Hallo from Maine

I have a few moments this morning to reflect on the past month up in Downeast Maine. Working at the BioLab has been amazing!

A usual day involves dissecting some part of the nervous system of a crustacean-typically a green crab, sand crab, a lobster or a copepod. The copepods, of course are pretty small, so the dissection is challenging and involves some microdissection skills I garnered during my post-doc. The unfortuante part of working with copepods is that they are too small to EAT. Not so with the larger crustaceans. The poor lobsters and crabs have tiny nervous systems and a whole lot of muscle. And we aren't doing anything with their claws!

So I am looking for some recipes. I found one so far involving artichokes, cream and lobsters but haven't had time to make it yet. Preferably I need something quick. I need my extra time to work on this manuscript I have been putting off for, gulp, a year now.

To top off the wonderful eats, Maine has delicious produce and blueberry season is just around the corner. There is a large lobster pot in my cottage that may fit some jars, so in my best procrastinating, I may set out to make some jam / jelly as well.

In summary, working in Maine is awesome, but there are several distractions. I will write another post about the biking around Mount Desert Island. And all the old housemates/ guesthousemates that are coming to visit next month. And the trip to Colorado over the Fourth. And all the manuscripts that WILL get written!!! Just need some focus!

And for the electricity to stay on. Just had a flutter. Happens quite often, and typically when one of my students is trying to run a PCR. Or when my hard drive with all my data is still connected to the outlet. I better go check it...