It's a good thing that Friday is a strong podcast day, because I am sick. To be precise, I am sunk down at the bottom of a viral swamp, squinting blearily at the distorted image of the real world on the surface.

I spent most of the morning trying to mark a single English paper from within my aquatic den -- my tentacles drifting away from the paper, the pen floating from my hand, my amorphous being turning a hapless slow somersault of thought.

* * * * *

That reminds me: last weekend the family visited the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea, where I saw a real Giant Pacific Octopus, innumerable moon jellies, massive sea nettles, and other bright radial beings. I realized, as I watched them pulse and flex, balloon and shrivel, that I know most of these creatures only from videos and Haeckel's inimitable drawings¹.²

The aquarium is one of the modern low-impact ones, so it doesn't remove creatures from their ecosystems permanently -- the collection rotates.

These beings were all one thousand times more beautiful and wondrous to meet in person. The octopus has toys that she plays with, including a basketball. I am pretty sure that even with the aquarium's attention to ethics she should not be in a tank, but I was very glad to meet her.

If I could think of an acceptable octopus-based nickname, I would adopt it.

{rf}


Notes

1. And yet I imitate them.
2. Plus that one startling swim off Hornby Island during a jellyfish bloom