Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 08/02/2021: Luna/Copper and the Mariana Trench, Now It's Salmon, A Cocktail After My Internet Crapped Out

 1. As she usually does, Luna began to paw my hair and lightly bite and sort of scratch my arms, leaving no mark, around 4:30 a.m. For her, it was breakfast time. In his book, Eager, repeatedly Ben Goldfarb described the strong will of  beavers (it's why they are regarded by [too] many as pests) and, as I read this, I thought of Luna. Any effort I've made to quell Luna's pre-dawn insistence that I get up and feed her have been in vain. I've surrendered. This willful cat, morning after morning, gets her way.

Once I parceled out some Friskie's pate for Luna and Copper, I returned to bed and fell into a Mariana Trench of deep sleep and didn't wake up until 7:45, well past when I'm usually up and around. 

I stumbled to the kitchen and turned on the hot pot and scooped ground coffee into a pour over filter.

I realized I didn't know where Copper and Luna were. I retraced my stumble back to the bedroom. Luna occupied the head of the bed and Copper the foot and, as if following my lead, they, too, had dived into a Mariana Trench of deep sleep. I stood for a minute or two and marveled at how fully at peace they were.

2. I didn't get very far into it this afternoon, but I started reading seasoned biologist Jim Lichatowich's book Salmon, People, and Place: A Biologist's Search for Salmon Recovery

I love reading about water and creatures who inhabit rivers, ponds, oceans, creeks, bays and other bodies of water. I started reading water books back in February when I read the great Mississippi River history, Rising Tide. I then read Grayson, Lynn Cox's short book about her encounter with a baby whale. Wanting to dive deeper into the world of whales, I read Fathoms. I moved closer to land and read about beavers in Eager next. And now I'm going to learn more about salmon. 

Yes, these books are primarily about bodies of water, but all five books are also about humans and how so much of the human response to these bodies of water and the animals who live in them is to try to wrest control, a dicey undertaking doomed, I'm afraid, to more failure than success.

3. I thought I needed a number on the bottom of my internet service's Optical Network Terminal box (turns out I didn't), but when I turned it right side up again, it stopped working. I have no home internet service. I contacted a rep from Ziply via chat, but my problem was not in her purview, so she gave me the number of tech services. I didn't call right away. My cell phone was low on power and while I waited for it to juice up, I did some reading about OTNs. 

Christy and I had arranged to each have a Dark and Stormy and she arrived just as I was ready to call Ziply, so I delayed my call.

No problem. 

You see, luckily, Christy's wifi signal reaches my house. I have internet service thanks to her. I decided that after having a drink and then eating a thrown together dinner of sweet potato, brown rice, and spinach in a bowl, that I'd call Ziply in the morning -- might it be after another dive into the Mariana Trench? Who knows? But it will definitely be some time after feeding Luna and Copper at some ungodly early morning hour! 

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