Dear Readers,
I'm perplexed. Quelle surprise. The nature of my confusion is not of global concern, after all, this blog doesn’t consider existential thought* and the only string theory around here is whether using dyed-string to tie up a roast chicken will end in a Bridget Jone’s style soup disaster.
I’m now a simple farm girl but, once upon a lifetime ago, I was a scientist. I had an understanding of Krebs cycle, organic chemistry** and hemipenes. I’ve faced my fair share of conundrums since then. I’ve made my peace with my Catholic upbringing and my belief in evolution. I’ve experienced the exquisite frustration that is intensely loving someone who sometimes annoys the dickens out of you. Hell, I’ve even come to realise that sometimes I’d rather be happy than right***. Yet for all of this knowledge getting, I cannot fathom the answer to this botheration.
Dear readers, the sixty-four thousand dollar question is:
It's all rather odd. I know why they’re warm and yet I marvel at their agreeable, equivalent-to-the-inside-of-a-chicken temperature. Once, I even encouraged the Little Sister to hold one to her cheek****. My wonder is tempered by my grasp of the physiology of a cloaca. It's an interminable quandry.
That got me thinking***** about questions of global significance. Warm eggs are merely a paltry consideration when compared with the great conundrums of the world. If we put our heads together, we can get to the bottom of the big issues. Please tell me.....
what is your sixty-four thousand dollar question?
* I had to look up how to spell that.
** that’s a lie. I passed, but even then the bloody thing was a mystery to me.
*** In this context, sometimes means very very occasionally.
**** I cannot type that without making a face.
***** Fear not, this shouldn’t last much longer.
Bec @ Seeing the Lighter Side of Parenting says
I did an Arts degree but went to a friend's Biochem lecture once. They may as well have been speaking Swahili!! Well done for passing anything chemistry related:)
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
It was touch and go Bec! 🙂
Rachel_OurTownBNE says
OK so my conundrum is this... Like most mothers I long for a bit of "me time" to just do my own thing and possibly have an uninterrupted thought. BUT every time my mum takes the kids and I'm finally alone I start to miss them dreadfully!
WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN? It's completely perverse. I think it might be some kind of evolutionary hormonal device to keep us from wandering off sans kids for good!
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
I don't know why it happens, but I understand rapid applications of strong rum based cocktails are the cure! xx
mumabulous says
The first time I have seen string theory mentioned in a "Mummy blog". You are awesome! Also I really thought this was leading to the "What came first - the chicken or the egg" but you surprised me. BTW - the IFLS website has an answer to this which actually confirmed my personal feelings on the matter - that it was the egg that came first with newly mutated chicken. Anyhoo - all this plus a reference to existential thought and a paltry pun!!!!!!
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
I completely concur with your opinion Mumabs, the egg came first and it was laid by a lizard!
Vanessa Connor (@Nessville) says
It was The Carpenters (always known for being cutting edge) who posed THE question of the 20th Century: Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? Okay, I'm not deep and intellectual. So sue me. This made me laugh, though. xo
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
Birds, eggs, it's an avian quandary today Ness!
Debbish says
I've long pondered how telephones worked in the days of cables (pre satellites and stuff). My brother told me they laid cables on the ocean bed between countries but I'm not sure if he was joking. What if one broke? How would they know where to look to fix it? How were the laid there? It kills me not knowing this.
Of course I don't care enough however to google it or research it in any way! 😉
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
That's a good one Debbish! Now I'm wondering too!
Lilybett says
Okay - I kinda know the answer to this after my intro to communication classes. The first telegraph cables were laid around the 1850s and it pretty much required a lot of testing on insulators, so the electrical currents wouldn't lead out of the cable into the... current (*ahem* sorry). They started just laying across a river to test them (the Rhine - or the Rhone - can't remember). The first commercial ones went across the English channel but it was an uninsulated dud. Eventually it worked though and they started laying cable all around Europe. There's some science in there about capacitors and repeater amplifiers and a guy named Faraday who figured out some of the issues on electromagnatism and all that. The bandwidth of telegraph cables in those days wasn't great - so the folks tapping out the messages could only do a few words per minute. When they became telephone cables it got a little better but you still would have to wait for a 'line' if you wanted to call long distance- there were only so many connections to be had. Now it's fibre optic cable which does telephone, internet and private data.
