who let the dogs out?

Me!  Part of my job entails unpacking artifacts and specimens for museum exhibitions, and then examining and documenting their condition.  This week, I got up close and personal with some fearsome furry characters -- North American wolves.

Great Plains Wolf

In June, these wolves make their local debut on exhibit at the Burke Museum. Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21^st Century examines the coexistence of wolves and humans in North America, an increasingly controversial and fascinating subject.  

Ow ow ow owoooo!

Mexican Wolf

in memoriam

Today I attended a memorial for a colleague's father. I hadn't known him personally, but knew of his generous life. Several colleagues and friends spoke about his many lifelong passions and ever-giving spirit. I was moved by their love for this man and his family. An old friend reflected on his ability to treat each person as if he or she were the most important person on earth, the way he genuinely engaged with people and remembered details, even minute details, about their lives. She likened the quality of his character with a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!