Author: jennynazak

FB friend posted:

“Giant spider trapped in a bowl in my living room, what to do? We’re ***ing terrified”

I responded:

Awww!
I usually use one of those sturdy glossy junk-mail postcards, slide it under the bowl or jar. (And if necessary, then slide another sturdy piece of something like cardboard under that as reinforcement.)

Thereby it is easy to safely transport Ms. Eight-Leggy back to her outdoor home, where she will find the food and other things she needs, and you can have your livingroom back.

(Other people made similar comments. It was really nice to see people supporting the safe removal of the spider, as opposed to killing. Several people pointed out that it was probably a wolf spider or a huntsman, both of whom are not harmful to humans. And furthermore are avid predators of insects who love LIVE to bite humans.)

I use my transport method to rehome other species as well, such as our giant palmetto bugs. (They are utterly harmless but that doesn’t mean I want them crawling on me while I’m sleeping.)

Came home last night from a beautiful convivial afternoon/evening out at Mackers Seafood and Midtown Café, to find the rain-tubs filled, as I was hoping! Juicy!!! 0.6 inches on the Beachside, Main Street area. And as often happens with a fat summer rain that takes us through sunset, the temperature cooled down by almost 20° F.

Last night was actually the first night in weeks that I not only wanted but actually needed a sheet over me toward the morning hours to sleep comfortably. (On a related note: Some weeks ago, the extended nighttime heat motivated me to switch from sleeping on my summer lightweight mat to just sleeping on the bare tile floor. It helps.)

This morning I noticed that one of the overflow rain tubs, which typically sits empty, had a bit of water in it. Since the tub doesn’t sit perfectly level, one end was dry while the other end had a bit of water in it. A lizard had gotten stuck and was not able to climb out of the steep tub. I tried lowering the fill hose into the tub to provide the lizard with an exit ramp. However, the motion prompted him/her to scramble away, avoiding the hose rather than climbing up the “ramp.” And the scrambling took Lizard away from the dry end of the tub, and back into the deep end, where intensified flailing would resume.

I added a couple of short lengths of bamboo. Hopefully Lizard finds their way out. This was a few minutes ago and I will go check now to make sure the stranded friend has escaped from the tub. (Update: Yes!)

It struck me that in our lives, the universe is constantly trying to provide us with assistance in the form of little metaphorical ramps and sticks. But often our immediate instinct is to flail and scramble and run away from the helping hand. Next time I catch myself doing this, I’m going to stop and remember the flailing lizard! And once again thank the angels and ancestors.

A chapter of native-plant society posted that the “pollinator garden” they had set up a few years ago in a nearby state park needed some care. The implication seemed to be that it had gotten too “messy” (also I gather some plants were damaged by last year’s hurricanes). And the park staff are all set to mow it down unless it gets “tidied.”

From the post:

“If no one steps up to begin to restore the pollinator garden … which still has unique plants, butterflies, bees and now two residents gopher tortoises, park management is ready to mow it all down!”

Some of my thoughts:

• I remember when the management of state parks and national parks etc. actually knew about their park’s native plants, and it was part of their job to inform visitors about native plants, and they seemed to enjoy that aspect of the job. Not threaten to mow the native plants down.

• It’s a state park. It’s for public access to nature. The public already has plenty of access to mowed ground. Way too much, everywhere.

• Why is park management so bent on mowing? Why can’t the native plants just be allowed to thrive? Funny how we (societally) are always willing to spend money to mow things down. Even in a nature park. CONTROL. It’s all about control.

• We need to get away from this idea that a native-plant garden is this static, pristine museum of plants and needs to be constantly trimmed to the same standards as a manicured suburban landscape. In real life, landscapes pulse. I see it every day walking down to the beach at the end of my street. The dunescape is always in flux, the gorgeous red-and-yellow blanket flower dominating for a bit, and then the pinky-purple beach morning glories taking over for a while, and so on.

• Park staff are paid. They are paid to educate as well as maintain a natural environment. People who are “allowed” to set up native-plant gardens, on the other hand, are typically members of native-plant societies. Strictly volunteer. Mainly older, women, retired, relatively well-off. Basically it’s a luxury and a privilege. It shouldn’t be. It sends the wrong message — this idea that native plants are an optional extra or some powdery province of the Mayonated Republic of Caucasia(TM).

• Possible gender dimension: I’m betting the (paid employees) threatening to mow are men. Where is the people trying to nurture the plants are (unpaid) women.

