musings on this, my 40*cough*th birthday

I love my mother, and also her most consistent skill is to disappoint me on my birthday. This year is no exception. This year, she disappointed me because I was today years old when I discovered the Integrated Taxonomic Information System exists: https://www.itis.gov/ I learned this from refdesk.com. Not from my mother. *Who is a botanist.* She says "I thought everyone knew about ITIS." Mother. Mom. Momther. Are you serious right now. Mom. What. Why. Mother. Seriously. (I am only half joking. She is aces at disappointing me on my birthday, usually by giving me gifts that are things she wants, not things I want. My discovery of ITIS is mild and funny by comparison.) Props to Gremlin, though, who brought me a full set of signed Dungeon Crawler Carl books from a show he did a few months ago at which Matt Dinniman was signing. I am thrilled. I'm equally amused by the box: he repurposed a gourmet dog food shipping box into a mimic (boldly labeled "NOT A MIMIC"), complete with creepy googly…