Hello From the Hurricane!

Random Blog on a Wednesday About Penguins

I don't usually write on Wednesdays. Not that it's never been done, but if you go back through my posts, you'll find it's a rare thing.

This morning, however, I thought was an ample time to discuss penguins, as it is currently 7 degrees outside my apartment right now and even with the heat on, I am cold. Also, there is no snow, which makes this cold all the more irritating.

I wonder if penguins can get cold. One moment--let me go find out.

I'm back. I hope you weren't worried. That took longer than expected. At any rate, penguins have a layer of fat below their skin that keeps them warm. They also have feathers which help when they're on land, blood circulation to help their feet, and methods such as standing on their tiptoes to avoid touching snow. Males watching the eggs huddle. So I guess the answer is that yes, penguins can get cold, but they don't very often.

My friend Leslie has a trash can shaped like a penguin. The difference between her trash can and a real penguin is that it doesn't steal babies. If a baby penguin dies, its mother steals someone else's baby. Perhaps we should attempt this child swap in human society--life would be a very different animal. Other things about penguin: they have no knees, they walk faster than humans, and the males take care of the children... insert gender joke here.

For your entertainment I have included a picture of a bagpiper and a penguin, and a video of a penguin going shopping.

Call Me When I Can Hang My Laundry By The Giant Space Ocean

I love New England. These are my reasons:

Reason #1: There is always weather. Always. Rain, fog, sleet, snow, hail, sunshine, wind, weird cloud formations, hurricanes--everything. And I love weather. In fact, this morning I walked out the door at 4:36am, and got slammed in the face by a sheet of water--wind and water at the same time! Fantastic.

Reason #2: The ocean. The ocean is everywhere. It doesn't just stay in the giant crater where it lives. It sneaks up through cracks in the sidewalk to tickle your bellybutton, it leaps over the pier and sneaks into your socks, and it has this way of latching on to the air and grabbing you from behind in a damp, salty hug. You can taste it in the fog, you can smell it in the air, and if you're feeling ambitious, you can stick your feet in it.

Reason #3: It's gorgeous. The sky is gorgeous. The ocean is gorgeous. The mountains are gorgeous. The snow is gorgeous. The hills are gorgeous. The countryside is gorgeous. Magnificent, wonderful, glorious, majestic, resplendent, astonishing, splendid, formidable, awesome, breathtaking, transcendent, pulchritudinous, imposing, etc. And you can drive over the ocean!

Reason #4: Pictures like these.

You may have noticed that all of my reasons have to do with water. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a fish. I am, however, made up of 70% water. It's likely that you are too.

The coolest thing about water is probably the giant space ocean. If I were a few million times larger than I am and could live on the edge of that space ocean, watching a billion stars set over a glittering cloud of water vapor so big it could supply 140 trillion Earth-sized planets with oceans and oceans of water, my life would probably be perfect. I might even sell everything I own and buy a space ocean houseboat so I can hang my laundry out to dry by the light of a few galaxies.

That said, if you happen to invent a "make something a million times larger" machine that is shaped like a houseboat, with an "anti-asphyxiation" button and a stick shift that goes 1-2-3-4-speed of light, call me first.