COFFEE BREAK
B8 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
TuESDAY, SEpTEmBER 20, 2022
60th anniversary looms with no acknowledgment from kids
not. This anniversary is a big deal
to us, yet they seem unaware.
I’m blaming myself somehow.
Their father has been treated for
cancer and is, fortunately, deemed
cancer-free now. What is your
advice? — READY TO CELE-
BRATE IN FLORIDA
DEAR READY: Your son and
daughter may be so wrapped up
in themselves and their own lives
that it hasn’t occurred to them to
volunteer to host something or ask
what you and their father would
like. Call them and raise the sub-
ject. They may be waiting to be
told what, if anything, you have
planned for the occasion. If they
are not available, do not let that
stop you from having the celebra-
tion the occasion deserves.
DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend
broke up with me. After a few
DEAR ABBY: I have a good,
if not terribly close, relationship
with my adult son and daughter.
We speak every few weeks. They
live some distance away. There’s
no drama, no negative angst
between us. My husband and I
will soon be celebrating our 60th
wedding anniversary. Neither our
son nor our daughter has acknowl-
edged the occasion nor asked if
we wish to celebrate it. I assume
they are somehow unaware of this
milestone.
Should I contact them about
it? It’s not like we’re incommuni-
cado or estranged, because we’re
come was rude and boorish. You
did exactly the right thing by not
allowing him to insert himself
into your plans. I hope you are
now rid of him. If he keeps it up,
it could be considered borderline
stalking.
DEAR ABBY: I recently
returned from an annual girls trip
with my retired teachers group.
We all get along well and enjoy
each other’s company except for
one “fly in the ointment” who
refuses to leave decent tips for
great restaurant service. I’m
talking about $2 on a $20 tab.
We all pay our own bills and tip
25% or more every time. We have
mentioned the subject of tipping
to her before. She says she thinks
it’s a “racket.” Is there anything
we can do? — CHEAPSKATE’S
FRIEND
weeks, I was OK with it. Then he
wanted to visit me, but I was busy
that day and, truth be told, I didn’t
want to see him. I was going to
hang out with a guy friend when
my ex showed up although I had
told him not to. When I went out
with my friend, my ex couldn’t go
in my house because I didn’t want
him there if I wasn’t there. When
I returned home, my ex was mad
that we went out to eat and didn’t
get him anything. Was I sup-
posed to buy him food if I didn’t
even want him there to begin
with? This happened months ago
and I’m still furious. — DEE IN
NEW YORK
DEAR DEE: Being furious is
a waste of your time and energy.
That your former boyfriend would
force himself on you in spite of
having been told he was unwel-
DEAR FRIEND: The annual
girls trip may be this woman’s
only splurge for the year, which
may be why she’s conservative
when it comes to tipping. I will
assume that you and the others
have spoken to her about the
wage scale for restaurant servers,
and the fact that many of them
have to share their tips with other
staff. Because there’s nothing you
can do to change the behavior
of another adult, either consider
your own generous tips as bal-
ancing out her stingy ones or stop
including her because she’s an
embarrassment.
█
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren,
also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was
founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips.
Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com
or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
Constipated scorpions, love at first sight inspire Ig Nobels
The Associated Press
BOSTON — The sex lives of
constipated scorpions, cute duck-
lings with an innate sense of
physics, and a life-size rubber
moose may not appear to have
much in common, but they all
inspired the winners of this year’s
Ig Nobels, the prize for comical sci-
entific achievement.
Held less than a month before the
actual Nobel Prizes are announced,
the 32nd annual Ig Nobel prize cer-
emony, held Thursday, Sept. 15,
was for the third year in a row a
prerecorded affair webcast on the
Annals of Improbable Research
magazine’s website.
The winners, honored in 10 cat-
egories, also included scientists
who found that when people on
a blind date are attracted to each
other, their heart rates synchro-
nize, and researchers who looked
at why legal documents can be so
utterly baffling, even to lawyers
themselves.
