A small white daisy-like flower pokes up out of a patch of moss on a brick wall.

Wordless Wednesday: May flower

Look what my husband spotted poking up out of some bricks. Related Links: More Wordless Wednesdays on Caterpickles

There should be an app for that…

On hearing that Google had developed an AI that could detect lung cancer in CTs, the 12YO pointed out it would also be cool if you could take pictures of weird stuff on your skin and have your phone tell you if you needed to see a doctor for it. And then she started to imagine what it would be like to use it. Commence role play in 3.. 2.. 1..

An orange cat sleeps in a cat bed by a window. A white bandana bordered in blue is draped over him like a blanket.

Not-at-all Wordless Wednesday: Why doesn’t my cat hate his pet bandana more?

It’s Monopoly time at our local Safeway. I play every year and this year, in a Caterpickles Central first, I actually won something–brand new free-except-for-shipping @Shutterfly pet bandanas. I thought my cat would hate this more. How am I not bleeding right now? #cats #stuffoncats

50 States of Public Art: CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour in Mankato, Minnesota

It’s summertime, and therefore, peak public art touring season in the United States. In the current installment of our ongoing series, The 50 States of Public Art, we visit Mankato, Minnesota, which has launched its ninth annual CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour.

Sky above the tree -- perfectly dark blue at the top shading down to a pale baby blue just above the trees. There's clouds too. The fluffy cotton ball kind.

Wordless Wednesday: California sky

The sky here is just ridiculous. Seriously, that’s a lot of fabulous to spend on an average weekday afternoon. Related Links: More Wordless Wednesdays on Caterpickles

Photo from the Field Museum of the head of Maximo the titanosaur. A pterodactyl is hanging from the ceiling behind him.

Coffee with a dinosaur, Caterpickles Edition

Yesterday, the Field Museum launched its Máximo the titanosaur chatbot. I’m sure that you won’t be at all surprised to learn that I have spent hours interviewing him. For science. Here’s what I learned.

Red bush in a California garden in springtime.

Wordless Wednesday: Gardening in a drought-prone state

Amazingly, this is just someone’s front yard. Every time I look at this photo, my brain tries to tell me that there’s a river swooping along the bottom of that tree with the orange leaves. But really it’s just dirt.

Rear View of my daughter dressed as Mothman crossing the street.

Caterpickles Consults the 12-Year-Old: “What is Mothman?”

My daughter came down one morning dressed entirely in black, sporting a pair of gold-tinted sunglasses and a green knit cap with two blue feathers sticking out of it. She was clearly dressed up as some superhero, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out who. “I’m Mothman, Mommyo.” Mothman? Who’s that? Some crappy off-brand Batman?

A sleeping orange tabby curled up in a furry brown blanket.

Wordless Wednesday: Contentment

Every once in a while my cat does something that perfectly illustrates the meaning of a word. It’s his superpower. This week, the word he chose was contentment.

Two side by side false color images of Uranus, show the planet encased in a rainbow of colors from pale green to red. Around it are white rings that run around what I can't help but think of as the planet's north and south poles. Uranus, it turns out, looks like it's tilted up on its side.

Who was Uranus?

While reading Dava Sobel’s book The Planets last week, I learned that Uranus is the only major planet in our solar system named after a Greek myth instead of a Roman one. Off-hand, I couldn’t remember any mention of Uranus in Greek mythology. So I decided to look it up. Who was Uranus? Why is he the only Greek god to get his own planet?