Objective: Promote literacy in content area (science)

Prompt: Urine as a renewable resource

Gleaming whte and cold to the touch, the standard-size toilet is anything but standard.  Designed by Bruce Logan, an expert in energy generation for wastewater from Penn State, the Ureaka is a toilet that saves urines instead of flushing the yellow “waste” away.  While normal toilets flush down, Ureaka flushes left or right depending on the business at hand: liquid to the left, solids to the right.  Urine flushes counter-clockwise into a holding tank where it’s treated with chemichals that prevent nitrifying bacteria from decomposing urea into ammonia leaving hydrogen bonds–and the energy stored within them–intact. The household’s urea is collected at the end of the week and taken to Logan’s plant where it will be coverted to energy fuel.

Who wants to go floating with me this summer?

Pedernales State Park (15 minutes away)

I'm a happy camper.

I believe the most visible Texan we have on the national stage is Jerry Jones and he’s sequestered (at the moment) to just the national football stage. I don’t see Dubya gunning for President of Preston Hollow anytime soon either.

Sunset over Boston piers

On my last trip to Austin, I witnessed a group of four downing yellow tequila shots in a coffee shop off South Congress.
“I’m glad I’m leaving at 8:00,” the owner said as he watched the group drown their recession-related sorrows with fermented agave the color of pent up urine. It was 5:30 pm and they had the whole night to finish the bottle. I could smell the the limey ammonia smell from one stool over and it caused my my innards to recoil as tequila infused scenes clicked and melted into one another like images in a kaleidoscope.

I love tequila. I do. In fact, there’s a bottle of Don Julio I’ve hidden from my 18 year-old brother in my closet. (He doesn’t read my blog unless prompted so I’m confident it will remain secure). But the worm living at the bottom of the bottle has a fickle heart and doesn’t always love back. Exactly one year ago, on Superbowl Sunday 2008, tequila tried to break up with me. My roommate, Liz McNamara, and I decided to leave New York and go to Boston that weekend for the Patriot celebrations that were certainly going to happen. Mac had also been dying to make the trip north because she wanted to introduce this Texan to her favorite city in New England. She promised to show me a good time…clam chowder, lobster rolls, Guinness, cute accents and giant margaritas at a TexMex restaurant in Cambridge of all places.

After paying $80 dollars for a margarita, an appetizer, and bland guacamole at Dos Caminos in SoHo, I took south of the border cuisine served north of the Mason-Dixon off the menu. But Border Café, with its neon lights and country music, made me feel welcome, hopeful, and hungry. We each had one margarita while we waited for our table and one during dinner. [Insert review here]. (The placeholder is an accurate and succinct review. The fact that I can’t remember what the margs tasted like is a good indicator of their quality and strength).

The tequila train didn’t stop at Borders. Mac took me to Clark’s, her favorite happy hour spot, where apparently the first thing I did was order a round of Patron shots—chilled and dressed—for our party and when Mac tried to protest, I cut her off by saying: “Don’t worry, I’m from Texas.”

I don’t remember saying those words but the pictures I took at Clark’s prove that I was rather inebriated. In this case, a picture is worth exactly five words.

Well on my way...

I woke up the next morning thankful that I knew exactly where I was but wishing I had died. My head and tummy were no bueno.
“Good morning,” Mac said.
I looked at my smiling roommate and saw on her eager face the list of tourist attractions we were to visit. She was already showered and dressed; I couldn’t disappoint her.
“Good morning,” I replied.

The first stop was John Kerry’s favorite restaurant for traditional clam chowder. Liz slurped away while I could only stare at the blobs floating in what looked paint water.
“What’s wrong?” Mac asked. She knows I’m not usually a picky eater.
“I don’t feel so good.”

The second and last stop was the Rite Aid. It was there, on a box of Valentine’s Day cards, that I made my mark on Beantown.

Half-digested chowder spewed from my mouth before I could make it to the bathroom. The two employees who were the only people in the store (thanks Patriots!) were stunned.

I could only mumble my apologies and ask for the bathroom. I cleaned myself up and threw away my vomit-soaked gloves (I tried to block the flow) and found Liz waiting for me at the counter with a package of gum.
“I figure you’d need these,” she said.