Even though the ceremony was
prerecorded, it retained much of the
fun of the live event usually held at
Harvard University.
michael Dwyer/The Associated Press
Master of Ceremonies Marc Abrahams poses with the 2022 Ig Nobel prize, Friday,
Sept. 9, 2022, at his office in Cambridge, Mass. The prize was emailed in advance
to the winners with instructions for self-assembly. The annual prize ceremony
on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, was for the third year in a row a prerecorded affair
because of the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Abrahams also holds
a Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill that is part of the prize presented to the winners.
As has been an Ig Nobel tradi-
tion, real Nobel laureates handed
out the prizes, using a bit of
video trickery: The Nobel laure-
ates handed the prize off screen,
while the winners reached out and
brought a prize they had been sent
and self-assembled into view.
Winners also received a virtu-
ally worthless Zimbabwean $10 tril-
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
“Science is fun. My sort of a tag-
line is you’re not doing science if
you’re not having fun,” said Frank
Fish, a biology professor at West
Chester University in Pennsylvania
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
51/67
Kennewick
49/76
St. Helens
56/76
53/78
Portland
Condon
53/79
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
Some sun with
a shower
A.M. rain;
cloudy, cooler
Mostly sunny
and warmer
Mostly sunny
and pleasant
42 73 42
59 33
69 38
70 34
Eugene
3
10
9
53/74
60 40
71 43
71 39
0
10
10
Comfort Index™ 10
Enterprise
9
43 72 45
Comfort Index™ 10
69 44
67 38
3
10
10
6
ALMANAC
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Sunday
Low Sunday
High: 104°
Low: 17°
Wettest: 2.46”
63°
43°
64°
46°
69°
49°
0.08
0.64
0.27
5.37
6.69
0.07
0.11
0.37
9.33
11.70
Trace
0.05
0.56
18.26
16.47
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Sunday
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Normal year to date
HAY INFORMATION WEDNESDAY
40%
SW at 6 to 12 mph
7.7
0.14
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Monday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
3% of capacity
27% of capacity
10% of capacity
58% of capacity
3% of capacity
0% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Sunday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder
Burnt River near Unity
Umatilla River near Gibbon
Minam River at Minam
Powder River near Richland
OREGON
Ontario
Crater Lake
Baker City
WEATHER HISTORY
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
Eloy, Ariz.
Bodie State Park, Calif.
St. Augustine, Fla.
High: 81°
Low: 34°
Wettest: 0.08”
On Sept. 20, 1911, the temperature rose
40 degrees in 5 minutes at Kimberly, South
Africa. Most thunderstorms bring cooler
air. Sometimes a downdraft brings warm,
dry air.
SUN & MOON
TUE.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
6:37 a.m.
6:54 p.m.
12:42 a.m.
5:03 p.m.
WED.
6:38 a.m.
6:52 p.m.
1:45 a.m.
5:34 p.m.
MOON PHASES
598 cfs
0 cfs
71 cfs
46 cfs
70 cfs
14 cfs
New
Sep 25
First
Oct 2
Full
Oct 9
Sisters
Last
Oct 17
44/66
Beaver Marsh
58/68
Silver Lake
Jordan Valley
46/68
Paisley
37/58
42/58
Frenchglen
Diamond
44/62
Klamath Falls
41/57
Lakeview
36/58
McDermitt
40/64
Shown is Wednesday’s weather. Temperatures are Tuesday night’s lows and Wednesday’s highs.
RECREATION FORECAST WEDNESDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
THU.
Hi/Lo/W
67/56/pc
64/43/sh
75/52/t
58/51/c
65/37/pc
64/55/sh
70/53/pc
74/41/t
73/47/s
74/55/c
77/54/s
76/59/s
76/56/pc
66/39/pc
73/45/sh
77/57/s
57/39/r
58/35/r
Hi/Lo/W
66/54/pc
66/36/pc
65/48/pc
62/50/c
66/35/sh
68/51/c
72/48/c
54/37/pc
63/42/r
74/50/pc
73/52/pc
76/53/pc
65/52/sh
63/35/c
57/41/sh
73/56/pc
67/37/pc
65/33/pc
47/78
43/70
Fields
56/66
WED.
