Intellectually, I understand what causes low tides to occur, but it still feels supremely weird to see how far ocean water can retreat before eventually, steadily pouring back in to where it once was. Watching an entire ecosystem temporarily morph into something different, being able to suddenly walk across a bay, or stroll to an island, it just seems so strange to me, like it shouldn’t be possible but there it is.
Maybe I was a Neanderthal in a past life and these ordinary aspects of nature still seem like magic. Whatever it is, I’m happy that I live close enough to the ocean that I can go and stare gap-jawed when the tide goes out.
During our now legendary “heat dome” event that unofficially ended yesterday (today’s high was a relatively bone-chilling 27C) I opted to do something I almost never do–wear sunblock. And it worked really well. Even as I strolled about in 42C heat and sweated like a very sweaty person, I remained burn-free and am as shimmeringly pale as ever. You’d never know I’d been out of my ice cave!
Anyway, I feel like I am somehow getting more sensible as I get older. Will sunblock leave my exposed skin feeling vaguely sticky and gross? Will dust, grit and small animals adhere to it as I spend time outdoors? The answer is yes, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s better and healthier to avoid a nasty sunburn. Sensible!
I’m also thinking about getting new socks and underwear. I won’t say the prospect of this excites me, exactly, but it is perhaps a little enticing.
Don’t worry, though, I still don’t see bingo as an entertaining recreational activity. Yet.
It hit 42 °C today, which breaks the old high temperature record by an impressive 11 degrees. Tomorrow’s high is forecast at 35, which will feel almost mild in comparison. I decided to go for about a 15-minute walk down to the park when it hit 42, just to see what it felt like. My observations, in handy list form:
Opening the front door of the condo building is like opening the grate on a furnace
The breeze feels like it is burning my face
My eyes are hot; this feels hugely weird
Heat radiates from the pavement, less so from the sidewalks
After about five minutes, the metal on my Apple Watch is starting to get hot against my skin
I am sweating like I am running, yet I am merely walking
Kids are still running around and screaming; presumably they are magically immune to heatstroke
The idea of going for my usual 7+ km walk today seems equal parts foolish and ludicrous–I do not go
Coming back and opening the door to our condo unit and getting hit by the cool breeze of the air conditioner is really, really nice. Like, super mega-nice.
I secretly wonder if I’ll be finding out what it feels like when the temperature goes above 42 °C–and how soon that might be
As of 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Lytton had hit 47.9 C, according to Environment Canada. For context, that’s hotter than the hottest temperature ever recorded in Las Vegas, at about 47.2 C, and almost eight degrees higher than Lytton’s record high before this year.
We are in the first day of a heat wave that is being caused by a ridge of high pressure so strong it’s said to cause a “heat dome” over the area, not only keeping it hot, but making it even hotter still as the hot air gets trapped, recirculates and gets hotter.
The high today was 33 °C. I went for a walk at 8 p.m. and it had cooled all the way down…to 31.
I am not inclined to complain about the weather as you can’t do anything about it, and we have AC here, so it’s really not that bad if we stay inside. But yes, it is hot indeed out there.
I wonder how many more heat domes await us in the future.
The 10-day forecast for New Westminster (normal high would be 23°C):
When last we left me way back in 2016 the world was a different place. Now it’s way better.
Haha, just kidding.
Anyway, Part 3 ended with the promise that I would “quiz myself about dating, writing, running and ugly feet.” Let’s get on with it, with my doppelgänger, again known as Dopple, asking the questions.
Dopple: Has it really been five years since the last part of this interview?
Me: According to the calendar, yes.
Dopple: How time flies.
Me: I’ve learned that time is not linear. It’s elastic and that elastic gets flabby and loose as you get older.
Dopple: Sounds deep. What does it mean?
Me: It passes a lot faster, the taut snap of the elastic isn’t there anymore, so it flies by, like a bungee jumper who has about 20 extra feet of cord tied to his ankles and bonks his head on the bottom of the river instead of dangling tantalizingly above it.
Dopple: Sounds painful.
Me: Accurate.
Dopple: So let’s go to the topics that were originally going to be discussed before getting into all the crazy changes of the last five years.
