Persuing Domestic Goddessness
Friday, May 28, 2004
 
Conundrum
It's Friday, let's ponder.
So. Scenario
There is this protein, Erv29p. Nice little protein, ER/Golgi localization, transmembrane domains, handy-dandy KKXX signal sequence (hence the ER/Golgi loc). It transports alpha-factor in yeast. So you overexpress alpha-factor, whoa it's not transported efficiently, and then CPY gets mucked up too, since that also depends on Erv29p. If you up the expression of Erv29p, you alleviate the transport defect.
Cool, that's all well and good.
Enter Erv26p, my protein. ER/Golgi loc (although not 50/50 like Erv29's, more like 70/30 or so). Transmembrane domains. No KKXX, but an EXE, which binds to the COPII coat of vesicles, so that's how it's going to the Golgi.
Problem- Erv26p is required for efficient transport of ALP. So you would think overexpressing Erv26p would still have nice efficient transport of ALP. Right? wrong, unfortunately. The transport of ALP is not as bad as not having Erv26p at all, but there is definitely a problem there.
So what the hell is Erv26p doing?? It's obviously required for ALP transport, it hangs out between ER adn Golgi, it's binding to the Sec24p subunit of the COPII coat (probably, haven't shown that yet), so why is having excess Erv26p slowing down ALP?
Or is Erv26p binding something that takes care of ALP, so it's like an indirect transporter? Would that work?
Let's think about this for the weekend.
My wrist is still really bothering me. I can use it somewhat now though (with lots of painkillers), being solely left handed is very hard for me!
Love, Erv26p and sleep.
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
 
Dun dun dun.... the Weekend
So- many events this past weekend. First, I fell down nice little flight of stairs in the bio building and got a nice bruise on my hand. Turns out I sprained it, so yay it is all wrapped and basically useless. I can type a little bit, but I can’t use a regular mouse to I am glued to the laptop.
So then on my way down to Boston for Roxanne’s wine&cheese themed birthday party, I was getting off I 93 to 95 and I hear this awful scraping noise. I pulled over as soon as the shoulder was wide enough, and I checked out the car and saw that the metal strap that holds the brand new Midas muffler (put on less than 2 months ago- on the day before Easter, to be exact) up had rusted through and was dragging along the highway. And subsequently, the muffler itself was pretty damn close to the road. Arg! So I had to pull off in some town at the junction of these 2 highways and call AAA. Lol I called the police first and I admit I was fairly hysterical, so the guy was like, um how old are you?
Well then it ended up that the AAA guy could fix it well enough there, and I was only a couple hrs later to the party than I wanted to be.
But the party was very fun! Kudos to Roxanne, a wonderful hostess. The cheese was heavenly. So were Michelle’s and Tina’s cakes.
So then Sunday I went home, since my car was scheduled to go to the garage anyway on Monday. But mom was really worried about my arm, since I was in a lot of pain, so she drove me back to NH and took me to the hospital Monday morning. Had Xrays done (arg took forever!!) and it’s sprained.
So that was my weekend. I have a very busily fun week so hopefully I will be able to do everything one-handed.
Love, cheese, and left-handed life

