Bladderpod, globemallow, brickellbush, lupine
"Younger generations – facing economic strain, job instability, and a barrage of unsettling world events often respond with surreal, communal humor that isn’t to everyone’s taste."
We ran through the sleet today, grains of ice raining down like salt from a shaker. It was the kind of weather that gives winter running a bad name, but I found myself enjoying the novelty. The tiny ice balls careened off of my many layers, and skittered across the pavement.
I had to look up the difference between sleet and freezing rain to make sure I knew which one we experienced. According to the National Weather Service, “Sleet occurs when snowflakes only partially melt when they fall through a shallow layer of warm air. These slushy drops refreeze as they next fall through a deep layer of freezing air above the surface, and eventually reach the ground as frozen rain drops.”
Freezing rain, on the other hand, “occurs when snowflakes descend into a warmer layer of air and melt completely. When these liquid water drops fall through another thin layer of freezing air just above the surface, they don’t have enough time to refreeze before reaching the ground. Because they are “supercooled,” they instantly refreeze upon contact with anything that that is at or below freezing (32 degrees F), creating a glaze of ice on the ground, trees, power lines, or other objects.”
“Frozen rain drops” or “supercooled” rain that freezes on contact with the ground—no wonder I’m always forgetting which one is which.
Reading list
Attention spans may have wavered, judging by the front pages of the top national newspapers, but Los Angeles is still burning. As of late Sunday, the Palisades fire had burned over 23,700 acres and was 56 percent contained, and the Eaton fire had burned over 14,000 acres and was 81 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. Monday will likely bring even more severe fire weather, with forecasters warning of a “particularly dangerous situation” and “Powerful & Damaging Santa Ana Winds Incoming!!”
“Within a day, people were dropping off seed packets — bladderpod and desert globemallow seeds, poppy seeds from ‘Sue’s yard in Pasadena’ and brickellbush from ‘a south facing slope in Topanga Canyon.’ Someone brought Ms. Raj a single California black walnut sapling. Others mailed in yarrow, mugwort, sagebrush and lupine seeds.” An inspiring, comforting, hopeful story about the Altadena Seed Library. [Tejal Rao for the New York Times]
I really enjoyed this love letter to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s White Mountain huts by Miles Howard. (In another life, I would have love, love, loved to have been a croo member when I was younger.) I have to admit I was surprised to learn that hut stays are still down from pre-pandemic levels. But I think it’s a bit odd that the AMC president is focused on how the huts are competing with “glamping” experiences on special features and luxuries, when it seems from Howard’s reporting to be at least as much about affordability:
While midweek discounts are often available, a single, midsummer night in the huts for non-AMC members can cost up to $600 for a family of four. That’s in the ballpark of what it costs to spend two nights at a cabin for four at the Alpine Garden Camping Village. While the glamping site doesn’t include meals, which do come with a hut stay, the question some travelers will ask is, “Why would I pay to sleep in a bunk room for a night, when I could stay someplace more luxurious and private for two?”
I wonder if hut stays were always so pricey? Howard’s article wasn’t the place for it, but I’d be very interested in a graph of nightly rates at the huts over the years. If that info is out there.
Surely one of the funniest things about memes are all the attempts to explain the memes to people who just don’t get it. Anyway, here’s a very decent explainer about the “Cherry Tomato Bridge,” full of gems like, “There’s an absurdist undercurrent here, as there is with most meme culture. Younger generations – millennials and zoomers – facing economic strain, job instability, and a barrage of unsettling world events often respond with surreal, communal humour that isn’t to everyone’s taste.” [Shamim de Brún for the Irish Times]
Sometimes—when I’m feeling particularly anxious or ambitious or I’ve just gotten through airport security and my flight isn’t for another two hours—I think I might be a Type A personality. Then I read something like this and I am grateful that I’m not. The essay is about butts and running, and is very good. [Amy X. Wang for the New York Times]
Rapid fire: “Get on my land!!” I <3 Congestion Pricing. Finally, what’s Trump’s big problem with the delta smelt?