100 Day Challenge #100: The End and the Beginning

Stories to Last January 21, 2022

This is it. The 100th post in my 100 Day Challenge. It took me several days to post this, because I didn’t want it to end. Also, I wanted to write something terribly important and profound on my last day.

Well, forget that.

It’s more important to just do it. And that’s one of the things I’ve learned in completing this Challenge.

I learned a few things.

This Challenge—with a few self-imposed boundaries—had to be by my rules, not anyone else’s. It took me 156 days to do 100 posts. That was unexpected. But, overall, I’m okay with it. I got there! Yeah, I’m also working full-time, raising a family, dealing with menopause, have the pandemic in the background (and sometimes the foreground). And there’s also just who I am. I like flexible consistency, another oxymoron that makes sense if you think about it.

By making my own rules, and deciding that some flexibility was absolutely an okay part of that, man, that was satisfying. I truly worked for myself, as my own boss, my own way, and without regard for others’ “best practices” or advice. It was so freeing! And it worked for me.

The same is true about choosing what I wanted to write. That made this challenge like Christmas every day, so friggin’ enjoyable. That’s worth paying attention to!

As always, I had to allow myself imperfection. Masterpieces don’t get written. Readers decide what is a masterpiece. Such a title is merely a judgment in retrospect and has no place in the creative process.

Writing for myself primarily was awesome. I had to remind myself of this goal several times. When I did, I had more fun, expectations flaked away, judgments too.

I did love having the goal of 100 posts. I like working towards a concrete goal.

I didn’t want to write my 100th Day Challenge and come to the end, like when you’re racing through a great book and so sad when you know that in a few pages, it will be over.

So, what is my next goal, I ask myself? Because I want to keep doing this. Having a goal created “permission” to do this thing I love. I didn’t have to make money at it. I didn’t have to please anyone with it. I’d really like to break through that glass ceiling of permission I seem to still require to do what I love. I definitely have to reflect on that more.

What else have I learned?

Yes, I work better with goals and deadlines. But in my enthusiasm, I sometimes have difficulty being realistic about how long certain things take. Perhaps to realistically make a deadline, I calculate how long I think it will take and times it by 1.5.

I LOVE the freedom to write in a number of genres and styles. Limiting myself to one genre or one style would be, frankly, boring and repetitive. I love research! Love, love, love.

The more vulnerable my posts, the more messages I received from readers with gratitude. Wow. That’s cool.

Non-fiction is way easier for me than fiction, but I also really want to write and publish more fiction. I love making up stories, especially characters. I’m not as confident about my fiction as my non-fiction. But I write non-fiction every day. So maybe it’s time to give myself permission to write fictional schlock, whatever I want, experiment, play, and share to become more acquainted with MY fiction, build my confidence, my ease with the genre, pour in some of that same vulnerability.

Imperfection will have to be a goal if I take on a 100-Day Challenge with more fiction. Hmmm. I still love my non-fiction, so maybe it’s a ratio thing. I have to think about that.

Instead of dwelling on the sadness of this challenge ending, I think I’ll be sad for a short time and focus on the next beginning, an opportunity to work towards the next goal.

In the meantime, here are some quotes that speak to me, related to my reflections on this Challenge. I love quotes!

It’s been a great ride!

Stay tuned for the next one…

As Confucius said: “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Working for what you want is important. If you do not you will be working for what you don’t want.

“If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” Kevin Ngo

“If you want something you’ve never had, then you’ve got to do something you’ve never done.” Anonymous

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. — James M. Barrie

Forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart, and success will come to you. — Oprah Winfrey

Any human being is really good at certain things. The problem is that the things you’re good at come naturally. And since most people are pretty modest instead of an arrogant S.O.B. like me, what comes naturally, you don’t see as a special skill. It’s just you. It’s what you’ve always done.  — Stephen Jay Gould

If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion. — Mia Hamm

There is no passion to be found playing small–in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. — Nelson Mandela

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. — Mark Twain

I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. — Steve Jobs

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. — Les Brown

Whatever you make, base it upon that which is most important to you. Only then will it have depth and meaning, and only then will it resonate with others. ― Christopher Paolini

Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love. — Steve Pavlina

Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it … I have written because it fulfilled me … I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever. — Stephen King

Hide not your talents, they for use were made, what’s a sundial in the shade? ― Benjamin Franklin

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong. — Ella Fitzgerald

Do what you love; you’ll be better at it. It sounds pretty simple, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t get this one right away. — LL Cool J

Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined. — Johnny Carson

100 Day Challenge #99: The Pandemic Effect

Stories to Last January 15, 2022

I suspect that a lot of people, like me, are moving through life carrying a scratchy backpack of low-level anxiety. Or high anxiety, more like a boulder on the back. The Pandemic effect. I wouldn’t be surprised if anti-anxiety meds prescriptions in the US are at an all-time high. (Indeed, there was a 34% increase in these prescriptions in May 2020.)

With all the questions, uncertainty and fear around Covid with its mutations and people in denial, its effect on the workforce and supply chain, the logistics with kids in school, navigating testing and masks with mass shortages and less effective knockoffs, I mean, it’s disturbing.

And yet, almost two years into this, I sometimes forget about this external force and the toll it takes as I move through the tasks of my day. It’s like the monster in the corner of your eye, the shadows in the background. So, I’ve found myself at times thinking recently, “What’s wrong with me?” Not thinking to factor in “Oh yeah, we’re currently facing the most contagious virus in human history. Yeah that might have an effect on my mood and energy.”

For example, a few weeks ago, for the first time in my life, I had almost a full week when I didn’t want to do ANYTHING. At all. I’m usually like a kid in a candy store about life, excited to write the next story, take the next adventure, perform the next gig. Or if not excited, I just have a lot on my plate. I have a daily list of tasks for work and home. As the keeper of the calendar for my family, I’m constantly adding events, checking dates, making plans. I have many interests pulling me in multiple directions at once. Even before the Pandemic, it was too much at times.

I find myself reminiscing heavily these days on the times in my life when I was focused almost completely on just one thing and how joyful that was: the first months of new motherhood, the first few months after I quit teaching and started my writing career, my first writer’s artist-in-residency. And included in this list is the Shelter-In of 2020.

I know it was miserable for many people. And, of course, outside of our home was this mysterious killer virus and an unstable government. But inside the house, for my husband and me, it was bonus time with our teenage boys that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. We played board games, went for hikes, and took turns cooking meals, seeking out new recipes on line. We all cleaned house together. The boys had their pods of friends right from the start, since it was clear to us that this could be a long-term situation.

My husband and I grew closer. We had more time to talk and connect. He was unemployed for six months and took on home improvement projects, something he normally didn’t have time for. We spent more time in our own backyard than we had in years. He and the boys built retaining walls and flattened out an area for a trampoline, which we all bounced on.

I had to up my game in my work to earn for the family, so some pressure was on, but my hubby was available to pick up the slack. Without carpools to school, social events and band rehearsals, the days were longer. The pace was slower. Though I missed the time spent on my own creative pursuits, a young adult novel, a children’s book series, gigs with our bands—all still waiting in the wings—it was very clear what the focus was: income, home and, primarily, family.

Life—if we didn’t watch the news—was simpler and way more manageable.

But now, trying to live an active life again with Covid, it’s freakin’ stressful. I’m constantly thinking about the safety of my family and the risks in travel and activities and events. A friend just shared a New York Times article that warns against knockoff N-95s that provide false security. Great! My kids need tests to go back to school, but no test appointments are available. Rapid tests may or may not work. I spend my time researching walk-in sites and where rapid tests might be available. Then there’s supply shortages making certain items hard to get or more expensive and a workforce shortage, causing businesses to shut down.

Photo by Anastasiia Chepinska on Unsplash

It’s all a bit too much at times.

Even writing about this is stressing me out!

