Loved this advice applied to anything

Brogan Ingram handles extreme messes for free. What she’s learned can benefit anyone.

Start small

Cleaning is not something you can do in one quick session, according to Ingram. “Don’t try to clean the whole house at once,” she says. “Don’t even try to clean a whole room at once.” Instead, she recommends choosing one corner or surface in the room.

“It sounds silly, but I say just pick one, like, two- to three-square-foot space and just clean that,” Ingram adds. Habit formation starts small, and once you can keep a tiny space clean, it will become easier to keep larger areas in the house tidy.

“It’s about not having insurmountable, unrealistic expectations about getting the whole house clean,” she says. “People get stuck because they see a huge task they don’t want to do or don’t feel like they can complete, so they just don’t.”

 

Stick to a schedule

Having a schedule for cleaning can help reduce the overwhelmed feelings. If you’re just starting out, set a timer for just a few minutes a day.

“You do your five minutes, and all of a sudden you have motivation,” Ingram says. “It’s crazy how it happens. You get a little shot of, ‘Okay, I completed something!’ And you feel like, ‘Well, maybe I can do something else.’ It snowballs.”

 

Sticking to your schedule also means only cleaning for a set amount of time each day and trying not to overdo it. “If you’re spending hours or a whole day doing something, chances are you’re just adding to the negative relationship with cleaning and subconsciously making yourself dread doing it again,” Ingram says.

 

Schedules are a very personalized thing. Ingram cleans her home for 30 minutes each day, focusing on a different room. Then, for eight weeks twice a year, she adds a few more intense tasks to her daily schedule for each room — things like scrubbing walls and baseboards or cleaning behind the refrigerator — for a deeper cleaning.

 

“There’s not one schedule that’s going to be for everybody, because our houses are different, and our energy levels are different,” she says. “I always tell people to just think about your life, write down all the rooms in your home, and then just make little bullet points underneath each room of things that you could do in each one daily or weekly, not to deep clean it, but just keep it tidy.”

 

Don’t go it alone

It’s common to think about everyday clutter as a shameful thing, Ingram says. People get stressed about cleaning before company arrives and feel a need to apologize for even the most minor messes. None of that is helpful. Instead, Ingram says, people need to recognize that most everyone has some version of the same struggles, and teamwork can help.

“Body doubling” is another common technique used by people with ADHD. Essentially, it means doing potentially frustrating tasks in the company of another person, whose presence can help reduce distraction and procrastination.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/04/27/cleaning-tiktok-brogan-ingram-advice/

The Truth

Our parents never loved us or each other. They were two ungrateful children. My siblings hop on planes and drink bottles of wine to out run the truth. Perhaps it will never catch them, alive.  I sit in a room and watch the bare tree in my yard swaying in the wind.

Those of us who think we know by Stephen Dunn

Those of us who think we know
the same secrets
are silent together most of the time,
for us there is eloquence
in desire, and for a while
when in love and exhausted
it’s enough to nod like shy horses
and come together
in a quiet ceremony of tongues.
It’s in disappointment we look for words
to convince us
the spaces between stars are nothing
to worry about;
it’s when those secrets burst
in that emptiness between our hearts
and the lumps in our throats.
And the words we find
are always insufficient, like love,
though they are often lovely
and all we have.”
― Stephen Dunn, New and Selected Poems, 1974-1994

I love what's left after love has been tested.

 Stephen Dunn

I’ve had it with all stingy-hearted sons of bitches. A heart is to be spent. Stephen Dunn, Different Hours

And the words we find are always insufficient, like love, though they are often lovely and all we have. Stephen Dunn

 “All I wanted was a job like a book so good I'd be finishing it for the rest of my life.”

― Stephen Dunn

“Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light

“All good poems are victories over something.”
― Stephen Dunn

I've tried to become someone else for a while, only to discover that he, too, was me. ― Stephen Dunn

The Sudden Light and the Trees by Stephen Dunn

My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog
and wife beater.
In bad dreams I killed him

and once, in the consequential light of day,
I called the Humane Society
about Blue, his dog. They took her away

and I readied myself, a baseball bat
inside my door.
That night I hear his wife scream

and I couldn't help it, that pathetic
relief; her again, not me.
It would be years before I'd understand

why victims cling and forgive. I plugged in
the Sleep-Sound and it crashed
like the ocean all the way to sleep.

