It will come as no surprise, to my mother at least, that I spent nearly the entire day in bed, reading a book. This was my preferred activity through most of childhood. The cats loved me.

What I read today was the last three hundred-odd pages of The Brothers K, by David James Duncan. The first half took me a while to get into, because it’s a lot about baseball, and childhood with baseball, and my childhood didn’t include baseball (see above). The second half, though, made me cry, and reminded me that the complications of my life are miniscule, and that words cannot express how grateful I am that my lover, though sent away, is not sent away as a soldier.

I read a couple books about Vietnam in high school. I remember hushed voices talking about Vietnam vets when I was in grade school. It’s a lot more horrible when you’re in love with someone of a draftable age and can suddenly frame it as something that could happen in your life.

The ocean is developing osteoporosis.

Tonight I went to a talk by Richard Feely, “Global Warming and Ocean Acidification: Double Trouble for Marine Ecosystems” (he didn’t look so Office Space in person). I heard about it randomly, and missed the first half of it, but it was enough to make me feel some eco-anxiety. I’ve read about ocean acidification before, but right now I’m thinking about the long term effects and it doesn’t look so good.

So, humans are putting lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, the equilibrium of atmospheric CO2 to oceanic CO2 is out of whack, and the ocean is absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is a slow process, since it takes, oh, 1000 years for a complete circulation of the oceans.

The part that speaks specifically, frighteningly, to Cascadians, is that things like coccolithophores which won’t be able to make their shells, are eaten by things like pteropods, which are eaten by fish, like salmon or pollock.

Not only is climate change contributing to desertification, which will have definitive effects on the subsistence agriculture of the equatorial latitudes, it’s also going to screw us on the major food sources from the ocean. I guess the scientists were onto something.

So it’s not really that I’ve left Alaska for Washington. I’m still a resident of Cascadia.

This morning I read an article on Cascadia (Alaska, the Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and maybe California) as working towards an integrated economy, or an integrated environmental plan, or any number of integrated things.

At the end of the article, they helpfully list a few facts about the constituent parties, like the mottoes of each. (The Cascadia idea is variably defined, so Montana, Idaho and California are not included.)

Alaska: North to the Future
The Yukon: (no motto)
Alberta: Strong and Free
B.C.: Splendor without diminishment
Washington: Alki “by and by”
Oregon: She flies with her own wings

Alberta’s motto sounds like a tagline for a tampon ad. Maybe I’d take B.C.’s more seriously if I hadn’t heard things about timber industry, or lack of sewage treatment. What were they thinking in Oregon? Or for that matter, what were they thinking in Washington? I worked at Alki, and it’s a great place, but it’s a poor motto. It requires an explanatory note: “by and by.” That is, ‘alki’ was a trading jargon word meaning ‘by and by’ (I assume in context of ‘I’ll pay you alki’) that was attached to the appelation the first settlers of what’s now Seattle chose for their little settlement: ‘New York,’ which became ‘New York Alki,’ which I have always taken as a somewhat sarcastic assessment of the settlers’ high hopes.

I have to say, Alaska’s motto wins by a mile. Especially with the middle latitudes becoming less comfortable, what with climate change and all.

This morning I discovered a spider on the kitchen counter, which is a place I prefer not to discover bugs. Crawling out from behind the toaster!

Normally I evict such critters down the back stairs, but today as I got it into an empty cream cheese container, my housemate’s kitty pussy-footed by the kitchen. Now, my housemate told us several stories about Zoe’s prowess as a bugger, so I got her attention and tipped the spider out on the carpet in front of her.

The spider sat. Zoe sat. The spider set off across the carpet. Zoe smoothly moved in front of it and patted it with her paw. The spider chose a new direction. Repeat.

This progressed to Zoe sniffing and tasting the spider — taking it in her mouth and then dropping it on the carpet again — for a minute before she finally swallowed it, and sniffed around the surrounding area of carpet for a little bit to make sure, I don’t know, that she hadn’t missed any legs.

Most likely this is horrible karma, to feed spiders to kitties, like feeding chickens to tigers (which I’ve also been party to), but then again, is it bad to begin with, keeping kitties and tigers in places where they cannot freely catch their own spiders or chickens?

(Aside: The tiger purred while eating the chicken. Zoe seemed to approach the spider as more of a curiosity, than a valued entree.)

I left the country for ten days and it was awesome.

Ever been to a fireworks show that last for fifteen minutes and then you were sad that it was over so quick? Go to China any time around New Year’s on the lunar calendar. There were fireworks every day I was there. Lots of pretty colored explodey ones, and lots of ones that just go BANG! and set off car alarms. New Year’s Eve was what I imagine it sounds like in Iraq, except that people were happy about it and there weren’t nearly as many casualties.

It was a great trip. A lot happened, and I’m still trying to get it all written down for myself, and then maybe something will get up here. A few pictures anyway.

In other news, I left part of a gallon of milk when I left, and it doesn’t seem to have gone bad. It doesn’t smell at all, which was confirmed by my housemates. This is Horizon organic milk, with an expiration date of February 11, and I had it on ice cream last night and in my tea this morning, and it is fine. See what happens when you leave the chemicals out?

Coming home today, I saw crocuses and a daffodil. The weather has taken a turn for the warmer, and I think spring might be on its way.

Plus, I’m leaving for China tomorrow! When I get back it should be full on spring, and I’ll ride more. I noticed this week that the hills on the way home seem to have gotten longer during the last, oh, three months that I haven’t been riding much…