Category: Nature

Little bit of everything

My explosive happiness of the last couple of days has simmered down somewhat.  I have all new shiny tunes on my music player, and I set foot out the door yesterday to the strains of Dion’s “The Wanderer” and next up was Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” which, inshallah, will be played at my funeral. Work was work and Trevor got up at lunch so I could sit down, so that was nice.  Then on the way home I turned around and walked backwards for a while so I could listen to Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” and watch the sunset at the same time.  Today I’m going to lunch with my boss and someone from one of the furrin offices.  Monday I had the second best workmeeting of all time (the best one was with two of the US office guys and a pitcher of beer); the convenor, who has been with the company less than a year but has always impressed me as a very clever man, ran things in a very collaborative and fun way, and the other person was my colleague from day one at the company whom I reverence greatly (he ALWAYS sends me fraternal greetings on International Women’s Day, which is beyond words sweet) and we actually accomplished what the meeting set out to do which is how meetings go when you have the right people in the room and the wrong people aren’t invited.  And minutes were provided within a day.  Yeah.  That’s how things should be, gorramit.

I light a brace of candles for my gran, who essentially hasn’t been sick since she was recovering from gall bladder surgery, which I think was back when tv had been invented but the colour hadn’t, and who is finding her current trials painful and frankly undignified (but not life threatening).  Given that she is the sweetest woman who ever trod this ball of mud, I wish her speedy relief so she can get back to more interesting activities.

mOm is dejunking…. she is dejunking an immense piece of guilt inducing junk onto somebody who’s doing handsprings of gleeee at the prospect of receiving it, and the person who gave her the guilt inducing junk is the one who suggested it.  That’s what I call win win.  I mean, when the person who’s getting the junk is paying to have it crated and shipped…. this is success!  And no, it’s not junk.  But one of the definitions of junk is ‘useful stuff in the wrong place’ and this terrible blockage will be cleared, with satisfying results, shortly.

I am working on the Valentine’s cards for work.  One must be careful.  But one must live up to one’s reputation as well…. not always an easy balance to strike.

Katie had her first day of work at her new job yesterday and pronounced it tolerable, except that it is JUST BARELY on the other side of the line in terms of zones for bus passes.  Personally I think she should walk it but you know kids these days.

I am SO looking forward to purchasing a bicycle.  And actually living someplace I can use it!  I never did get rid of my bike helmet (or my motorcycle helmet, as I secretly believe that one day I will again have a sweetie who rides) because I didn’t want to give up that last bit of hope I’d use it.

This weekend I’m off to the Island to help my bro pack.  I am looking forward to that as well.  Hope he’s got lots of good things for me to cook in the fridge.  Hint hint.

I have much curtailed my beer consumption, which is good. Quoth the Luddite, “You don’t have to stop on my account,” after suggesting we go pick up beer to take back to is place and I’m thinking, “But I don’t need to drink beer when you’re around.”  Ah, I’m just being socially malleable.  If my friends all drank and smoked, I probably would too… no spine, that’s me.  I am going to bed at a reasonable hour and not spending hours on the computer.  All good so far…. can it last? Probably not; the cheerfulness is probably just an artifact of having the sun on my face when I went home last night, after months of darkness.

Oh, snap.  My printer is out of ink.  Think fast about this!!!! what shall I do?  Oh, yeah, there’s a reprographic place in this building, it’s not like I just ran out of airspeed, altitude and options all at the same time.

Cats.  There will be cats back in my life!  Eddie and Gizmo are wonderful, staunch, middle aged cats. Nothing too spectacular, except Gizmo took a dog out once, and both of them are mighty hunters.

Good times, ow, solar science

Went dancing last night to the melodious strains of the Blue Meenies, a fabulous cover band of these parts, and they had Winter Ale on tap at the John B! Home by 12:30 thanks to one of my fellow revellers. Daughter Katie jammed, mentioning something about self-care. We had a small and lively crew there and it was lovely to see Mike and Heather.

This morning, of course, the piper has arrived with his hand out; I am interesting varieties of sore. Daughter Katie is showing up this afternoon, possibly maybe, for a meal and a visit, and then I’m off to the Luddite’s for dinner. I really wish I could crosspost his last email to me – it is a masterpiece of British humour. Reference to this video was made. NOTE: it is nothing you won’t see on TV these days, but that doesn’t mean you want your boss walking up behind you while you are thoughtfully educating yourself with its four and a half minutes of hardhitting content.

So after all this gimping about with climate change, and everything supposedly getting warmer, some bunch of solar science geeks are saying we’re heading into solar minimum and it’s going to get ass freezing cold around here. Well, why not!? It’s a planet, it’s a complex system, and I wish I hadn’t given away my ski pants. Here’s the consensus view of the timing of the event.

Here’s the International MSM take on the science.

Not so fast, said RealClimate in 2005.

Please note there’s a big difference between the solar minimum of the 11 year (actually 9 – 14 year) solar sunspot cycle and a Maunder Minimum, when there are virtually no sunspots for many decades. The last Maunder Minimum put Europe in the fridge for about 40 years. Or so some people believe…. the deep freeze can also be attributed to the stalling of the thermohaline current, which might or might not have something to do with the sun.  I am seeing the ‘problem with climate change’ as not being so much a problem with the planet as a problem with interpreting what’s going on around us.
The scientific problem (how do prove that we know what is happening by developing successful predictive models) is  aggravated by bumps in the research road.  Human beings a) live for about 80 years and we’re trying to see patterns that are godlike in duration and grandeur, b) see patterns where none may be, c) fail to see patterns because they’re too close to a problem and d) hold opinions and field arguments for reasons which may line up with their breeding rights and status rather than the facts in the case.

So is the earth getting warmer?  Well, yeah. Ice doesn’t melt without getting warmer, and 2007 was a f*cking catastrophe for glaciers and polar ice.  But in ten years of bad weather we could get every cubic inch of that ice back and then some; this winter was an interesting study for me in how very minor changes in weather patterns and temperatures can make immense differences in snowfall.  East Van got rain!  I got 1 foot of snow – twice!  (And had to clean it off the f*cking CAN car, both times, but I’m from Ontario and I am used to cleaning a foot of wet snow off cars.)

The debate goes on, but I have one plea for the boffins – please continue to work on food crop seeds which can deal with temperature and moisture extremes, because I suspect that will do more good for humanity than arguing about what kinds of spots the sun finds fashionable this year.

I am toasting almonds for biscotti.

The landpeer will be showing the apartment starting Monday, so I gotta tidy up.

A turtle that does tricks?

I saw the video on CNN.com.  It rolls over, plays dead and shakes a claw. A behavioural psychologist spent ten years training the reptile.
When I was a kid we had a tortoise named Torpid.  He did two memorable things.  He shat all over my Mary Poppins Pop-up Book,  and he ran away.  Yes, we put him outside to stretch his legs and he was a bit better at it than we thought.