Year: 2024

Maple moss monster

I recently learned that licorice ferns (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) often live on bigleaf maple trees (Acer macrophyllum). The ferns come out this time of year when the maples drop their leaves and let the light through. I had always admired this kind of moss monster, but I am only now realizing they are almost all maples. 💚

A photo of a temperate rainforest at eye level in winter. In front is a tree trunk covered in thick, lumpy, yellow-green moss and single fronds of licorice fern. Behind is a red cedar trunk and various green branches and shrubs.

Ah, gaps

The “Persistent Gaps” section of this new 🇨🇦 report on long covid is killing me.

Definitions and clinical guidance, sub-populations (how different groups are impacted), care and treatment, pathogenesis (underlying biological mechanisms and causes), socio-economic impact, and prevention. That’s… the whole thing. Long covid is one big gap. Laugh/cry.

I am happy to see they at least mentioned prevention this time. The previous reports that detailed how long covid was common, disabling, and permanent but somehow inevitable filled me with so much rage.

The new “recommended priority action” to “incentivize investment in improving indoor air quality in buildings where large numbers of people gather” is belated but good!

Department of chainsaws for hands

I made myself a horror movie bingo card for October, and I am trying to think of a name for a trope I love.

What do you call that thing where characters have ridiculous and cool DIY assistive tech? I am thinking about chainsaws as prosthetic hands, homemade motorcycle-wheelchairs, and the other mayhem that shows up mainly in horror movies.

“Fuckin Rad Improvised Accessibility” is my draft so far 😂🤘🏻

Negatives

Oh hello, “Mx” as an honorific. Nice to see that you are out of scope for the LDML Person Name specification, like all the other titles, generation terms, and credentials.

A partial screenshot of text that says, "or validation (Mr, Ms., Mx., Dr., Jr., M.D., etc.).

Makes me think about that time a lawyer for Big Tobacco referred to “No Smoking” signs as great advertising for smoking. The existence of this non-smoking area implies the existence of some other pro-smoking area…

(Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting in a café, and ordered a coffee with no cream. The waitress came back a moment later and said, “I’m so sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream — could I bring you a coffee with no milk?”)

Audio picture books?

I listen to a lot of audiobooks for small children and this is the first one I’ve encountered that includes image descriptions. It’s such a good idea! The small child I was listening with was so excited that I had to pause the story for celebrations. Alt text all the things.

The book is Secret of the Jade Bangle, by Linda Trinh.

I need to be precise in talking about it because infantilization is real, but there can be so much solidarity between children and disabled people.

Last year’s teacher made sure our giant hepa filter got set up properly in this year’s new classroom without me even asking. This should not be necessary but under the circumstances it is such a relief to have an accomplice.

Triumph!

Photo of a black and white wasp climbing on a raspberry bud

I don’t know a lot about bugs but I count it as a win when I see a new native insect in my garden, especially a predator. I think this is Dolichovespula maculata, who goes by many names but the coolest one is blackjacket.

Our yard was all lawn when we moved here a couple years ago, and eerily devoid of bugs. I am feeling emotional that there are apparently enough flies and caterpillars now to support this terrifying new friend 😭

Non-weird smells for once

Close photo of a tray of lemon verbena cuttings. Their tender, green leaves grow in groups of three around green stems

My very first harvest of lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) is somehow ready to dry. I only rescued this friend from the discount section at Canadian Tire a couple of weeks ago and haven’t gotten around to repotting it, but it managed to transform from straggly to lush and fluffy anyway. On brand somehow– a plant with very happy vibes.

The horror!

I started reading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein for the discussion of disinformation, but I stayed because it’s secretly a great analysis of horror movies and books.

I would have read this much sooner if I had known it was going to involve exploring doubles and imposters in scary stories all the way back past Freud, to fairy changelings, golems, and theology about the duality of soul and body.

Most horror movie analysis I’ve read picks one theme (racism, feminism, imperialism, or whatever) and looks at all the ways that has been expressed in horror.

It’s a fun change to read a book that picks one image (the double) and looks at all the horrifying themes it can express

Cracked…

I’m busting out last fall’s dried hawthorn berries for a project today, and realizing that I cracked them before drying. Fun!

It’s my first time trying this method. Hopefully they will steep faster than intact berries, so they work better in herbal tea blends.

