Sense and Sensitivity

#NatureTwinning Part 39: More fake twin sets, this time worn with bright colored skirts, patterned scarves, and tights + tall boots in the same color as the twin set

African Pygmy Goats at African Grasslands--Wednesday, 2/28/18

Today's fake twin set outfit includes a new cardigan--hard to believe I went all winter without a black cardigan, but this one was worth waiting for.

*Black ribbed cardigan (Liz Claiborne/JCP), $13.20

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW): $21.94

We visited the African pygmy goal kraal just as it was opening in the morning.  As we stood outside looking and taking photographs, the zookeeper invited us in, but we chose to enjoy them at a distance (and let the actual child visitors take full advantage of the opportunity to play with them).  Now if we'd only had little P. with us, that would have been fun!  Oh well, another time.

Henry Doorly Zoo

Vermilion Flycatcher at San Joaquin--Thursday, 3/1/18

This fake twin set is faker than most because the light grey top + dark grey cardigan don't even vaguely match.  But I think it has the same general effect, especially given that the lighter grey blends in with the background of the scarf (totally a coincidence, but I'll take it).  Dark grey is possibly my favorite color so far with this salmon pink skirt.

OCPW: $14.79

The male vermilion flycatcher is a gorgeous bird--I was lucky to get a very clear photograph of him in bright daylight.

So Jen, I had wondered what kind of birds were on this scarf you gave me, and now I've decided they must be vermilion flycatchers.

This is a bird I associate with Texas south and west of Austin, though we did see it a few times at Hornsby Bend.  I was a bit surprised to see it in southern California, perhaps rightly so.  The California Department of Fish and Game considers it one of their top priority birds of special concern (i.e., one of the top 14 species that need protection).  Although it continues to be abundant elsewhere, the species has declined in California to only 3 breeding localities, and they consider it "vulnerable to extirpation" in the state.

San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary

In other news...Women may find this Male Sensitivity Reader of some use--it was created to "help women compose social media posts in a way that won’t offend, threaten, trigger, or cause discomfort to male readers."

In Which Henry is Berated

#NatureTwinning Part 38:  Necklaces in Winter

Andean Bear--Monday, 2/26/18

I like wearing this green pleated neck blouse with a necklace instead of a scarf, and to give my long tassel necklace a break, I wore this new interlocking-circles necklace that I recently bought after seeing it on another blogger.  Luckily the daily high temps for the week had creeped up into the mid-to-high 30s so no scarf was necessary.

*Long gold circle necklace (JCP), $9.60

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW): $16.27

I didn't realize that the Andean bear is the same species as the spectacled bear, though looking at the face pattern, that makes sense--he does seem to be wearing giant light brown glasses.  I like the local names for this beast--jukumari, ukumari, and ukuku.  If this guy seems a bit different from other bears you've seen, he is--his closest relatives have been extinct for 10,000 years or more.

Cincinnati Zoo

Horned Puffins in the Wild--Tuesday, 2/27/18

My officemate almost never comments on my clothing, but she told me (again--I think she had forgotten she'd seen and talked about it before) that she likes this puffin sweater.  Me too!

OCPW: $10.49

When we entered the room at the zoo that had the puffins, etc., we were immediately assaulted by an onslaught of water produced by birds using their wings and feet to splash their human visitors.  It made us feel quite welcome.

"Henry, you said that if we splashed them, they'd go away.  Now what?!  I'm tired of these ridiculous things gallivanting around my territory, staring at me.  My god, that one has a freaking camera!  Do something!"

St Louis Zoo

In other news...This article made me angry (and no, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump--it's a very local matter for me).  In reality, the actions of the union were a huge overreach.  I do not think that going on strike unless a school district adopts a union's preferred policy agenda (discussed and adopted in secret, with no input from the other stakeholders) is very, very wrong...especially when the effects of some of these policies will inevitably lead to bad outcomes (e.g., hard class size caps will lead to enrollment declines in a district that is already struggling in that area).  In contrast to the author, who sees this kind of behavior as galvanizing unions, I see it as feeding the fuel of Republican desires to diminish the scope of unions.  I am willing to get that state legislators are already putting together bills that place limits on union actions, including things like teachers going on strike because they don't like the policies adopted by the school board, and I'm not sure I blame them.  A lot of states have already limited or outright prohibited teacher strikes.  (According to this source, fully half of states have entirely prohibited strikes by teachers...and some states have prohibited strikes by all/most public employees.)  Our state could be next.

Twin Set Gate

#NatureTwinning Part 37:  Featuring Fake Twin Sets

The fake twin set is an extremely useful wardrobe component--it's simply a shirt and a top layer (cardigan or jacket) in the same/similar color.  I find that a fake twin set makes for a particularly nice backdrop for a patterned scarf, as demonstrated here.

