Dang, 71 years old and I still don't know everything about the birds
and bees. I didn't know women couldn't get pregnant when they were
nursing. That cat I had that had all the kittens, I did want to get her
fixed but the vets wouldn't do the job while she was nursing or
pregnant and it seemed like she went into heat almost as soon as she
stopped nursing, so I just didn't have much of a window.
Humans of course don't go into heat, probably not those hippie chimp
bonobos either since they have sex all the time, I don't know how far up
the great ape line that goes. I tell my cats proudly that I am a great
ape, but they insist on calling me a big ape. Means the same thing but
doesn't come out the same.
There is the thing I don't understand about chickens, that egg
pipeline that you referred to. I don't think like robins have that, I
don't think they start to make an egg until they are fertilized.
Doesn't the robin way seem to make more sense? If you keep wasting your
nutrients by laying all those eggs aren't you going to be unable to
compete with other birds that are less wasteful? Are there any wild
birds that lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not? What about
ducks and geese, they are a little like chickens and i have heard of
their eggs. Are there some of them who are raised to lay eggs? And I
thought that nobody wanted to eat fertilized eggs. Aren't their guys,
quaintly called candlers, who inspect eggs for embryos? I guess I don't
know beans about eggs.
I also didn't know that the rooster would mediate between the
chickens. Just not my image of the rooster which is more like, well,
Mick Jagger. Chickens have disputes? Do they have warring cliques,
political parties, commies and libertarians? What does the rooster do,
peck at the misbehaving hens and tell them if they don't cut it out they
aren't getting any? What about that cockle doodle do at sunrise, fact
or myth? I guess I don't know beans about roosters either.
You didn't have any favorite reading material in your youth? I was
an avid reader of comic books. I didn't touch a real book until I was
about twelve i think. One Christmas my parents gave me a science
fiction book, The Ant Men, and that was the first book I ever read.
There was a whole series of young adult science fiction books, Winston
Books they were called. I signed up for their book club. i subscribed
to various science fiction magazines in my teens. It was so exciting to
see a new one with its lurid cover in the mailbox. That is how I got
turned on to Isaac Asimov. I wouldn't read anything but science fiction
until i got to college.
They kind of crammed literature down your throat in college, but I
liked a lot of it. When I was a college dropout with a low paying job i
used to haunt the used bookstores. What they did was charge you half
the cover price. Since the classics were around a lot longer than the
bestseller types, and prices were continually rising, the classics were
always cheaper, so I read most of them.
I used to read a lot of science and math, but anymore it is mostly
history. It doesn't seem to stick with me, so I can read book after
book on the same subject. The Roman Empire, especially the fall is
probably my favorite time period. Anymore I am also reading up on the
1890s radicals. I have a flight to St Louis coming up this weekend and i
may well be in line for hours, they have in the past rushed us seniors
right through in the pre check, but i can't count on that, so I am going
to pick up a book about the Haymarket riots.
We have a Barnes and Nobles, down State Street, the last remaining
book store. I like to go there of a morning, and pick out maybe four or
five books from the new books shelf and buy one of those fancy razzle
dazzle Starbucks things in the bottle and just browse through one after
another. You can't do that at Amazon.com.
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