Last weekend at the deer lease, I rode into the night and spotlighted for Kevin. We returned to camp with one cottontail lying limp on the four-wheeler’s rack and Pappi announced that he would spice up the next night’s jambalaya by adding rabbit to the pot.

He asked Dr. Steve (not a licensed medical personnel) to field dress Kevin’s kill. I guess the ride inspired because I asked Dr. Steve to show me how it was done. So there I was, facing a dead rabbit with a filet knife in hand. We used the lowered tailgate of Pappi’s truck as a cutting board. After we cut the paws off at the joint, it was time to skin it. Dr. Steve told me that the easiest way to skin a rabbit is to pinch the skin mid-spine, twist and pull.

“Like opening a bag of chips,” Christian said.

I lifted and twisted and pulled but the fur would not come apart. Dr. Steve then nicked the rabbit and told me to try again. I heard the fat fibers snapping as I peeled the fur off the body like a sock off a foot. After defurring, I laid it on its back and made a shallow incision along the midline from neck to tail. I held the body over a plastic bucket and swept the innards out with my right hand.

Needless to say I earned my keep that night.

*                  *                   *                   *

Fresh rabbit is great but three-day-old rabbit is not so great. An unappetizing chemical smell–like the naphthalene in mothballs—wafted to my nose when I opened the zip lock bag containing the leftover jambalaya. I tried to eat but the smell made swallowing difficult. I threw away the rest of the bag after three bites. (I’m sorry Pappi).

This pic is unethical, journalistically speaking. It was taken last spring when Sophie Gilbert came to visit and not last weekend.

It’s not a weekend at the deer lease without gun shots—shots so loud they leave your ear drums throbbing and cause skittish dogs to hide underneath beds (Nelli) and duck into cabinets (Buddy).

This weekend I shot Kevin’s Taurus .40 after a little bit of coaxing and coaching.

“Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. Aim and put your left hand over your right for support. Safety is over here. Good. Ready when you are. Just squeeze.”

The metal was heavy and clammy in my hand. I held my breath and tried hard to keep my eyes open when my right index finger pulled the trigger.

POW!

The noise and kick rattled me. I wasn’t sure if I liked the feeling but I’m still a little uncomfortable around guns. Then again, I was a 12-year-old summer camper the first time I used a weapon and I was aiming a BB gun at a haystack. There was a 7-year-old at camp last weekend who had already bagged a deer. He, not surprisingly, destroyed an empty Bud Light can we were using for target practice.

Responsible adults who raise children around guns teach them to watch the gun’s barrel, to turn the safety on, and to approach all guns with caution as if it was a coiled rattlesnake. They know the laws and the severe repercussions if they break them. They are also aware of the patience and discipline behind every good shot and the confidence they build after making them. Guns are tools, toys, and weapons. Like box cutters, the reason and outcome depends on the hand that’s wielding the object.

This past weekend, I went to the deer lease with Pappi, Kevin, and Christian. I was nervous and excited during the three-hour drive out to the property in east Texas, just fifteen minutes past the miniature oilrig landmark in Kilgore.

Before we left Dallas, Kevin informed me that there was no plumbing whatsoever which means no showers and definitely no flushing. At the end of the drive, when the full moon was already shining silver on the blacktop road ahead of us, the boys tried to scare me with stories about wild pigs.
“The can take a man’s leg like that,” Pappi said, and snapped his fingers for emphasis.
“One time a man was taken down during a hunt. All that was left of him were his bones,” Kevin chimed in.

You can understand my apprehension.

I was ready to forego showers and didn’t even mind the thought of popping a squat by the bushes to pee. A wild pig hunt under a full moon? Sure, sign me up. But pooping ouside? I balked at the idea.

Luckily, Pappi kindly offered his portable mini port-a-potty which was really just a covered bucket with a hole and a trash bag inside.
“Just take it in the camper and shut the door. When you’re done doing your business, just leave it out on the front porch and I’ll take care of it.”

It’s good to know that chivalry is flourishing in the South.

I eyed the bucket and prayed for blockage.