the joy of dieting

"diet" wasn't my thing.  this left me out of or seriously bored with many conversations.
i assumed it all had to do with some body image problem.

recently i watched a super good PBS video Eat, Fast and Live Longer with Michael Mosley (available it says until 9/7) http://video.pbs.org/video/2363162206/ and decided to try it. (except i don't really want to live with michael mosley)

now i get it!  it's a way to organize your life.  instead of wandering aimlessly about in life, you are on a mission, a project.  you research, you devise menus, your brain has something to do when it needs distraction -- think up menus, plan new wardrobes, pat yourself on the back, plan how you'll get through a restaurant or party experience, all that kind of stuff.

Things People Organize Their Lives Around fascinates me since i quit my job.  it's kind of a sub-category of my lifelong interest in What People Should Do With Their Time, other than, that is, criticize everyone else for how they're spending THEIR time.

anyway, this 5:2 diet is great, because you only do it 2 days out of 5, and on the days you are eating very little, you can just reassure your tummy that tomorrow you will FEAST!

making sense of parties

something i read the other day has stuck in my mind.
an explanation of traits of introverts vs extroverts.
the part that stuck was about parties.
it said that introverts go to parties looking forward to spending time with people they know.
extroverts go to parties looking forward to meeting new people.

that stopped my mind.
going somewhere with the idea of looking forward to meeting new people. i cannot wrap my mind around that idea.
but looking back at the behavior of some of my friends, i can see it now!
it all makes sense!  they look forward to meeting new people.

is this obvious and i just missed it all these many years, that such a thing was common and not a weird affectation of a few people i knew?

i wonder what that's like?  i wonder if i could try it?

lightning strikes

NPR has a little map showing the last 18 months of lightning fatalities in the USA.  i clicked on one near my home, and it was the lightning death of a teenage boy. crazy, huh?

when i was a child my parents had some friends who had escaped the nazis and brought their two little kids to this country, where the kids, playing in a field with their metal wagon, were struck and killed by lightning.  i actually recently found this article about them online, with no date, but i think it was from 2001, as i also found his obituary from 2004.

that story stuck with me through my life, a profound example of something or other.

recently i asked my friend Vicki and her mom what they would do if they were out in a field and heard thunder, would they lie flat, would they squat, or would they (bad move) RUN.  

my friend's mom said "i wouldn't be out in a field.  i'd be at the mall."  is this why statistically mostly men are killed by lightning?

serendipity strikes again

all they had were the really big watermelons, not the small sweet ones, but we figured it would be ok for the party.
 but then we didn't get to go to the party!
 plus it was hot hot hot
 thank goodness for the world wide web, the information highway, the 'net.
i discovered a new fabulous hot weather cooling beverage...fill the blender with watermelon, mince up some mint (rampant in our back yard), and when it's all a liquid, chill it.
it looks so pretty in a glass with a sprig of mint.
deeelicious, plus i filled several quart jars and froze them for winter.
watermelon mint ice cubes would be good too!

the silver apples of the moon

why don't i have a label "songs stuck in my head?" 
i could do a whole blog of them, of interest only to me, but then so is this blog. i really do it cause i like to type.
anyway, i refrained from saying "he caught a little silver trout" in my previous post, but the song is still stuck in my head (the version someone put to music).
tho i am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands
has anyone done this in second life?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxIroakIXto

sunday morning before the heat settles in

he caught a fish just as i walked by! 
i've walked around the 3 or 4 blocks of this village for years; always something to see in this town of 600 people in 42 sq miles.
this morning it was a crew of parents behind the school working on the new greenhouse and pavillion, and
a big crowd (25 cars!) at the church, i could hear singing.
along the brook by the falls no kids were swimming yet; the fire chief's truck was parked nearby.
uh-oh, 
but then i saw him up the hill a bit holding a fishing rod.
i waved but he was intent as his rod bent.  i watched to see what he'd snagged.
he pulled in a 6 or 7 inch silvery fish -- couldn't see for sure, but it had to be a trout!

in which i make it stop raining

weeks and weeks ago it got rainy a bit almost every day and my shoes would be soaked after a bit of gardening.
then it got rainier, raining some every day, sometimes really really hard.
and HOT too.  the humidity was around 90 to 93%.

how hot was it?  this hot

i've never found rainboots in narrow sizes, but i was desperate and ordered some i found online because people in the comments said they had a narrow fit.

they were due to arrive on Friday.
NOW it will stop raining, i told everyone. because I ORDERED BOOTS.
probably have a draught!

meanwhile it rained even more. and harder.
then FLOOD WATCHES.
and i got stranded in Windsor due to flooded and washed out roads one night and had to call some folks i know and ask to sleep on their floor!

