Category: randomness

listless

Here it is Thursday, and that means I’m due for a list of Themed Things. But the thing is, I’m tired. It’s been a long week, with a couple more busy days ahead, and well, my brain is fried. So I suppose I could come up with a list of fried things. But I have to say that is not a theme I can envision myself making a list about. So instead, I’ll make a list of things I can’t envision myself making lists about.

  • bricks
  • doorknobs
  • mold
  • tissues
  • ethernet cables
  • plungers
  • eyebrows
  • curtains
  • gall bladders
  • pocket lint

If you have any suggestions for other lists I shouldn’t write, please let me know.

throwing some tomatoes

tomato_pd.jpgIt shouldn’t come as much surprise that I have tomatoes on the brain. After getting 10 pounds of tomatoes from the CSA this week, on top of the several pounds I left from last week’s 10 pound haul, I have tomatoes in lots of places. I’ve been making lots of things with tomatoes: tomato salad with mozzarella and basil, tomato sandwiches, roasted tomatoes with garlic…It seems only fitting that I should also make me a tomato list. So, this week’s Themed Things Thursday is all about tomatoes.

  1. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg. A novel featuring a restaurant that serves fried green tomatoes. (I expect they served other things, too. But the title doesn’t include the full menu.)
  2. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) A movie based on the Fannie Flagg novel.
  3. The Tomato Collection. An album by Nina Simone. It actually seems to have nothing to do with tomatoes beyond the title, but I love Nina.
  4. The campfire song “Lord Jim”

    I know an old bloke and his name is Lord Jim,
    And he had a wife who threw tomatoes at him,
    Now tomatoes are juicy, don’t injure the skin,
    But these ones they did, they was inside a tin.

  5. “Let’s call the whole thing off.” The song written by George and Ira Gershwin. Sometimes known as “the tomato song,” due to this bit:

    You like potato and I like potahto,
    You like tomato and I like tomahto;
    Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
    Let’s call the whole thing off!

    Tomato, tomahto…or, as the Wikipedia tomato entry has, with somewhat dubious IPA:¹

    You like /təˈmeɪtoʊ/ and I like /təˈmɑːtəʊ/

  6. Don’t like tomatoes? Perhaps this website is for you: tomatoes are evil. You can purchase anti-tomato propaganda and play anti-tomato games.
  7. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978). The cult classic movie. A comedy sci-fi horror thriller romance. Oh, wait. Probably not the romance. Spawned (or sowed?) several tomato–based sequels, including one called Killer Tomatoes Eat France!² The second movie, or the first sequel, starred, of all people, George Clooney.
  8. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. (1990) A short-lived cartoon TV show featuring the voice of John Astin. (John Astin was also in all 3 movie sequels.)
  9. I think the best way to end this list is to give you this: the theme song to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

——————————————————–

¹ I’d be inclined to use square bracket here, rather than slanty ones, for a start, as the slanty ones suggest a phonemic (rather than narrow phonetic) transcription., and the 2 variants of /o/ (əʊ and oʊ) are not phonemic. At the same time, the onset of that last syllabe is transcribed with a t, which seems unlikely in American English. I’d go for a flap. And I produce strong aspiration on the first /t/.
You know, you say /təˈmeɪtoʊ/, I say [tʰəˈmeɪɾəʊ].

²By the way, that exclamation point is part of the title. As someone who rations out my exclamation points, I feel compelled to insert this disclaimer.

pigeon post

On our recent trip, we saw many exciting things in France and Germany: monuments, museums, landscapes, rivers, you name it. For Phoebe, however, the highlight of the trip was getting to see so many pigeons. She saw pigeons all over the place! (See her chase a pigeon in the short, short movie I posted earlier this week.)

Loved by some, hated by many, pigeons are a ubiquitous in cities the world all over. Some folks have been known to call them “rats with wings,” while others happily share their breadcrumbs with them. After its trip away, Themed Things Thursday flies home this week with a list of pigeons.

  • Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems. A picturebook about a mischievous pigeon who would like to drive a bus. (There’s a sequel, too, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, in which the pigeon, and I hope I’m not giving too much away here, finds a hot dog.)
  • Wringer, by Jerry Spinelli. This Newbury Honor book is about a forbidden boy-pigeon friendship in a town that hosts an annual pigeon shoot.