One afternoon I found him
on the stoop,
a pistol in his hand, waiting,

he said, for me. A sparrow had gotten in
to our common basement.
Could he have permission

to shoot it? The bullets, he explained,
might go through the floor.
I said I'd catch it, wait, give me

a few minutes and, clear-eyed, brilliantly
afraid, I trapped it
with a pillow. I remember how it felt

when I got my hand, and how it burst
that hand open
when I took it outside, a strength

that must have come out of hopelessness
and the sudden light
and the trees. And I remember

the way he slapped the gun against
his open palm,
kept slapping it, and wouldn't speak.

― Stephen Dunn 

There will always be people who think suffering leads to enlightenment, who place themselves on the verge of what’s about to break, or go dangerously wrong. Let’s resist them and their thinking, you and I. Let’s not rush toward that sure thing that awaits us, which can dumb us into nonsense and pain. Stephen Dunn, Pagan Virtues: Poems

A Troubled Guest

 “A man’s mistakes (if I may lecture you), his worst acts, aren’t out of character, as he’d like to think, are not put on him by power or stress or too much to drink, but simply a worse self he consents to be.”

― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

“Why not just try to settle in, take your place, however undeserved, among the fortunate? Why not trust that almost everyone, even in his own house, is a troubled guest?”
― Stephen Dunn, Pagan Virtues: Poems

I’ve turned corners there was no going back to, corners in the middle of a room that led to Spain or solitude.

 “And I’ve turned corners there was no going back to, corners in the middle of a room that led to Spain or solitude. And always the thin line between corner and cornered, the good corners of bodies and those severe bodies that permit no repose, the places we retreat to, the places we can’t bear to be found.”

― Stephen Dunn, New and Selected Poems 1974-1994

“so many people walk up to me and tell me they’re dead, though they’re just describing their afternoons.”
― Stephen Dunn, New and Selected Poems 1974-1994

worked through the terrors of influence, and are willing to acknowledge their debts by using them in order to go their own way

“Poets who remain poets have, presumably, worked through the terrors of influence, and are willing to acknowledge their debts by using them in order to go their own way. They’ve learned what Thomas Mann knew: “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

“Surely those folks who play their lives and their work eminently safe don’t often put themselves in the position where they can be startled or enlarged. Don’t put themselves near enough to the realm of the unknown where discovery resides, and joy has been rumored to appear.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

 

“Arnold said, “Poetry should be a criticism of life,” and I think it should be, too. I also think it should be an elucidation of life, a celebration of life, an addition to life, an emblem of the mysteries of life, etc.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

Evil always has an advantage and always succeeds until its enormous feet understep some moral chasm, or a damsel held dear by the populace cries out and is heard. Stephen Dunn, Whereas: Poems

 

 

“She was thinking a woman needed an angel for every son of a bitch she’d ever known.”
― Stephen Dunn, Whereas: Poems

 

“She’d seen her best friends disappear into their marriages. Even when she spoke on the phone to them, they weren’t there.”
― Stephen Dunn, Whereas: Poems

 

“I look for those with hidden wings, and for scars that those who once had wings can’t hide.”
― Stephen Dunn, Between Angels: Poems

“Doesn’t blood usually follow when language fails?” ― Stephen Dunn, Whereas: Poems

A Circus of Needs: Poems

“He didn’t want to be
this thin man whose desires
were barely covered by skin,

standing absolutely still.
But everytime he moved
there was another place to go,

and everytime sadness would arrive
with its wonderful cocoon
not even that would last.”
― Stephen Dunn, A Circus of Needs: Poems

Each of them used the same words, like people who’ve been trained in sales, and as they moved to their Miatas and Audis I noted the bare shoulders of their women were the barest shoulders I’d ever seen, as if they needed only the night as a shawl. Stephen Dunn, Everything Else in the World: Poems

Flaubert said — I assume about the balance between repression and freedom — “Be regular and orderly in your daily life, so you can be violent and original in your work.” ― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

 “Your poem effectively begins at the first moment you’ve surprised or startled yourself. Throw away everything that preceded that moment, and begin with that moment.”

― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

“Too many poets are insufficiently interested in story. Their poems could be improved if they gave in more to the strictures of fiction: the establishment of a clear dramatic situation, and a greater awareness that first-person narrators are also characters and must be treated as such by their authors. The true lyric poet, of course, is exempt from this. But many poets wrongly think they are lyric poets.”
― Stephen Dunn

“Finally, what I want from poetry is akin to what Flaubert wanted from novels. He thought they should make us dream. I want a poem, through its precisions and accuracies, to make me remember what I know, or what I might have known if I hadn't been constrained by convention or habit.”
― Stephen Dunn 

 

“How to survive as an other? The small town may be a paradigm of how boundaries can permit generosity, but it is also a place where people on the fringe, say homosexuals or intellectuals or African-Americans, develop a hunger for larger and more hospitable boundaries, those offered by cities, or, in another sense, by poems. There may be implications here for open and closed forms. That aside, true community — beyond physical parameters — often arises when you realize that everything you’ve thought peculiar to yourself has been thought or even lived by someone else. This is how poetry, not to mention literature in general, manifests some of its most exquisite manners; in the course of being true to itself it makes a gesture to others.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

“The good poem is implicitly philosophical. The not so good poem, conversely, may exquisitely describe a tree or loneliness, but if the description does not suggest an attitude toward nature, or human nature, we are left with a kind of dentist office art — devoted to decoration and the status quo.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

 

“Donald Justice’s admonition that a good poem should exhibit “that maximum amount of wildness that the form can bear” is also relevant, though again it’s equally useful to think of expanding the notion of form to accommodate even more of the wild.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

Anyone out without the excuse of a dog
should be handcuffed
and searched for loneliness.
― Stephen Dunn, Different Hours

Stephen Dunn Poem

“Where are we going?
It’s not an issue of here or there.
And if you ever feel you can’t
take another step, imagine
how you might feel to arrive,
if not wiser, a little more aware
how to inhabit the middle ground
between misery and joy.
Trudge on. In the higher regions,
where the footing is unsure,
to trudge is to survive.”
― Stephen Dunn, Lines of Defense: Poems

When I stop becoming, that's when I worry.

 Stephen Dunn

I think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people’s versions of experience didn’t gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right for myself. I’ve since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for others.

 Stephen Dunn

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing. Bernard Malamud

“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge & enhance an idea, to reform it . . . Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing.”
― Bernard Malamud

If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you. Bernard Malamud

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.

Bernard Malamud 

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself. Bernard Malamud

 (Interview, New York Post Magazine, September 14, 1958)

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them. Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

David Hume born 1711

It's the birthday of the man who said: "The truth springs from arguments among friends," and "The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster." That's Scottish philosopher David Hume, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1711. While working as a librarian, he wrote the six-volume History of England (1762), which became a bestseller and gave him the financial independence to write and revise his philosophical treatises. He wrote A Treatise of Human Nature (1740), Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding (1748), and Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). He was a strict skeptic, and questioned all knowledge derived from the senses.

David Hume said, "Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."

And, "Reading and sauntering and lounging and dozing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness."

And, "He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances."

The Writer's Almanac

Slow Down

If you can just maintain that consistent energy in one direction, it’s incredible what you could deflect over a long period of time.

Hugh Howey  

We need, above all things, to slow down and get ourselves to amble through life instead of to rush through it.

Alan Watts

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

Confucius  

help prevent the muscle loss

Q: I’m wondering how many calories a relatively healthy 65-year-old woman needs?

Many factors, including your age, height, weight, and activity level, determine your daily calorie needs. In general, moderately active women ages 26–50 should consume approximately 2,000 calories per day to maintain their weight and stay healthy (1).