So, like many others, I’m watching more television and other forms of passive entertainment than pre-Covid. I take lots of deep breaths and breaks in my work day. I’m learning a bit about meditation. I practice daily gratitude. I listen to a lot of audiobooks to keep the anxious thoughts at bay. My daily exercise (for me, dancing and regular walks with friends) has become even more important for my sanity. My dog has become my support animal. Seriously. I have occasional escape fantasies about living in the countryside or the mountains, places where there are fewer people and where the pace is slower. I continue to have hours or days when I don’t want to do much at all. And I decided to try a low dose of anti-anxiety meds. I’ve always been reluctant. But right now, it’s helping.

Most importantly, instead of being hard on myself for feeling “lax or lazy,” berating myself for being less productive and easily distracted, I’m giving myself a break, recognizing the impact of the Pandemic Effect.

Because it’s true, although it depends on how you measure it, that Omicron is the most contagious virus (or one of the most) in history. The other disease comparable is the measles.

Physician Roby Bhattacharyya, an infectious disease expert at Massachusetts General Hospital did a calculation to imagine who would win in a race between omicron and measles, another of the world’s most-contagious viruses.

“One person with measles infects 15 others on average if none are vaccinated, compared to the six people infected by omicron. But the key lies in the so-called ‘generation time’: i.e. the number of days that elapse between when the first person is infectious and when those they infect also become infectious. With measles, that takes about 12 days. In the case of omicron, this only takes four to five days. ‘One case of measles would cause 15 cases within 12 days. One case of omicron would give rise to another six at four days, 36 cases at eight days and 216 after 12 days,’ explained Bhattacharyya.”

So, I’m living life with precautions, getting my work done but realizing the logistics of the Pandemic just take time. I’m doing my best to take care of myself and my family, but also doing a little less and expecting less of myself. And it helps to repeat my new mantra to myself all day long. I think we all have to choose our own, but this sure helps me, reminds me:

Be loving;

Be kind;

And what you feel is fine.

100 Day Challenge #98: Being Seen as Other

Stories to Last January 8, 2022

I realize I am highly privileged, being light skinned in America, fitting into the mainstream, growing up in a limited Democracy with relative peace within our borders, always expecting to get a college degree, having certain lifestyle entitlements, and in other ways too. I try to never take any of it for granted.

As a woman, I have had my freedom threatened and have known fear, objectification and emotional and sexual abuse. But even with these things, I know I will never fully understand what my friends with darker skin than mine have experienced all their lives. I can empathize, and I do, but I can never completely know their realities. Nor those of any of my friends who, simply because of their appearance, experience prejudice often.

I desperately want their experiences to improve, for there to be equity and inclusion for all. For example, it’s time to see skin color for what it is, variations in the pigment melanin. That’s it. Every single one of us on this planet have variations that make us each unique, even among 7 billion people. And melanin is just one of our many variations, like body type, hair color, speaking voice, and so much more.

We all have our own unique cultures too. We certainly identify with various “categories” or groups of people. That’s one of the ways we make sense of our world, categorizing. The key is staying aware of this and reexamining often to avoid stereotyping, pigeonholing, generalizing, and discriminating.

It’s hard on a person when they think they should belong to one culture or another and have to change who they are to try to do so. I suspect most people have twisted themselves into a pretzel at one time or another to “fit in.” I know I have.

We have so many influences, among them our local cultures, neighborhood, schools, work environments, the friends we choose, the people we meet, iconic experiences. The strong influence of family culture is usually most dominant. Ultimately, this all meshes together to become our individual culture. That’s what defines us. That’s what creates our character and how we see ourselves.

And individual culture is not stagnant. We redefine ourselves throughout our lives. We can change our character. We have new influences all the time.

Because of the judgments of society, however, some of us are much more limited when expanding or changing our culture, spreading our wings. When our outward appearance is judged negatively, repeatedly, or continually stereotyped, it’s easy to internalize that judgment. Especially without family or community support, without the ability to move out of a confining situation. Outside influences take their toll: poverty, lack of resources, lack of lifestyle models and possibilities, the lack of education, others’ perceptions of our faces and bodies, being told we’re stupid or ugly or no good, especially by people you trust, like family. It doesn’t always take much for that judgment to become internal, bringing along self-doubt and low esteem, self-disgust, and, ultimately, shame.

