Apis mellifera

Fun Facts:

1) Apis mellifera (commonly known as the honey bee) is the most important group of insect pollinators on the planet. If you like eating fruit and vegetables, thank a bee.

2) If your name is Melissa, know that it comes from the Greek word for honey bee, which in turn comes from the word meli for honey. Now that's a sweet name!   

3) Bees use nectar to make honey. They combine the nectar with special enzymes that break down complex sugars into simple sugars. The mix is placed in honeycombs and allowed to evaporate until it gets gooey(<== highly technical term) before becoming honey. 

4) Foraging bees love to dance! The round dance and the waggle dance are both used to communicate food sources to other bees. The former indicates the location of a food source close to the hive and the latter, a food source further away from the hive.

5) Foraging and worker bees are all female and possess a stinger which is a modified ovipositor. The ovipositor is an egg laying organ. Males, called drones, do not have ovipositors so they cannot sting. They are generally defensless.

6) To keep from getting lost while foraging, Apis meliffera uses the Earth's magnetic filed, the position of the sun, her internal clock, and her ability to see polarized light to track her location. 

7) A foraging bee returning to the hive will transfer her nectar mouth to mouth to another bee that starts the process of making honey. Hey, use a glass, seesh! 

Yes, this is me holding a swarm.

Flash Fiction ~300 words: (I wrote this last night at 1am...I guess that makes it this morning then. Apologies in advance.)

Cold, blood-draining fear enveloped him. For a few seconds he was paralyzed by the faint hum in the distance. It filtered into his ear canal like a dark whisper from the lips of Hell. And then he saw it, a black cloud gliding down the mountain. Apis Q had released her swarm. Devon knew he had to run. The extraction team would not come this time. He was on his own. His only chance of survival was to get to the portal before the swarm claimed him.

He ran hard.

He ran for his life.

Behind him, the buzzing sound of death in a sharp crescendo converged on the outer edges of his darkest fears.  

Don’t look back, just keep running.

But the urge was too strong. He had to look. For a fraction of a second, he glanced over his shoulder and his fears became reality. The swarm of bees had reached him. Their tiny bodies latch on, dozens at a time, gripping the soft skin of his neck and scurrying down his back on jointed appendages. They buzzed and vibrated as they invaded Devon's body, spreading into his hair, over his arms, and moving between the folds of his clothes. He could not stop the swell of panic from rising. His breath shortened. Frantically, he tried brushing off the miniscule aggressors with awkward flailing movements that succeeded only in slowing him down. As the portal came into view, the bees changed strategies. In unison, they drove their sickle shaped stingers into his body, injecting him with the contagion. The pain snapped his body back lifting his feet off the ground. Balance was lost and he pummelled to the hard earth, inches from the portal. Bees now blanketed his body and face. If only he could push through the pain to reach the delicate membrane of the portal…

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Thank you to everyone who helped put this A-Z Challenge together.
I have nothing written in advance, but I'll do my best to keep up!

Scarier than a Steven King Novel: Driving in Paris, France (it’s Misery)

When I moved to France almost 10 years ago, I had never driven outside the US. I was accustomed to clearly visible street signs, the grid system, stop and go traffic, 4 way stop signs, big bulky automatic cars, defensive driving, and bumper stickers.

But when I got to Paris, I had to forget everything I thought I knew about driving, because it would only get me killed. In a nut shell, driving in Paris was like being trapped in a huge pinball machine with multiple balls flying at me from every direction.  Quick, TILT!

At the time, my job was 70% field work which required extensive driving in Paris, intra-muros (the city within the beltway). The first day driving, I followed a colleague and tailgated her so closely, I could have changed her radio station. Not a safe way to drive, but I was a stressed out wreck, afraid of getting lost, and I was driving a Twingo which is nothing but a glorified tuna can on wheels. Meep, Meep. When I got home that night, I cried. But, got up the next day and gave it another go. And over the next few months I began adjusting to a new country, a new job, a clutch, a new language, etc, and I also learned to get used to insane things like:

 “Priorité à droite” (priority to the right).

This crazy little law states that while driving along a road, anyone joining from your right hand side has priority over the main road on which you are driving. Come again? That means they do not have to stop. Hun? Instead, you have to slow down and let them merge no matter what road they were on!? It’s a pretty dangerous law imo especially for foreigners, but don’t worry, this driving rule is not widely used anymore! Nope, you just have to guess if the French driver up ahead is going to yield or shoot out in front of you. No sweat :/

Itty, bitty, confusing as heck street signs.

