On Saturday morning, bio-geneticist Dr. Eva Snyderman lounges on her backyard cedar deck, analyzing three dimensional molecular structures on her laptop. She is still basking in the honors she received at the National Science Foundation's Spring Bio-Symposium where she presented her latest treatise: "Bt Corn, How Transgenic Crops are Changing the Habitat of the European Corn Borer."
Over the top of her computer screen, she watches her husband, Psychology Professor Ralph Snyderman, adjust the drip tubes watering the marijuana growing among his sunflowers at the edge of the deck.
"The foliage seems to be withering," he says.
While Ralph putters, Eva scrolls again through the photos captured by her former student Greg, a campus techno-geek, who surreptitiously installed a micro camera in Ralph's office, then linked it through the university's wireless internet server to Eva's electronic mailbox. Eva's photographs reveal Ralph and young Phi Beta Kappa psych major, Emily Kringler, smoking marijuana in his office, having sex on his leather couch.
Now that the semester is over, Ralph is leaving this afternoon for a week of bird watching in Costa Rica. In preparation, he has been jogging several miles each day. His beard is neatly trimmed and the Grecian Formula seems to be working. "I should be able to add at least 50 more birds to my life list," he says.
Eva noticed that Ralph packed two pairs of binoculars.
"I'll watch your plants," Eva says. "I frankly think you're over watering. They're prairie natives, after all." Ralph has not noticed the new perennials Eva is growing in the shaded corner garden, the ones with the brownish purple bell shaped flowers.
A week alone will permit Eva to progress on her somewhat promising, but still unpublished, research in which she is isolating the Solanine producing genes from the DNA of Atropa Belladonna for insertion into Cannabis. She has noted a USDEA Request For Proposal which offers substantial university research grants to develop unique methods of eliminating the world's supply of marijuana. Eva theorizes she can make the plant unsuitable for human consumption.
Scrolling through her email, she opens a new message from her friend and confidant Herbert, a renowned Penn State orchardist who has successfully grown scab free Apples on EMLA 9 rootstock. Herbert lives in a restored century home on his farm outside Happy Valley where he has constructed a greenhouse and laboratory. He and Eva have spent a few pleasant, if intermittent, nights lolling over Herbert's collection of Amish quilts, his lovemaking fueled by homemade sourdough bread and Bully Hill cabernets. Herbert also dabbles in haiku. He writes:
Your blushing winesap
a tongue's fragrant temptation
grafts me to your loins
Eva replies:
When Marijuana
combines with Deadly Nightshade
psychotropic sleep
With a final "Until Sunday," Eva closes her laptop and drains her coffee mug.
"Enjoy the trip," she says to Ralph. "I'll be experimenting all week."
Mr. Holtman has practiced law for the past forty years in small town rural Ohio. After hours, he volunteers his time in various endeavors, including farmland preservation. This is his first publication.