As if the world needs another Wordle fan

I blame the Fluffster offspring. Knowing I can’t resist word games, he sent me the message above about Wordle, the daily puzzle that involves guessing a five-letter word — without any clues — in six tries or fewer. Since it sounded like fun, I started playing.

Two months have passed, and I’m hooked, along with millions of others. Some days I don’t get much done, but I always finish the Wordle. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long.

The Toronto Star recently reported that Canada beats the US at Wordle, and Torontonians are slightly ahead of Vancouverites (see below and article). As a West Coast resident, I must object. Toronto can’t be permitted to beat us at this game.

That said, I’m also suspicious of these results. The article relies on Twitter data, not official Wordle scores. How do we know these Twitter posts are reliable? Perhaps the writer of WordTips cherry-picked a time period that favoured Toronto to arrive at this ranking. I await more persuasive evidence before conceding defeat.

On days when I feel I need more practice, I tackle one of the one of the variations on Wordle.

Hello Wordl lets you choose longer words (5 to 11 letters), plus unlimited rounds. This site will be my fallback when the New York Times puts the currently free Wordle behind a paywall. Not because of the longer words and unlimited rounds, though; the satisfaction I get from playing is because I can complete it quickly and then look forward to the next day’s challenge. Oh, and because it’s free.

I do Quordle when I need a bigger challenge. Guessing four different words at the same time, using the same five letters in 9 tries or fewer, is hard. I’m slowly improving. I’ll keep trying. Just not every day.

Canuckle requires words unique to Canada. Some, like kayak or maple, make sense. Others are a stretch, like cabin or tower (the latter refers to the CN Tower — not so obvious outside Toronto). Apparently landmarks are legitimate solutions. This one’s for occasional use only.

Wordle lets you post your results (how many tries you needed) on social media without giving away the solution (see below). Inevitably, some folks mess up and reveal the answer instead. Ms. Fluffster usually does the Wordle first thing in the morning, and shares her results on Twitter with minimal comments. Then she blocks the spoilsports.

As I discovered when we tried to play the game together, the Fluffster offspring doesn’t try to guess the answer; he first plugs in words with as many different letters as possible to narrow down his options. Sure, this strategy increases his odds of success in the end, but sharply reduces the chance of guessing correctly in three tries or fewer.

We decided that we weren’t compatible co-Wordlers because I’m a gambler. I start out semi-methodically with a standard word or two, then make wild guesses. Consequently, I fail more often than he does. That’s ok. It’s not just about the win streaks. Today, I got it in two!

Crossword by Adrien Coquet from NounProject.com

Construction ate my neighbourhood

Above, a photo of the bend in my street, dug up and refilled for the umpteenth time to install new pipes. Due to numerous new developments underway, this occurs regularly. Almost every time I drive around that bend, I see workers peering down into a new hole in the street, moving pipes about, or guiding/driving front-end loaders to transport large piles of gravel.

My neighbourhood used to be quiet. The complex of six high-rise buildings I live in was surrounded by evergreens and mostly single-family homes. The residents of our apartments were the only significant traffic generator. Sometimes cars would back up onto the bridge (the only way to drive out of our complex), but those lineups were quiet. Outside of rush-hour traffic noise, the roar of the nearby river was the loudest sound I used to hear.

The street was entirely residential, with just a small corner grocery store that sold milk, bananas, and canned beans (the essentials, especially the bananas) within easy walking distance.

In 2017, several new construction projects were announced. The first would be a townhouse/apartment complex with a community recreation centre, a library, a small grocery store, and more. Those sounded like Good Things. Mr. Fluffster and I dreamed of having a decent coffee shop close by to spare ourselves that half-hour trek to the nearest cafe that meets our exacting latte standards.

Construction of that first development, now nearly complete (below), provided interesting viewing on daily walks. No sign of the promised grocery store, however.

Meanwhile, the corner grocery expanded its deli counter, started making sandwiches for the scores of construction workers, and added a couple of tables out front. No more canned beans.

In under a year, a row of townhouses replaced a half-dozen single-family homes torn down over one summer. The first crash-bang of house demolition jolted me awake at 7 am, but I soon got used to it. On Saturdays, however, I’d lie in bed cursing the early wake-up call.

I took this photo in 2018 of a home slated for demolition, with some local raccoons checking out progress. Curiously, it’s still standing vacant today, minus fence and raccoons. Its only apparent purpose — a temporary surface for “No Parking” and “Site Superintendent Parking Only” signs.