friday came, no boots, flooding getting worse, i realize the email said the NEXT friday.  
don't worry i told everyone, my boots will be here next friday.

by wednesday i was sleeping with essentials all packed and the car facing out right by the road. everything was soaking, the river was roaring and roaring, thunder and lightening were added to the mix.  
more storms moving in for thursday.

a mushroom grew on our doormat!

 but thursday came and YAY the next batch of storms had veered north.  AND MY BOOTS ARRIVED!

aren't they adorable?  no more rain in the forecast.  but SHHHHHH!!! i am sending them back...way to wide to stay on, even with thick socks!  don't tell.

i love them but they won't stay on

trying out firestorm

taking firestorm out for a test drive -- toady's class sounded like a good way to do it!  
and it was a fun class, lots of tinies there, making a little spaceship that follows you around.
not only that, but another tiny can sit on it and have a ride!

everything in firestorm was right where i looked for it, so they really did make it like phoenix.  it was fun to be back in one of toady's classes.  she is amazingly good at working with a bunch of exuberant unruly tinies!

toady looks scary but she's a good teacher!!

we play with our spaceships after they're all done

i do get the feeling that firestorm's perspective is a little strange -- everything looks further away sooner if that makes any sense.  maybe it's a setting somewhere. i'd like my view to be flattened in a bit, less depth.

phoenix to firestorm -- i did it

second life is so off my radar these days, i seldom give it a thought except to go in once a month and pay mudpie's houseboat rent and check on lucy's property.

i noticed a sort of urgent message from Phoenix.
apparently it is now imperative to migrate to the Firestorm viewer.
i've been meaning to for a couple of years, but keep thinking "why not just give up on the whole second life thing?"

yes, why not?  i guess i had so much fun there for 4 or 5 years, it's hard to cut my ties.  nostalgia for a virtual world,  now so changed as to be barely interesting at all.

anyway, i did the surprisingly painless upgrade.  it seems while i've been procrastinating, so have many others, and Firestorm just worked harder and harder to make a version more like Phoenix, just for us diehards.

everything seems to work except lucy's grass and money pile are white instead of green! (click pictures to see them really big!)

where's the grass?  and the money pile isn't green either

the other colors seem ok -- nice that the ugly across the way is gone

all is well in haven shire at mudpie's houseboat

and there are some new businesses in the neighborhood

new fangled gadgets

Me, being dramatic, "WHAT?" "Did Mom DIE?"
Dad, "No, she doesn't know yet"
Me, "She said you could get a microwave over her dead body."
Dad, "She's in Maryland for the week at her sister's. So I needed one! Don't worry, she'll get used to it."

This was in the 60s. Recently I sent a link to friends with kids, grandkids, work with kids, for a summer fun project using ivory soap and a microwave oven.  One friend replied "I wish I had a microwave -- Not really."  She's an old-fashioned sort of cook.

Mom did find uses for the microwave.  Dad then got each of us kids a microwave so he could use it for his coffee and his oatmeal when they visited us. I foresaw it as useless, but once we had it, we found it handy.
 
It turns out the first microwave oven was sold in 1947. That's as in freaking NINETEEN FORTY SEVEN!  It's new like the TV, refrigerator and stove are new!  The countertop version was introduced in 1967 by Amana. Lots of people still refuse to have TVs, and dammit, you just can't get ice delivered for an icebox any more.

Some people are convinced microwave cooking is dangerous, radiates microwaves, chemically changes the food.  Could be.  I will say this, if you aren't careful, it for sure lets you to cook up all kinds of prepared foods best left out of your meal plan!

go

liz's cat died.
so sad.
but then,
you know i'm sure.

it was her smart cat.
so now will the dumb one be the smart cat?

i mean if you don't care about cats, why are you even on the internet?

anyway it's a chance to reprint (without permission) the best dead cat poem by someone who really gets it.

On the Death of a Cat
- Franz Wright

In life, death
was nothing
to you: I am

willing to wager
my soul that it
simply never occurred

to your nightmare-less
mind, while sleep
was everything

(see it raised
to an infinite
power and perfection)--no death

in you then, so now
how even less. Dear stealth
of innocence

licked polished
to an evil
luster, little

milk fang, whiskered
night
friend--

go.