Street signs: means to give drivers invaluable information, like what street I’m driving on! It’s the best method to help you get from point A to point B without having to go through the North Pole first. I believe

French street signs are actually a national inside joke, made to confuse and infuriate foreign drivers. The signs in the city are small, often located far off the street and nailed to the side of a building usually behind a bus stop.  Brilliant.  And don’t think these babies are lit up at night either. In short, Parisian street signs are more useful on a hook as decoration in your kitchen.

Traffic circles / roundabouts

Another thing I had to get used to, traffic circles. Though I must admit, I now prefer traffic circles that maintain a certain flow, over traffic lights that bring cars to a halt. You just have to make sure it’s a real traffic circle (where you yield to those already in the circle) as opposed to the fake traffic circles where you have priority, but must yield to on coming traffic on your right! Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with too many of the latter.

So really, traffic circles weren't that bad, with one exception: Driving around Surviving Place de l'Étoile. You know, the big traffic circle with the Arc de Triomphe stuck on top. First, don’t let the name fool you. It’s not a traffic circle, it’s a Sphere of Hell. It has at least 12 different streets dumping into it and the only way you find yourself there is through unfortunate circumstances (you couldn't read the tiny street sign and took another wrong turn) and voilà, welcome to driving hell. Now, you find yourself having to cross over 6, unmarked lanes of spastic, high-speed traffic or be condemned in spending the rest of your life driving around in circles. How did I survive Place de l’Etoile? Two words: Aggressive driving. 

Aggressive Driving

This is the only way to drive safely in Paris imo. Ignore what the cars are doing or want to do beside you, or behind you. Now, don’t confuse aggressive with reckless. French drivers may be aggressive but they are not necessarily reckless and they will avoid hitting you if you are in front. Therefore, keep your eyes only on what’s in front of you and GO! Learn to use the gas peddle, accelerate hard or get run over. This is where knowing how to use a stick shift is so important!

After several months of driving in the city, I still hadn’t gotten used to it and it remained a stressful exercise until the day I finally purchased a PalmPilot with GPS! Do they even make PalmPilots anymore? Anyway, GPS saved what was left of my sanity and removed most of the stress of driving in the city. I no longer worried about missing the sign for a street that I wouldn't be able to read anyway. Getting lost was no longer an issue, GPS would recalculate. And I could now successfully avoid the Sphere of Hell. YEAH!

After two years living in Paris, I finally moved to the countryside where driving is much more reasonable and nothing like Paris. But sometimes, I do miss the excitement. Ha, just kidding!

Plotter or Pantser: A Visual Representation of My WIP

For some things, I tend to be more visually oriented. So, I thought it would be interesting amusing to try to draw a visual representation of my wip, from the initial idea to an almost 400pg ms. I came up with these 4 steps:

Note: You are about to witness the extent of my artistic prowess. No laughing. (;

Step 1 : The idea.

This is how the idea of my wip presented itself one day in my brain. As you can see it’s a mess.

Step 2: Filling in the holes and transferring the jumbled mess onto paper.

 Each color represents pieces of the story on paper: plot, characters, scenes, dialogue, mood.... And as you can see, it's all over the place and I jump around a lot.

Step 3. Pulling out the storyline.

As more holes fill in, I’m able to start pulling out segments of a storyline. Yeah!

Step 4. Voilà

With all the holes finally filled in, the storyline takes shape, and I have the first draft of my ms. *insert happy face here*

 

As you can see, I'm a  pantser to a high degree. When I'm at step 2, I can be anywhere in the story and don't have a predetermined start off point (eg, the beginning). I’m pretty much dictated by my inspiration and the story drives me, not the other way around. Though I've tried being in the drivers seat by doing some plotting, I've even tried outlines, 5 foot long timeline sheets, step sheets, flash cards... but, I always end up throwing in the towel. They’re so time consuming for me and in my experience, get in the way of the muse.

What about you - plotter or pantser?

NOT Hungry for Hunger Games - the Movie.

!!!Spoiler Alert!!! (SA) This post contains spoilers about the books and trailers for Hunger Games. If you haven't read the books stop HERE or be spoiled (;

Now, before I get booed off the blogosphere for my pic and post title, let me say I read the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (in 2 days) and LOVED it....and hated it. But I still gave it 4 our of 5 stars.

