take a vacation?
DrDGT and I have a similar situation (more than a thousand miles from our families), but choose not to travel for holidays 'cause it's a giant pain - and we don't even have kids! I hesitate to ask, but why not stay home for a holiday, and establish that as a tradition?
Posted by: DamnGoodTechnician | November 29, 2009 11:53 PM
Hah! I love the balloons!
You will have to come up with an even more diabolical form of revenge in return, of course1
Posted by: Sisyphus | November 30, 2009 12:09 AM
I find it hard to believe that you're really a scientist and academic after looking all of those empty walls without book cases and all those horizontal spaces without piles of books waiting to be cased. CONFESS!! That's a clip-art house, isn't it?!!??
Posted by: John McKay | November 30, 2009 12:27 AM
You got me dude. It's totes an act.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 30, 2009 12:54 AM
El gato de Isis is super cute!
Posted by: Asphericity | November 30, 2009 3:33 AM
Il gatto di Isis is adorable; his quietly sleeping by the sofa must be very relaxing and reassuring. I don't think that Isis's vacation in Rio will ever take place without her boggie kitty. I wish I had that adorable cuttie with me for xmas.
Posted by: adoring | November 30, 2009 4:28 AM
Balloons in bathroom only slightly less cool than colored balls in the entire apartment.
You go hug your friend for me.
Posted by: becca | November 30, 2009 9:21 AM
It is possible to fill bathtubs and toilets with jello...
Not that I would suggest that as revenge, but you never know when these "Martha Stewart" ideas may come in handy.
Posted by: Pascale | November 30, 2009 10:01 AM
Hey Isis, next time you visit or watch the house of the balloon prankster, take all the labels off their canned goods. They'll have no fuckin clue what's for dinner for decades. Balloons are so yesterday and fleeting.
Posted by: jc | November 30, 2009 10:55 AM
hahaha! This reminds me when I filled my suitemate's room with balloons when she went away one weekend... there were about ~100 or so all taped to crap. She came home at 5AM and didn't know what to do with them... haha.
Posted by: Eugenie | November 30, 2009 12:28 PM
This was done by an actual adult friend with a job and resonsibilities and stuff? Not cool. I have fond memories of doing stuff like this when I lived in the dorms, but I thought jell-o shots were a good idea then too . . .
As someone who spent her entire childhood being dragged around the country (six cites by age 14 when they finally settled down)in pursuit of her father's academic career growth, I can say that one of the best things about that was all the people we choose to make family over the years and spent holidays with. I'm closer to some of those people than some of my actual blood relations, for many reasons, one of which being that they don't think my research career is a phase that will be cured by a husband and babies.
Just say no to holiday travel some years.
Posted by: katydid13 | November 30, 2009 4:45 PM
I think I might own the brother of El gato de Isis.
Posted by: katydid13 | November 30, 2009 5:07 PM
El gato de Isis is gorgeous.
Mr. Sandy once returned from field work to discover his pantry and medicine cabinet had been filled with mini-marshmallows. Thus began a war that would have continued forever had the instigator not moved to the other side of the continent.
Posted by: sandy | November 30, 2009 6:02 PM
El gato? Why the sexism? Shouldn't this beautiful and tortoiseshell-furred (well, "torbie", actually) feline be referred to as "la gata"? (Or whatever the word is in proper Spanish, as I don't speak it)
Posted by: Christophe Thill | December 1, 2009 9:00 AM