Pelicans, Phil Robertson, Clever Cats, Mystery Photo

 I love pelicans. "Oh what a funny bird is a pelican. Its beak holds more than its belly can." Here is a fine fellow of a pelican from the ocean front restaurant where Wei and I treated Terry to her birthday celebration.

 

Phil Robertson is in heaven now and I love these words "When I die, don't cry. Sing. Dance. But don't cry when I die. When I die you say "He made it." The same words work for me, say "She made it". I hope not soon!

and for fun, I don't know how they managed to create this: Is it three girls and coffee, if you squint and almost close your eyes it is someone else! Someone I love.

Soon I will tell you about my gardening, I love the process and the results so much. Plus my getting a new electric panel for my house next week since my old one is failing. My house and the electric panel bringing electricity into my house are 70 years old. Expensive! 
 

Microplastic everywhere! Tips on how to avoid microplastics and a Pretty Photo

Epoch Times recently reported that for the first time plastics have been found to cross the human brain barrier. This is going to cause health problems, I am sure. A 2024 National Geographic article suggests potential risks including inflammation, oxidative stress and disruption of gut microbiota.

Before this serious topic, here is a bougainvillea I photographed in my neighborhood.

 

Here are a few things I do to avoid ingesting plastics.  

• The first is I carry a small 7 oz. thermos with me to every social event that includes free coffee and tea served in paper cups. Why? Because to be able to hold liquids paper cups have a very thin plastic lining, typically PE polyethylene or PLA polylactic acid. Otherwise the paper would dissolve. Pouring hot water or hot coffee into a paper cup causes plastics to migrate to the beverage.

• The second thing I do is not to use tea bags because to hold together in hot water the bags are sealed with plastic glue. November 2024 issue of Chemosphere recent research shows that tea bags immersed in hot water shed microplastics that gut cells absorb. No way do I drink that. I love tea and brew it with loose leaf tea in a small metal holder. So loose leaf tea for me. Mission accomplished.  

• I don't drink water from those plastic bottles so many people carry around. The water can contain  plastics from the bottle. Tap water contains only 4,000 microplastic particles annually, and bottled water up to 90,000 annually. Reverse osmosis removes microplastics from tap water, but I don't have that.
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• I have used a HEPA room air purifier for years to keep dust and pollen down in my home. I recently read that it removes microplastics from indoor air from carpets, furniture and textiles. When we had nearby wildfires the HEPA air purifiers made it easier to breathe.
  

So much microplastic entering our bodies. And so much in landfills or floating in our precious oceans. And thank you to GROK for lots of scientific documentation on this subject. Did I tell you how much I like GROK? There is a free GROK app for phones. It is much faster than old style search engines, goes deeper, and is more balanced in what it presents. I am a librarian and double check most everything.

 Let's all find things to smile about!