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Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’

Asclepias tuberosa to the Rescue!

Posted in Likes, tagged , , , , , , , on August 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »

It’s summer and I’m enjoying a bit of vacation time (yay!) and what do I spot on my new Asclepias tuberosa? A monarch butterfly caterpillar!

 

I’ve seen a monarch or two in the neighborhood this year but not many. (Not like during my childhood down south, when my mother used to pull the car over just about anywhere to find caterpillar-rich milkweed by the side of the road.) There’s a reason why these butterflies are listed as at endangered in Ontario:(

That said, awareness of the issues around butterflies and their disappearing habitat is rising, and it’s not all bad news. I’m happy to see milkweed left to grow by the roadside, to find native milkweed varietals at the garden center, and to watch butterflies flitting in the park. If we had more sun and space I’d plant a butterfly meadow, but for now, we went with butterfly weed. Glad we did:)

As an added bonus, I also saw fireflies in the yard a couple of weeks ago for the first time north of the border:) Here’s wishing you a happy and constructive summer!

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Happy Solstice!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

That’s right, today is the summer solstice. At 15:54 Universal Time (that’s 11:54 a.m. in my neck of the woods), summer officially starts in the northern hemisphere! For more on the analemma, or figure-eight described by the sun as it arcs across the sky (think the calendar Tom Hanks etched on a rock in Castaway, or check out this composite photo from NASA). And NatGeo has a nice, detailed piece on the solstice here: What is the summer solstice? The answer might surprise you.

What is summer? So many things, not least light, glorious light to do as you will. Or, you know, mess up bedtime;)

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

— Bed in Summer, Robert Louis Stevenson

Have a wonderful summer day!

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High Spirits

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Hooray, my space pirate draft is complete! At almost 18,000 words, it’s the longest “short” story I’ve written to date. Ok, fine, it’s a novella and I’m ok with that.

I’ll need to go back over it, check a few things, get a degree in orbital mechanics (not really) and answer that age-old question, “Do donuts stay fresh longer in space?” Inquiring minds want to know! In the meantime, the draft is on its way to beta readers.

I like it, hope they do too!

 

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

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My Point Still Stands

Posted in Writing, tagged , , on April 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I was planning to post a bit on the triumph of hope over cynicism, the shared sense of powerlessness at the root of frustrations across the political spectrum, and how to address that sense through constructive action in response to the constant barrage of no-good news, but I can’t find it.

So instead you get this:)

Neko says hello. (Ok, really she says, “Seriously, human? I’m sleeping here!” Because she’s a cat, and that’s how cats roll.)

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Oh Hey, Spring!

Posted in Holidays, Likes, tagged , , , , , on March 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »

(This is me, willfully ignoring the many, many feet of snow still camped out on my front lawn.)

Happy Spring!

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It’s #TravelTuesday! Today the team at @montreal is joining us to answer your questions about Canada’s second largest city. What foods must you try? What are the festival events not to miss this year? Where are the best places to stay? Ask away and the locals will answer! #ExploreCanada 📷: @ericbranover 📍: @montreal, @tourismequebec . C’est #MardiVoyage! Aujourd’hui, l’équipe de @montreal se joint à nous afin de répondre à vos questions sur la deuxième plus grande ville du Canada. Quels sont les mets à essayer? Les festivals à voir absolument cette année? Les meilleures adresses où loger? Demandez aux gens du coin; ils se feront un plaisir de vous répondre! #ExploreCanada 📷 @ericbranover 📍 @montreal, @tourismequebec . #MTLmoments #Montreal #QuebecOriginal #Spring #Travel #CherryBlossoms #Voyage

A post shared by Explore Canada (@explorecanada) on

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What if It’s Not Pretend?

Posted in Funny, Likes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »

What I’m reading today:

Pretend It’s Aliens
A neat mental trick to understand the climate battle ahead.
By Farhad Manjoo

It’s Valentine’s Day today, and I love this essay! (Also Mr. Man and my family and unicorns, but this I can share:) It’s a genius way of identifying one of humanity’s main flaws when it comes to making change, and then (here’s the good bit) finding a way around it.

…climate change is not war. There is no enemy, other than ourselves. And we are very bad, as individuals or collectively, at fighting ourselves over anything.

This thought chilled me.

Then, one late night after taking a dose of a kind of sleep medicine that is now widely available in California, I had an epiphany:

Pretend it’s aliens.

For years I’ve been saying that if aliens invaded, we’d get over our internecine squabbles pretty damn quick. Sadly, it would also require an actual alien invasion. And while movies of same tend to end with triumphant human victories, they generally don’t show the part where we have to bury all the bodies.

…

Unless it’s not pretend at all?

Just, you know, saying!

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Real-Life Superhero

Posted in Likes, Other, Science!, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

From the Library of Congress:

Today in History – February 7
On February 7, 1867, Laura Elizabeth Ingalls, the author of the beloved semi-autobiographical Little House series, was born in Wisconsin, the second daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls.

Little House on the Prairie etc. were some of the first real books I read.* They were also where I learned (among many other things) to make candy from maple syrup and snow, twist straw into logs, cast bullets, make candles, that nails were once a precious commodity, and that life before modern medicine was often hard and sometimes deadly.
***
Speaking of modern medicine, I’ve been following the new measles outbreaks. Here’s a little public service announcement:

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.
“I feel all sleepy,” she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.
— Roald Dahl, on his daughter Olivia and Measles

 

Now, some people can’t be vaccinated.** That’s why the rest of us should. “You are a human shield”! (I love that, and I love being a real-life superhero and all-around good neighbor.) Thank you to the researchers who made vaccines possible, to the public policies making it a requirement, and to my parental units for helping me be part of a healthy community by keeping my vaccinations up to date!

***

* Ok, Hop on Pop and other such books are real too, but these had chapters and everything! Also Little House was only semi-autobiographical and had some race issues, but acknowledging that lets us know how far we’ve come.

** For more on the “don’t” rather than the “can’t,” check out this TED Talk: Why (Some) Parents Don’t Vaccinate.

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