Things on my desk

The pointless photo is not of things on my desk.

I bet you had that one figured out, though.

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I've talked about the things on my desk here at work before, but it's been a while so I thought it might be an idea (not necessarily a good idea, but an idea nonetheless) to give you a bit of a more current list of the things you could possibly find on the desk of a working professional (makes me laugh a little to type that part) naturalist.

Ok? Here we go:

• Tissue. Pretty boring so far, right?
• A tape dispenser and a hand-held shredder. For all those top-secret nature documents, don't you know.
• A candy basket. Kind of a psychology experiment, that. I mix my candies because I like to see what sort attracts the most coworkers.
• A levitating pen.
• Three tubes of Power Pritt adhesive. Because you can never have too much adhesive.
• A miniature bean bag chair, which is currently holding a purple manipulative toy.
• Clacker balls. Not the on-a-string-takes-dexterity type, no. A noisemaker for preschoolers that looks disturbingly like some sort of sex toy.
• Silly Putty.
• My monitor lizard. It's a lizard-shaped bean bag that keeps my monitor from getting lonely. Its companion frog stays at home.
• A small wooden elephant that's missing a tusk.
• Computer monitor and speakers, obviously. I'm not doing this blog thing by telekinesis.
• An origami cat.
• Blue therapy putty.
• A deck of cards, featuring a cardinal. The bird, not the priest.
• Two post-it note pads, one of which can be played with like a Slinky.
• A resin model of a beaver.
• A lanyard with a broken clasp.
• A Galileo thermometer.
• Way too many free notepads from charities that my father donates to. Good on you for recycling, me.
• A list of the building's phone extensions.
• A phone and phone book. The phone book is mostly just to put the phone on. Can't remember the last time I used it.
• A coil-bound notebook that I write in starting from the back. Lefty, remember?
• A magazine file with phone lists, electronics warranty info, a giggle stick, and a foam disc shooter.
• Two small water pistols.
• A hiking pack.
• Blue fabric strips, laminated pond critter keys, and a net bag that all need to go out to the pond kiosk come spring.
• A very large kraft envelope with assorted done-for-work/done-at-work/work's-intellectual-property-so-don't-accidentally-take-home drawings that I've done over the years.
• A partial sheet of unglazed mosaic tile. It, um, works well for mineral streak testing.
• A magazine file with pamphlets and brochures from other sites.
• A build-a-spider model made out of day-glo posterboard.
• A tube containing an owl pellet poster that I should have taken to be laminated well over a year ago but somehow haven't managed to yet.
• A small stack of the current school programs brochures, event calendars, and newsletters.
• A set of test sheets for some posters I'm working on.
• A black and white photo of a burrowing owl given to me by a former coworker.
• Way too many reference books. Yes, some of still use books occasionally.
• A bag of percussion instruments, We'll maybe talk about those if I ever get around to the maraca discussion I mentioned yesterday.
• My travel mug and tea infuser.
• Messless fingerpaints.
• A stack of empty mineral collecting boxes.
• A loupe.
• A plastic cast of a bat skull.
• My business cards.
• A cat food tin that's been made over into a suet feeder. Yes, I'm serious.
• Assorted shells and fossil casts.
• Blue tack.
• A magnetic dart board.
• Sticker books.
• A typing stand. Weird, that one, because I have no idea where it came from. I use it, though.
• A box of Triops that we really should start one of these days. Office pets.
• A light for the Triops. If we ever do get them started.
• Work paperwork that's too boring or too specific (or both) to bother with detailing.
• A dead hummingbird in a box.
• A melodica.

 I guess that's about it at the moment. If it sounds really cluttered... well, it's a large, L-shaped desk so it's only actually partially cluttered. And if it sounds like there's a pretty high volume of toys for a work site? All I can say is that you've never worked at a nature centre. We get fidgety now and then.

At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Back to non-fidgeting for me, now.





Oh, and I apologise slightly for the lack of links above. Normally I like to illustrate the weirder things, and my two fans know, but I just don't have the time right now. Everything should be reasonably searchable if you're interested, though.

Although I do have to admit that I'd wonder why you were interested...