Let me expalin. I enjoy adventure/sci-fi/ fantasy/paranormal stuff. Everything from books, stories, movies, manga, comics, and just about anything with superheroes in it. I also don't mind things getting a little violent nor do I mind some bad language, just as long as it makes sense and adds to the story. However, you will not see me fangirling over anything about zombies *shudders* or tragic storylines where animals or loved ones all die at the end. I'm still not over Charlotte's Web... (;

So why did I read the Hunger Games? For one, the hype. I'll admit, I got sucked into the hype. Second, the girl on fire with mad bow and arrow skills = my kind of gal. But what I didn't like was finding myself sobbing by page 24 and balling my eyes out by page 40 to the point where words looked like they were swimming on the page. And guess what happend on page 235? The crying thing again. I was stressed out from the first chapter all the way to the last.

Therefore, I know if I go see the movie, I'm going to cry and I don't like to cry. (some people do - they are strange to me). Plus, (SA) I don't want to see Rue die, AGAIN! Why would you want to go through that a second time? I know the first thing I'd think of when seeing Rue appear on screen, No! You're too young to die! Not sir, not me, not going to see that again. Seeing a vampire get his/her head ripped off their body, no problem...but (SA) sweet little Rue getting impaled with a spear, no.

While I cannot deny how well Suzanne Collins crafted her novel, it's obvious I'll not be reading the rest in the series. Besides, I've cheeted and have read reviews of the next two books and I'm dissapointed in the way things turn out. Nonetheless, a lot can be said about a book that is pretty much heart wrenching from beginning to end and yet, I still could not put it down. Most books like that I do put down. I have no qualms about snapping a book shut if it's too emotionally draining on me. So, I prefer to stay with my pseudo-happy ending after the first HG book and ignor the fact (SA) that Katniss is going to have to go back. She goes back?! And even though I liked the small changes seen in the trailers, (Cinna secretly giving Katniss the pin before the games was better than what's described in the book, IMO.) I will not go see the movie, either.

However, I am curious and will be looking forward to reading everyones reviews and feedback on the movie since I'm going to be about the only one on the planet sitting this one out. Enjoy the popcorn, bring tissues.

Second Campaigner Challenge!

For the second Campaigner Challenge, Rachael has given us 5 prompts and a range of different activities to choose from. I've decided to have a go at #2:

Write a short story/flash fiction piece of less than 200 words based on the prompts.

I wasn't sure if we could pick a prompt to write about or not, so I just used them all! I've labeled the prompts in green to make it easier to identify them in my text.

Prompt 1: (boy and mother at the end)Two people are sitting together under the remains of a concrete bridge. Their backs are against a rusted bridge support. One person’s leg is cut. The other person has wet hair.

Prompt 2: (child on bridge)



Prompt 3 (water cone)


Prompt 4 (the Recycle Mines)


Prompt 5 (energy flare)


Here is my flash fiction entitled: The Insubordinate. Enjoy!

            “This is your last test. Pass, and you will escape the Recycle Mines.” Images of children forced to work the mines haunted my thoughts. I’d do anything to avoid that kind of punishment.

            I nodded, keeping my eyes to the horizon. I knew better than to look directly at the Culperion.

            “On the bridge is a human child. Do you see him?” Focusing my mind, I activated the artificial photoreceptors in my right eye. The bridge was miles away, but the target and his mother came into view as if they were at arms length. 

            I nodded again.

            “Blow the bridge.”

            Instead of charging with heat, my hands went cold. Did I hear him correctly?

            “Obey subordinate! Blow the bridge, now!”

            Adrenalin filled tears rushed from my eyes. My hands charged with white heat. I took aim. The bridge... I knew what I had to do. I released an energy flare taking out both support beams. The bridge began to collapse. I immediately released a second blast, the water cone. It funnelled through the air encapsulating the humans. A scraped knee and wet hair among the concrete rubble is all they would endure. I however, would suffer for my insubordination.    

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Blogger is driving me crazy!

Ahhhh! My blogger background has a mind of its own and it's driving me bats*** crazy! The title is all wrong and I'm pulling my hair trying to fix it. It goes from transparent (which is what I have it tagged as) to black to white. ??? It shouldn't be this hard to personalize. I had it perfect last night and today... I have no idea what happened. Are the stars not aligned properly in the Blogger universe? Grrrrr. Will spend some more time on it tonight, if I don't drop kick my computer out the window first.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Truly a wonderful short film. A must see.

The following description was taken from the website http://morrislessmore.com/
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The Animated Film

Inspired in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, "Morris Lessmore" is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation), award-winning author/illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals. "Morris Lessmore" is old-fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.

"Morris" was awarded the Oscar® for Best Animated Short Film in the 84th Academy Awards®.

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