That said, this range can vary widely based on the factors mentioned above.

As women age beyond 50, they generally require fewer calories to maintain their weight. This is because as people grow older, they tend to lose muscle mass and be less active (2).

In general, average healthy women over 60 should consume 1,600–2,200 calories to maintain their weight and stay healthy.

Women who are more active should stay on the higher end of their calorie intake range, while women who are more sedentary should stay on the lower end of their range.

However, even though your calorie needs are lower at 65 than when you were in your 20s, you still need to eat just as high or even higher amounts of certain nutrients compared with younger people.

For example, women over 65 should consume a higher proportion of their calories from protein to help prevent the muscle loss that typically occurs with age. This muscle loss is known as sarcopenia, and it’s a major cause of weakness and fractures among older adults (3, 4).

In addition, other nutrients you should aim to consume more of include:

• Fiber: to help prevent bowel-related issues like constipation and diverticulitis (5, 6)
• Calcium and vitamin D: to help keep your bones strong and healthy as you age (7)
• Vitamin B12: with age, your body may find it harder to absorb vitamin B12 (8)
• Iron: to prevent a deficiency and anemia, which is more common with age (9)

You can increase your intake of these nutrients by eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean meats, dairy products, and fish.

Last medically reviewed on March 31, 2021

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/calories-for-a-healthy-65-year-old-woman

when people recognize the actual sources of their privilege is they become a little more humble and they are more willing to help other people, more willing to invest in the future

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22673605/upper-middle-class-meritocracy-matthew-stewart

America’s upper-middle class works more, optimizes their kids, and is miserable.

One of the things you write about in the book is how much this 9.9 percent are willing to invest in their children — in nannies, in schools, in extracurriculars. Where does this pressure come from, this urge people have to make their kids the best?

I think the driving motivation is fear, and I think that fear is well-grounded. People intuit that in this meritocratic game, the odds are getting increasingly long of succeeding. They work very hard to stack the odds in their kids’ favor, but they know as the odds get longer, they may not succeed.

That’s coupled with another one of the traits of this class, which is a lack of imagination. The source of the fear is also this inability to imagine a life that doesn’t involve getting these high-status credentials and having a high-status occupation. This life plan looks good, and it certainly looked good in the past when the odds were more sensible. But it’s not a great deal. It’s something that isn’t just harmful to the people who don’t make it, it’s also harmful to the people who get involved and do make it, in some sense.

What follows when people recognize the actual sources of their privilege is they become a little more humble and they are more willing to help other people, more willing to invest in the future. For me, one of the most distressing statistics is that the richer people get, the less they believe in publicly supported child care. It’s not that they don’t want their taxes to go to pay for child care, it’s that they’ve internalized this idea that everyone can do this, everyone can raise their own child or just hire a nanny. “Let them hire a nanny” is the new “let them eat cake.” It just shows how this incredibly virtuous, super-well-educated class becomes oblivious to the basis of its own existence. 

A new book by philosopher Matthew Stewart (no relation), The 9.9 percent: The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture.

He appreciated his newfound clarity and heightened awareness. “He told me how good an orange tasted once he got clean,” St. Roman said. “He realized he’d been missing a lot of things.”

https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/dr-john-achieved-greatness-but-only-after-a-turning-point-finally-getting-clean-and-sober/article_92ba2846-9906-11e9-82bc-e32b9c8ef18a.html 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/dr-john-joy-mystery-new-orleans-saint-861931/

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/pregnant-women-people-feminism-language/620468/

Why I’ll Keep Saying ‘Pregnant Women’

Being inclusive is important. But it’s not everything.

By Helen Lewis

October 26, 2021

‘We’ve never lived in normal times’

 Columbia’s student body president, Teji Vijayakumar, notes that graduating seniors like herself were entering elementary school during the Occupy Wall Street protests, middle school during student walkouts over gun control and former president Donald Trump’s executive order barring travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and were in high school when the Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted.

Vijayakumar recalls being 13 years old and writing her emergency contacts on her arm when she attended the Women’s March in Washington a few days before Trump was sworn in as president.