    • pigeon_messengers_engraving.jpg

  • Ewan McGregor’s character in Little Voice (1998) kept pigeons as pets.
  • Valiant (2005) was a movie about a heroic World War II homing pigeon (voiced by Ewan McGregor…am I sensing a pattern here?).
  • Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, by Tom Lehrer. A song:

    When they see us coming,
    the birdies all try and hide
    but they still go for peanuts
    when coated with cyanide

  • Rapper Pigeon John is not really a pigeon, at least as far as I know.
  • Some may remember Sesame Street’s Bert dancing a pigeon-like dance to “doin’ the pigeon,” a clip of which is available on YouTube. (You can also see actual pigeons dancing, if you want to compare.)
  • There was an 80’s kids’ TV show called Pigeon Street. (The intro is also up on YouTube.)

    • dove.jpg

  • In spite of their bad reputation as a species, certain pigeons have received an especially elevated status for birds. Namely, bird of peace. In this context, the pigeon is referred to as a dove. A dove being a white pigeon.
  • Doves are featured in various myths and religious tales, such as the well-known story of Noah’s Ark. Land was found with the help of a dove, who flew back to the ark with an olive branch.
  • There is also a flock of pigeon-oriented idioms and terms such as:
    pigeon hole, stool pigeon, pigeon-toed, pigeon-chested, setting the cat among the pigeons, and pigeon blood ruby.
  • Brian Pigeon: There is even a blog out there written by a London pigeon. Check it out for a pigeon’s eye view of the world.

pigeons_row.jpg
Pigeons at Beaubourg.

black is the new black

While other colors may go in and out of fashion, black clothing never goes out of style. This Themed Thing Thursday is decked out in black from top to bottom.

This list is wearing black

  • Macy’s employees may know a thing or two about fashion, but not all of them appreciate the new company policy that store employees must dress in black.
  • “Dressed in Black,” Depeche Mode

    Shes dressed in black again
    And I’m falling down again
    Down to the floor again
    I’m begging for more again
    But oh what can you do
    When shes dressed in black

  • LBD: Little Black Dress: A black article of clothing so well-known, it has it’s own acronym. The concept of the little black dress is said to date back to the 1920s, with a design by Coco Chanel.
  • Men in Black (1997): a movie about a secret agency that deals with extra-terrestrials on Earth, and in which agents (who are sometimes actually women) wear black suits.
  • The Man in Black: A song by Johnny Cash, and also one of his nicknames due to his trademark wearing of black:

    I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
    Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
    I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
    But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

  • The Man in Black from The Princess Bride. Princess Buttercup and her kidnappers (Vizzini and Fezzik) are pursued by a mysterious man dressed all in blask, including a black mask.
  • Black is frequently the color of choice for those who wish to wear a mask to disguise themselves: eg. Black Mask with Jet Li, Zorro‘s mask, or the Lone Ranger‘s.
  • black hat. In old Westerns, the bad guys could often be identified by the black hats they wore. (Whereas the good guys tended to wear white hats.) The term black hat has been co-opted by those in computing, as a reflection of “bad guy” attitudes about compromising the security of computer systems.
  • In many cultures, especially European cultures, wearing black is associated with mourning. It is considered the color to wear for funerals. (Have you ever noticed that in movies and TV shows, funeral attendees almost exclusively wear black? But at real funerals I’ve been to, people wear a wider range of colors, though still somber ones.) Traditional widow‘s garb is black, and women in mourning were expected to wear black for an entire year after the death of a husband or relative in British (and American) upper-crust societies. (In Gone With the Wind, it was considered scandalous when recently widowed Scarlett wants to wear colorful clothing.)

    • grim_reaper.gif

  • Depictions of witches often show the witch dressed in black, especially the signature black pointy hat made famous by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, and vampires are also frequently depicted dressed in black, especially in a black cape. The Grim Reaper, a personification of death, wears a black cloak.
  • Goth subculture: black is the most commonly worn color by those who consider themselves goth. Black is often worn in other subcultures, such as punk.
  • Ninjas are often depicted wearing all black, likely because of it’s shadowy quality. I’m not sure the same could be said for Catholic priests and nuns, whose formal garb is also often black.
  • black belts: both the item of black cloth worn around the waist that signifies an expert rank in martial arts, or the person who sports that belt.
  • Tuxedos are traditionally made of black cloth, and are often accompanied by a black bow tie, after which the term black tie, an event where formal dress is expected, is named.