Me: Lay them on me, baby.
Dopple: Don’t call me baby.
Me: Sorry. Carry on.
Dopple: First up: Tell me about dating.
Me: What would you like to know? I don’t date anymore.
Dopple: Tell me about some of your best dating experiences.
Me: [long pause]
Dopple: [awkward silence stretches out]
Me: Well.
Dopple: Surely there were some good dating experiences?
Me: Let’s come back to this question. Maybe in Part 5.
Dopple: There’s going to be a Part 5?
Me: Who knows what the future holds for us?
Dopple. OK, let’s move on to writing.
Me: [extremely long pause]
Dopple: Are you still there? Hello?
Me: Writing in Part 5.
Dopple: This is going to be a short interview…
Me: Sometimes succinct is good.
Dopple: How about running, then? You still run.
Me: Technically, I still run, but there have been…issues.
Dopple: What sort of issues? Amputation? Unnatural hair growth on your feet?
Me: Well, part of it is I got a bit lazy.
Dopple: Bad.
Me: Agreed.
Dopple: For shame.
Me: Okay, that’s enough.
Dopple: Sorry. Continue.
Me: But really, it was just my left foot being weird and stupid. If there was a movie about my left foot called, let’s say, “My Left Foot” people would find it frustrating and dumb. They’d ask for a refund. They would not attend the sequel, “My Right Foot.” I would not win an Oscar.
Dopple: What’s up with the left foot?
Me: First, I have this weird issue with the ball of my foot where it gets really sore after a lot of walking or running. I mostly solved this by getting a custom orthotic made. It kind of amazes me how well it works. But my left foot still just feels…off. Not physically detached, but different. Like the bones don’t quite connect correctly. Maybe they’re too big or too small, or it’s really a clever alien symbiont posing as the bones. But whatever it is, it still causes my left foot to feel not quite right. No pun intended.
Dopple: Pretty sure that pun was at least partly intended.
Me: Fair. The other big thing happened in July 2020. I had just started summer vacation and decided to do a walk around Burnaby Lake. The total round trip is about 18 km. I was heading back, probably around the 16 km mark, when my left foot suddenly began to hurt. Just spontaneously, with no warning at all. I found it very odd. I still do. I made the sad decision to skip running during vacation to allow my foot to recover from this sudden phantom injury caused by just existing and breathing. Gradually over time the pain lessened and I eventually resumed running, but I never moved beyond 5K runs. Then in December the injury returned, like an unwanted sequel.
Dopple: Like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
Me: Exactly. Speaking of, did you know they are shooting a fifth movie? Harrison Ford is 150 years old now. Maybe the whole movie will be him digging up things in his backyard garden and thinking they’re priceless treasures because he’s lost his mind after making the last movie. And speaking of, The Rise of Skywalker was the worst sequel that sort of had Harrison Ford in it.
Dopple: But back to your foot.
Me: Yes, my stupid foot. It started hurting again big time in December, to the point where I actually avoided walking outside, like anywhere. It was bad. I was sad. I felt had. My doctor asked me to describe the symptoms and said I had plantar fasciitis. I looked it up later and the symptoms matched perfectly. The best part about this is it’s an incredibly slowly healing injury, so it lingers on for centuries. My next of kin will inherit it. If I had any, that is. It doesn’t hurt anymore now, but I can still feel it, if you know what I mean. I’m now doing 7K walks and run roughly half the time. I’m building back to doing a 5K again. Sometime this summer if my left foot doesn’t spontaneously explode or something.
Dopple: How is your right foot?
Me: Happy as a clam. Well, how happy are clams, anyway? When I go to the beach I see thousands of empty clam shells, which suggests a brutal and unhappy life for clams. So let’s just say my right foot is fine, always has been.
Dopple: Moving on, yet staying somewhat on the same topic, tell me about your “ugly feet”?
Me: Have you seen those idiotic nail fungus TV commercials?
Dopple: Where the medical professional in the white lab coat seems to suddenly be in someone’s living room, like he can teleport in straight from his office?
