Hot and Masks

We were up and out early on the bikes today.  Probably not early enough given how dang hot it was, but a person can only give up so much sleep.  I keep thinking that eventually we'll acclimate and it won't suck so much.  That day can not come soon enough.

So we saw something new and cool today.  After saguaros boom, they fruit.  The fruit opens and bats from Mexico come up to feed on them at night.  During the day, doves, bugs and other critters come for the nutrients.  Eventually they dry up and fall to the ground and other animals eat them. What's interesting to me is that the bats come from way far away, how do they know it's time to fly north?

Here is a better picture than my cell phone camera of the open fruit.  This was swiped from the internet.

The refrigerator repairman is here again to work on the annoying leak from the water dispenser and the equally annoying leak in the freezer.  Thank all of the saints that Jim had the foresight to get the five year warranty.  This is visit number five for this frig.  Eventually we can file a "lemon" claim on the thing and get our money back.  This trip may be enough service calls to qualify.  It just annoys the living spit out of me.  It was very expensive and I think it should do better.  Today we're getting a new water valve and ice maker

Anyway, I'm sitting in my chair with a bandana on so I don't have to hand wash a mask.  I know in my head that I am not suffocating, but why is breathing in a mask so unpleasant?

Eric Topol put up a tweet with a bunch of science about why the wearing of a face covering is so important.  There are a lot of words, but it can be summed up with "wear the damn mask."  The Irish Times also has a piece with words and not charts.  A friend of mine put this up on Facebook, which also simplifies the findings.  It's the asymptomatic people that are the scariest.  We were in Safeway yesterday, and mask wearing is at about 60-70%.  They're still limiting how many people can be in the store, spraying the carts with disinfectant and the aisles are one way.  We're still working on obeying the directional arrows.  But there are people with naked faces, and that is starting to look really weird to me, to see the bottom of people's faces.

I like Captain Sulu's take on the wearing of masks.  As a child, he was sent to a Japanese internment camp, despite being an American citizen.

NPR repeated a Brief  but Spectacular Moment by Damon Davis last week.  He's an artist and film maker.  It's about his experience of being African American in the US.  It was really well said and I want to keep the link.  The link has the video as well as a written transcript of what he said.  It's well worth looking at.

Finally, if you want to read Walter Shaub's fantastic take down of John Cleese comparing toppling Confederate statues to taking down all Aristotle and Socrates' statues, go here and read it.  That man can truly craft a sentence.  Update 8/30/2022:  Shaub's tweet has gone missing.  You can read the Cleese tweet here.