Close-up photo of five dried hawthorn berries in a white ceramic bowl. The berries are dark red-brown and somewhat smashed, with the seeds showing. A few have long thin stems attached.

Notable heatwaves of kid lit

Cover of Moon Pops by Heena Baek, showing a night scene of illustrated animals wearing summer clothes and holding glowing yellow popsicles

My favourite heatwave / climate change picture book is this one, where one night it is so hot that the moon melts.

It has everything: apartment-dwellers helping each other, a grandma with good ideas, climate refugees (from the moon), environmental restoration, and an ending that is cute and encouraging, or maybe “icy and sweet”.

Gonna go make popsicles and work on my neighbourhood extreme weather prep. Sending courage to my fellow west coasters.

Cover of Rattletrap Car by Phillis Root, showing a cartoon family piled into an old car with steam coming out the front.

My runner-up favourite heatwave / climate change picture book is this one, where a family is trying to get to the lake but their car keeps breaking down.

A baby is taken seriously as a person with valid ideas, a dad does all the parenting, it’s a solid right-to-repair story, and the car is correctly portrayed as unglamorous and annoying. But the noises it makes are a lot of fun to read.

More inadvertent pandemic art

Photo of a small wood panel leaning against a plant pot. On the panel is a black and white stencilled image of a shadowy face in a white medical mask

I bought this in about 2005 from an artist who I think had been living in Hong Kong during SARS aka SARS-CoV-1. I wish I could remember his name.

This piece is so muted and only postcard-sized. It was insignificant in my home for 15 years, and now it pops out to every (tested or masked or quarantined) visitor.

Always a happy sight

Dark photo of a nightclub stage where three musicians are playing under red lighting. In the center, the drummer is wearing a black, ear-loop mask.

Shout out to the drummer from Sumac for performing in a mask the other night. And shout out to Vancouver Jazz Fest for having an early show with a bit of seating so this Long Covid / ME/CFS spoonie could attend some nightlife (in a respirator).

(Not perfect– stairs-only access! But I appreciated that they marked that info on the ad at least.)

Berry names for birds

I heard one of my favourite bird songs in Coquitlam last night (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory), a loopy upward spiral song belonging to the Swainson’s Thrush.

They were singing in a tree in a friend’s yard where my kiddo had been picking salmonberries.

Just like this:

I realized I hadn’t thought about the Swainson’s Thrush since I learned about the idea of using bird names for birds so I went looking for non-eponym common names.

Some Wikipedia editor loves that bird song as much as I do, because after Olive-Backed Thrush they listed Reverbius Maximus Harmonius.

I realized even harder, that since the last time I heard Swainson’s Thrushes singing I had read the excellent book Held By The Land, by Sḵwx̱wú7mesh herbalist Leigh Joseph.

She mentions a story about the thrushes singing to make the salmonberries ripen, and I remember that reading that made me yelp in delight because even I, who have picked salmonberries maybe three times, associate those bird songs and those berries.

I re-read that page of Held By The Land just now, and she gives another name for the Swainson’s Thrush: Salmonberry Birds. I think I’ll go with that for my #BirdNamesForBirds.

Bombus voz

Photo of a mostly black bumblebee flying towards a purple sage flower. The bee has a thin yellow stripe on their butt, yellow shoulders, and a furry yellow head.

Identifying my yard bumblebees continues with these very fast-moving and hard to photograph garden friends. I think this is Bombus vosnesenkii, the yellow-faced bumblebee.

The usual joke about bumblebees is that they meander slowly and bump into things. You know, bumble it up. But these seem to be what a peak performing bee physique looks like. Fast, precise, extensive pollination going on in my sage plant.

Big bombus

Photo of a fuzzy bumblebee feeding in purple sage flowers. The bee is black with two yellow stripes on the thorax and one yellow stripe on its butt.

More yard bumblebees … I started noticing them while doing an herbalism practice of visiting the same plants often to see what changed. Turns out different plants have different bumblebees (of course). These ones love the sage.

My best guess is Bombus flavifrons, the yellow-fronted bumblebee, but I’m going to try to hit up the BC Native Bee monthly zoom to get a more solid ID.

Update: several bee nerds agree this is more likely Bombus californicus. Related update: the BC Native Bee monthly study group is a lot of fun.