Shame sucks. (understatement)

For people that are privileged enough to look like and be identified by others as part of mainstream society, I think it’s essential to our education to experience what it’s like to be the “different” one. Visiting somewhere or living somewhere where we are not the mainstream is one way to do this.

One small but meaningful moment meant a lot to me in this regard. Back in the 1990s, I was out for a motorcycle ride with my friend Erik. I stayed seated on the back of his black Goldwing, a huge bike, while he was taking cash out of an ATM. We were both wearing black leather jackets and black helmets. An older woman pulled into the parking lot and slammed on her breaks when she saw us, stopping her car even before parking. She stared at me on that bike. Very slowly, with a look of distrust and mild fear on her face, she pulled into a parking spot at a short distance from us. She sat in her car, continuing to glance my way nervously, her doors locked, her hands gripping the steering wheel, waiting for us to leave before she got out of her car to go to the ATM machine. To her, we looked like a potential threat.

I was teaching high school at the time. I remember wanting to call out to her and say, “Look Lady, I’m a teacher! I’m a good person.”

Being judged as a threat was something entirely new for me.

It was only one moment—not a lifetime of it—but nonetheless, it gave me some insight. It awoke me more to that experience.

Prior to that, I studied in London for my junior year in college. I’ve written about this in another post. Unexpectedly, I experienced a great deal of negative stereotyping as an American. It happened as soon as anyone heard my dialect or learned where I was from. More than once I heard things like, “Oh, you’re a Yank,” in a dismissive tone and even “Bloody Yank” and “Go Home Yank.” A couple times strangers in shops mocked my accent. Several times, I could feel and hear myself being judged as inferior in different ways to Brits, less cultured, less intelligent. Even my temporary British boyfriend seemed to judge me as less smart. Yeah, of course I could barely decipher a clue in the Sunday London Times crossword! I didn’t grow up in that culture. I didn’t know a lot of the references.

As a defense, I developed, somewhat consciously, somewhat unconsciously, a British accent about half way through the year. I obviously wasn’t native or at least couldn’t be placed geographically anywhere specific in the country. I wasn’t a Brummie, a Geordie, a Scouse. I wasn’t from Yorkshire or the West Country. I didn’t even sound exactly like a native Londoner. People would ask, “Are you Spanish?”

But I never again heard a derogatory comment for being a “Yank.”

It has always bothered me a great deal when people are dismissive of others based on their occupation too, treating the custodian, the gardener, the barista, the bus driver, anyone as inferior or just disregarding their humanity or not seeing them at all. It happens way too often. I try to never be on my phone or dismissive with other people in general. And man, this kind of status play happens all the time! I had a fellow writer, a short story and novel writer once ask, “What are you writing?” And when I told him a young adult novel, he said something to the effect of, “Oh, no literary fiction then?”

I learned a lot about status play between people when I was studying acting in college. You can physically give yourself more status by standing taller, looking a certain way, body positioning, expression, as well as rhetoric. I became painfully aware of how I habitually assumed a smaller status back then. It helped a lot to start to change it. Although it took a while.

The short of it is that we all have to work at staying open-minded. It is my sincere belief that no one is inferior or superior to one another. No one. To say they are is to cast judgment based on certain criteria like money, beauty, occupation, style of dress or melanin, surface things.

We’re all human.

100 Day Challenge #97: Can You Tell Lichen from Moss?

Stories to Last January 5, 2022

Be a nature detective. On your next hike, see if you can identify lichen versus moss.

This can be tricky. Some types of lichen and moss look similar. They can even grow on the same rock or tree. To confuse matters further, some lichens are called mosses, like reindeer moss and caribou moss. Spanish moss is neither a lichen nor a moss but a flowering plant called a bromeliad.

Use these simple clues to solve the mystery: Is it lichen or is it moss?