Me: Yes, those ones. Well, that’s what I have. Not the teleporting doctor, but nail fungus. I’ve had it for years and had basically written off my feet ever looking handsome again.
Dopple: How sad and horrible.
Me: I know, right? Imagine if I’d had a foot fetish. I would never take off my shoes (which probably contributes to nail fungus). Anyway, my doctor gave me a topical cream to use, which helped, but worked very slowly. But then we switched to pills and they’ve been working much better.
Dopple: That’s good!
Me: But the pills might destroy my liver.
Dopple: That’s bad.
Me: But so far they haven’t.
Dopple: That’s good!
Me: But they still might. I need to get my blood tested again when the current prescription ends. Still, my toe nails look pretty close to normal now. I can take off my socks in public and people will not run away in horror.
Dopple: Have you done that?
Me: It’s more a theory to be tested.
Dopple: Let’s talk about some of the other things that have happened since 2016.
Me: [whiny voice] Do we have to?
Dopple: Strictly speaking, no. We could go back to your dating adventures.
Me: Fine, fine. I’ll talk about what’s happened since 2016.
Dopple: What’s changed the most?
Me: I’ve gone from hair to hairs.
Dopple: That is tragic. Do you invest in hats?
Me: I have enough caps to form a line to the moon.
Dopple: Good, good. Anything else?
Me: I came to realize that IT work is crushing my soul. Maybe my left foot, too, for all I know. In fact, I started to realize this in 2016, but it never really gained clarity until late last year.
Dopple: What are you doing to prevent further soul-crushing?
Me: I have some ideas, but nothing I would talk about publicly–yet.
Dopple: Aw, not even a hint?
Me: Okay, one hint: It does not involve my left foot.
Dopple: That hint stinks.
Me: Talk to the foot.
Dopple: I think I’ll pass. So it’s safe to assume that you don’t see yourself staying in IT long term?
Me: Correct. I would rather do many other things instead, some of them actively unpleasant.
Dopple: I see. Well, maybe we can revisit this in the future.
Me: Revisiting it in the past would be tricky.
Dopple: Speaking of, do you believe in time travel?
Me: Not really. I mean, if people could do it, wouldn’t we already know? Unless they’re very, very sneaky about it. But humans suck at being sneaky about that kind of stuff.
Dopple: About time travel?
Me: About big, reality-altering things.
Dopple: What about the thousands of people that kept mum on while working on The Manhattan Project, when the U.S. secretly built the first atomic bomb?
Me: Sure, start using logic and valid examples, why don’t you?
Dopple: Sorry.
Me: No problem. I expect nothing less of me.
Dopple: What else has happened?
Me: Nothing comes to mind.
Dopple: COVID-19?
Me: COVID whatnow?
Dopple: [stares]
Me: Look, since it literally affected the entire planet, I can’t really speak to it as some unique experience. Except maybe uniquely horrible. To me. And probably others. But it does have some upsides. Working from home is nice. I can get up from my desk and grab a snack from the fridge. I can start laundry. I never have to be concerned about a co-worker interrupting me by coming to my cubicle and blocking me from escaping. I don’t have to pay for overpriced cafeteria food. I don’t need to ride transit. I haven’t had a cold or the flu in 15 months! My home computer is way nicer than my work one. The air in my condo is nice, not the horrific toxic poison soup that squirts through the HVAC system in the office.
Dopple: What are some downsides?
Me: Shopping with a mask is unpleasant. Shopping is something I generally find unpleasant, but it’s worse with a mask. I have also been disappointed at how many people have rejected science, safety and reason in exchange for pretending a global pandemic isn’t actually happening. But we do seem to be finally nearing the end of it and a return to something normal-like.
Dopple: You got your first vaccine shot.
Me: Yes, and my second one is a few weeks from now.
Dopple: How did the first one go?
Me: I haven’t had a shot in years (I always rolled the dice and skipped flu shots. And almost always got the flu. Kids, learn from me and don’t be dumb!) so I built it up as some terrifyingly painful experience. When I took my seat at the vaccination clinic, I started to ask the woman tending to me what it would feel like and she jabbed me with the needle, I said, “Ow” and it was over. So a lot of build-up for basically nothing. I did feel pretty fatigued over the next few days, but it beats being dead, as they say.
