Oh baby it’s cold outside! How cold is it? It’s so cold that my freezer is warmer than the outdoors. Currently it’s -7F/-22C and that’s several degrees warmer than it was just a few hours ago. The polar vortex will be hanging around for only a few days, and I get to miss most of it because of the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend. But of course the coldest morning will be Tuesday when I return to work. And so it goes.

I made another loaf of sourdough this weekend and it turned out just as beautifully as my Solstice loaf, proving that it wasn’t a fluke and I am actually a good sourdough bread baker. I’m not a kitchen-y person but for some reason the sourdough bread is fun. Maybe because it’s so magical. Or maybe because it’s kind of like gardening. I feed and care for the soil and the soil grows plants. I feed and care for the sourdough yeasty beasties and they grow bread. I even talk to them, encouraging them and expressing my gratitude.

This was another plain loaf, but I’m already thinking about the next one. Maybe I will try a multigrain loaf. And if that goes well, pumpernickel. I haven’t had a good pumpernickel in ages. I’m getting ahead of myself!

Even without the polar vortex we had several cold days last week. Wednesday morning it was -8F/ -22C and I’m biking to work. I had to stop at a traffic light and I notice the shim under the headlight on my bike handlebar is working its way out from underneath it. But my hands were swathed in big mittens, making my attempt to push it back under the light futile. Well, I thought, I hope it doesn’t pop out before I get to work.

The light changes. Halfway across the intersection I hit a bump, the shim pops out and disappears in the middle of the street. The headlight swings around my handlebar upside down and pointing into my face. I am temporarily blinded as I grab for the light and turn it back up to point forward. But now there is nothing to keep it slipping around my handlebar. I managed to slide it all the way up next to the hand grip and then biked the rest of the way to work holding the headlight pointing forward with my thumb.

At work I change my clothes and open the library and think think think about what I can do to hold my light upright for my ride home. What would MacGyver do? As I was packing up some books to mail out on interlibrary loan I hit on a solution. I had some bubble wrap with the little bubbles. I cut a strip of it, wrapped it around my handlebar and then used packing tape to hold it in place. Then I clamped my headlight down on it. It worked! In fact it was even better than the rubber shim. So I have left the bubble wrap and tape in place. I’m a gold star problem-solver!

I realize I am inordinately proud of my better living through office supplies hack, but you have to admit, it is pretty good. Plus it made me really happy.

Something else making me really happy are the garden seeds that began arriving Friday. Three packets so far and two more to go. Such a pleasure to escape from the arctic cold to the summer garden even if it is only in my imagination at the moment.

Speaking of gardens, I learned some amazing things about flowers and bees while reading An Immense World by Ed Yong. The book is about all the various animal senses, which means I learned a lot about animals but also human senses too. I learned the atmosphere, even when there isn’t a thunderstorm, is electrified to a gradient of at least 100 volts per meter of height starting at the ground. Flowers are electrically grounded and have a negative charge. Bees, flying through the air, build up a positive charge. When a positively charged bee approaches a negatively charged flower, pollen grains leap off the flower and onto the bee even before the bee lands. But that’s not all.

Even though flowers have a negative charge, they grow in positively charged air and are surrounded by electric fields. Each type of flower has a distinctive electric field, so zinnias are different from dandelions which are different from roses and so on. Bees can sense the electric fields and tell the difference between flowers. All the tiny little hairs that make bees look fuzzy are electroreceptors. Scientists are still working through the implications. How cool is that?

I must say I almost didn’t finish this book. Early on Yong uses the word “umwelt” so frequently it was beginning to border on absurd and I was one more unwelt away from calling it quits. Thankfully he calmed down, and though the word continues to appear frequently throughout the book I managed to find a way to laugh at it instead of grind my teeth. I am glad I kept reading because of the bees. And because I would have missed out on the word “schnauzenorgan.” A schnauzenorgan is the mobile appendage at the end of a Ubangi elephantfish‘s face It is such a specific word I doubt I will be able to use it for anything, but I’m trying to think of something because who couldn’t use some schnauzenorgan in their life?

