COFFEE BREAK
8B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
TuESDAY, ApRIL 13, 2021
Man’s tattoos draw fire from his disapproving wife
DEAR ABBY: My tattoos are
destroying my marriage, and I
just don’t understand why. I’m
a 56-year-old elementary art
teacher and the
father of three
grown children.
Since I was young,
I have loved the
artistic expression
of tattoos, and I
ALWAYS envisioned having them,
lots of them.
It had been about 10 years
since my last one, but I decided
to get another one. Telling my
wife about wanting another one
was awful. My wife of 28 years
hates tattoos. We have terrible
arguments every time I get one.
I have covered my entire upper
body. (Other than my hands,
none of them are visible while I’m
wearing my work clothes.) I love
them.
I just returned
home with roses tat-
tooed on my hands,
DEAR
and my wife is ready
ABBY
to leave me. She
says I have gone too
far with all my ink.
I’m a responsible and respectful
person. I don’t drink, smoke,
gamble or have any destruc-
tive vices. I’m highly regarded
as a leader and role model at my
school.
Friends, colleagues — even
strangers — compliment me on
my tattoos. However, you would
think my tattoos and I are the
like a hypocrite if I went to her
funeral. We haven’t spoken in
over a year.
Other family members have
repeated things she has said
about me as well as my family.
I put up with her behavior for
years. I only quit talking to her or
going around her a year ago.
— HATES HYPOCRISY
DEAR HATES: Funerals are
for the living. Do not succumb
to the temptation to use your
mother-in-law’s as a platform to
demonstrate your dislike of her.
Attend the funeral and comfort
your husband, who likely will be
hurting and need your support.
And when you do, ABOVE ALL,
refrain from humming, “Ding,
Dong, the Witch is Dead.”
Having never spoken with your
wife, I can’t guess her reason for
talking about leaving you, but
it’s important you ask why those
roses were the last straw. (Am I
correct in assuming there’s no
place else on your “canvas” that
hasn’t been illustrated?)
DEAR ABBY: My husband
and I have been married 20-plus
years. His mother has never liked
me. I have never done anything to
her or her husband.
My father-in-law passed away
two years back, and my moth-
er-in-law is older. If something
happens to her, how am I sup-
posed to react? I know I have to
be there for my husband. My hus-
band and I get along wonderfully,
but at the same time, I would feel
devil in my wife’s eyes. Am I the
problem, or is her perception
of tattoos the issue? Please, any
advice would be greatly accepted.
I can’t understand her stance on
this.
— ART IN LAS VEGAS
DEAR ART: It is your body,
and you have the right to do
what you want with it. While not
everyone is a fan of body art,
I assume that you had tattoos
before you and your wife married.
It is possible that over the years,
when you told your wife you were
getting more, knowing her feel-
ings about it, it came across to her
as disrespectful of her feelings.
As you have acquired more and
more, it may have felt to her like
one insult piled on another.
News of the Weird
In quieter Mexico City,
rare bats make an
appearance
MEXICO CITY — At
a Mexico City univer-
sity campus, researchers
are stringing mesh nets
between trees, hoping to
capture evidence that a
rare bat has begun visiting
its favorite plants in this
metropolis of 9 million.
The National Autono-
mous University’s botan-
ical gardens are filled with
flowering morning glory,
agave plants and cactuses
that provide the bats with
food; their long tongues and
noses have evolved to drink
nectar from the blooms.
The protected Mexican
long-tongued bat was first
sighted this year in an even
more unlikely location: a
zoo at the Chapultepec park
in the city’s center. Under
pandemic rules, the park
was closed or placed under
strict visitation limits for
much of the past year, and
that may have encouraged
the bats to come and feast.
“It is clear that we
have seen that, as human
ators to look for food.
In Mexico, biolumines-
cent plankton appeared at
some beaches in the nor-
mally bustling resort of
Acapulco for the first
time in memory, though
researchers are not clear
about whether a decrease
in human activity was
responsible. Some think
the decline in man-made
lighting may have simply
made the phenomenon
easier to spot.
