Better Living Through Chemistry

Better Living Through Chemistry

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This morning, I learned how to make a bomb. I doubt I will ever put this knowledge to use, but if I find myself in need of propulsion in space, I’ll have a trick up my sleeve.

According to Andy Weir’s novel, The Martian, which I just finished, all I need is sugar, which I have far too much of in this house. I’ll also need a zero-g environment, more difficult to summon, true. But if I had such an environment, Weir explains, “sugar would float and the grains will separate, maximizing surface area. In a pure-oxygen environment, 16.7 million joules will be released for every kilogram of sugar used, releasing the explosive force of eight sticks of dynamite.”

I will soon stir some sugar into my tea.. The fact that I could turn these calories into an explosive device is, well, blowing my mind. Better living through chemistry. Or something like that.

Mars surface map, courtesy NASA.

Spoke Too Soon?

Spoke Too Soon?

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Yesterday I had coffee with a trail watcher, someone who lives near a Reston trail and knows its condition. “I’ve seen people walking their dogs on the trail,” she said. “I think it’s plowed.”

Did I speak too soon yesterday when I moaned about being trail starved? After all, I haven’t been driving around to all the trailheads in the area, checking their status. The Franklin Farm trails are certainly not plowed, and the Reston trails near Lake Anne were unreliable when I tried them last week.

So after we parted, with the odd snowflake flying in a blustery gray sky, I went in search of a nearby path to wander. And sure enough, one that wasn’t cleared last week was down to pavement.

How good it felt to amble among the trees again! There were a few stretches of black ice to avoid, but other than that, I was in business.

Trail Starved

Trail Starved

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These are long days for walkers in the suburbs. Yes, we can walk on the roads. We can and we do. We can use ellipticals or treadmills in gyms or in our basements. Some of us (my neighbor, in fact) traipses around her house when everything else fails.

But what we cannot do (unless we have snow shoes) is walk on a trail. My neighborhood and many of the developments around me have no sidewalks. What they do have, though, are paths, often paved.

Finding these and using them has lifted my heart and put a skip in my step. Trails have given me what I didn’t think was possible when we first moved here — a walking life. A way to make my way on foot from one place to the other.

But for almost three weeks now the trails have been off limits; more ice rinks than paths, and I’m logging miles on the main street in my neighborhood. I’m still putting one foot in front of the other, propelling myself through space. But I’m trail starved. I can’t wait to be back.

(If I’m going to imagine a trail walk, I might as well make it summer.)

Virtual Vacation

Virtual Vacation

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We’ve entered the double digit dates of February. The snow is melting, but not fast enough. It’s time for a virtual vacation.

I”m thinking of friends vacationing in Madeira. No trip there for us this winter, but many memories. Last year we hiked across the island, beginning on the Mimosa Trail, then traversing Madeira’s vertiginous spine along Boca do Risco. I’m a scaredy cat, and there were spots along this trail where I refused to look down, across or anywhere but the path directly in front of me. When I did raise my eyes, I saw the view you see above.

A few hours later, we were climbing down to the village of Machico. It had clouded up by then, but the rain held off and we sat outside at a cafe planning how we would get home. Bus schedules were consulted, poncha was consumed. A few hours later, we arrived back at the hotel, muddy, tired and filled to the brim with the beauty and charm of this special island.

Sculptural

Sculptural

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We will have highs of 40 degrees or more the next few days, a welcome respite to the Arctic chill that’s plagued us for a month. But what we won’t have — soon — is sculptural snow.

I’ve grown accustomed to parking lot art displays and corner exhibitions, to strolls that are more like gallery walks than typical rambles.

Yes, there are advantages to warmer temperatures. Soon, perhaps, we’ll be able to park both cars side by side in the driveway.

But before this happens, the snowcrete will weaken and turn to mush. The chiseled snowbanks and statuesque berms will vanish before our eyes. Soon, we’ll be back where we started, strangely, still in drought conditions.

Normal life will be easier. I won’t lie. But there’s a part of me that will miss these bizarre, frigid, sculptural days.

Improving with Age

Improving with Age

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What is it about watching the Olympics that seems to improve with age? The events themselves seem more audacious and death-defying. Take slope style skiing — the rails and jumps, the sheer moxie needed to fling oneself down a mountain.