Dopple: We are starting to run late. Shall we pick this up in Part 5?
Me: I’ll be here.
Dopple: And you’ll discuss dating?
Me: I may discuss dates.
Dopple: Are you referring to the fruit?
Me: Perhaps.
Dopple: [ohyou.gif]
Stay tuned for Part 5 in which dating may be discussed, along with writing, drawing, programming and other stuff that ends with -ing.
This is the 11th post I’ve made today, which may be a record. And with #11 I have officially hit 31 posts for the month, keeping to my “one post per day” rule intact, which is actually more like a “post the equivalent number of times to match one-post-per-day for the month in question” rule. Which has worked out so far, so why change now?
I could go for a Sausage and Egg McMuffin right now.
It makes no sense that an alien civilization with the technology for faster-than-light space travel would lack the ability to remain hidden from us, if they so chose. (Same argument goes 100× for any claims that alien ships ever crashed on Earth.)
As the linked New York Times story notes, the thought is that if super-advanced aliens are trying to sneak around our skies, they’re doing a really poor job of it.
This is such a facile take–even if you absolutely do not believe in alien life–that I’m a bit surprised Gruber went public with it. There’s a few problems with it:
It adopts a human-centric point of view, assuming that aliens would act like humans, when we have no idea of what they would act like (or look like, or anything else about them)
It assumes that the aliens are constantly inadvertently revealing themselves in a non-conclusive sort of way and that this has to be blundering of unimaginable proportions, therefore it can’t be aliens because they would be way smarter than that–but completely ignores the possibility that if it was aliens, the behavior is almost certainly deliberate. That is, they want people to see UFOs, but not to actually do anything that erases all doubt that they are real and aliens have been here for however long. The likeliest reason for this would be to acclimate humanity to the presence of other intelligent life, especially life that might be superior to ours in important ways, like technology. Knowing that super smart aliens have been observing us for decades or longer as some kind of planetary science experiment would leave a lot of people feeling grossly inadequate, or angry or scared. It would literally change our world and rewrite our history. So maybe the aliens (if they exist) would try a go-slow approach, getting us used to the idea before confirming that they are, in fact, real.
Also, the whole “Why wouldn’t they just land on the White House lawn” bit is stupid on several levels:
America is not the world and allegedly super smart aliens would probably know that
Revealing themselves in such a gross (not to mention trite) display would cause about the worst possible reaction
Republicans would blame Democrats somehow
Anyway, I think UFOs are probably a bunch of different things–everything from meteorites to planes to, yes, weather balloons, but I also think there is enough evidence to suggest some are perhaps not of this world, or at least not of this world as we know it. Are they aliens? Curious humans from another dimension? I have no idea. But I suspect that we’ll have some kind of answer in the next ten years.
And it will not be revealed on the White House lawn.
Speed writing: Every time I try this, I get arrested by the word police for crimes against spelling.
Blog vs. vlog: On a blog I don’t have to look beautiful. On a vlog I don’t have to worry about typos. Since I can always wear a wig and glasses and spell pretty good, I’ll call this a draw.
The shift to electric vehicles: Where will all those dead batteries go?
On the resurgence of board games: I have no one to play with, so they suck, all of them. Yeah. Or maybe I need new post-COVID friends. Time shall tell. (As kids, we totally used the Free Parking “dump all money here” rule in Monopoly. I preferred Mousetrap, though, as it better suited my aesthetic for the zany and impractical. Speaking of impractical, every attempt I ever made at RISK.)
Ice cream flavors: I prefer chocolate, with or without peanut butter. Some caramel is acceptable. Vanilla is actually pretty decent, if it’s good vanilla. Neapolitan is perfect for those nights of indecision. Strawberry is fine. Anything with licorice is the darkest evil. Ice cream in a bowl is better than in a cone, but ice cream in a sundae is best of all. A Dairy Queen Oreo cookie Blizzard is yummy and probably 5,000 calories.
Toad vs. frog deathmatch: I say toad, because they seem meaner than frogs, somehow. The smart frog will choose to not engage.
