Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

The rain seems to be over, though it's still windy. We're high and dry here and have been all along; fretting, but no actual harm. The National Weather Service is reporting a near-record storm surge at the Battery, but I don't know whether/how much flooding that means. They're also saying a storm total rainfall at Central Park of 5.43 inches, but my quick calculations from the hourly numbers put it at 6.7: either I'm counting rain from early yesterday that they don't consider part of the storm, or they need to include rain after 6:40 this morning. Either way, this makes August 2011 the wettest month on record in New York City.

kate_nepveu's post about the storm confirms we did well to stay home, because her power is out, and she lives near the people we had been planning to visit this weekend.

ETA: We have been out for a walk, and saw no significant damage (small branches down). The water level in the bit of the Harlem River across the street looked like a very high tide; this was at about 1:00, which I think was well after the astronomical high tide (though it's a complicated harbor; high tide at 8 at the Battery can be 11 elsewhere in the city). The wrack/high tide line was far enough from the river that we missed it at first, from not looking that far (we have an idea of where to expect it after very high tides, even storm-driven ones, but I'm guessing the storm surge made the difference). The "line" is a straggling mess, clumps of mud and leaves and such.

We also saw a rather large turtle, sitting on a bit of board that we guessed she washed ashore on. I took some photos, and we worried a little that she didn't seem to be trying to escape human attention, but when we passed by 20 minutes later she was a bit closer to the water, and facing toward it, so I'm guessing she'll be all right. Some people also pointed out jellyfish that had washed up on the path, presumably either dead or dying.

We got to wondering about phylogenetic relationships, and after a while I got to this:

Turtles belong to the reptilian grade of physiological organization. They are ectothermic and have relatively low metabolic rates. Being ectotherms, their body temperature remains close to the temperature of their environment, and they are entirely reliant on external sources of heat. Many turtles bask in the sun to raise their body temperature to a point where bodily functions can operate optimally. One species, the leatherback, can maintain a body temperature above that of its environment, but how this is achieved is yet to be determined. Most turtles cannot be active during very hot or very cold periods. Therefore, hibernation in winter and aestivation in summer is common for members of this group.

Turtles breathe with lungs located inside of a rigid ribcage. They therefore must use a different mechanism for breathing than most vertebrates. Muscles in the region of the leg pockets act to inflate the lungs, muscles on the surface of the lungs dorsally and ventrally deflate them. Many turtles augment gas exchange at the lungs with gas exchange in the throat or in the cloaca.

In addition to providing protection for the turtle, the shell of at least some species has an important physiological function. It acts as a "calcium bank". Calcium and other cations are taken from the carapace and plastron to buffer the blood during hibernation when metabolic acids are likely to build up. In other species, it appears that in reproductively active females, calcium is removed from the shell and incorporated into eggshells forming around follicles in the oviducts.

juliansinger offered to pick a letter for anyone who asked, and then we're supposed to pick ten things that start with that letter, and write about them and what they mean to us.

She gave me T. I started by listing some things, and then selected from them based on what I felt ready to write about. This proved trickier than I thought it would be (lots of T's in that sentence, but not ones I want to use) and the results may be more free-associative than was being asked for.( cut because it got quite long )