Friday Flames: Animals are smarter than people
And other news about valises and varmints, Richard and Ruth, zucchini, Zadie, and Zinedine.
Are you as geared up for Les Jeux Olympiques as we are? Enough with all the pregame clickbait about 300,000 condoms and swimming in poop. Bring on the starter pistols!
Also: The opening ceremonies are really different this year! Instead of focusing the performances in a stadium at night, Paris is having a sprawling, rain-soaked block party along the Seine. It feels like the sprinkler system went off at the Moulin Rouge.
We’ve had a couple of adventures this week, centering on a theme of human incompetence and animal ingenuity. Magda managed to escape the CrowdStrike meltdown last Friday by flying Alaska Air, which doesn't use CrowdStrike but does employ inept gate-checkers. Mislabeled from the jump, Magda’s carry-on traveled from Boston to Seattle (but not to her flight’s baggage claim), then to Spokane for a few days and back to Seattle, before it arrived at her doorstep this morning, a full week later. Magda wants to see if the bag can apply for a mileage credit card.
Meanwhile, Doug learned that one of the under-reported downsides of riding your bike everywhere is that animals like to build nests in your inert car. The mechanic could not identify the culprit, but he did remove a cubic foot of debris that had neutralized the A/C. Fixing this was a top priority before the college drop-off trip next month, so we won’t have to spend 10 hours traveling in an overheated zoo cage.
Embers in the News
Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle this week:
Building a better breathalyzer Specially trained dogs can detect PTSD in us humans by smelling the volatile organic compounds in our breath.
OK, gamer As if pickleball needed more press, FarSight Studios is launching PPA Pickleball Tour 2025 in partnership with the Professional Pickleball Association.
“Moments snatched amid the dehumanising cruelty” An amazing, intimate, and inspirational longread about watching your wife live with familial Alzheimer’s.
Keep in touch with the Great Beyond Silicon Intelligence creates AI chatbots using the likeness and voice of a loved one who has passed away.
This week on the podcast
Carolyn decided to make the content she wish already existed. "M is for Mastectomy" breaks new ground by helping moms explain mastectomies to young kids.
Episode 52: Carolyn Sklar couldn't find a children's book about mastectomies, so she wrote one.
After Carolyn Sklar’s grandmother (and namesake) died of breast cancer in her 50s, the family learned that its women carry the BRCA 2 gene. Rather than risk cancer, Carolyn opted for a prophylactic double mastectomy not long after her kids were born.
We went deep on this one, talking about what death is, what happens after, and what each of us would say at the other’s funeral.
Episode 53: As we live more with our finality, celebrity deaths hit different
It’s hard to keep up with the swift pace of death, which claims 11 people every second. When we recorded this, we were still processing the departures of Shannen Doherty, Shelley Duvall, Richard Simmons, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Since then we’ve lost Bob Newhart, Lou Dobbs, John Mayall, Sheila Jackson Lee,
Currently reading
Magda just finished Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House, a noir detective novel set in mid-century, supergay San Francisco. Great pacing and period details, including dress and speech, and you really root for the inspector to crack the case—and figure out a few things about himself. She’ll definitely read the next book in the series. She just started Community Board by Tara Conklin, about a woman who moves back to her hometown after a divorce and grapples with living in her childhood home as an adult.
Doug has been a big Zadie Smith fan ever since he sprinted through White Teeth in about three sittings. It was just one of the most exhilirating reading experiences about characters so very different from the people he knew. He is prioritizing time to read The Fraud so he can finish it before she arrives in Ann Arbor next month.
Currently watching
Doug’s life has improved immeasurably since his sons forcibly made him cut off linear television. As a result, he has been spared almost all of the press junket for Deadpool & Wolverine. But it was very entertaining to see its stars reduced to trembling, sweaty messes—even after they were offered ice cream (wtf???)—on this episode of Hot Ones.
Magda loved Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F because it was exactly like the original BHC, but with old people. Mike felt bad about it for just about the same reason—everyone had gotten old and was still trying to do the same things they'd done 40 years ago, but slower. He also resented reusing the original soundtrack, whereas Magda loves any opportunity to sing along to Bob Seger's Shakedown.
Currently cooking
On their vacation, Magda and Mike ate everything from burgers in an old firehouse in Tacoma to sandwiches in a Sasquatch-themed restaurant in Marblemount to bomb burritos in Wenatchee to Mexican in Oroville to Peruvian chicken near SeaTac airport. (They skipped the Hoffbrau Haus-themed Mongolian grill in Leavenworth.) And the step-siblings made "Kamala is brat" cookies with green food coloring, semi-sweet and white chocolate chips, and green sugar on top. (Photo in the Facebook group.)
Doug’s cooking life began anew after he bought a mandoline, and now that the zucchini are as big as his forearm, he recently made this pasta alla Nerano. The zucchini sauce alone is so fresh and summer-y, and you can augment with lemon, garlic, chilis, anchovies, or whatever else and make it your own.
Next on the podcast
Sarah Lyman Kravits describes how her cancer, her divorce, and her brother’s death may have dampened her optimism but will never extinguish it.
Thanks for reading, and let the Games begin!
Magda and Doug
Doug, always use the safety device. Or better get one of the chain mail gloves to use with the mandolin. I can regale you with stories about my $3000 (with insurance) finger tip