Moss or lichen?
Lichen-Photo by Jacob Copus on Unsplash

Moss or lichen?
Tionesta, Allegheny National Forest-by IvoShandor (CC-wikimedia)

Lichens are not a plant, while mosses are. Lichen is a fungi and algae sisterhood. Thus, mosses will have leaves and stems (sometimes very tiny ones). Lichens will not.
Mosses only grow in wet or moist, dark habitats, like on a rock in a stream or a tree in a damp forest. Lichen can survive in a variety of habitats, in full sunlight and damp places and even in the frozen tundra. It can also grow on manmade structures like metal poles and fences.
Lichen has a lot of different looks but is usually a dull, flat, leafy, crusty growth or, sometimes on trees, grows like dry shrub.
Moss is typically soft and looks like a green mat that you might place on your porch.
Lichen tends to appear on unhealthy or dying trees. It’s rarely seen on healthy, fast-growing trees.

Lichen is actually quite amazing! Here are some fun facts about lichen that I lichen a lot.

This photo actually shows both moss and lichen. Which is which?
Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash

The fungi and algae in lichens live in a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. That means they live together and benefit from each other. Algae provides a food source for the fungi. Fungi provide algae with some water and nutrients and a sturdy, protected home. A match made in heaven!
Many people think Lichen kills trees, but it doesn’t hurt them at all. Lichen is self-sustaining, taking what it needs from air and rain.
Over 6% of the earth’s surface is estimated to be covered by lichens. There are over 20,000 different kinds in a variety of colors and shapes. They are found on every continent.
Lichen is usually the first type of organism to appear after a natural disaster, such as a fire. It can survive when plants can’t.
Scientists use lichen as a natural air quality indicator. It only thrives when the air quality is clean, because it absorbs everything in the environment around it. It actually helps clean our air by converting carbon dioxide to oxygen and absorbing any pollutants in the area.
Lichen has many uses! Very colorful lichen can be used for dyes for clothing. It can be used for antibiotic uses. You might even find it as an ingredient in your deodorant or toothpaste. Smooth rock tripe lichen can be boiled, cleaned and roasted as a nutritious potato-chip-like food. Several Native American tribes eat hanging tree lichens as a traditional food.
Lots of animals like lichen. Deer use it as a food source, frogs enjoy it as a snack, and birds like hummingbirds use it in their nests.
The oldest lichen on the planet, the map lichen (Rhizocarpus geographicum) in the artic, is 8,600 years old, by far the oldest living organisms on the planet.
Lichen first appeared on the earth 250 million years ago.

Hiking can be more than just exercise in a lovely environment. It can also be a chance to explore, increase your powers of observation, exercise your senses, use your imagination, and renew your your sense of wonder. I’m happy to share more ways if people would like.

Spanish Moss. Not Moss or lichen.
Photo by Jaël Vallée on Unsplash

But for now, a couple Dad jokes about moss and lichen!

Q: Where do Russian cows go to gather moss?

A: Moscow.

I made a video about the symbiotic relationships between fungus and algae

Don't forget to lichen subscribe!

Happy hiking and nature detective work!

Lichen can be very colorful.
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

100 Day Challenge #96: Nature Fun Facts!

Stories to Last January 4, 2022

Since I’m working on a new edition of my book Camping Activity Book for Families: The Kid-Tested Guide to Fun in the Outdoors, that’s where my head is. So, I thought I’d share a few fun facts about elements of nature.

I LOVE these kinds of facts and factoids!

Did you know that you can use a pine cone to forecast the weather?

Set up a few on a windowsill to create your own pine cone weather station. Pine cones open and close depending on the humidity to help seed dispersal. When the weather is dry a pine cone opens up to let the wind catch the seeds and send them further away where they have room to sprout and grow.

If it’s humid and rain is likely, a pine cone closes up so the light seeds won’t become water logged, limiting their travel. If seedlings start to grow too close to the parent tree, they’ll have to fight for resources and might be shaded.

What causes leaves on trees to change color in the fall?

Some leaves contain other pigments besides green (chlorophyll). They may also contain yellow, orange, and red pigments. In most of the life of a leaf, you don’t see these pigments, because the green color of chlorophyll is so strong it masks any other pigment.

But those colors shyly play a role in the health of the tree. Yellow, orange and red can transfer the sunlight energy they capture to chlorophyll. They’re kind of like photosynthesis’ faithful sidekicks.