Or take figure skating, my favorite winter event. I watched hours of it over the weekend. I learned that the American men’s phenom, Ilia Melinin, grew up 20 minutes from my house, attended a local high school. Has everyone else in the world already heard of this man, who’s called the Quad God for all the quadruple axels, toe loops and salchows he can do? Probably!

No matter. He — and all his compatriots from the U.S., Japan, Italy, Georgia and Canada in the team finals — are all the better for being new to me.

The more inflexible my body becomes, the more I must exercise to keep it in working order, the more I admire youthful bones, muscles and tendons. These are treasures you do not recognize have until you do not have them. And Olympic athletes have them in spades.

16 Candles

16 Candles

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Today, A Walker in the Suburbs turns 16. It’s grown from a baby to a kid, and is now a rebellious teenager, asking for the keys to the car. How does a blog become rebellious, you ask. It demands a makeover, for starters. It sleeps late. It takes risks. In short, it grows up.

When I wrote my first post on February 7, 2010, blogs may not have been in their heyday but they were more relevant than they are now. But I’d finally found a moment to start the one that had been rattling around in my head, a perennial resolution I thought I’d never keep.

I know that a blog in an AI-driven, highly algorithm’d world is like one of those Amish horse and buggies I used to see on the roads in northern Ohio, when we visited Suzanne in college. It is hopelessly out of date.

But the more out-of-date blogs are, the more rebellious I feel. Here I am on WordPress, world! Take that, Substack! Must be those 16 candles, egging me on.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons. I only count 15 candles, but close enough!)

Make Way for Walkers

Make Way for Walkers

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The snow bricks are shrinking, the berm crud is thinning, and the road is widening. But not enough. Motorists still hesitate to cross the yellow line. Sometimes they can’t, because there’s a car on the other side. Other times, they just don’t.

Walking in the suburbs has never been more fraught. The trails I frequent are a slick, icy mess. Which means I’m forced to do all my walking in the neighborhood, along the side of the road. Some drivers seem reluctant to move over to give me a safe-enough berth.

I think it’s just rule-following, of which I’ve been guilty, too. But as a walker in the suburbs, I’m hoping cars cut us more slack these winter days. The gravelly stuff along the road is like quicksand, and walkers can’t exactly hop out of the way when they’re striding alongside a five-foot-tall mountain of snowcrete.

The cars that do cross the line have my fervent thanks and appreciation. As for the rest of them, I’ll paraphrase Robert McCloskey and say … make way for walkers.

(The cover of Make Way for Ducklings, from which I borrowed the title of this post.)

My Paper, My City

My Paper, My City

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I’ve lived in the Washington, D.C. area for decades. I live in the suburbs, true, but since suburbs orbit their star like dutiful planets, I’ve had quite a bit to do with the Capital City through the years. I have commuted there, edited a magazine from there, pounded its streets and marveled at its cultural riches.

And now, I’m watching my city disappear. The White House partially demolished. The Kennedy Center closing this summer. The Washington Post vanishing before my eyes.

I heard the news of yesterday’s Post firings from the blog of a former Post reporter. “Democracy dies in darkness. Indeed!” was the headline. This morning, I think, I’ll process this further after I read the paper. Then I catch myself. My paper is the Post. How will they cover the news of their decimation? How will they cover sports without sports reporters, local news without Metro reporters, international news without foreign bureaus? Easy answers: they won’t.

When we moved here one of the things I was most excited about was reading the Washington Post every day. It would be my hometown paper — and it has been all these years. I’m still a subscriber, the last of a vanishing breed. I had hoped the paper would outlive me. Now I’m not so sure.

The barbarians are not just at the gates. They’re inside the castle, taking it apart.

Back Before 6

Back Before 6

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No time to walk yesterday until almost nightfall., but it’s light enough now that I could leave my house at 5:30, stroll through the gloaming, and be back before 6 without walking in the dark. A good reminder that spring is on its way, even though the groundhog saw his shadow.

At this point in the season 6 p.m. is still a hard stop. With no shoulders due to snow boulders, and no sidewalks or street lights, it’s better to be safely inside by this hour. But that I could amble abroad at all after 5 was a surprise and a delight.

It’s such a pleasant time to wander, yellow porch lights beacons of warmth in a frozen landscape. I saw a single doe jump from the snowy woods over the road, her white tail flashing.