Three Rs

Reading:
Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion, by Loree Griffin Burns, a nice non-fiction narrative I picked up at the Capital City Library on Friday when I went in with Teen so she could get some Stephenie Meyer. Tracking Trash looks at the the trash that falls off container ships into the Pacific and bobs along on ocean currents in ways that scientists find useful to study. I once read a New Yorker article on this subject, but of course that lacked the swell pictures that this book features. It's one thing to say that the four piece bath toy set had a duck, a turtle, a beaver, and a frog, and another to see them in their primary-color glory! There's also a chapter on "The Eastern Garbage Patch," a weird zone where lots of currents come together and deposit plastic crap. The Patch is the size of Alaska. A ship took five days getting through it. Plastic never goes away. If it washes from rivers and down storm drains, or falls off container ships before it's ever enjoyed by a consumer, it likely ends up in a floating garbage patch like this one. (See also.)

A New Yorker article I didn't finish stated in the first column, "In the March issue of Vogue [fashion photography retoucher] Dangin tweaked a hundred and forty-seven images. . . ." ("The World of Fashion," p. 94, May 12, 2008)

Recovering: from a kayaking lesson yesterday at Dutch Gap. What at first seemed like the stuffy, sinus-y result of getting water up my nose when tip testing, now seems more like an actual cold.
Ready?: to go to my 20 year college reunion!