• “It looks too messy” is the rallying-cry of a nature-phobic society. We need to do all we can to dismantle this toxic mentality within ourselves.

• Professionalism: Volunteer or no, people who have attained the expertise to set up and maintain native plant gardens have often spent years and in many cases paid for courses and conferences to attain said level of expertise. Diligence study and practice are involved. It has often occurred to me that volunteerism is a dual-edged sword. 1) Although volunteers do much good in the world, there is always the risk that our work is devalued. And 2) We are not creating long-term jobs that would give young people a good livelihood while also helping the planet.

• The would-be flower-mowers are voicing a baser instinct of death-dealing industrial society. Having to bend over backwards to try to get these people to please refrain from destroying an immensely valuable work, is a weak position. I wonder how we can avoid keeping ourselves in this kind of position. I wonder how we might maneuver ourselves into a more favorable position.

• Helping to reset our society’s default settings regarding neatness and tidiness in the great outdoors is one of my top ambitions. I have made some inroads in my neighborhood, and also by posting outstanding examples of gorgeous yet “untidy” landscapes on social media. Are you engaged in similar efforts to move the needle about our deadly obsession with tidying the great outdoors? If so, what are some ways that are working for you?

• Maybe the entire concept of a pollinator garden or native plant garden is, while well-meaning, outmoded or misguided? Maybe instead we just need to plant native plants here and there. Signage can just as easily be placed next to each plant where it is, as it can be in a garden. The showroom mentality may just fuel our HGTV type of aesthetic reflexes, which are just not good for nature.

• If you find yourself at the wrong end of this story arc, and Brandon and Caden’s Mow N Blow Bro’s have already driven their armored tank over your native-plant landscape, don’t despair; all is not lost. If there’s one thing that mowing is good for, it’s dispersing wildflower seeds! You may notice more wildflowers sprouting up than ever.

If you are having trouble expressing your feelings, news, opinions, etc. on important matters to the people closest to you: Park your thoughts somewhere out in the world.

Could be a book, could be a blog, could be scribble on a bathroom wall, could be a confidence to a longtime friend who gets you or a stranger in the bus station who mysteriously gets you too, could be a work of fiction double-wrapped in an inscrutable pseudonym. Could even be an ephemeral spoken-word poem that doesn’t even exist on paper, And is transmitted on only one occasion, late at night, in an obscure bar, to an audience of one or two who are mostly preoccupied with their own readings. Doesn’t matter: It will eventually reach the people you need to reach, and possibly will help many others in the meantime.

Park your thoughts out in the world. Store them diffusely for safekeeping. The people you want to tell them to will hear them eventually. Maybe on this side of the veil, maybe otherwise, but they will.

This extra hot summer, I’ve lost count of how many of my friends and acquaintances have posted on Facebook that their airconditioning went out, and that they had to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it fixed.

It’s criminal that our “modern” houses are not designed to be livable without AC. Meanwhile in other parts of the world with humid tropical/subtropical climates, ancient building methods using local materials make houses much more comfortable. I love looking at pix of old-style houses in India, Philippines, Vietnam etc. And old Florida houses too.

I myself do not use AC, because I don’t like the expense, or the sensation of forced-air cooling and being cut off from outdoors. But I understand why people use it and say it’s impossible to live without it. Our “modern” houses are not optimized for passive cooling.

On a positive note: today a fellow activist/Facebook friend whose AC had been out all week said she had found an AC guy who — when she indicated that replacing the unit was not in the cards — actually talked her through various things she could DIY in order to stave off having to replace her unit. Now that is “COOL”! Such professionals deserve a special award in my book.

She was able to get the unit running again. And I’m sure the AC guy has plenty of other business!

In this blog, and in my book, I have offered various tips and strategies for living without AC. Most of the things that I arrived at turned out to be an old-fashioned stuff that people always did back in the day. Reducing or eliminating AC use can save enormous amounts of money and provide other benefits as well, such as reducing the feeling of vulnerability that comes with having a big expensive machine that “has to be fixed right now or we can’t function.”

Further exploration:

• “Summer Survival Council: How to Feel Cool without AC. Surviving the Heat when AC isn’t an option” (unprepared; multiple authors). Good tips from several experienced people.

As an avid DIYer and extremely thrifty human, I will try to make just about anything I need out of old stuff I have lying around the house and garage. After all, there is an awful lot of landfill-diverted fabric and plastic and whatnot just sitting around waiting to be “chosen”: pressed into service to be cleverly fashioned into adorable and convenient everyday items for house and garden.