Pink Rose--Thursday, 2/23/18

In this outfit, it's hard to see what color of top would work as well with an olive blazer and white polka dot scarf as a simple olive T.  With a white shirt, the scarf wouldn't stand out.  In a different color, the shirt would contrast with the other colors on the top half and draw attention to itself.  In olive, the shirt stays in the background and just blends in with the jacket.

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW): $12.36

Hard to believe the Los Angeles rose photos were taken in December.  Craziness.

Los Angeles Arboretum

Peacock on Roof of Century Link Concessions--Friday, 2/24/18

A fake twin set is basically a low-drama layered shirt or sweater that lets other parts of the outfit shine.

OCPW: $16.93

When this peacock wasn't busy strutting around the tables and diners at our lunch spot, he liked to take the high view from the roof.

Henry Doorly Zoo

In other news...Half-Assed Book Review:

Raven's Gate by Anthony Horowitz: The Gatekeepers #1.

This was an almost perfect book that was delightfully creepy without being too scary.

So by reading this book and loving it, I basically have found out that horror fiction targeted at children ages 8-12 is where my ideal fear level for scary stories is.  Good to know.  In the author interview at the end of the book, he described it as "Stephen King for kids."

I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist was a boy, too.  A lot of the fantasy/SF teen/young adult fiction I read features a female main character, so it was a nice change of pace to read a paranormal story from a 14-year-old boy's perspective.  (There are four more books, and we have every reason to believe that major girl characters will appear in the series.)

I will definitely be continuing the series.

Passing Passengers

#NatureTwinning Part 36:

Yet more cashmere sweater + quilted vest + long scarf combos -- Buy one, get one free

Leopard Ray--Tuesday, 2/21/18

Looking for a pop of color?  How about one bright aqua arm?

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW): $11.34

What do you get when you put grey-on-black polka dots and a leopard print together?  A leopard ray, I think.  I enjoyed this brief blog post from a leopard researcher about how both individual leopards and rays can be identified by the pattern of their spots.

Henry Doorly Zoo

Martha Passenger Pigeon Memorial--Wednesday, 2/22/18

This outfit is a good demonstration of how I think about different shades of navy.

The background of the scarf is what I consider a true navy--it's a very dark blue, but it's not going to be confused with black.

The pants and the shoes are a very dark navy--dark enough that they are fairly easily confused with black.

And the vest is a surprisingly versatile color I call light navy--it works great where navy is called for and coordinates very well with other navy tones, but it doesn't give that "almost but not quite" thing that you can get with two somewhat different shades of true/dark navy.

OCPW: $19.27

As a Jeopardy-addicted kid, of course I knew that the last living passenger pigeon in the world was named Martha and that she resided and died at the Cincinnati Zoo.  (It was probably the first thing I knew about Cincinnati, and the only thing I knew about Cincinnati for many years.)  But a very long time had passed since I'd last thought of that fact, so I was taken momentarily by surprise upon seeing a memorial to Martha's memory at the zoo.

In 1813, Audubon described a giant flock of passenger pigeons:

“The air was literally filled with Pigeons,” Audubon wrote. “The light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of the wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.”

Other ornithologists also took note of these massive flocks:

Alexander Wilson, the other great bird observer of the time, reckoned that a flock he saw contained 2,230,272,000 individuals. To get your head around just how many passenger pigeons that would mean, consider that there are only about two hundred and sixty million rock pigeons in the world today. You would have to imagine more than eight times the total world population of rock pigeons, all flying at the same time in a connected mass.

An eye-witness account of a flock in Ohio in 1855 gets at how intimidating this experience could be:

As the watchers stared, the hum increased to a mighty throbbing. Now everyone was out of the houses and stores, looking apprehensively at the growing cloud, which was blotting out the rays of the sun. Children screamed and ran for home. Women gathered their long skirts and hurried for the shelter of stores. Horses bolted. A few people mumbled frightened words about the approach of the millennium, and several dropped on their knees and prayed.

The Smithsonian describes the last 50 years of the pigeon's history:

In spring 1860, a flock of passenger pigeons estimated at more than 3.7 billion flew over Ontario. The largest documented nesting of passenger pigeons occurred in Wisconsin in 1871: An estimated 136 million breeding birds covered some 850 square miles of forest. Roosting passenger pigeons often landed in sufficient numbers to shear limbs from trees. But by 1890 passenger pigeons were an unusual sight in the wild—they had become a prized food source, hunted relentlessly, shot, netted and burned out of trees, for a huge commercial market. By 1900 no more than a handful were reported.

Soon the only remaining pigeons were in captivity.  The four of them in Milwaukee died in 1907, leaving Martha and two males in Cincinnati.  One male died in April 1909, and the other on July 10, 1910.

And then there was one.

Martha died of old age on September 1, 1914.

And now there is this.

