Anniversary

I should have posted this picture earlier this week to celebrate Jerry’s anniversary.  Here he is, 8 weeks old, sitting in my (now sadly broken) cup.  (He didn’t break it, it slipped from me while I was unpacking the dishwasher.). I found this today and it was so cute seeing that tiny face again.  He’s back on my toes warming them, and counting the moments until he needs to play.  Don has been busy on the phone handling all sorts of chores, and is now having a nap before the hockey starts.  I’m sure that the little bunny will get up and bounce around soon for attention.  It’s been snowing almost non-stop since last night, and it’s piling up quite a bit.

Today is 24 years since I’ve landed in Canada.  The history of my arrival is documented in other blogs, so I won’t retell it here.  I’m grateful to be celebrating this milestone here, and I’m about to start planning my Silver Anniversary… of course, the risk of crushing snowstorms might alter the plans a bit.  I’ve got a celebration to join in tomorrow evening, and then next Sunday we will be enjoying the Lunar New Year, welcoming in the year of the Rabbit.  I haven’t  sought out my horoscope — I haven’t done that for some years — but I’ve already booked our celebrations.  I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to gather in person — the rising numbers of infections make me nervous, but I live in hope.

I’ve been reading several scientific articles this week; the library (I love libraries!) provides access to several thousand magazine titles with archives, so I’ve been enjoying browsing.  As an aside, I no longer get physical magazines (except 2, which are included as membership benefits for associations to which I belong) as I’d found I never had the time to read them and all the other things that I read.  And my ‘free’ magazines experience a sad fate of being consigned almost automatic to the recycling bin.  Revenons à nos moutons… I borrowed Scientific American which had some fascinating articles.  One was on cave paintings, and a new theory that some of the markings on them are an early form of proto-writing; it looks like our very distant ancestors, 40,000 years ago, had developed calendars to record and track the movement of herds and availability of plant foods.  Then to one that talked about new research on the groups that settled the Caribbean and their origins.  I didn’t know that my ancestors were unrelated to the North American peoples who crossed the Bering Strait; they seem to have originated from Central and South America and share ancestry with some of the Polynesian tribes who sailed in dugouts, about 6,000 years ago.  There seem to have been 2 waves of settlers, about 2,000 years apart and the later one became the dominant group at the time of the arrival of Europeans and the genocide that followed.  After the paleo-anthropology articles, there were a couple on stellar developments and planetary science.  Finally, and this is what I really want to share, one editor shared his list of developments and innovations that he’d like to see in the next decade or two.  To my surprise, he didn’t include things that I would have expected — the transporter, replicator or even more accessible space travel (although another article talked about protecting human DNA while in space, because apparently everything is trying to kill you!)  He talked about things like photovoltaic paint, which could be painted on any surface and used to power houses in addition to large solar panel installations.  To go with that, he listed better batteries, which could then be used to power aircraft using solar energy instead of fuels.  Greener plastics, made from waste material and highly recyclable was another item.  These are small, unsexy, innovations that could transform society and reduce the impact of humans on the environment.

It’s utterly amazing what kinds of things are in development.  I read about using 3D printer technology to create organs, and the development of devices that can be inserted into the body to help control muscles for prosthetics.  However, although I’m awed and amazed by the work in progress and what’s proposed, I’m even more stunned by the accomplishments of our early ancestors.  The early Greeks developed an analogue computer (see Antikythera device); the early Egyptians and Babylonians tracked variable stars and created complex calendars, and the Mayans built some intricate models; India and China weren’t backward, either… so there are all kinds of great advancements that were in progress thousands of years ago.  While it’s easy to attribute these to the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence, in some ways that’s a cop out.  That’s the sort of deus ex machina device that allows us to skip over understanding things that are complex… If aliens built the pyramids, or taught our ancestors how to monitor and track the seasons, then it downplays the role of human intelligence.  Full disclosure, I’m certain that there is life in the cosmos, and that it’s likely that we have encountered them in the past, but it’s also very likely that it will be a long time before we meet them again, just given how vast the distances are between stars.  More pedestrian, perhaps, but consider how the Pacific Islanders navigated the Ocean — so much open water, so few points of land — using small ships and frigate birds.  Gotta love human innovation!  

We also love tiny, bossy dogs who like driving their humans up walls.  This one is pushing my iPad to get access to my lap, after deciding that he’s been ignored long enough.  I will now go play with my tiny dictator.  (And interrupt a hockey game.  Because I can.)  Good night!