All posts by Karen

About Karen

Karen (she/hers) is a Culinary Literacies Specialist at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre library. When not in the kitchen, she can be found knitting, reading, and repeating.  |  Meet the team

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

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From our viewpoint, it’s probably easy to think we reside on a planet dominated by people, but Scott Shaw makes a good case to consider that we actually reside on a Planet of the Bugs! Shaw introduces us to insect evolution through the eras, describing how environmental & predation pressures played a part in how insects evolved, steadily moving forward and proliferating on their balanced set of 6 legs (for the most part). While I’m not huge on bugs – you can find me doing the hunched shoulders & slinking away manoeuvre throughout the summer when insects abound – this was a fun and informative journey to go on, learning about the advent of exoskeletons, how insects have taken over tiny and tinier ecological niches (how’s laying an egg only in a mature specimen of another insect sound for niche housing?) with different types of parasitism*, and more!

For anyone who has a deep dislike or fear of insects, here’s one way to learn more about them in a more multifaceted way and maybe discover something incredibly cool about them that will make them more approachable. (Or perhaps the bugs approaching you isn’t the issue so much as getting them to leave you alone?) Some other really cool items we carry are the Nature Backpacks, including one with a Creepy, Crawly Critters theme, that can help you get outside and explore the outdoors!

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Pipe Dreams and the Search for Loo-topia

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Book Cover of Pipe Dreams by Chelsea Wald

As for public toilets, they too often fail people, especially the vulnerable and marginalized, either because they don’t exist or because they don’t accommodate all that people might need or want to do in them (Wald, 174).

Any long-time VPL blog readers will find it no surprise that I immediately placed on hold and subsequently devoured* Pipe Dreams: The urgent global quest to transform the toilet within a couple days of receiving it. But if you haven’t (yet) had the pleasure(?) of reading my enthusiastic gushing about the alimentary canal and writing probably altogether too many times the word “intestine” in any one paragraph… just know that an entire book dedicated to toilets is to me essentially a siren call (not toilet humour, mind you – though Pipe Dreams is fun to read and at times funny, and the book is not completely without puns – but Wald focuses much more on topics such as the social consequences of water flushing toilets and the sewers they require, the lack of toilets in many parts of the world – including within the U.S.! – as well as serious considerations on the topic of what to do with all that urine and fecal matter, because we’re not about to stop production anytime soon!).

So if you’ve never thought too much about toilets until you found yourself out about town**, on a hike, or maybe on a roadtrip, desperately trying to recall where the last public toilet (or more likely, gas station) was, or conjecturing whether one will come up soon, join us as we embark upon this journey into toilets, the sewers, and so many different ways to manage fecal sludge and urine that you never knew you wanted to learn about, all on the quest for Loo-topia!

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Pound that Pavement!

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Book Cover of Jog On by Bella MackieWhether you’ve been hitting the trails or pounding the pavement, it’s gotten plenty warm enough that you’ve probably noticed the uptick in the number of runners out and about – perhaps you’re one of them yourself! I’m a bit of an unlikely candidate to be writing this post; personally, running has never been my sport of choice (give me a pool or a clean lake any day of the week!) but 2020 made me turn to it more as basically my only consistent option for cardio that also allowed me to not feel guilty about being physically outside of the house. So for all the rest of you who also either 1) do what is known as running, but kind of hate it and don’t really think of yourself as part of the group that would call themselves “runners” per se; or 2) find the very thought of running intimidating and why would anyone do that to themselves – you’re in good company! Which means, if I could learn to not hate my runs – sometimes even enjoy them and think of them as fun (and I’m not even dripping with sarcasm here) – I’m going to go ahead and make this irresponsible claim: you can too. Thank you for coming to my TED talk*. Don’t hold me to it and don’t hold me responsible for whatever happens.

Now that we’ve established running’s wonderful and all, let’s take a look at how you can get started, run faster or for longer distances, or otherwise get inspired to think of running from a different perspective. I’ve also got some alternative titles for those of us who might have tender knees and joints, or just might otherwise not be up for running but would still love to hit up the trails and go for a hike!

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