Saturday, April 09, 2011

Ubiquitins (and a little knitting)

Ubiquitin is a protein that is ubiquitous, hence the name.  It was apparently discovered in 1975, although it went by a different name then.  I don't know when it came to be called ubiquitin, but that was it's name when it won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004 (okay, I guess some chemists actually received the award).  However, some friends of mine began using the word in a different context at least 15 years before that.

To them, a ubiquitin was one of those people you see everywhere.  You know how it is -- there are people you don't know at all, but who seem to pop up in your life all the time.  You probably never say a word to them, but there they are.

I thought of this this morning.  There's a rather odd looking man who I see around my bus stop on campus pretty frequently.  He never seems to be getting on or off the bus - maybe he just walks past it at times I'm getting on the bus.  I've also seen him on the street downtown and at the mall.  And this morning, I saw him walking down the street near my house, carrying two bags from Fareway.  That freaked me out a little -- Iowa City and Coralville aren't a very large metropolitan area, but it seemed weird to see him in my neighborhood.  And I still wonder if that's his real hair...

Anyway -- I can't believe I haven't posted since March 23!  Unfortunately, even though I feel like I've been knitting, I don't have much to show for it.   I'm working on I'm still working on the Shiraz sweater and Pyromania socks.  One sock is almost done.  So far, my favorite part of the sock is the eye of partridge heel.  I love the way it looks in this not-quite-solid yarn.

Eye of partridge heel

I am almost to the point where I will have to take Shiraz off the needles and try it on, before I separate for the sleeves.  I think it will fit, but I need to be sure!

I also feel a bit of startitis coming on....

5 comments:

Kaye said...

ha ha! I had an opposite experience! There's a bald guy that walks everywhere that I see walking past my house all the time who also works at the grocery store, and on Thursday I saw him outside of my office in Newark.
I like that your Pyromanias are fiery colored!

Chris said...

That's a great word for that sort of person!

What sort of startitis? Socks, shawl, sweater?

Steven said...

That heel looks sharp. Well, sharp, but still rounded.

Last semester I saw the same man and his family in three different parts of Austin within a 24-hour period -- in a restaurant near my house, in the front of a house near where I work, and idling next to me in traffic downtown. Now I have a word for that!

Rebekah said...

I love it, what a perfect way to describe those people. Oh Fareway how I miss thee. They always had the best meat department. And the only grocery store I knew until I was about 18.

Anonymous said...

Oh I love that term. There's a guy like that here. I see him all over. If I'm in the library -- he's in the library. And when I worked on the other side of town, I saw him all the time there too.
Never seen him in my neighborhood though. I think THAT would freak me right out.