    • only_wearing_black.jpg

    finding pants in unexpected places

    From the pantheons of pants I bring to you the the ultimate excercise in pants procrastination¹. Upon my recent realization that the word procrastination contains the letters of the word pants, my mind has suffered an onslaught of other words which contain pants. You see, pants are that pervasive. So I offer to you the following bit of complete nonsense, just for the sake of using all these pants-containing words.

    I recently read an article about a distinguished pantologist, who is being recognized for her life’s work.

    She is best known for her prediction of an alignment of planets, for which she used computations based on her observations of a species of bee that pollenates resupinate plants. She also recently received international attention for her study on the mating habits of the spantangus, large percentages of which were highly unexpected by the scientific community. She has hundreds of publications in dozens of fields, on topics ranging from pantheism and theories of pantisocracy, to histories of Pakistan and Palestine, to the cultivation of eggplants. She holds patents for many inventions, including a method for stapling using only dental floss, and various contraptions, such as one for plasticizing antipasto displays for restaurant windows, or another for separating vast quantities of egg whites from the yolks. It is hard to say which of her many achievements is most representative of her work.

    She is a passionately creative spirit as well, and one of her favorite leisure pastimes is spattering colorful paints on paper, and pasting on patterns of pastina. She is also a talented pianist, and tapdances whenever she has the opportunity.

    The pantologist attributes much of her early explorations into vast areas of knowledge to the eccentricities of her parents, with whom she has a strong relationship, and whose intellectual partnership was an inspiration to her. Her father was once a pantomimist, known for a routine of silent stamping of feet (clad in his signature pantoffles) and for his impersonations of 17th century philosophers and contemporaneous politicians. He left the entertainment industry after a complaints from a reviewer suggesting that his acts catered only to the whims of his sycophants. He then became quite reclusive, and dedicated his efforts to designing closets and pantries for small apartments. Her mother once had aspirations to become a paleontologist before becoming a veterinarian, with a specialization in elephants (which are known to be disproportionately challenging patients). Upon retiring, her parents devoted their time to running the family’s plantations, which primarily grow plantains and peanuts.

    The distinguished pantologist’s record is not untarnished, however. There were some phantoms of rumors of misappropriation of funds, as well as some speculation about the ethics of some of her experimentations. There was the well-publicized scandal of 1983, during which she received some criticism for a study on the benefits of regular naptimes, in which participants were misled about the compensation they would receive. Her interpretations of data have also sometimes been called into question, and her explanations have not always been transparent. Her fan base, however, anticipates that these minor problems will soon be forgotten, and that she will be remembered for her accomplishments.

    An award ceremony, an event with all the trappings for which elaborate preparations were made, was held last week. The article contained a brief transcript of the highlights of the award presentation, during which the distinguished pantologist surprised the audience with a spontaneous anecdote about an embarrassing incident from her youth involving the mispronunciation of the word cephalopod. The article was also accompanied by a few images, some with rather cryptic captions.

    Okay, there it is. Anyone want to count how many words in this post contain the letters p-a-n-t-s? (I actually haven’t counted yet myself. I have work to do, you know.)
    —————-
    ¹ An expression for which I now have (thanks to azahar, and the anagram generator to which she referred me) a veritable abundance of anagrams:

    How about A Catnap Torsion Sprint? Or A Transact Pinion Sport? Or maybe A Tsarina Popcorn Stint?

    berry me deep

    jamberry.jpgOur blueberry-picking excursion of the weekend has me thinking about berries. Mmmmmm, berries.

    I love berries. And so do lots of other people. Berries show up in muffins, pies and other baked goods. Also in lots of books and folktales, and few songs. Plus a few other places you wouldn’t expect to find berries. Which is how berries ended up in my list of themed things.

  • Jamberry, by Bruce Degen
    A book of a bear, a boy, and many, many berries. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. And silly rhymes.

