Today's Illumination comes to us from New York's Billion Oyster Project. The organization has set up a program in which restaurants collect the shells from their oyster dishes; those shells are then cured, cleaned, and brought to a high school with a training program in marine sciences; and the students use the shells to essentially seed new oysters. Once the oysters are big enough, they get moved to a structure that helps them form a reef in New York Harbor.
Oysters, evidently, are pretty magnificent creatures. (Calling the world your oyster makes a little more sense to me now.) They filter the water, promote biodiversity by providing food and shelter to other marine life, and protect a shore against a hurricane's waves. Admittedly, none of these things make me more likely to want to eat them, but I can at least appreciate them more.
On a personal note, since it is Coming Out Day...hi. I'm queer. To be specific/pedantic, I'm bi-romatic demisexual. Essentially, I can have heart-feelings for anyone, regardless of gender, but it takes someone really, really special to get the pants-feelings going. Thankfully, I found my someone special nearly 14 years ago, and reader, I married him (come on, how could I resist a good Austen reference?). So, yeah. That's me.
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