When a leaf gets old, the tree reabsorbs the chlorophyll from its leaves. It can reuse the nitrogen in the chlorophyll molecule. With the absence of green, the other colors show through.

The fall colors, red, orange and yellow, are called carotenoids. You can also find them in corn (xanthophylls are yellow), carrots (carotenes are orange) and blueberries and cherries (anthocyanins are reddish).

Anthocyanin pigments are ONLY produced in the fall when it is bright and cold. The trapped sugar in the leaves’ veins promotes the formation of anthocyanins, which are used for plant defense.

Cool, huh?

The Guys in the Cricket Band

Only male crickets make song. They have comblike structures on their wings that produce a chirping sound when they rub them together. They sing mostly to attract females but sometimes to ward off other male crickets. There are over 900 species around the world, and in some places, crickets are a symbol of good luck.

The Lowdown on Lizards!

Lizards first appeared on Earth over 200 million years ago. There are over 4,600 lizard species, with new types still being discovered. Many lizards have extremely good color vision and smell with their tongues. They don’t have earflaps like mammals do. Instead, they have ear openings to catch sound, and their eardrums are just below the surface of their skin. Lizards can’t hear as well as people, but their hearing is better than that of snakes. When young lizards grow, their scaly skin doesn’t. That’s why they have to shed or molt old skin, usually in large flakes. (The alligator lizard sheds its skin in one piece like a snake.) Male lizards do push-ups to try to attract a female’s attention.

The largest lizard in the world is the Komodo dragon, which can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh 150 pounds. This giant reptile can only be found on a few Indonesian islands, including Komodo. The smallest lizards in the world are also island lizards: the Jaragua lizard, a dwarf gecko found in the Dominican Republic, and tiny leaf chameleons from Madagascar. The smallest measures 0.064 inch (15 mm) from the tip of the snout to the base of the tail.

Bug versus Insect

What is the difference between a bug and an insect, or do the two words mean the same?

We tend to use the word “bug” loosely for any very small creature with legs. However, a true bug is one type of insect. True bugs, such as beetles, usually have tough forewings and lack teeth. True bugs have a stylet (a mouth shaped like a straw) that they use to suck juices from plants.

Insects, like bees and mosquitoes, have three—part bodies, usually two pairs of wings, and three pairs of legs. Arthropods (spiders, ticks, centipedes, and the like) are in a separate category from bugs and insects.

But you can still call them all bugs! It has become a common term for all these little critters.

The Scoop on Seeds

The biggest seed in the world is the coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica), also known as the double coconut or love nut. It grows only in the Seychelles, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean. It weighs up to 38 pounds and is the shape of a human bottom!

The smallest seeds in the world are those of epiphytic orchids (family Orchidaceae) in the tropical rain forest. Some seeds are only 1/300th of an inch and weigh only 1/35,000,000th of an ounce. They are too small to be seen by the naked eye.

The record for the oldest seed ever grown is a 2,000-year-old date palm recovered near the Dead Sea, bordering Jordan and Israel. When botanists (plant scientists) germinated them, one of the seeds grew.

Three seeds feed most of the world: rice, wheat, and maize (corn).

Seed Engineering. Seeds that can fly, like those of the sycamore tree and dandelion, may have given people the idea for helicopters and parachutes. The idea for Velcro came from a burdock seed. Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral returned with his dog from a hunting trip in the Swiss Alps and saw that his pant legs and his dog’s hair were covered in burrs from the burdock plant. As an engineer, he naturally began to wonder how exactly the seeds stuck so effectively to his pants and his dog. He examined the burrs under a microscope and discovered that they had very tiny hooks, which allowed the seeds to catch onto fabrics, which have tiny loops. The word Velcro is a portmanteau of the two French words velours (“velvet”) and crochet (“hook”).

100 Day Challenge #95: Look Up Don't Look Up

Stories to Last January 2, 2022

Everybody has different tastes in movies, and so I recommend the ones I love with a grain of salt. But I loved Don’t Look Up.

Available on Netflix, Don’t Look Up is classic satire. I haven’t seen one like it in years, and I found it smart and compelling. After I watched it the first time, I almost immediately watched it again.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization. The movie’s talented cast includes Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry and Jonah Hill.