I also am grateful to have had Yong’s book during this last week of Biden’s presidency because I almost blew a gasket over his farewell address when he warned of an oligarchy gaining power. WTF? Where has this man been the last four decades? The oligarchy has been steadily gaining power since the 1970s, they just don’t bother to hide it anymore. And Biden, alleged Friend of Unions and the middle class, hasn’t done squat to change it because he’s part of it. His net worth in 2024 according to Forbes is $10 million. Granted, it’s not billions like incoming President Musk Trump, but it’s a whole hell of a lot more than the majority of people in the world will ever earn in a lifetime. Or two. James judiciously turned off the radio before I could get a full steam rant worked up. The hypocrisy of politicians never fails to leave me gobsmacked. You’d think I’d know better by now.

Ok, breathe. So thanks Ed Yong and bees and flowers and schnauzenorgans for helping me get through the week.

I feel like this coming week I’m going to need lots of bees and flowers and schnauzenorgans. James and I have decided on a media blackout tomorrow, inauguration day. I wish I could have a week-long (or longer) media blackout, but unfortunately the world is too much with us late and soon and there is no real escape. But, as you know, there is still joy to be found in spite of everything, like MacGyvering my headlight, electric bees and flowers, Mars hanging out with the full moon on Wednesday morning and the gorgeous sunset over a snow covered lake Thursday evening. Schnauzenorgans. And homemade from scratch sourdough bread.

Reading

• Book: Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Llyod-Jones. This was so good and I like her work so much. I’m still thinking about the book. It’s one of those stories where the truth of things slowly reveals itself and when you are done you are compelled to rethink everything you read. It’s about seeing and not seeing, masculinity, art, health, life and death, magic mushrooms, god, the land–so many things. If you decide to read this, know that empusium, empuzjon in Polish, is a made up word. Tokarczuk created the word from the Greek “empusa,” a shape-shifting female being, some say demon, who seduces and feeds on young men.
• Article: Reckless Driving Isn’t Just a Design Problem by Gregory H. Shill. Frequently in transportation circles, folks talk about how bad driving and crashes are caused by the way roads are designed. Wide, straight roads encourage fast driving even if the posted speed is 25 mph. So urban streets design has begun adding curb bump outs and other things to try and slow down drivers. I’ve always thought this good but have major reservations when people talk as though road design is the only cause and only solution, that drivers themselves have no responsibility. Road design does not cause drivers to talk on their phones or run red lights and stop signs.
• Essay: Threads of Resistance by Gemma McKenzie, via Julé on mastodon. A good essay about how women use traditionally female crafts like embroidery and knitting in subversive ways. Craftivism!
• Blog Post: The Ethical Case for Resisting AI via Bluesky. This is an interesting blog post by Chuck Pearson who is a university chemistry professor on how AI is keeping his students from learning important problem-solving skills.

Listening

• Podcast: Planet Critical: The Need for Roots–Nathalie Nahai. This was a lovely conversation about the need for roots and connection.
• Podcast: Ex Urbe Ad Astra. This is a podcast I just found in which historian and novelist Ada Palmer teams up with SFF writer and voracious reader Jo Walton to talk about books and interview various writers. I want to like this but I quit about 15 minutes in on both the first and second episodes. Maybe I will try again with a later episode. Also, Jo Walton does not sound anything like I could have imagined. Her accent sounds very upper crust British to me, but given she lives in Wales, maybe it’s a Welsh accent?

Watching

• Series: Monty Don’s British Gardens. This is a new series and Monty starts off in Scotland. I love the small gardens that have personality, the big ones with the water cascades and trimmed hedges are impressive but all they really say to me is, “see how much money I have.” if you have a lot of money spending it on a garden is better than spending it on a yacht and private jet. So there’s that. But also, one man Monty talked to actually said he didn’t have a lot of money so could only afford 300 acres and a ruined castle (which he restored beautifully and lives in). Clearly the man has no idea what not having a lot of money actually means.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

Let’s see. This week there was a taco pizza, pasta and broccoli with a creamy butternut sauce, and ginger-molasses cookies.