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.