Think, think, think. (This is my thinking spot.)

First things first: thank you, Double Helix, for the warm welcome to a lovely brunch. Some of the cool kids (read: not me) who're already cavorting Ravelers got together for brunch in Brighton this morning, and S. was kind enough to post "come hither" info on her blog, so I, um, assumed that meant me, too. Ahem. Thanks, ladies. It was fun. I even did some knitting, AND put the Charlotte's Web shawl back onto the needle from whence it had mostly fallen.

And thank you so much for the further explanation, Lucia--okay, so it's the whole recovered memory thing you're primarily talking about. Most heartily agreed, and debunked eloquently by wiser heads than mine. The hypnosis part is what gets me--I know that there are memories the hippocampus doesn't have an organized way to retrieve (and so, can't), and see no reason to believe that something that has been irretrievable for this reason can be intentionally recalled by any means at all.

Thank you, Lynne and Jena - for lots.

The limping but still functioning laptop is manifesting a new stage of its machine dementia: it no longer recognizes the photo doohickey. Which is really annoying. Must bring laptop to tech wizard dudes this week. Once I get something to work, I have the last shots of the baby birds before all flew off to sing in other trees.

I brought littlest to see the Transformers movie tonight, while oldest was at a gathering of anime-lovin' teenagers at her friend's house. Transformers is--well, silly. But there's a Linkin Park song for the final credits, so it's all good. Embarassing Moms R Us - crazed weasel doing some chair dancing in the movie theater, there. (Oh? What Linkin Park, you ask? same one as before; Youtube to the rescue, again:)

Let mercy come.

I also apparently embarassed my oldest child when she and her compatriots took a long time to be ready to leave, and the parents were left to talk amongst themselves, and, well, I've been memorizing the catecholamine synthesis sequence today, and I mostly have it nailed, and I find it rather interesting and exciting, frankly, and...um... in the car, I mentioned that I'd talked about it, and child groans. "Oh my god. You didn't." (yes, I did) "So that's why they were all giving me such funny looks. (sigh)" Oh, the things our children suffer. Then we got into a disagreement about population density. Then I started laughing, because really, if you're arguing with your teenager about population density, things are probably okay, on the whole.

Hey, speaking of the catecholamine synthesis sequence! It is so cool! First you have tyrosine, then an enzyme sticks on an OH (in its incarnation as tyrosine hydroxylase), then (presto!) you get L-dopa, then another enzyme rips off a COOH group (as a decarboxylase), then (presto!) you get dopamine, then another hydroxylase sticks on an OH (of course) and (presto!) you get norepinephrine, then there's somthing methyltransferase that sticks another thingie on and you have (WHOO HOO!) epinephrine. Voila! You can even dance to it. Really!

For some reason I find this interesting. Never fear, gentle reader, the course is almost done. I will need to take more neuro if only to have other people to talk to who don't wish to run screaming from the room.

Oh! Muscle cells and motor neurons! oh! How they work is awesome. There is a compound called troponin that Ca++ sticks to. I keep thinking of Trigorin from The Seagull and imagining little round Ca++ ion children jumping on his legs. This may be unique to me.

Hi! I'm kind of weird! How are you?