Musings

Seasoned

I’m really noticing the daylength getting shorter.

Look out!

Most recent binge-watch: “La Grande Maison Tokyo” (fiction). Tonight’s binge selection: “Lost Treasures of Rome” (science/NatGeo).

Surgical knee magic

I just read (okay: skimmed) a WaPo article by Andrew Zaleski that describes a new operation for people with knee cartilage problems. Surgeons put a pellet of calcium carbonate derived from coral exoskeletons (yeah, the reef kind) in the bone. Over time, the pellet is absorbed and the body makes a gooey substance that acts rather like real cartilage. It’s a fast operation, albeit with a different recovery curve than knee replacement. Zaleski describes two other new approaches with good results.

I’ll try to remember this. Right now my knees are okay (knock on wood), but they have had issues, and I baby them frequently.

Date: 17 Sept 2024. Title (that I saw online): Not ready for a knee replacement? You might be able to fix your cartilage instead.

Moon-watch

We tried to see the eclipse…the partial eclipse of the moon…nope: too much cloud cover. It does seem a bit brighter where the moon is supposed to be, though?

Pink-gold-orange

Here’s the color the sun left before the moon rose.

Very little eventing

I prepared for rain, wind, and outer bands. We got some wind, not much rain, and lots and lots of overcast. I enjoyed the cool most of all. [Elsewhere, of course, they got dumped on.]

Good luck with the fine print

Gravity is a dependable engineering principle. Oh, wait. Apparently it’s not a force, but a curvature of spacetime. Yikes.

Watching reality arrive

We heard that we should anticipate a deluge this afternoon. This became revised downward to…variable low-level precipitation—and what actually happened was…less (shall we say). So, we strolled the park, focusing on this…phalanx, we deemed it.

Leaf me be…

I can get mesmerized by patterns.

Change a’coming

Here’s proof of autumn. There are colorful Asclepias species, like this one I’m guessing, that are not uncommon in gardens. I’m more attuned to A. syriaca (most likely), which however important to monarch butterfly caterpillars, is less commonly cultivated.

Note that winds from Francine will be arriving over the next 48 hrs, and I’m sure these floss/filaments soon will be lofting seeds widely in the neighborhood.