Looking online just now, I discovered it’s been getting mixed reviews. It surprised me a bit since this film hit home for me, dealing with very serious topics about humanity and our climate crisis.

And I love a good satire. I get to laugh at things in our society that actually scare the pants off me!

The movie resonates with me in terms of the absurdity of our recent politics and the power of Machiavellian leaders and corporate conglomerates. It parodies some of the real-life figures that have power in our world today and possess those characteristics that have long corrupted people in power: greed, the desire to stay in power at all costs, a loss of perspective and morals, and a sense of superiority. And when it comes to the climate crisis, duplicitousness and self-serving stand in the way of real action.

I found it refreshing to see them represented on screen in a way that allows you to marvel at the absurdity of it all. I’ll admit that through comedy is sometimes the only way I can handle the news these days!

Don’t Look Up was written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay. He wrote the script before the pandemic, and the cast filmed in isolation in 2020 before the vaccination was available, which sounds fairly challenging for the film’s production and post-production.

The movie reminds me a bit of another classic satire, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the 1964 black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Some critics have called the movie uneven. I side with a review I read in the Sydney Times. Writer Garry Maddox says, “I’m siding with the minority of critics who have stepped away from judging Don’t Look Up for falling short of being a cinematic masterpiece and loved the ambition, ideas and anarchic energy. It deserves respect as a provocative movie about our inability to confront the threat of climate change.”

Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, wrote in The Guardian “Speaking as a climate scientist doing everything I can to wake people up and avoid planetary destruction, it’s the most accurate film about society’s terrifying non-response to climate breakdown I’ve seen. The scientists [in the movie] are essentially alone with this knowledge, ignored and gaslighted by society. The panic and desperation they feel mirror the panic and desperation that many climate scientists feel.”

Kalmus goes on to details the grim political response in the US: “We live in a society in which, despite extraordinarily clear, present and worsening climate danger, more than half of Republican members of Congress still say climate change is a hoax and many more wish to block action, and in which the official Democratic party platform still enshrines massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.”

For me, with the denial of both a climate crisis and a health crisis, this satire feels very close to reality. In some ways, our recent reality has felt more absurd than fiction.

Kalmus says, “After 15 years of working to raise climate urgency, I’ve concluded that the public in general, and world leaders in particular, underestimate how rapid, serious and permanent climate and ecological breakdown will be if humanity fails to mobilize. There may only be five years left before humanity expends the remaining “carbon budget” to stay under 1.5C of global heating at today’s emissions rates – a level of heating I am not confident will be compatible with civilization as we know it. And there may only be five years before the Amazon rainforest and a large Antarctic ice sheet pass irreversible tipping points.”

Anyway, if you watch Don’t Look Up and don’t like it, that’s okay. To each their own. But maybe the movie will make more people talk about the issues addressed, think about them, elect officials and support companies that will do something to address climate change.

Life informs art, but art also informs life. It’s always been that way. Just like the potential global nuclear destruction addressed in Dr. Strangelove, this comedy is about a serious situation that we’re all facing, like it or not. We just need to “Look up.”

100 Day Challenge #94: Examining the Calendar & Why Today Starts a New Year

Stories to Last January 1, 2022

Did you know that the dates October 5 to October 14, 1582 don’t exist? They never happened.

I’ll explain in a minute.

Since we are starting a new year, I got curious about our Gregorian Calendar, what we use around the world to label the dates of each day, what makes today New Year’s Day.

There are other calendars. Chinese New Year occurs on a completely different date than the Gregorian one. There’s the Jewish or Hebrew Calendar. The old Julian Calendar too. How do these various calendars work? Why do we agree that today, January 1, is the beginning of a new year?

Here’s what I discovered.

Some 86 calendars have existed over time, some still in use. They fall into four categories: lunisolar, solar (or tropical), lunar, and seasonal. They’re defined as their Latin roots imply. Lunisolar dates consider both the Moon phase and the position of the Sun in the Earth's sky (or the time of the solar year). A seasonal calendar is a visual method of showing the distribution of seasonally varying phenomena (for example, economic activities, production activities, problems such as debt, illness/disease, migration, and natural events/phenomena, plant growth, etc.) over time.