    Quickberry, quackberry
    Pick me a blackberrry

  • Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
    A picturebook of berry-picking and bears, and mistaken identity.
  • Blueberry. The name of my stuffed bear I got from my mother for my fourth birthday. I still have him.
  • Violet, the gum-chewer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the book by Roald Dahl, and the movies based on it) turns into a giant blueberry.

    • blueberry_crop.jpg

  • Firefly & Buffy. Maybe Joss Whedon has a thing for strawberries. In Firefly, strawberries are a luxury item and valued commodity. A box of strawberries is what Book uses to convince Kaylee to take him on as a passenger in the pilot episode. In the Buffy Season 6 episode “Wrecked,” the creepy Rack tells Willow “you taste like strawberries.” (I also feel like there was a scene in the bronze at some point where some random dancing person gets briefly turned into a giant strawberry. Am I imagining this?)

    • strawberrywatercolor.jpg

  • Strawberry Shortcake. The doll. The cartoons. The empire. I still remember the commercials for the doll from when I was little. I can still hear the song, with it’s mockable swellness:

    Strawberry Shortcake
    My she’s looking swell!
    Cute little doll
    With a strawberry smell.

  • The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear, by Don Wood Another picture book. About a mouse. And a strawberry. Also some mention of a bear.
  • The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, by Molly Bang. I don’t actually know this berry-oriented book, though it won a Caldecott Honor medal. I liked the author’s story of struggling to get it published.
  • The Strawberry Legend. A Cherokee Legend where a woman forgets her anger and remembers her love as she eats some berries. (There’s at least one book version, too.)
  • The Blackberry Bush, a folktale in the book Stories to Tell to Children by Sara Cone Bryant.
  • Blackberry . One of the rabbits from Watership Down, by Douglas Adams.
  • BlackBerry. An electronic device. John had one for a couple of years. He would sometimes throw it when he got email because it would irritate him so much with its onslaught of interruptions.
  • Blowing a raspberry. Okay, it has nothing to do with berries. It’s when you make a sort of continous spitting noise by sticking your tongue between your lips and blowing, or by blowing through loosely closed lips. I have no idea why it’s called a raspberry.
  • Knott’s Berry Farm. Not actually a farm, and not so much berry-ish. It’s a large amusement park. But the founder did sell berries.
  • Frankenberry. A cereal. Berry-flavored. Also a cartoon character from the cereal box and commercials. Has a bit of a cult following. (There also seem to be some other meanings to Frankenberry, as seen on Urban Dictionary, but they seem pretty lame to me.)
  • Finally, here are a few berry songs that I picked for you:
    • Raspberry Beret, Prince (Okay, not really about raspberries)
    • Blueberry Hill, Louis Armstrong (Not really about blueberries)
    • Strawberry Fields Forever, the Beatles (…nothing is real…)

      • blueberries_2.pngraspberry_sm.pngblackberries_orig.pngstrawberries.png

    • for the birds

    Chirp, cheep, tweet. This week’s theme for things is birds. The feathers are flying. Suspect fowl play.

  • 10,000 Birds:
    A blog of many birds, though I haven’t counted them. This month’s Carnival of Color, where my green guys have gone to hang out, is graciously being hosted by 10,000 Birds.
  • The Birds (1963)
    Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller of birds on the attack.
  • Eat like a bird:
    An expression that means “eat small amounts.” Of course, actual birds can be seen to eat constantly, and consume large proportions of their body weight each day.
  • Birds of a feather stick together:
    A saying meaning that like-minded people tend to associate with each other. Happily, there’s no actual sticking together, with feathers. Because that would be messy.
  • My little chickadee:
    This is a nickname that my mother had for my sister and me, her little chickadees. Also the title of a 1940 movie. Apparently was a catch phrase of W. C. Field’s.
  • Phoebe:
    Okay, my favorite Phoebe is not actually a bird, but a small person. With no feathers. But phoebes, such as the Eastern Phoebe, are birds. With feathers and everything.
  • The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe
    The famous poem. (Features the name Lenore, too, which is a family name. Most recently in use as a middle name by my own little Phoebe bird.)

    Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
    Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. The Adult Swim cartoon. (Not actually a bird, but a guy who dresses in a bird-like costume. Complete with wings.)

    Once a third-rate superhero, Harvey Birdman is now a third-rate lawyer trying like hell to get by in a fancy law firm. It’s not clear whether Harvey actually went to law school, but he definitely knows the things to say to sound like a lawyer. And he has a suit now, that’s for sure.

  • Woodsy Owl
    A mascot for the United States Forest Service. “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”

    • woodstock.gif

  • The Golden Goose:
    A fairy tale about a goose with feathers of gold.

    • We have several yellow birds that bear little resemblance to actual yellow birds:

  • Big Bird, of Sesame Street. Large, yellow, feathered.
  • Woodstock, of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. Small feathered friend of Snoopy.
  • Tweety Bird, the Looney Tunes bird.
    He tought he taw a putty tat.
  • There are also heaps o’ ducks, chickens and penguins. I could easily make a list about each of those. Maybe I will at some point. But for now, lets say…Daffy, The Little Red Hen and Opus.

    • This bird list could go on and on, but I’ll stop there for now.

    the eleven-o’clock salad

    lettuce.jpgIt’s just past 11:00 p.m., and I just ate a big salad. I realized that before you know it, it will be time for my next CSA pick-up, and I still had 3 heads of lettuce, plus lots of other greens, onions, and kohlrabi. You will be proud of me to know that I opted to make and eat salad rather than going right to the freezer to get out the ice cream which we bought earlier this evening. (Note that I have not yet forgotten the ice cream. Its time will come.)

    The salad was good. I do like salad. Especially when it’s been tossed with the dressing in a bowl, so that the dressing is all evenly spread around. An equal distribution of wealth, as it were. (I like to eat a good helping of socialist metaphors.) And by the way: boy-oh-boy has our salad spinner been seeing a lot of action lately.

    I keep feeling like I want to record more of my life, of our life. I’m not sure why, exactly. Part of it is that I like my life, and imagine that some day I’ll look back fondly on this time, and feel a bit sad if I don’t remember what my day to day life was like. My future self will think things like: “Back when I was a new mother, did I eat enough vegetables?” or “Did I get enough sleep when I was a grad student?” or “I wonder what I thought about pants when I was in my 30s?”

    I keep meaning to update the Phoebe Blog more frequently. Phoebe keeps growing and changing, and well, doing things. Again, things that I feel like I’ll want to remember. My memory fades so quickly, and the days blur together. Hell, the weeks and months blur together. I just managed to post a bit to the Phoebe Blog last night, but there are gaps. It’s strange this feeling that I need to record all of it. I don’t think my parents recorded too much about me, or even my sister (the first-born). I wonder if it’s partially my packrat tendencies making me want to store things away. (The packrat in me badgers me to squirrel things away? Can I fit a rabbit into this somewhere?)

    The trip plans are coming along moderately well. I have squared away an apartment in Paris. I have filled out the form from the conference organizers to get a hotel room in Saarbrucken, who seem to have reserved every last hotel room in the town so that you must go through them. (Which means you may not actually get a choice about which hotel you’re going to stay in. Which may lead to some difficulties, as we have special public transportation and crib needs due to travelling with a toddler. I sent an email. I think I’ll be known as a troublemaker to the conference organizers. Because I also questioned their request to have a letter faxed from “the head of my institution” stating that I am a student in order to get the student discount for registration, in addition to sending a scan of the student ID. They claim that such a letter should only take “2 minutes” and is standard procedure. Which is a load of hooey.) I also still have to look more into trains.

    And I keep thinking it would be nice to watch a movie. It’s possibly been weeks since I watched a movie. Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be doing work. Oh wait. Now I’m supposed to be sleeping. Crap.

    And you know how I felt compelled to write more 7 lists? Well, as I anticipated, I didn’t have much time. Phoebe’s nap ended, followed by needing to get her a meal, and get her dressed, and who knows what all, resulting in a time lapse of two hours. Then we went out a shopping excursion to get a birthday present for John’s aunt. (We’re going to her 80th birthday party tomorrow. Possibly not the 80th such party that she’s had.) We didn’t get home till 8 or so, then it was time for Phoebe to get a bath and get to bed. It was 9 by the time she was in bed. (Way past her bedtime, but she seems to have her parents’ night owl proclivities.) So, no time to work on lists. But since I don’t want to throw them away, or toss them into the compost pile with the beet greens, I’ll lay them on you here.