“I think a difference with older generations is that for them college was a coming of age, whereas my class started elementary school in the financial crisis, started high school in the Trump presidency, and started college in the pandemic,” Vijayakumar said. “We’ve never lived in normal times.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/26/columbia-protest-students-israel-gaza/

How cleaning product chemicals called ‘quats’ may affect the brain

A common ingredient in household disinfectants has been shown in lab studies to affect certain brain cells

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/04/25/disinfectants-quaternary-ammonium-compounds/

By Teddy Amenabar

April 25, 2024 at 7:05 a.m. EDT

Soup is Friendly

As a child I loved the table but always had stomach aches. As an adult I discovered what it means to have a friendly table. For me that meant soup and bread! I believe if you love something you can become great at making it. I am now the soup and bread maven. My soups have everything in them. One bowl is enough for a meal. Most of my soups start out as gloops and then they get stretched out with water, meat and vegetables and olive oil to become soups.

Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) is a self-portrait by the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka, which she painted in Paris in 1928. It was commissioned by the German fashion magazine Die Dame for the cover of the magazine, to celebrate the independence of women. It is one of the best-known examples of Art Deco portrait painting.

 

“All social interactions require some loss of freedom.” ― Erol Ozan

“Turn your weakness into your richness.”

 ― Erol Ozan

 “Intelligence without wisdom brings destruction.”

― Erol Ozan

“You can't understand a city without using its public transportation system.”
― Erol Ozan 

“Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment.” ― Erol Ozan

“Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.” ― Erol Ozan

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.

― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” ― Henry Miller

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.” ― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” ― Gustave Flaubert

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson's Essays

“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” ― Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

 ― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” ― anaïs nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974

Simone de Beauvoir

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”
― Simone de Beauvoir 

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

 ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” ― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

Quick and Easy Salad

Cucumber peeled and sliced into coins or lengthwise wedges chopped into bite sized wedges, apple chopped into small bites, raisins, yogurt, cottage cheese salt pepper, onion chopped, and vinegar.

I'm not ambitious for money or power.

“I guess I'm afraid of not being like other people. No, that's not true. I'm not afraid of not being like other people. I'm afraid I won't find anybody who doesn't mind me not being like other people. I'm not ambitious for money or power. I want to find some real way to live.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time 

And what is enlightenment anyway but delusions we can live with? Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time

I want them to come with me when we’re going mountain-climbing. This isn’t a walk through a theme park. This is some dangerous place that neither of us has been before, and I hope that by traveling there first, I can encourage the reader to come with me and that we will make the trip again together, and safely.

Readers, I think, are more sophisticated on the whole than critics. They can make the jumps, they can make imaginative leaps. If your structure is firm and solid enough, however strange, however unusual, they will be able to follow it. They will climb with you to the most unlikely places if they trust you, if the words give them the right footholds, the right handholds. That’s what I want my readers to do: I want them to come with me when we’re going mountain-climbing. This isn’t a walk through a theme park. This is some dangerous place that neither of us has been before, and I hope that by traveling there first, I can encourage the reader to come with me and that we will make the trip again together, and safely.

JEANETTE WINTERSON 

The anguish has vanished, and it did as soon as I started speaking,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/24/argentina-journalist-anchor-child-sex-abuse/?itid=cp_CP-4_3

Ted Kooser on The Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday of poet Ted Kooser, born in Ames, Iowa (1939). He said, "I had a wonderfully happy childhood," and, "All this business about artists having to have terrible childhoods doesn't play with me."

He started writing poetry seriously as a teenager. He said: "I was desperately interested in being interesting. Poetry seemed a way of being different." His first poem was published because his friends sent one of his poems to a teen magazine behind his back.

He wanted to be a writer, but he flunked out of graduate school. So he took the first job he was offered, at a life insurance company, and he worked there for 35 years. He said: "I believe that writers write for perceived communities, and that if you are a lifelong professor of English, it's quite likely that you will write poems that your colleagues would like; that is, poems that will engage that community. I worked every day with people who didn't read poetry, who hadn't read it since they were in high school, and I wanted to write for them."