Cincinnati Zoo

Polar Magpies

#NatureTwinning Part 35

Lounging Polar Bear--Thursday, 2/15/18

I was going to wear this with the infamous Skyrim cardigan but when I tried it on, I realized that the "cardigan knit from the fur of 2 dozen full-grown yetis" was ready to move on to the big snow pile in the sky Goodwill from whence it came.  So this cream cardigan vest was a last minute substitution that worked out just fine.

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW): $16.14

I think this polar bear would rather be in Coldville in the endless cold of winter than hanging out in the 80 F of late summer in Ohio, but he seemed to be handling the warmth OK, all things considered.

Cincinnati Zoo

Black and White Butterfly With Blue Bits--Friday, 2/16/18

The small collection of cashmere sweaters I have from Macy's are a kind of perfect winter garment for me at work (warm-ish but very breathable), but they have the annoying characteristic of being a little bit too short.  So unless I want to be executing the Picard Maneuver all day long to stop people from seeing my belly button etc., I am well-served by wearing these sweaters with a vest and a scarf.  (Yes, I could zip the vest and skip the scarf but a: the vest isn't always long enough and b: most of these puffy/quilted vests look dumb zipped up indoors to my eye and c: skip the scarf, are you insane?)  Luckily that's in my wheelhouse.  (I recognize that layering all over the sweater sorta mitigates the whole "breathable" thing but I'm usually layered all over something this time of year, so it might as well be a comfy bottom layer, and um, at least my arms aren't feeling stuffy??)

OCPW: $9.05

Google Image thinks this is a moth, but nope, it's a butterfly.  In my attempts to identify it, I figured out that a similarly-colored butterfly I posted in November is a crimson-patched longwing aka red postman aka Heliconius erato.  But I couldn't identify this one.  The closest I could get is the white admiral, but that one has a different pattern of white that continues all the way across the bottom of the wings to the body.

St Louis Zoo

In other news...A Half-Assed Book Review for...

The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

I came across this book using a technique that has worked pretty well for me when looking for Kindle books to check out of the library: going to an Amazon page for a book I like, then looking at the the "customers who bought this item also bought" list at the bottom of the screen.  Yeah, I know, this isn't exactly Advanced Book-Finding Tactics in action, but it seems to help me flesh out my reading list.  One of the issues with doing e-books from the library is that there is generally only a single copy available (though crazy popular books from crazy popular authors will have more), so you're often in a wait list situation.  Thus you need to be able to identify books that are recent enough to be out in Kindle format but not so recent/popular as to have a mile long wait list.

Well, this one had a wait list, but I went ahead and ordered a hold on it.  (Our system allows us to put holds on up to 25 items.)  After a few weeks, I got the email just like they said I would (a veritable miracle! I almost never got the promised emails alerting me when a physical book was on hold for me), and if I recall correctly, the book had been automatically checked out to my account.

All of this is to say, just reading the basic premise of the book (and having liked the author for his Sherlock Holmes books House of Silk and Moriarty) was enough to push me to immediately get on the wait list for the first time.  Expectations were running high!

Here's the blurb:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.

Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.

I mean, that's a seriously great sounding book, right?  An Agatha Christie-esque English village murder mystery with a whole other modern literary mystery on top of it is like a perfect combination.

So what I wasn't expecting was that the entire first half of the book is the manuscript for the latest Atticus Pund novel, The Magpie Murders (a title that the publisher didn't like because he thought it sounded too much like Midsomer Murders)!  I definitely enjoyed reading it, but some under-utilized part of my brain was in a state of low-level confusion ("wait, when is the whole modern thriller thing going to start happening? Am I missing something here?") the entire time.  I would have been able to sit back and enjoy my 3 hour flight to Houston the first 50% of the book restfully had I known the story was going to be structured this way.  So be warned.

The second half of the book describes the (mis)adventures of the editor as she attempts to figure out WTF is going on...which she does more or less as incompetently as you might expect a person not trained as an investigator to do but with a good deal of verve.  I liked this part of the book less than the old-school mystery at the beginning, but it was still OK.  The best part was finally getting resolution on the novel within the novel...which despite various characters calling it drivel while denigrating the entire genre of mystery stories (which had to amuse the author to write) was really quite good.  I think I would have been happier of the ratio of the Atticus Pund story to the editor story was more like 70/30 rather than 50/50, which could have been accomplished easily by speeding up the editor-takes-a-long-time-to-figure-it-out period.  In some ways, I thought the subplot around the editor's relationship with her Greek boyfriend was a bright spot in the second half, and perhaps more could have been done with that instead of quite so much plodding investigation.  (We know she's not Sherlock Holmes, but come on!)

Overall, the book was definitely satisfactory, though I was kind of appalled by at least one really dumb rookie mistake on the part of the editor-investigator, and of course the book couldn't quite live up to my high expectations.  But if the premise is attractive to you, lower your expectations one notch, get the book, and enjoy.

I am still liking this author well enough that I have queued Raven's Gate in my Kindle.