Mukilteo Musings

Too Much Time on my Hands??

Ok, I admit it. Today's blog topic is definitely a result of me having a little too much time for idle thoughts. My son is somewhere in the wilderness backpacking with three or four girls and no other guys. My daughter is at opera camp up in Vancouver at UBC. It's nice. I think I will not have too much trouble with the empty nest thingy. However, my innate strangeness will have an opportunity to flourish so beware.

As I was looking for a T-shirt in my closet for my morning walk with Apolo (we are having summer so I don't need my regular sweatshirt), I realized that future anthropologists and archeologists will have trouble trying to figure out what our culture is about by digging up our t-shirts. What will they think of the Nike swish? It makes you wonder whether we are totally wrong about the murals on ancient walls. Maybe Stonehenge was merely a commercial fad. So, I started looking through my husband's t-shirts and realized that future anthropologists will be stumped when they dig up our house.

Of course, he has the usual travel shirts from Montana, Alaska and Hawaii. And he has more from Puerto Rico, New York and Cabo. Everybody in Seattle has a t-shirt from Cabo whether they have actually been there or not. And, there are the university shirts from Montana State, our alma mater, University of Montana, where my son attends, and University of Washington, where he works including shirts from the specific School of Public Health at UW.

But now I will list my top five favorite t-shirts in my husband's closet.

5. IUTOX '92 ROMA We got this shirt when we went to Italy for the International Union (?) of Toxicologists meeting. We left our kids with Grandma and we went with our best friends and had the best time. Recently, we found out that the friend, a breast cancer survivor, now has cancer again for the third time. They no longer live here so it is hard. Funny how just looking at a shirt brings back incredible memories of a great time.

4. Society of Toxicology 40th Annual Meeting March 25-29, 2001 San Francisco I love this shirt because I have one too. In fact, this shirt seems to have multiplied. I think Dave brought four home and every time I wash, one of them is in the laundry. Anyway, it is turquoise blue with scenes from San Francisco and it is just cool. We have at least 200 SOT shirts in our closets but this one is definitely the neatest.

3. National Academy of Sciences, Woods Hole, MA This shirt is purple with a serene and idyllic scene of the J. Erik Jonsson Center mansion on the front. I have a similar sweatshirt and I get more comments about this shirt than anything else I wear. There seem to be a lot of people in Seattle from Massachusetts. Of course, I have never been there but Dave tells me what a wonderful place it is. Maybe in my future empty nest days, I will get to go with him.

2. International Symposium Butadiene and Isoprene (with little blue molecules all over it), Blaine, Washington USA 27-29 June 1995 The kids and I did go to this meeting with Dave because Blaine is right up there on the Canadian border but I still have no idea what the meeting was about nor do I know what the shirt even means. Dave wears this shirt quite often because it is long sleeved. Everytime, my children proclaim they have the weirdest Dad.

And our all time favorite shirt that Dave wears.......and the shirt that causes my kids to roll their eyes.......and the shirt that causes my kids to want to run away and not be seen with their father.....beige with bright green lettering:

1. BYRNE Specialty GASES (right on the stomach area), the Reliable Resource and on the back Alchemy in Action, Air, Autumn, Crucible, Mercury, Tin Lead, Copper, Vitriol ByrneSpecialtyGases, The Reliable Resource I have no clue what this is about except Dave says they are a great company.

One thing I have learned is that there are t-shirts for everything including weird geeky scientist issues. Oh, and they make great rags, too. Hmmm! I should go through my rag box--maybe I'll find an interesting blog topic. Don't worry, I get my kids back over the weekend.