In this article, Jill says she’s gonna stare at a hole in her lawn for years on end to find how long a specific cicada larva spends underground. How’d it turn out?
I’ll see if I can get her to give an update.
Jill Jr is 26 now …
Glad somebody’s paying attention! I apologize that I wasn’t able to sit watching the ground, waiting for and timing the emergence of the New Mexico cicada larvae. Maybe I have ADHD and got distracted sometime in the last nineteen years.
There is so much to know about cicadas! Their genus is magicicada and I can’t think of a better word to describe them; mysteriously coming up out of the ground like clockwork in predictable cycles, depending on their species. I got married in North Carolina during the big emergence on the east coast of Brood 10 in 1987 (one of the largest cicada broods by geographic extent). We knew we’d been married for seventeen years when we saw news reports of the return of Brood 10 in 2004. They knew that spring that they’d be re-emerging soon and the bug phobic folks in North Carolina started freaking out ahead of time. Cool! Three years from now, they’ll come back and I’ll know that we will have been married for 34 years. (Unless he finds somebody younger and less troublesome than me by then…)
I truly love stuff like this and I’d write another Straight Dope staff report about cicadas, but my main motivation for writing staff reports back in the day was to avoid work, when I was supposedly doing epidemiology for the New Mexico Department of Health. Since I’m retired now with no work I need to avoid, I don’t have time to write SD reports.
After leaving the Dept. of Health, I went overseas for a few years, then came back and had a few other jobs. When I started repeatedly getting written up for insubordination by bosses who were half my age, I decided it was time to retire. Now I work full time as a mosaic artist. I can wear stained shirts and cut off pajama pants, drink Spanish wine and make inappropriate jokes all I want at work.
And my daughter (7 years old at the time of that original cicada report) is now 26, making a living as a touring performance poet (who knew that was even a thing?) You can see her here nowadays: Olivia Gatwood - "When I Say That We Are All Teen Girls" - YouTube . She has four gigs in India this summer.
But anyway, back to cicadas: other people with either less of a life than me or much more of one are still keeping track of these cute little buggers. You can find out about all the eastern US broods here:
As far as I know, the New Mexico species are still a mystery. The land of mañana, you know.
One of the single greatest quotes ever posted here. The irony is truly awe-inspiring. 
Wish you had more work to avoid, Jill. 
Doug (who misses great old-time posters like you)
Thanks! I miss you too, Doug.
I am fascinated by this statement. What does “insubordination” really mean? It’s something that you hear about now and then, and as a manager I’ve wondered a few times if it would apply to something. I understand the military version, but what does it look like as a civilian in the wild?
That was amazing. Thank you for sharing!
Just take the word apart into its components. Essentially, it means not acknowledging that your superior is your superior. It’s more naughty in the armed forces, them being what they are, but, as Dick Deadeye says, “When people have to obey other people’s orders, equality’s out of the question.”
Probably something along the lines of declaring her intention to NOT use a cover sheet when submitting TPS Reports.
In my case, it has been applied when I - with my vast experience and wisdom - have made a judgement call or taken an action that was contrary to the instructions of my superior. If they can’t be open to learning from their elders, fuck em.
Talk about a short attention span. I blame the internet! 
Oh, okay, okay, here’s another one. But you’ll have to look the rest up yourself. I don’t want anybody to call me a shameless stage mom.
I’m sorry … the woman in that video is way too beautiful … she’d need one hell of a lot of make-up to even get close to a bitch-face …
Oh my god that second one was amazing and wonderful. Next person tells me to smile I’m getting their e-mail and sending them that. Thank you, JillGat. Thank your daughter for me. And be a shameless stage mother if you want; you deserve it.
The company I work for has a term “willful insubordination” which translates as not only being smarter than the runny-nosed little rug-rats running things but being proven to be correct more often than said walking abominations. Especially if you are over 60 years of age.
Oh… no, take my word for it…
Since you insist, here is my girl, who grew up in New Mexico and stayed with a friend’s mom in Long Island, NY for a few months, with an Ode to the Women of Long Island.
