lurker by nature

Sorry if this is messy, English is not my first language.

So, I have this pretty big round birthday coming up and it's a big deal as I usually have these huge parties, and I was really looking forward to this one. My friends and family love to help me plan, and usually "assign" someone to lead the planning. However this year, we were split pretty 50/50 but it somehow ended up being this one guy, let's call him Ron.

I can't help but feel that Ron has been hijacking my party to be about what he wants and not what I (or any of the other guests really) want. Like when a spoiled brat steals all the attention at another kid's birthday party because they can't stand not having all of the attention, and none of the parents doing anything about it just to avoid "causing a scene", you know? Well, this is like that, even though we're adults. What's more, he's just a very bad party planner, there's no other way to say it. The party is outside, and it's supposed to be a heatwave, and it's like he doesn't care AT ALL about taking safety precautions, and I worry people are going to get heat stroke at my party. He won't listen to anyone trying to convince him to plan more realistically.

Also, he keeps saying it's going to be this grand thing, but his taste is cheap and he's cutting corners everywhere. I've even started suspecting that he's pocketing some of the money I've been giving him to buy stuff for the party. It sounds awful I know, like who would do that, but at this point I can't see where my (rather generous!) budget is going and he's been bragging about buying some suspiciously expensive things for himself lately. AND he wants to charge these ridiculous prices for refreshments, as if he only sees my guests as someone he can fleece for profit?! This was supposed to be a celebration, not another exploitation in his long line of (failed) business ventures.

What's even worse, Ron has apparently pissed off most of the good vendors around here (turns out he has a history of skipping out on bills) so only the sort of shitty ones want to work with him. And now (not just because of this party business, there has been a lot of other stuff too but this post would be way too long if I had to get into it all) more and more of our mutual friends don't want anything to do with him, even a lot of those who originally wanted him to plan the party, and as a result, almost no one wants to come! What was supposed to be a huge, fun celebration of my milestone birthday is now all about him, and it will be empty, boring, cheap, and way too hot (like seriously, he wants to hold a long speech which I'm sure will be more about him than me and there is NO shade - where are they supposed to cool off? the baptismal pool??).

quotes taken from the source

Excerpt from this story from Audubon:

“I can’t tell you how many people come that are like, ‘I grew up seeing fireflies, and I don’t see as many now,’ ” says Matt Johnson, the center’s director.

Candace Fallon, a conservation biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, had long heard similar concerns. But when she checked the literature in 2018, she found little to no information on firefly trends. In fact, there was no comprehensive population data for any of the 179 known firefly species in the United States.

Fallon and a team at the International Union for Conservation of Nature set out to determine how American fireflies are faring. In 2021 they published their findings, the first list of conservation statuses for U.S. fireflies. Of the 132 species they reviewed, more than half lacked enough data to conclude anything for certain. But among the species whose status was clear, the scientists found 20 to be threatened or near threatened.

Fireflies, which are actually bioluminescent beetles, face many of the same threats as birds. Habitat loss—especially of wetlands, given the insects' preference for moist areas—is a major issue. (Indeed, the most threatened fireflies are the species that depend on only one type of landscape, such as the critically endangered Bethany Beach firefly, which primarily occupies freshwater wetlands between sand dunes along a 20-mile stretch of the Delaware coast.) Rising seas and extreme weather events drown coastal birds' nests as well as firefly habitat, while pesticides kill insect prey that both fireflies and birds rely on—and likely fireflies themselves. Light pollution, which can disorient nocturnal migratory birds and contribute to fatal building collisions, also disrupts lightning bugs’ ability to communicate: Flashing in a brightly lit environment is like trying to yell across a crowd.

To help fill critical knowledge gaps, researchers are turning to community science. The Fireflyers International Network collects data on iNaturalist from all over the world, and in 2022 Fallon and the Xerces Society launched the Firefly Atlas, where U.S. participants can share incidental observations and even conduct field surveys. These crowdsourced records can illuminate how species are trending in the face of threats.

Stray cat breaks into Lynx’s enclosure at zoo

these two felines were introduced at 6 weeks old in order to give more enrichment for the lynx and for education purposes, however they got along fantastically from the start and were eventually moved to permanently live with one another.

a much less exciting story, but a much cuter one as well.

14 years ago when I had recently moved to Alaska, I went hiking with an Aleut friend, and she pointed to a feather lying on the ground and said "hey that's a bald eagle tail feather, you should grab it!" and I was like "uhh I'm very white and that's very illegal" and she went "they're fuckin everywhere up here man. I have 20." so she grabs it off the ground and hands it to me and says "there, now it's a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person."

and I'm like, okay, cool, I guess this is how we do things in Alaska. nice.

so I keep this bald eagle tail feather around for years. display it in my home among other cherished memorabilia from places I've lived and visited, etc.

on a whim, I have just now looked it up. there is no exemption to that law for a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person. the last 7 years I lived in the US, I was technically a bald eagle poacher.

the law against 'picking feathers up off the ground' means that you can't go shoot an eagle then sell the feathers on etsy by saying you 'just found them'. you can't own them no matter where they came from, which makes sure that they're not going to come from any birds killed and then secretly disposed of.

May we all smile more in July.

May we all experience ease in July.

May we all worry less in July.

May we all get good sleep in July.