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Friday, May 21, 2004
 
tgif?
long time no update!
so this week has totally flown by. it's actually somewhat creepy. but, whatever.
so wednesday was both roxanne adn eileen's birthday! eileen and i went to lui lui's over in west leb for food&drink, that was a lot of fun. the bartender was all chatty, it was the two of us, a single guy on either side of us, and then 3 older people in the corner. fairly quiet, although it was a wednesday. he forgot that iw anted chicken on my salad, but whatever. the rolls were good enough to make up for that.
and i have otherwise been in qualifier hell. woohoo! i am trying to get an abstract good enough to give to the people i want on my committee. but at this point, since i have to submit my approved topic and committee members by june 1, i might just say, here's a draft of my abstract for you to read. the topic and aims won't change, wording might.
and i am poor. as in desitute, can't-even-go-to-the-grocery-store poor. although eating out 3 days in a row was no help. so, no shopping til june 1st! sigh. well, this will be good for me. i'll keep busy and not think about it. and then woohoo birthday, so maybe i will be taken out shopping, so i can still get the shopping craving taken care of but won't have to spend my own money. because, well, i feel if i am given money, it should go in the savings account so i can have more than $11.13 in there (seriously. my credit card interest rates are insane because i get points for stuff on them, so i don't want to go into credit card debt).
so lol no i am not having much fun! except for evenings when i go out and ignore the poorness. going to an undergrad choir concert tonight, charged the ticket to my dartmouth ID card. heh. they give you $99.99 in credit and just threaten to hold your diploma if you don't pay it. since i have another 4 years...
love, finances, and.... obsession about finances. aaaah!
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Monday, May 10, 2004
 
Powwows, Popping Tires, and Police
Eventful weekend. I had to go home for a funeral/memorial service, so I got up early Saturday morning, ran to the farmer's market in Norwich, VT, and as I passed through Hanover, I saw that they were setting up for the annual powwow. I stopped by last year- it's kind of cool. They closed off the streets around the green, with barricades with signs that said "Do not enter, please". I thought the "please" was cute.
Then eventually (Terry was gardening when I got back home to load up my car and get fresh coffee, so we chatted. I got ant buttons, so far they seem to be helping. Only one ant in the 2 hrs I was home and awake last night, and the 2 hours I was awake this morning). So I get on the highway, and there is a border guard stop just after I get on I-91, so I had to stop for that. Before we stopped though, I saw up ahead a pickup (driven by a real NH redneck, wife beater and all) with a double axel trailer loaded up with lumber. Well so he's driving along, and all of a sudden, one of the tires just pops off!! And he keeps driving. I was like, dude your tire!! It rolled off across the left lane (he was in the right lane) and into the brush in the hollow between the southbound and northbound parts of the highway. I think one of the police told him he was missing a tire (the other one on that side was quite flat, too, it's a wonder he didn't notice), because I didn't pass him, so he probably stopped at the rest area that is right after the border patrol.
Ok so then- I get across the MA line, and I'm inthe middle of passing this annoying white car that just couldn't bother to go a constant speed. So I'm going 80 to pass him, and yes that's speeding,but hello, passing!! And then he slams on his brakes, so I'm like, oh shit, what's going on? So I slam on my brakes and I see the police car at the side of the road. So I'm like, well I'm not going to pass the car now, so I get in the right lane between the white car adn the police car, and then I get pulled over!!!! ugh! Well I know I shouldn't complain, I got off with a warning, but dude I was passing, you can't go the speed limit if you're passing an annoying driver.
And... well everything else was fairly ordinary. The funeral was nice, not too sad, I hung out with my parents adn then we all went to my aunt's for a mother's day brunch, where I loaded up on food adn then drove back to NH and was later than I wanted to be, since I had choir at 6. That went well. Went out for drinks afterwards, always a good time. You weed out the choir people that way, and you end up with only the more amusing ones at the bar.