As night begins to fall
in the botanical garden in
Mexico City, a shout rang
out among the researchers.
“We got one!”
With gloved hands, a
student began to take the
4-inch animal out of the net.
It could fit in the palm of
one hand. Medellín was cer-
tain as soon as he saw it: It’s
a long-tongued bat, distin-
guishable by the elongated
tip of its nose.
“I never would have
thought it,” he said of seeing
the bat in Mexico City.
Listed as threatened in
1994, the bat normally lives
in dry forests and deserts,
in a range that extends from
Marco ugarte/Associated Press
A Mexican long-tongued bat consumes sugar water from a syringe after it was briefly captured and released
for a study by Mexico’s National Autonomous university, Ecology Institute biologist Rodrigo Medellin at the
university’s botanical gardens in Mexico City, Tuesday, March 16, 2021. The small dose of sugar water helps the
bat recover from the stress and helps to obtain stool samples that can shed further light on its diet.
activity declined in the
city, wild animals have
begun to re-take the city,”
said Rodrigo Medellín, a
biologist at the universi-
ty’s Ecology Institute. “It is
really divine justice that the
bats are showing they can
coexist with us, if only we
and near San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Bridge. A
puma roamed the streets of
Santiago, Chile. Goats took
over a town in Wales. In
India, already daring wild-
life has become bolder with
hungry monkeys entering
homes and opening refriger-
give them a chance.”
As people across the
globe stay home to stop the
spread of the coronavirus,
animals have been ven-
turing into places they aren’t
usually seen. Coyotes have
meandered along downtown
Chicago’s Michigan Avenue
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
41/61
Kennewick
37/70
St. Helens
42/65
40/70
37/69
42/70
44/68
Condon
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
Partly cloudy
and cold
Breezy in the
morning
Clouds limiting
sunshine
Mostly sunny
and pleasant
Sunny and mild
26 56 27
60 27
64 28
69 31
Eugene
5
10
10
37/66
57 30
64 32
69 36
7
10
10
La Grande
28 55 27
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
5
5
21 51 24
Comfort Index™
5
67 33
8
10
10
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Sunday
Low Sunday
High: 101°
Low: 8°
Wettest: 2.52”
48°
18°
49°
19°
52°
19°
Sunday
0.00
Month to date
Trace
Normal month to date 0.28
Year to date
1.09
Normal year to date
2.48
0.00
0.02
0.54
5.71
4.77
0.09
0.10
0.72
13.27
8.42
PRECIPITATION (inches)
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
HAY INFORMATION WEDNESDAY
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
30%
NNE at 8 to 16 mph
7.9
0.14
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Monday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
22% of capacity
93% of capacity
60% of capacity
91% of capacity
63% of capacity
100% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Sunday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
5110 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder
79 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
72 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
355 cfs
Minam River at Minam
367 cfs
Powder River near Richland
235 cfs
Grants Pass
SUN & MOON
TUE.
WED.
6:11 a.m. 6:09 a.m.
7:36 p.m. 7:37 p.m.
7:08 a.m. 7:31 a.m.
9:26 p.m. 10:29 p.m.
MOON PHASES
First
Apr 19
Full
Apr 26
Last
May 3
New
May 11
Silver Lake
Jordan Valley
29/49
Frenchglen
Paisley
30/53
31/55
Diamond
30/54
Klamath Falls
30/57
Lakeview
27/54
McDermitt
Shown is Wednesday’s weather. Temperatures are Tuesday night’s lows and Wednesday’s highs.