    So, here are some sevens (and sevenths) I thought about incorporating into some lists.

    More than seven more seven things.

    books:

  • The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (I haven’t read it, but it seems to have a Phoebe.)
  • The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie
  • The 7 habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (Not that I’ve read it. I have a low tolerance for self-help books)
  • Seven Spiders Spinning, by Gregory Maguire (one of his kids’ books)
  • Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, a young adult novel by Barbara Cohen, based on an Iraqi folktale.

    • music:

  • Seven and the Ragged Tiger, an album by Duran Duran
  • “lucky number 7 passed me by,” a line from Cracker’s “Lonesome Johnny Blues”
  • “Love is the seventh wave,” a song by Sting
  • A line from “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies:

    • If man is five (if man is five…)
    and the devil is six (and the devil is six…)
    then god is heaven (then god is heaven…)
    this monkey’s gone to heaven

  • There are also seven days in a week, seven deadly sins and seven wonders of the world. You can be in seventh heaven, you can get seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror, or you can sail the seven seas. Agent 007 is Bond. (James Bond.)

    • If you’ve got more 7s for me, toss them my way. Toss them like a salad.

    ants in my pants

    Yesterday was the 4th of July. A rather straightforward statement to make on the 5th of July. But, as you likely know, the Fourth of July is also the way most people refer to the US holiday officially called ant_bunch_sm.jpgIndependence Day. This holiday is often celebrated with parades, fireworks, barbecues and picnics. In fact, yesterday we managed to pull of a picnic of sorts at a nearby park. And in the great tradition of outdoor eating, we did get visited by some ants.

    In honor of picnics, I bring you some ants.ant_sm11.jpg

      them02.jpg

    1. A Bug’s Life (1998)
      The Pixar animated movie about bugs. A sort of retelling of the Seven Samurai, but with bugs. (Also a bit like ¡Three Amigos!, but with bugs.) ant_sm2.jpgThe main character is an ant, voiced by Dave Foley, who seeks help to save his ant colony from bullying grasshoppers.
    2. Antz (1998)
      1998 was clearly the year for animated ant features. This Dreamworks one was more adult-oriented and had the voice of Woody Allen.
    3. Them (1954)
      A movie featuring giant mutant ants.
    4. The Ants Go Marching, a children’s counting song, to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”

      The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
      The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
      The ants go marching one by one,
      The little one stops to suck his thumb
      And they all go marching down to the ground
      To get out of the rain
      boom, boom, boom

      5. ant_sm3.jpg

    5. The ant from “High Hopes,” sung by Frank Sinatra:

      Just what makes that little old ant
      Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant
      Anyone knows an ant can’t
      Move a rubber tree plant

      But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
      He’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes

      6. ants_in_line_sm1.jpg

    6. Dance Ants
      A video that someone put together to Fall Out Boy’s “Dance, Dance”. It’s pretty random, but I found it funny. Especially the textual re-interpretation of the original lyrics, like “these are the gloves you’d love to eat”. And yes, the video does have some ants. That dance.
    7. ants in your pants
      An expression. Someone with ants in their pants is so wound up they can’t keep still. A popular reference in songs, like in “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” by Rodgers and Hart, a song sung by many, including the amazing Ella Fitzgerald:

      Romance, finis. your chance, finis.
      Those ants that invaded my pants, finis.
      Bewitched, bothered and bewildered – no more

      Or “I got ants in my pants,” by James Brown (hear it here)

      ‘Cause I can’t dance,
      I can’t dance,
      I got ants in my pants,
      Got ants in my pants,
      Now, I can’t dance, ant_2sm1.jpg
      I can’t dance,
      Got ants in my pants!
      Got ants in my pants!

    8. Want to see some real ants? You can see lots of them in time-lapsed videos through the wonder of YouTube. Like ants eating ant poison, or 7 minutes of ants eating a dropped piece of food, or a variety of ants in action in ant farms.

    ants_in_line_sm2.jpg