Still later, the corner store removed more shelves, added indoor seating and an ice cream counter, and expanded its menu. Goodbye 4-litre jugs of milk and bananas (my favourite food).

In 2018, we learned that our parking garage membrane was well past its best-by date, which explained why water seeped down walls and dripped onto our cars whenever it rained. Also why hunks of concrete periodically dropped off rusted-out rebar in the ceiling. The water-proofing membrane in the garage roof needed replacing ASAP, which would require removing the gardens, tall evergreens, and fountains installed on top of the garage, replacing the membrane, and restoring the gardens. Bye-bye 50-year-old aging fountains and even older trees. I’ll miss the trees.

Financing issues, red tape, and that pesky pandemic delayed this four-year project until late in 2021. By then we were so used to construction noise we barely noticed when our garage repairs started.

Now, we’re completely surrounded by construction. Not so bad really. Additional heavy equipment and a few more construction workers and traffic flaggers who are now like neighbours. The only (temporary) drawbacks: no shortcut to the strata office or garden to sit in. But we still have the river (below).

In March 2020, my work moved home, and construction noise briefly intruded. I adjusted. Closed the windows, muted my mic, and apologized for background sounds during videocalls and Zoom meetings. In time, either the noise — or my hearing — faded.

In its largest renovation yet, the corner store added umbrellas and decorative panels around their outdoor seating and dropped produce and canned/packaged foods altogether to become a café popular with the construction workers. I’ll have to try their lattes one day — if I can forgive them for ditching bananas.

I may have to; that nearby coffee shop is still a far-off dream.

Crows deserve more respect

While out for a walk recently, I took this photo of a murder of crows flying off together from the treetops. I’ve often watched crows do this without giving it much thought, but on that day it sparked my curiosity. Why do they gather? Where are they going? Professor Google provides an answer to the second question: Still Creek, Burnaby, to roost for the night.

Hitchcock’s The Birds was the first horror movie I ever watched. In one scene, a large flock of crows attacks a group of children as they leave school. As a 13-year-old, I found this terrifying. I re-watched the movie recently, and found that scene preposterous and laughably fake.

As some sources suggest, that movie may be one reason why crows have a dubious reputation. Yes, they do indeed attack people, though not in such large numbers as in the movie. And they usually have good reasons for doing so.

They’re actually quite fascinating, and not only because they’re brave enough to attack us larger creatures. For example, crows:

• mate for life and are highly social
• eat just about anything, including garbage or roadkill, which might seem disgusting but certainly demonstrates a remarkable ability to adapt to urban settings
• remember/recognize human faces and can somehow convey that information to other crows; if you harm one, they spread the word, and a crow who isn’t even the injured party might retaliate
• will recruit other crows to help attack anyone who threatens their young/nests
• can use tools, like one innovator who jammed the tip of a piece of wire into a crevice, then walked in a circle to bend the wire into a hook that it used “to extract a treat from the bottom of a tube” (In the company of crows, Canadian Geographic)

Canuck the Crow, a local human-raised Northwestern crow who disappeared in 2019, was once voted Vancouver’s unofficial ambassador (beating out Ryan Reynolds and Seth Rogen). His most notorious exploit? Flying off with a knife from a crime scene. Perhaps it would have incriminated him in the offence.

Crows often protest loudly in and around the stand of evergreens outside our apartment building (video below).

This group might have been harassing owls, who are known to attack and kill lone crows, given the chance.

Their most frequent target around here are bald eagles, a threat to the crows’ young. Crows will repeatedly dive bomb a lone eagle to chase it off (as in the video below).

A crow once pooped on me in a playground. Sitting with a friend on a bench under a tree, I felt something wet splatter onto my head. The bench faced the waterplay where our children were playing, so fortunately I could rinse most of the goop out of my hair.

I don’t blame that crow. Maybe our chatter woke it from a mid-day siesta after a grueling morning spent hunting for McDonald’s fries or collecting shiny gifts for crow friends like Gabi (The girl who gets gifts from birds). That well-aimed poop was effective: we immediately shut up and cleared the bench!

Next time you spot a crow, stop and watch for a while (not from directly below it, though).

Crow by Travis, Flock V-Formation by Kelsey Chisamore, and Crow by Zoran Djordjijevic from Noun Project