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I don’t remember what it was that got me interested in Architeuthis, but reading Richard Ellis’ “Search for the Giant Squid” book a few years ago cemented it. Especially fascinating to me was that the giant squid have “eyes the size of dinner plates.” That’s HUGE! (And it is also why one of Weezie Meep’s nicknames is ‘Squid Peeps.’)

Loving the giant squid led me to seek out nature shows about the other squids and the rest of the family, or actually – I should say – class: the octopus, the cuttlefish, and to a lesser degree, no offense, the nautilus. I have seen some crazy things on the television, but what some of these cephalopods can do is really mind blowing. When I see hipsters wearing the “welcome squid overlords” tee-shirts, I hope they know that might not be a joke. There’s no more eating of calamari or octopus sashimi in our household. When I wanted to get a can of squid at the market because the label was so lovely, Lolly quickly reminded me that when They Come, they’ll just see that I have a can of their friends and won’t stop to consider that it is in appreciation of their fascinating visage. Although, there is cannibalism in that family so I don’t know that They’d be getting Their tentacles all in a bunch over it.

While my first love was Architeuthis, but I am now ever so smitten with the giant pacific octopus, sort of a local celebrity. I once saw video of this critter taking out a shark at the aquarium. I love all the octopuses actually. When I go on and on excitedly about the one that changes color and shape to mimic other fish, or the ones that climb out of their tanks to scuttle across the floor to eat a crab in another tank, or how the momma octopus stays for weeks in a cave blowing on her eggs, and how inside the eggs are teeny weeny octopuses that look just like the giant ones …my family of humans thinks I’ve gone a little insane.

Check out: this link to the Octopus Cam at the Smithsonian; and Wikipedia and see the links at the end of the entry which include the video of the shark-attack I mentioned.

I think I may have seen the stupidest product advertised on television to date. Sometimes I am amazed when people are so inept at chopping carrots or peeling potatoes that they need a special device. You know the lady I’m talking about. She tries so hard to chop and peel, but she makes A Mess and Sometimes Hurts Herself, plus it takes A Lot of Time. So she furrows her finely arched brows and gasps in horror and frustration. Someone, please HELP HER.

Ok, so this is even stupider than that: pantyliners that you stick to the bottom of your feet while you sleep so they can draw out all the toxins. OHMyGoD! Just look at how toxic you are! Those feet minipads are absolutely black with your toxic filth! Can you believe how disgusting and poisonous you are? Of course you can’t – just look at your furrowed finely arched brows and your mouth agape with horror and disbelief.

I couldn’t remember what they were called so I had to Google “toxic feet pads” and would you believe, there is more than one brand of these things? You have to keep using them until you wake up in the morning and your foot maxis are no longer stained with your detritus. There are “lab results” that back up these claims too. The advertisers use words like “pH” and “negative ions” and “infrared technology” to prove their successes. Maybe the troubled folks could just wash their feet before bed?

(In case you don’t the basic cable channels where these adds are being show, I will reluctantly link here to not one, but two, different sellers of these things. Please be warned however, that some people have really disgusting goo feet.)

Here’s a recent and interesting publication about the shortening of the too-tall girls. It kept up later than I thought, up until the late 60’s even. The review article highlights some fun quotes. I liked this section here:

The scientific literature details that parents were concerned about the social implications of their daughters being too tall, including difficulty and expense in finding clothes that fit, lack of interest in schoolwork and play, and future difficulty in finding employment in some careers, such as air hostess, classical ballet dancer, or military or airline pilot. There was also discussion of the negative psychosocial effects of excessively tall stature, which included depression, social withdrawal, and even “kyphosis [from] an effort to appear smaller and more like the others.”

Ohmygod, I’m so tall I can’t do my homework, or even go out and play! Kyphosis = slouchy.

However, the single most commonly cited social reason for reducing the height of tall girls was social attractiveness. Part of those concerns were contemporaneous with childhood; parents worried about how tall stature was contributing to their daughter’s self-consciousness and shyness or that her size might “jeopardize her social contacts.” But, tall girls usually became tall women, and the biggest concern seemed to be that tall women would have a hard time fitting in, being comfortable in social situations, and perhaps most important, finding permanent male partners.

Thanks, Mom for not dosing me with hormones to shave off a few inches. The Memorial Junior High Varsity Basketball team thanks you. Thank you for not ever expecting me to be an airline stewardess, and for being able to alter my clothes to fit my Freakish Proportions. And just so you know, the whole not-finding-a-permanent-male-partner thing isn’t at all related to my height.

(I did ask my mother about this, if she had ever heard of this being that she comes from a tall family. She hadn’t, but she did tell me that she remembers people saying at the time – back in her day – that you didn’t want to be “too tall” like, over 5′5″.)

So, I’m thinking about this, and seeing articles like this one, that explains in more detail how height has social and economic consequences. I was surprised about the money thing. The abstract says:

Height was somewhat more strongly related to success for men than for women, although this difference was not significant. Finally, given that almost no research has examined the relationship between individuals’ physical height and their incomes, we present four large-sample studies (total N = 8,590) showing that height is positively related to income after controlling for sex, age, and weight. Overall, this article presents the most comprehensive analysis of the relationship of height to workplace success to date, and the results suggest that tall individuals have advantages in several important aspects of their careers and organizational lives.

Maybe it is height discrimination and not sex discrimination, except that there have even been efforts to keep women shorter. It’s so insidious. That’s all I’ll go on about for now, because I think I’m boring Lolly. You can think about it all yourselves, now.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!

Today I learned that in the 1950’s some parents were “afraid” that their daughters were going to be too tall. To address this fearful issue, doctors would give the adolescent (or possibly younger) girls high doses of estrogen to stop their growth in a process that was called “height attenuation.” I have to look into this a little more, but I don’t think they’re talking circus-freak tall here, just -ya know- too tall for boys to like. Tallness as a social disease.

I also learned that being tall has been scientifically shown to give one (male or female) an advantage. There are studies indicating that the tall ones are more likely to get hired, get promoted, and to get elected. There was even mention of a study showing that the economic disadvantages, historical and well-known, between men and women leveled out when height was a controlled factor.

Later in the day my short boss said that she left the meeting feeling kinda bad. I told her, “No kidding… It’s really rather surprising that you were able to make anything of yourself at all.” She looked up at me and laughed.

Then I got fired.