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
Hi/Lo/W
61/39/pc
53/29/s
57/38/pc
64/45/s
56/25/pc
63/38/s
67/39/s
54/26/pc
55/26/s
66/38/s
65/41/pc
65/42/s
56/29/s
52/26/pc
50/24/pc
66/49/pc
57/24/s
54/21/pc
Hi/Lo/W
64/44/s
58/32/pc
60/37/c
61/45/s
58/26/pc
61/40/s
72/39/pc
55/31/c
58/27/c
71/37/s
68/35/pc
67/41/pc
62/31/c
60/31/c
52/28/c
69/40/pc
61/27/pc
59/24/pc
33/51
RECREATION FORECAST WEDNESDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
THU.
39/56
35/53
Fields
38/70
WED.
Grand View
Arock
27/52
32/55
Medford
Brookings
Boise
36/57
41/74
48/64
Juntura
29/60
25/52
Chiloquin
Medford
Burns
Five inches of snow thwarted plans for
opening day of the Major League Baseball
season in Boston on April 13, 1933. Snow
has fallen on the Massachusetts coast as
late as the beginning of May.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
Beaver Marsh
Ontario
38/63
27/56
24/48
37/69
38/66
Huntington
38/60
Burns
Brothers
27/52
31/54
26/49
33/53
Oakridge
Roseburg
Powers
OREGON
WEATHER HISTORY
28/52
Seneca
35/65
45/63
Death Valley, Calif.
Daniel, Wyo.
Crystal River, Fla.
High: 68°
Low: 17°
Wettest: none
28/56
Council
26/56
John Day
Bend
Elkton
SUNDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
25/48
33/55
Coos Bay
Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels
very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable.
ALMANAC
Sisters
Florence
44/60
29/59
Baker City
Redmond
41/67
60 32
5
Newport
Halfway
Granite
39/67
43/58
54 28
28/57
35/60
40/67
Corvallis
Enterprise
21/51
28/55
Monument
36/59
Idanha
Salem
TONIGHT
3
Elgin
29/55
La Grande
29/55
Maupin
3
35/61
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
Lewiston
36/62
Hood River
32/60
TIllamook
Comfort Index™
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Walla Walla
45/66
Vancouver
39/71
39/64
Baker City
the southwestern United
States to Central America.
But it’s not clear whether
the long-tongued bat has
begun re-colonizing Mexico
City, or whether the bats
are visiting now when
its favorite plants are in
bloom. The bats’ migra-
tion patterns, or how far
they fly, remain unclear,
so researchers are trying
to learn as much about the
bat’s incursion in Mexico
City as they can.
Once the tiny bat was
freed from the net, one
researcher rubbed the bat’s
wings, back, nose and head
with a small cube of gelatin,
to pick up and preserve pos-
sible samples of pollen, to
determine what plants the
bat has been visiting.
The bat also got a dose of
sugar water from a syringe,
to help it recover from the
stress and help obtain stool
samples that can shed fur-
ther light on its diet.
Finally, a microchip
the size of a grain of rice
was inserted into the ani-
mal’s back, to help track its
movements.
— Associated Press
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
WED.
THU.
Hi/Lo/W
62/39/pc
70/38/pc
55/25/s
70/37/s
58/41/s
67/37/s
63/36/pc
67/45/pc
60/33/pc
70/42/s
66/37/s
56/26/s
69/38/s
67/39/s
58/38/pc
69/42/s
48/25/pc
61/36/pc
Hi/Lo/W
64/38/pc
73/39/pc
58/26/pc
74/40/s
60/41/s
72/39/s
64/36/c
70/39/pc
62/35/pc
73/46/pc
71/42/pc
62/29/pc
75/40/s
71/40/pc
62/40/pc
70/40/pc
54/28/pc
63/39/pc
Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice
ANTHONY LAKES
PHILLIPS LAKE
Partly sunny; cold
Partly sunny; cool
30
19
51
26
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Partly sunny
Cool with sunshine
41
27
54
29
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Inc. clouds
Partly sunny
36
17
47
23
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Cool with some sun
Partly sunny
50
24
57
34
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Windy
Breezy in the a.m.
56
27
55
27
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