Grand View
Arock
44/61
43/64
Medford
Brookings
Boise
55/75
55/64
53/58
46/71
37/58
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Juntura
40/65
43/59
39/57
Roseburg
Ontario
52/75
Burns
Brothers
51/69
Coos Bay
Huntington
41/63
46/64
Oakridge
Council
48/74
53/74
Seneca
Bend
56/66
47/75
42/73
John Day
45/66
46/63
Elkton
Powers
Halfway
Granite
42/66
Baker City
Florence
53/62
SUNDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
Monument
45/71
Redmond
51/62
54/64
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.
46/72
49/69
54/77
Corvallis
Enterprise
43/72
50/70
Newport
54/70
60 42
45/73
La Grande
50/68
52/75
Idanha
Salem
Patchy clouds
46 72 46
Elgin
Pendleton
The Dalles
56/78
53/75
TONIGHT
La Grande
50/73
48/71
Newberg
Lewiston
52/76
Hood River
Vancouver
50/76
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Walla Walla
56/77
Maupin
9
Solimary García-Hernández
and Glauco Machado of the Uni-
versity of São Paulo in Brazil won
the biology Ig Nobel for studying
whether constipation ruins a scorpi-
on’s sex life.
Scorpions can detach a body
part to escape a predator — a pro-
cess called autotomy. But when they
lose their tails, they also lose the
last portion of the digestive tract,
which leads to constipation — and,
eventually, death, they wrote in the
journal “Integrated Zoology.”
Eliska Prochazkova’s personal
experiences inspired her research
on dating that earned her and col-
leagues the cardiology Ig Nobel.
She had no problems finding
her apparent perfect match on
dating apps, yet she often found
there was no spark when they met
face-to-face.
So she set people up on blind
dates in real social settings, mea-
sured their physiological reac-
Get your ducks in a row
TIllamook
Comfort Index™ 10
A cruel sting
That synching feeling
lion bill.
Curiosity Ig-nited? Learn more
about some of the winners:
49/69
Baker City
tions and found that the heart rates
of people attracted to each other
synchronized.
So is her work evidence of “love
at first sight”?
“It really depends, on how
you define love,” Prochazkova, a
researcher at Leiden University in
the Netherlands, said in an email.
“What we found in our research
was that people were able to decide
whether they want to date their
partner very quickly. Within the
first two seconds of the date, the
participants made a very complex
idea about the human sitting in front
of them.”
who shared the physics Ig Nobel for
studying why ducklings follow their
mothers in single-file formation.
It’s about energy conservation:
The ducklings are drafting, much
like stock cars, cyclists and runners
do in a race, he said.
“It all has to do with the flow
that occurs behind that leading
organism and the way that moving
in formation can actually be an
energetic benefit,” said the appropri-
ately named Fish, whose specialty is
studying how animals swim.
He shared the prize with
researchers at the University of
Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland,
who found that the ducklings actu-
ally surfed in their mother’s wake.
By MARK PRATT
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
76/56/s
76/55/s
67/40/s
66/53/r
62/53/c
79/49/s
75/50/s
79/58/s
71/52/pc
78/59/s
66/57/sh
66/45/c
68/54/sh
77/58/pc
76/52/s
79/59/s
65/41/c
73/54/s
Hi/Lo/W
66/49/sh
69/54/pc
56/37/r
77/49/pc
63/52/c
70/52/pc
69/43/c
76/56/pc
71/48/c
73/54/c
66/54/pc
68/38/pc
74/52/pc
73/52/pc
63/47/c
75/54/pc
58/38/c
67/53/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
A stray shower
A stray shower
53
39
68
41
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Mostly sunny
A stray shower
61
42
78
44
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
A shower or two
A morning shower
60
38
64
39
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
A shower or two
Partly sunny; nice
73
45
68
50
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
A stray shower
A stray shower
73
42
72
46
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