The Evolutionary Scale of Animals

While listening to Leonard Lopate in my kitchen today, I got wind of the Amy Sedaris Craft Challenge. The idea is to add googly eyes to any piece of food, snap a photo and let Amy choose her favorite. I'm a fan of this one.

Right now, Lopate is interviewing Dr. Sharon Moalem, author of "Survival of the Sickest," an interesting-sounding exploration of disease and evolution.

Moalem (who has a name that reminds me of "golem," which is just perfectly Jewy-retro, in my bananacake head) "reveals how many of the conditions that we think of as diseases today actually gave our ancestors a leg up in the survival sweepstakes." (According to the book's Web site. Forgive my description malaise.)

I'm a big fan of the phrase "survival sweepstakes." As if it's not interesting enough to discuss why diabetes might have been a helpful adaptive trait in children long ago, the PR pips had to liken it all to a "sweepstakes." You know, like, disease Lotto! No. Powerball! Be an evolution gazillionaire!

So I go into the kitchen just now to refill my petite, but not delicate (oh no), espresso cup. I see the rock doves perched, still, on my fire escape. There are two of them today. Brown and generally skittish, these birds often rest there and soak in the sun. Good for you, I always think, enjoy that warmth on that crumbling metal perch. Don't fall through! Heh heh heh.

These two have been there for hours now. When I first wandered in, invading their peaceful sunbathing, one of them peered at me: "What the fuck are you," it asked me with its eyes, "and are you going to swat at me?" Nah, I told it. I'm not much of a swatter. So I proceeded to act as much like a rock dove as I knew how: peevish and with no sudden movements. Coffee, coffee, coffee, pour, pour, pour. Slink.

The other bird kept his head tucked into his fat feathered body, with one eye on me. And then the first one took off.

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! My heart broke a little, as it always does when this happens. I had failed, again, to be enough of a rock dove for these rock doves. I will do better next time, birds. I promise.