^ ^

But Wait! That's ME?

a very weird thing has happened.
there's a blog called Lucy Tornado's Blog.

that's really the name of it!
and it has nothing to do with me, Lucy Tornado!

how can this happen?
the worst part is someone might go to the blog thinking i wrote all that.

what should i do?
i hardly use this blog but still would hate to have ideas and opinions attributed to me that are not like me.

what to do what to do fret fret fret.

science marches on!

apparently a study has shown that children have significantly fewer allergies if their parents cleaned off a dropped pacifier by licking or sucking it.

i'd like to know more about this!

were those parents all men?

did they have allergies?

what effect did it have on the health of the parent?

will this help my 30 something son if i lick or suck a pacifier and then give it to him?

what about lighting someone's cigarette, or sharing a joint?

will it help my sister, who has allergies, altho i pretty much don't, if i share some saliva with her now?

what if the dog licks it off?

does this involve some ancient knowledge now remembered in the phrase "he's the spit and image of his dad?"

brown brown brown

for years i've used a particular eye medicine to control glaucoma.  works fine, and has LOL in the name, so it must be good!

now comes the suggestion that i switch to a newer drug, which doesn't make your eyes dry.
and it's not a beta blocker.
and i wonder if i might have less (make it stop!!) tinnitus, fewer crazy dreams? 
don't know.

here's the thing about the newer drops...
it darkens your eye color.
so me with hazel/green eyes would end up with BROWN EYES.
not reversible.

who would i even be with BROWN EYES???

one of my friends said "I've had brown eyes all my life...not a problem."
and i say "Easy for YOU to say!"

if there were a medicine that turned brown eyes green, i'll bet she be on it in a flash.

brown eyes.

yeah, right.

spring week - and other oddities

this is how spring came over the last few days:

day 1  full cover snowfall
day 2  melting, swollen river
day 3  robin evensong
day 4 peepers loud at dark
day 5 crocuses
day 6 ants in the cat's dish
day 7 bright sun and open windows

the week before, on my way south, security confiscated and destroyed my unopened (forgotten about) raspberry soy yogurt from my carryon.   my penknife was allowed.  the yogurt was deemed more of a threat.

visions of hallucinations!

i've read a number of books on the para normal.  tale after tale of people's  real experiences with the dead, with their own near-death, trips out of body, religious or ecstatic visions and visitors. 

in some the point is to convince us these things happen, and that they are quite common.  sometimes the conclusion is they must therefore be real.

in some, it's just part of someone's story, like Hildegarde of Bingham's visions and revelations, taking at face-value that they are from god.

and i read Mary Roach's "Spook" -- her scientific investigation into ghosts and after-death experiences.  lots to laugh about and be amazed by, but no final answers to be found.

i just finished Oliver Sacks' "Hallucinations" which covers some of the same territory from a neurological point of view, appropriately not considering any other possible explanation.  he begins with simple hallucinations in some blind people (Charles Bonnet syndrome), easily understood as the brain's reaction to loss of vision. then he leads us on further into various phenomenon not so clearly explained neurologically, but then goes on to explain them now that we are primed to hear such views.

so he tells of patients with ecstatic religious visions, hearing of celestial voices, seeing deceased loved ones, having out of body experiences, and gives us the details of how the brain is bringing all this about. he ends with the neurological explanation for the not uncommon feeling of a presence, that we are not alone, in a helping way or in a threatening way, and he surmises that this leads humans to the idea of god.

round and round we humans go trying to understand our experiences and our brains, using our experiences and our brains -- each expert feeling a different part of the elephant. (you know the elephant story i'm sure). my conclusion so far...it's all hallucination!

syrup & eggs

march 22 signs of spring on main street!

fresh eggs - the hens are back at work! & sap buckets - this year's maple syrup on the way!

 and a gorgeous blue spring sky for the morning.

 

  
later in the afternoon, snow fell to brighten the muddy spots.

emergency in the snow

local emergency volunteers get a call that a grandfather, snowmobiling with his grandson out in the middle of nowhere, turned around and realized his grandson was not behind him!

he retraced his path, but didn't find the boy.  he rode on to the nearest town and called 911 for help.

dozens of people show up in response, as word spreads of the lost child.
their snowmobiles comb the area for this kid.
it was the event of the year!

one smart rescuer decides to go back to the parking area the pair started out from, and discovers the boy, waiting in the car. 

turns out the boy is 18, not a child as people had imagined, and driving his own snowmobile!  
when grandpa got too far ahead, grandson turned around and drove back to the car to wait for his return.

no doubt there's plenty of grumbling, but given the happy outcome, i'm sure a good time was had by all!

Sunny with patches of brown and snowing

well now it rhymes. does that make it a poem?

what is spring up to?
unpacking her bag?
hey, wait -- that's not spring!
it's old jack frost in drag.

see, he's wrapped her blue skies
over his frosty suit
just as soon as she catches him,
he'll get the boot!

redwings!

got out of the car at 10:30 and right in front of me, i heard the first redwinged blackbird of spring! probably on his way further north.