Thursday morning things

* I think I'm getting over this cold or whatever-it-was. I'm feeling better this morning - coughing less, don't have that dried-out feeling in my throat, less tired.

I did start taking Vitamin D again in hopes that maybe I can build my immune system up a little (I have had three URIs in six months, which is a new record high for me). My friend Purlewe suggested the gummi kind, since the big pills upset my stomach. So far so good. (I also - because the pharmacy had a BOGO on the NatureMaid brand - bought gummi biotin, because even though I take a B complex, my nails have been brittle and I feel like my hair is thinning a little. And yes, I had my thyroid tested last year and will have a blood work up again this summer)

It's also possible that I'm just getting hit with a lot of novel virueses; I have had several students (both this semester and last) who have school-aged kids and they seem to be sick a lot.

* Yesterday, a Twitter thing was to post four movies that "made" you or were important to you. A few people started doing books instead, and I tend to be more attached to books I love than I am to movies, so I did that. I picked:

1. A Sand County Almanac (related to my career, and also, showed me how a love of things in the humanities - Leopold makes Biblical references and also classical ones in the book, but isn't all "look at me bringing the Two Cultures together about it)

2. Middlemarch, which remains my favorite novel ever

3. Traitor's Purse, to represent the mystery novels I love and the concept that good SHOULD triumph over evil in the end, and that happy endings (Campion marries the love of his life at the end) should happen

4. Tales from Moominvalley, because it is where we read about The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters and I am STILL like that no matter how hard I try, so....

And then I realized: If I wanted an ecology-type book that helped "make" me, I have to go back before Sand County Almanac because I was already in my 20s when I first read that. And I thought of "That Michigan book" (but couldn't remember the title.)

I went looking for it and remembered the title before I found it: Mother Nature's Michigan, by Oscar ("Ozz") Warbeck.

I remember when I got this book - I was about eight, we were visiting Sleeping Bear Dunes, and there it was, on display at the Visitor Center (or maybe it was a nearby Michigan state park? Warbach worked for the Michigan DNR). My dad was always up for buying books we were interested in, especially if they were science books, so he bought it for me.

It was fundamentally cartoons - but cartoons that taught you stuff and it was really kind of a good ecology primer, with discussions of things like predation and competition. And that's where I learned that skunks (even though they can carry rabies and will spray) are beneficial because they eat grubs, and why we are concerned about DDT (which had been fairly-newly banned in the US then). And that's where I learned the basics of the counter-current blood flow thing ducks and geese have going on in their feet, so they can stand on a frozen lake without their feet freezing, and about how deer have "preferred" and "starvation" foods (and what a browse line was, which I later witnessed in Illinois, especially in areas where the deer populations got really high).

And I realize now - while was partly my mom's influence (she is a botanist), having access to things like Warbach's book as a kid was what got me interested in nature (or kept me interested: I think many kids who have access to the outdoors get interested in nature but a lot lose it) and helped make me an ecologist.

I don't know why but when I was a kid I imagined Warbach was already gone....if I had known he was still alive in the 1990s, I might have tried to find an address and write to him to let him know how important his book was to me. But apparently he had a good long life anyway. And I kind of suspect I'm not the only kid who went into some sort of field biology after reading his book.

Maybe I should try scanning a page or two, just for the interest and so you can see the style. It's actually fairly sophisticated ecological information, but presented in a way that made sense to me when I was a kid.

And yes, I've kept it all these years (though that's not so unusual for me: I have an entire bookshelf, about four feet high by maybe 2 1/2 wide, that is packed full of books I loved as a child and either kept my copy of, or bought a copy of after I was an adult)

* Today is the anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. Both the local channel and Channel 9 are running "memories of."

My main thought on it: Killing innocent people is never the answer to your problems no matter what they may be. (And that is also true of school shootings). (And honestly, there are almost no times when killing another person solves anything. Yes, perhaps, if your life and your children's lives are in immediate mortal danger from that person, I will make an exception, but....the OKC bombing was the event that really first made me realize there are people out there who care so little for their fellow humans that they are willing to kill people - even kids - that they don't even know in order to make a political point).

I dunno. I remember the whole thing, even though I lived in Illinois at the time: someone coming into the Biostats class I was taking to deliver the news, none of us realizing how bad it was (I think I made some comment about "oh no, I hope if our tax forms got blown up they'll give us time to refile" because in those days, the paper forms - I don't think there was any other kind - got mailed to OKC from our region). Later, we found out.

(It's funny how "tvs in places there aren't normally tvs" featured in the big-bad news stories of my life - I remember in high school, the Challenger explosion, and how one of the art teachers pulled out a tiny black and white tv he had somewhere to try to get news, and how when the OKC bombing happened we didn't realize how big and bad it was until someone hooked up a small tv in one of the offices, and how, on September 11, 2001, we all stood clustered around a small tv in the secretary's office watching the coverage....)

But yeah. I think that's where I first got the inkling that there were a lot of people who could do very broken things in the world. (I think Columbine was after that? Maybe?) And it does seem a lot of these bad things do happen in April. TS Eliot opined April was the cruelest month (though I have read that was for personal reasons: seeing the spring advance when he was depressed made the depression seem worse) but I do sometimes wonder if there is something about a big seasonal change that brings out abnormalities in human behavior.

* I had the AC guys out to check the unit yesterday. Thursday night it was really hot and humid, and I put it on, and it seemed like it was struggling. And that seemed to continue into Friday, and I was worried.

Then I remembered: privet had grown up around the unit, and the "head guy" from the place who installed it fundamentally said to me "Don't let that happen" so I went out and clipped all the privet and also changed the filter (Old House Problems: the filter set up is really too small for the unit, so I need to be SURE to change it monthly, even though the filters say "good for three months" on them). I also moved the dehumidifier (not that I need it now, it's Sahara dry) into the kitchen, because its exhaust was blowing on the thermostat and I suspected that was affecting things.

However, on Monday, when I put it back on (after the chilly weekend), the air coming out felt a lot colder....so maybe clipping the privet was what it took? I decided to still have the guys out on the grounds that getting it checked up was a good idea and probably worth the money.

They did clean out the compressor area (it tends to get leaves in it no matter what I do) but pronounced it otherwise sound, so....I guess I just keep up with brush control and changing the filters, but I am grateful to know I'll have a powered-up AC for when it does get really hot. (They said the pressure in the unit was good, which was what I was most concerned with - if it needed a recharge of refrigerant)

I always think of that bit from an old Simpsons episode when they somehow get air conditioning and Homer says "Mmmmm....refrigerated air" when my air conditioning is working right, and I walk into the house on a hot day.

* I also broke down and bought (for $30) a new weather radio, one of the next-generation ones I can set for my county so I don't get alerts for Denton or some darn place in the middle of the night. It's supposed to come today. I have my old unit (bought when I moved down here in 1999) that still works and I'm wondering if maybe there's a place I can donate it because while it's not 100% up to date it will STILL alert of bad weather, and maybe if someone doesn't have one at all? I don't know. I might ask at church if the secretary knows of a place. I have a hatred of just throwing away "outmoded" things that still work, but I also hate like I'm pressing a "third best" thing off on someone who simply can't afford the newest. I don't know.