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Wednesday, May 05, 2004
 
Waste of a Wednesday
Today I decided to get up early, go to lab early, wash and develop my Western Blot before journal club, and then dedicate my entire afternoon to working on my qual, such that I would have a revised abstract to give Charlie when he returns tomorrow.
I did get to lab in time to wash/develop the blot before journal club and was only about 5 minutes late to JC (the results were fairly good- I need to repeat to make it look better, but I will have some results to present in lab meeting next week). So at 2pm, I went over to Panera to have lunch and work. I spent 3 hours there, had good coffee, an ok danish (a little stale and bland) and a yummy salad (bistro steak, same as yesterday). But I got nothing accomplished, except now I am more confused than ever about the stupid endosome. Oh evil endosome, you mock me.
Oh I also realized that New Hampshire-ites are either insane, moronic, or both. omg! Ok mostly I think they're all morons because of the traffic here. If there are 5 cars in front of me at a red light, I don't get through when it turns green. I mean, the lights aren't short, it's just that people DON'T REACT to the green! And another interesting thing was that when I was in Panera, at my usual table (closest to the coffee- free refills), a group of high school students came in to tour the place (don't quite understand what was happening- 2 adults chaperoned this little outing and maybe like 4 of the 8 or 9 students filled out applications, adn one guy said he liked this place but was also applying for a job at Price Chopper (grocery store). It just seemed weird that they would have this little chaperoned trip to apply for after school jobs, and have a meeting with the manager and all). When they were all about to leave, 5 of them ran up to get coffee (high school students drinking coffee??? Coffee is a right of passage of college. well, whatever. Although they all drank it loaded up with sugar. Ha, amateurs), and one girl bumped another girl's cup when she was putting the lid on, and the coffee spilled all over the other girl. Not really though- when she turned around, it was on her shirt sleeve and I guess some got on her hands. But it was all down the leg of the girl whose fault it was. But so the girl whose coffee it was started to cry! I mean bawling. It was weird! Then she ran to the bathroom after a couple minutes of jumping up and down and sobbing and one of the adults came over and said oh no, you're ok, just run to the bathroom, you;'ll be fine. So the other kids started chanting, to the bathroom, to the bathroom! (Which is actually somewhat of a battle cry in a former aim convo between me and someone named Ann). Well ok so the girl runs to the bathroom adn then comes back and is mostly ok but still a bit teary. Then she says, oh no, it didn't hurt, it was hot but it didn't really hurt. And ok she has like 2 drops onher sleeve! So why the hell was she making such a deal? It was weird.
Between this observation and Ann's student teaching stories, I've decided that high school students nowadays are completely and utterly insane.
Love, coffee w/ free refills, and mortal fear of high schoolers and NH residents (build a bomb shelter to hide from people that fit into both those categories)
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Monday, May 03, 2004
 
Skirts are in the air
Busy weekend. Saturday I went to Boston (well, Wellesley, actually), and had lunch at Fig's with Ann, Michelle and Roxanne. All four of us were wearing skirts. Actually, I have the same skirt as Ann was wearing, but a different color. Great skirt, very glad I purchased it.
Then I saw the most random Gap commercial yesterday, it was one skinny tall model-figured girl who kept twirling around and the skirt kept changing. But none of those skirts were ones I saw at the Gap.
So anyway, the four of us and our skirts hung around Wellesley and then I went to Peet's coffee for a couple hours to drink tasty coffee and work on my qual.
Yesterday, I did the same coffee/qual deal, and that was good. Then I hit the grocery store for the first time in 2 weeks, and while I was looking for torillas (which I never buy so I didn't know exactly where they would be), I passed by this guy who probably thought I was staring at him (um no, tortillas!!). So after that he started following me around, saying softly, hey honey, what's your name, hey honey wait up, etc. It was weird! Plus he was like 17. Ew! Sketchy No Ham boys.
Although maybe that's an indication that I looked good yesterday. That would be promising...
Tonight I'm seeing "13 going on 30" with Eileen and Stacey, either at 7:00 or 9:15, we're not yet sure which. I wish there could be an 8:00 show, 7:00 is cutting it close but 9:15 is fairly late. Although Charlie is at NIH til Wednesday night so I can show up late tomorrow and it won't matter, as long as I get this new subcellular fractionation experiment done in time for my lab meeting presentation next Tuesday.
That is all. It's rainy. I vaccuumed my condo yesterday but I still can't figure out where the ants are coming from, or why. They like my dining room table, but the only food there is a covered sugar bowl and a covered jar of chocolate candies, and are in neither one of those. Go figure, stupid ants. Ugh.
I have the urge to just stay home and be completely domestic. The brownies I brought in this morning disappeared within 3 and a half hours. Hungry men.
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