In the time of Homer in ancient Greece, each city-state had its own calendar that was based on the cycle of the moon (Lunar), but also the various religious festivals that occurred throughout the year (seasonal). It was divided into twelve months and was 354 days long. The months had completely different names than ours.

The Athenian months were named Hekatombion, Metageitnion, Boedromion, Pyanepsion, Maimakterion, Poseidon, Gamelion, Anthesterion, Elaphebolion, Munychion, Thargelion, and Skirophorion. That’s a mouthful!

Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced the next calendar that predates our own in the 700s BC: The Republic calendar. It consisted of ten months and 355 days, a shortfall over four years of (10+1⁄4 × 4) = 41 days.

The ten months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. Most of these sound familiar! The last six names were taken from the words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.

That calendar was replaced by the Julian Calendar in 46 BC, named for Julius Caesar. Designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers it was much more accurate with moon and sun cycles. January and February were added and the year was 365.25 days.

And January 1 became New Year’s Day.

The Julian calendar lasted for over 1,500 years. But there was a problem.

It assumed incorrectly that the average solar year (the time that the Sun takes to complete a full cycle of seasons) is exactly 365.25 days long, an overestimate of a little under one day per century.

Thus, in October 1582, the Gregorian Calendar came into existence. It contains an average of 365.2425 days per year. When Pope Gregory XIII introduced it, he skipped from October 4 to October 15 so all phases of the moon and sun fell in the right place. It remains the calendar that most of the world uses now.

January 1 remained the first day of the new year.

However, New Year’s Day is not celebrated today everywhere. Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, Tamil New Year (Puthandu), and the Jewish New Year are all on different dates, according to their own calendars. India, Nepal, and other countries also celebrate New Year on dates according to their own calendars that are movable in the Gregorian calendar.

The Chinese New Year is lunar and falls any time between our Gregorian January 21 and February 21.

The Islamic lunar year is eleven or twelve days shorter than the Gregorian solar year, so the date changes every year. In 2022, Islamic New Year will be celebrated on July 30.

The Tamil New Year is celebrated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, on the first of Chithrai (சித்திரை) (April 13, 14, or 15).

We know the Jewish New Year as Rosh HaShanah. It will take place in 2022 on September 25 to the 27th. The average Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 40 seconds than the current mean solar year, so that every 216 years the Hebrew calendar will fall a day behind the current mean solar year. The current Hebrew year is 5782. A day in the rabbinic Hebrew calendar runs from sunset to the next sunset.

The Iranian (or Persian) New Year, called Nowruz, happens on the spring equinox, usually March 20 or 21.

The New Year of the Zulu people occurs on the full moon of July.

And there’s a bunch of others.

I think this is cool. Our calendar is an invention of humankind, based—as best we can—on the natural cycles of our earth. But we take it for granted that this is just the way it is when we name each day.

We assume without questioning that today is the start of a new year, when really, the new year could start on any day if we say it does. It could go from spring to spring or fall to fall. The Babylonians celebrated New Year’s Day in late March on the first new moon following the vernal equinox, the day with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness.

So, why January 1?

According to History.com, Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. Romans offered sacrifices to Janus, exchanged gifts with one another, decorated their homes with laurel branches and attended raucous parties.

For a while in medieval Europe, New Year’s Day changed. Christian leaders replaced January 1 with days carrying more religious significance, such as December 25 (the anniversary of Jesus’ birth) and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation).

Pope Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day in 1582.

Right now, the math of the Gregorian Calendar works for us. It corresponds with our rotation around the sun and Earth’s spin. Who’s to say if this will still be the case a thousand or two thousand years from now? Maybe we’ll have a different calendar. Maybe we’ll declare it a new year in an entirely different time of year.

But for now, today’s the day!

So, happy New Year and, despite the current Omicron spread (stay safe!), a happy 2022!

BLOGGIN’, YES INDEED, I’M BLOGGIN’…

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