I shepherded my children out of the house (no, not like that – although they did once like Pong), snacks in fist, bookbags and jackets on their backs, to meet their father in the car and make it to school on time.

The lawnmower was running at the back of the garden, as the fellow we pay through our rent to come trim the thicket that passes for a lawn has finally shown up. I called him on Friday. By a suspicious coincidence judging from past experience, he was coming by Monday morning first thing.

I grabbed the house keys, then remembered I had naught for lunch. Dashed back in the kitchen, found the leftover fish curry from Saturday, a yogurt and an apple, and dropped those in my computer bag. Locked up, pulled out in the driveway with some difficulty to get around the yard maintenance truck.

No, the curry did not leak. But I forgot to take anything more for breakfast beyond a glass of juice in my daughter’s cup, as I was clearing the table, hanging and starting a new load of laundry. The barriers are broken on the personnel parking lot, so you badge in on one side and can drive through with no problem on the other. If I don’t arrive at lab before 8AM, I must park in a poor and exposed spot for maneuvering, a further 10 minutes’ walk from the lab.

When I realized I had forgotten to bring even cookies for breakfast, I also realized that tonight, my husband was picking up the children. So I could have taken my bicycle. I kicked myself mentally. It’s still gorgeous weather out, and I finally remembered to water my new violets this weekend, so they have not yet died.

I was able to park at an intermediate level of the lot, and sneezed at least four times on the way in to lab. The cypress and hazelnut trees are blooming currently. My only allergy desensitization treatment is against grasses. This treatment, I realized recently, costs as much as it would to vaccinate many hundreds of children against measles. I decided to continue with the grasses until the treatment is effective, but not to bother with the others. Complaining is free. Hey, did I tell you about my knee yet?

The cell culture room is currently the subject of some of that polite strife under the surface that has been mentioned elsewhere. Too many people, some of whom have trainees, four sterile hoods in which to work, three incubators with three shelves each, and a planner that is filling up now the week before. Being a minority user, I was one of the first to be approached with the suggestion that I take my activity elsewhere. I refused and pointed out that my departure would not relieve the congestion in any case, and then made the concession that any future transfection work could indeed be done in the “other” culture room – the one that is not actually clean or maintained, through disuse.

I do enough housecleaning at home and in my lab for my taste.

So I try to accommodate. I arrive early relative to most of the other users, so popped in at 8:00 to warm up my media. In a fit of optimism, I warmed a frozen aliquot of a trypsin solution, in case I wanted to detach the cells I thawed last Friday and dilute their density onto more plastic dishes. Only then did I aim for the new vending machine five floors below with the plastic money card, for an ersatz breakfast.

Today, it only takes coins. Once, I would have written down the contact information and called the vending company. I am feeling more selfish today. And a bit hungry, but not enough for fish curry.

I grumbled my way back upstairs, prepared myself a coffee and drank it in three minutes, flat, and thought about eating potato chips for breakfast. Rejected that idea and went into the culture room. Friday’s cells were alive and happy, but not sufficiently numerous to split (detach and spread them out further from one another). Happy cells means they look like they will be alive tomorrow, too. I can’t describe it, but it comes with experience, like when a parent can tell their child is running a fever. I changed their vitamin/salt solutions – rather like making them a bottle – and popped them back in the incubator. Toyed with making a collagen dilution to coat some new plastic today for their split tomorrow, and decided to do it later. Like tomorrow.

Virtuously, I consigned this activity to my online lab notebook. I never have been very disciplined about notebooks. After this, I will submit a review that I only had partly finished, and then go about designing some primers to sequence a candidate gene. I keep thinking that once these minor things are cleared away, I will deal with what I find more important and devote myself undistractedly to the task at hand. It’s a measure of your importance in my eyes, how slowly I get to you. That is perverse.

A good spring morning to you, too.