A little while back I needed a gift for a friend, and I came across some pretty hand-knit gloves at a craft fair that I knew she’d like. They were fingerless but still quite warm and they’d go nicely with the wooly shawl I’d gotten her the year before.
Never mind that it was the middle of summer. I was sure she’d be wearing them every day anyway. At the office.
The Carlton Complex, the largest wildfire in the history of Washington state, started on July 14, 2014 in the foothills of the North Cascades. When it was finally extinguished, almost 40 days later, it had burned more than 250 homes and disrupted thousands of lives in Okanogan County, a rural county on the northern edge of the state. Over the past year, I’ve been reporting on the county’s recovery from the fire, and along the way I heard about an artist named Ian Boyden.
In the summer of 2007, during a trip to Okanogan County from his home in southern Washington, Boyden decided to hike up an 8,000-foot peak called Tiffany Mountain. He’d read that it was one of the most striking climbs in the Pacific Northwest, and he was not disappointed. “It was probably the most transformative hike of my life,” he told me recently.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about my bloodlines. Perhaps it’s my impending fatherhood, perhaps I’m just at that age. I’ve been tracing my grandfathers’ heritages back through the Revolutionary War and to the Tudor conquest of Ireland. I’ve planned a trip to Norway, which is my grandmother’s homeland, and hope to visit a lighthouse that was once manned by my great great grandfather.
And I had my genome sequenced by 23&Me. I didn’t do it for my family heritage or to find out how much Neanderthal DNA I have (a disappointing 2.7 percent, given the size of my brow and forehead). I wanted to know something deeper. I wanted to understand why I am how I am. I wanted to get the genetics of my personality. Continue reading
I may have stolen my neighbor’s tiny cherry tomatoes right off the vine. They were so glowingly red, so warm, how could I help myself?
Maybe “stolen” is a little harsh because I didn’t have to go onto her property to get the tomatoes, we share-crop them in pots in my back driveway. And after all, she was going away and asked if I would harvest any that came ripe while she was gone. And I knew she was gone but I have to be honest now, I didn’t know when she was coming back. For all I knew, she was back already. I’m in the realm of putative petty larceny here. Continue reading
July 27 – 31, 2015
Christie’s dog continues to live life as stupidly as possible, this time involving a skunk; and Christie solves the problem with the power of science. This post is a public service.
Guest Chris Arnade’s pond is drying up; he saves the life of a one-eyed spring peeper but those tadpoles might never graduate into frogs. He’s got heroic, heart-rending pictures.
In yet another public service, Helen squarely faces the dilemma of the CSA and her frig, applies her superb mental abilities, and shares the solution. Except for beets, she hasn’t solved beets yet.
What if Cassie didn’t obey the doctors and before she went into the hospital, she ate a cherry scone? What would she risk? Would they even know?
The week ends with the latest in LWON’s preoccupation with hapless animals: guest Emily Underwood’s hamster, Hamlet, may well have committed suicide. He was prone to that kind of thing.
A week ago, I found out that the baby I’m carrying is breech. Instead of being head down, she is stubbornly head up, not such a good position for birthing. Since I am only a few weeks away from my due date, it’s unlikely she’ll flip on her own. And if she stays breech, I’ll likely have to have a C-section.
So yesterday morning I went to the hospital to have a doctor try and manhandle her into the correct position, a procedure called external cephalic version (or “version” for short). It’s a fancy name for a rather brutish procedure: A doctor clasps the baby’s head, a nurse grabs the baby’s butt, and then they try to thrust her into the right position. This works about half the time. And there are risks: The baby’s heart rate can fall, the umbilical cord can get squeezed, the placenta can tear, the amniotic sac can rupture. Once in a great while the doctor has to take the baby out right away. Continue reading
I’ve done it.
I figured out how to eat vegetables.
Maybe everyone else figured this out a long time ago. But it took me until this year to figure out how to stuff myself with plant parts all summer long.
It’s a two-step process. One, a service. The second, a device on my refrigerator door. Continue reading
When my first daughter started getting teased for her obsession with sharks I comforted her by lying that everyone had an animal they especially loved. When pressed I randomly choose frogs (I was hung over and just wanted quiet), which started a pro-frog avalanche: Walls filled with frog paintings, desks with frog playdoh figurines, and my birthday cakes with green and yellow frosting and frog-related presents. It worked. Five years later I was decidedly pro frog. My Brooklyn apartment had three terrariums and each month I received both Reptile Magazine (under Dr. Jumpy Arnade) and a shipment of live crickets.
A year ago when I moved upstate, I hit frog jackpot. I hadn’t chosen my house based on its frog potential, but I couldn’t have done much better. It is on ten wet acres, has a small pond, and is surrounded by forest and wetlands. At night the house fills with the remarkably loud white noise of frogs sexing, punctuated by the sound of two bullfrogs in the pond sexing. After a rain my long driveway, lined by marshes, becomes a checkerboard of frogs hoping to sex.
My pond, besides being home to the two bullfrogs (since named Mario and Luigi), is filled with small frogs that live on the edges. On warmer nights I sprawl in the mud and bush, taking long exposures as they hunt beneath the moon. It has cost me a bevy of tick bites and my first case of Lyme disease.
This summer, until three week ago, was wet, and the noise at night especially loud. When the rain stopped, the noise also dropped, and my pool started filling with desperate frogs. Continue reading