They're literally installed by people on specially designed boats reeling off miles of cable - just spooling it off the back of the boat. But because there were a lot of potential issues - including being broken fishing boats, sharks biting it, strong currents, and earthquakes, they started burying the cable, which is done with some kind of plough type affair that's connected off the back of a boat. Depending on conditions they can lay about 100-150k of cable a day. Since they started burying them there's been a huge reduction in faults. Finding the faults before was pretty much a case of travelling along the cable and repairing it where it was snapped. Because the cables are pretty heavy (about 10kilos a metre) they don't tend to go far when they snap.
You can actually figure out where a break is from the shore, using electrical measurements - I'm guessing like a pinging where you time how long it takes for the ping to come back. They then send out boats to the place where the fault is. The boats have a grapple thing which can plough into the seabed and rip up the cable - then the engineers or electricians or whoever these people are can make standard cable repairs, splicing into the lines, etc.
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
All this and a new method for tying chicken? Lilybett take a bow!
P.S. I would love to read your resume. Communications expert ... chicken boner ...
Lilybett says
Haha - funnily enough they happened at the same time chronologically. My first degree was funded by the processing of so, so many chickens.
Debbish says
Oh. My. God! You've almost got me in tears. I thought I'd believed some sort of joke about the cables on the ocean beds as I just couldn't imagine how it could happen.
Wow - thanks so much!!!!
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MrsDplus3 says
Why oh why can I not concentrate on pretty much anything if there is mess around me?? And how do people just ignore it and carry on?? Please can someone tell me the answer - lord knows how much more productive I could be!!
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
You're asking the wrong bird Robyn. I honestly don't see the mess.
PS. Think its best you don't visit Casa de Cooker anytime soon! xx
MrsDplus3 says
Hahaha! I have issues I know!! 🙂
Bec @ The Plumbette says
Why don't babies learn to sleep through the night from the get go? Don't they know that their mums need sleep to heal and restore and make milk for them to eat.
Pinky Poinker says
I can't understand how time slows down when you're travelling at the speed of light. I've watched animations, read dummies versions, had my husband sit down and draw simplistic diagrams (and eventually walking away shaking his head) but I still can't get it through my thick noggin. I think you have to be operating at a certain level of intelligence and I'm not quite there.
hugzillablog says
See, I think I would be the opposite. I'd be reminded that my yummy egg just got pushed out of an avian orifice. I like my eggs totally divorced from reality.
Emily @ Have A Laugh On Me says
So I really want to know if dead-set religious people just pretend dinosaurs didn't exist or what? I'm too scared to ask any of them!
Lilybett says
Dinosaurs, the age of the world, evolution by natural selection...I'm curious about that too.
Emily @ Have A Laugh On Me says
I meant to add, thanks for linking, it's nice to have you!
Bexy McFly says
Wait, aren't being happy and being right the same thing?! Haha
My $64k question is: How does my food know to only attack me when I'm wearing nice clothes?
claireyhewitt01 says
Too many questions. Like why can't I think of just one when I am under pressure to think of one.
Seana Smith says
I often wonder whether life would be better without electricity... but then we have a screen free day and I decide not.
allisontaitwriter says
I really need an answer to the string question. Was it coloured coq au vin??
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
It wasn't coloured, but by the time it was cooked the string was a bit crunchier than I'd have liked Allison!
Lilybett says
On the weekend, my biggest question was how the hell do they get those monster cranes set up on top of skyscraper buildings. Turns out it's pulleys. Now I need a new $64000 question.
P.S. Forget trussing chickens with string. I did two years of work in the Steggles factory and now religiously truss a bird using its own skin. Cut a small hole in one side and then poke both legs through. So much easier than faffing about with string and knots.
Tash says
cloaca is an awesome word!! I always wonder why we always end up sounding like our mothers!!!! Why??? 🙂
Amanda, Cooker and a Looker says
That is indeed a question for the ages, Tash! x
Sonia Life Love Hiccups says
My question is merely why can my children not hear me when I ask them to do anything yet they can hear the opening of book from miles away and decide that it is at that very moment that I decided to take a little time for myself that they either break into world war 3 or want to ask me a million and one questions. Gah. I dream of warm eggs. One day xx
Maxabella says
I'm a little bit the opposite.. the 'still warm' factor makes my lip curl. I need to wait for those suckers to be cold as the grave before I'll pluck them from the nest. It's a bottom thing. x