So, in conjunction with my placement of the solar oven in a new, more all-day sunny, and much more public area of the yard, where it’ll fulfill a greater educational function, I decided that I would like a weather-resistant cover for it instead of hauling it in and out of the garage all the time.

My first thought, of course, was to hand-sew a cover out of old fabric. But I really want a polished and deliberate appearance, the same as one might have with a cover for a nice barbecue grill out in the front yard.

So I did something really wild (for me, haha) just now: I ordered an official SunOven cover for my solar oven. That way even with the cover on, it has the logo displayed and will pique people’s interest.

For people preferring a used option, it’s possible that Amazon would be offering used covers. They are offering new ones. However, I prefer to support the Global SunOven company directly, as they are doing great work in the world.

To learn more about the Global SunOven, its various accessories, and the company that makes them, and the educational work and community aid they do, visit their website www.sunoven.com

Solar ovens have suffered from being marginalized as some sort of Girl Scout party trick or hippie thing that everybody remembers from their childhood back in the 70s or whatever. Making melted-cheese sandwiches using a cardboard box with foil etc. Nothing wrong with that nostalgic memory! If only it were leading people to use the ovens as a real cooking option. But it does not seem to be.

So, I am really looking forward to getting my official Global SunOven cover for my wonderful solar oven.

Fellow diehard DIYers: Are there some situations where you have chosen a new, store-bought option rather than DIY? Let us hear about it!

PS. Another recent situation where I opted for store-bought was last year, when I needed undershirts and underwear bottoms. I like ones that are are a very lightweight, stretchy, highly breathable synthetic fabric. They are a bit beyond my sewing skills, in both fit and fabric. I make them last a long time, as they are my “Sunday best” so to speak. I do have DIY handmade undershirts and bloomers as well, which are fine for everyday wear. My favorite shop for underwear is Duluth Trading Company. I like Patagonia as well.

People who produce written or artistic content are rightfully concerned about AI. Then again it could save some of us artists and creators a lot of work, by giving us the tools of art directors, editors.

I think about the animators in the past whose work was made possible only because it was supported by an army of sketchers, inkers, colorists, etc.

Occurred to me just now:

• It could be that in the future we will write only for the intrinsic joy of writing or making art; that’ll be the only reason to do it since we could do it by AI.

• It could also be that we will continue to buy content from each other even though we could get things free from AI, and we will do this from the intrinsic joy and satisfaction of supporting each other.

• On a personal note, I have long had a pipe dream of making an animated film of my favorite poem, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. I say pipe dream because I don’t have any of the skills of animation, or the level of drawing skill needed to execute what I visualize for this poem. Nor particularly wish to invest the enormous amount of energy it would surely take to develop those skills. So I imagine that, if I were able to attract a team of people interested in such a project, my role would either need to be paying the artists directly, or raising funds to pay the artists. In light of AI, though, it did suddenly cross my mind the other day that AI might offer another route to implementing my vision. Quite honestly though, I would much rather do this as a team with fellow humans, not only to support people’s livelihoods but also for the intrinsic joy of working with others to create something worthwhile. Furthermore, as the below-linked article from Anti-Racism Daily points out, there are serious equity issues involved with using AI.

Further exploration:

• ‘Not for Machines to Harvest’: Data Revolts Break Out Against AI (Sheera Frenkel & Stuart A. Thompson; New York Times nytimes.com). “Writers and artists are locking their files to protect their work or are boycotting certain websites that publish A.I.-generated content, while companies like Reddit want to charge for access to their data. At least 10 lawsuits have been filed this year against A.I. companies, accusing them of training their systems on artists’ creative work without consent. … At the heart of the rebellions is a newfound understanding that online information — stories, artwork, news articles, message board posts and photos — may have significant untapped value. … News organizations are also resisting A.I. systems. In an internal memo about the use of generative A.I. in June, The Times said A.I. companies should ‘respect our intellectual property.'”

• “The Invisible Labor Force Powering ChatGPT” (Nia Norris; Anti-Racism Daily). “Speculation on whether artificial intelligence (AI) will replace human labor often leaves out a piece of the puzzle. Tech enthusiasts argue that turning unappealing tasks over to machines will be a boon to human creativity. Skeptics fear that machines are coming to take away human jobs. Many people are unaware that simply making AI ‘intelligent’ requires an invisible labor force working in the growing gig economy. …”