Procrastionation

[brigdh]

Today in the mail I got a slightly-late "easter basket"- a bigger than shoebox-sized box stuffed with peeps and cheap chocolate (mmmm, candy)- and a slightly-early birthday card, with a check (mmmm, money), which is an excellent take for one day's mail.

Now, however, I should be reading several articles and taking notes to write a paper on them. I cannot imagine anything I would like less to do, except perhaps what I'll be doing later tonight, which is going through duck bones and labeling them. It's really too unfortunate that there isn't any dramatic event I could deal with and claim as a legitimate excuse not to do either of these things. Like... aliens invading the city. Outbreak of super-contagious smallpox! Meteor strike! Fending off assassination attempts by a gang of rouge pirates-ninjas would totally be a good reason to procrastinate on schoolwork.

Comments

[cellophane_ria.livejournal.com]

Yuck, I'm full of sympathy! I remember my friend boiling sheep's head to use horns for a project at school, she was traumatized for weeks... Better eat your chocolate first:)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ew, gross!

Thanks for the sympathy. I'm just glad to finally be done with it.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Damn, I thought you had to have a perfectly-intact skeleton.

Now I feel like a perfect moron. If I'd known you simply needed a collection of bones I could have made duck soup, and sent you the cleaned and dried bones when it was done, and saved you all sorts of misery.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, it's supposed to be intact as possible. But given that several of the smaller bones, and part of the skull, disintegrated under the amount of boiling I needed to get all the skin off, duck soup might have worked.

No worries, though. At least now I am quite familiar with my own interest in the area, even if that happens to be absolutely none.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, if you're going to go and have respect for educational experiences, just because they are in fact educational . . .

But no: I feel sillier than ever. If I were anywhere right now that I could get an intact duck, I'd be inclined to tell you, hang on, I'll ship you a replacement with the fine bones intact. It would be perfect for an archaologist! You could even identify the small marks on the skull where the hunter-gatherer had used a small knife to remove stubborn bits of skin and gristle. A lifetime of cooking gives you a surprising range of skills at stuff like this -- particularly, I suspect, when your father's a doctor whose patients periodically see fit to give him things they've hunted themselves.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs* It's too late to worry about it now, as the thing's due in an hour and a half. But I'm deeply impressed with your range of skills! While I've been whining about, ew, fat, and ick, brains, and vowing to swear off all cooking of meat, you're resourceful and competent at just this thing I've never done! I call first dibs on you if civilization collapses.