Every morning, he got up at 4:30, made a pot of coffee, and wrote until 7. Then he put on his suit and tie and went to work. By the time he retired in 1999, Kooser had published seven books of poetry, including Not Coming to Be Barked At (1976), One World at a Time (1985), and Weather Central (1994). He resigned himself to being a relatively unknown poet, but he continued to write every morning. Then, in 2004, he got a phone call informing him that he had been chosen as poet laureate of the United States. He said: "I was so staggered I could barely respond. The next day, I backed the car out of the garage and tore the rearview mirror off the driver's side." As the poet laureate, he started a free weekly column for newspapers called "American Life in Poetry."

Ted Kooser Poem: Skater

Skater

She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she'd been just an instant before.

Ted Kooser from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Ted Kooser Poem: Tattoo

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Ted Kooser from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Ella Fitzgerald said, "The only thing better than singing is more singing."

The Swimming: Be Kind Be Gentle

The cool down has helped me tremendously. No more paralyzing hip and shin pain the day after a swim. Now that I can imagine the muscles recovering filtering lactic acid I enjoy the cool down. It's its own thing! A bit like tai chi in the water.  Be kind, be gentle.

I do have a vulnerable hip muscle and found this website to be informative and helpful.

 https://theswimmingpt.com/how-to-fix-hip-pain-when-swimming-part-2/

Craig Thompson

Now I’m not saying that we should give up on our hopes and prayers or that we should simply accept whatever comes our way. (Some things are not only imperfect, they’re simply unacceptable!) No, I’m suggesting that we hope and pray for something better than the Perfect! location, the Perfect! contact, the Perfect! connection, the Perfect! event, or the Perfect! method.

And in so doing, we’ll learn to hold our plans more loosely. We’ll learn to pray more “Your will be done.” We’ll learn to seek and assert less Perfect! and look for more God-blessed serendipity. We’ll learn that while that apartment will never be what we’d hoped for, it can become the place that makes us feel at home. Over time, we’ll learn to make more room for Unpredicted! and Wonderful! and Challenging! and Sufficient! and Flawed! and Lovely! and Unexpected! We’ll learn to find the splendor of God moving gracefully in imperfection.  https://www.alifeoverseas.com/author/craig_thompson/

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes. Marcel Proust

 https://clearingcustoms.net/2013/12/17/what-marcel-proust-really-said-about-seeing-with-new-eyes/

What Marcel Proust Really Said about Seeing with New Eyes

In his TED Talk—on home, travel, and stillness—author Pico Iyer refers to the words of the French author Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes.

When I Googled that phrase, I came up with several similar, though slightly different, versions. The most popular one comes up on over 800,000 sites, often used, as Iyer did, in the context of travel:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

But I wasn’t done yet. I don’t trust “famous quote” sites, nor do I trust the democracy of the Internet. A little more searching led me to the actual quotation, and the original source. It’s Proust’s seven-volume work, Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time). The quotation above is a paraphrase of text in volume 5—The Prisoner—originally published in French, in 1923, and first translated into English by C. K. Moncrief.

In chapter 2 of The Prisoner, the narrator is commenting at length on art, rather than travel. Listening for the first time to a work by the composer Vinteuil, he finds himself transported not to a physical location, but to a wonderful “strange land” of the composer’s own making. “Each artist,” he decides, “seems thus to be the native of an unknown country, which he himself has forgotten. . . .” These artists include composers, such as Vinteuil, and painters, such as the narrator’s friend, Elstir. He continues:

This lost country composers do not actually remember, but each of them remains all his life somehow attuned to it; he is wild with joy when he is singing the airs of his native land, betrays it at times in his thirst for fame, but then, in seeking fame, turns his back upon it, and it is only when he despises it that he finds it when he utters, whatever the subject with which he is dealing, that peculiar strain the monotony of which—for whatever its subject it remains identical in itself—proves the permanence of the elements that compose his soul. But is it not the fact then that from those elements, all the real residuum which we are obliged to keep to ourselves, which cannot be transmitted in talk, even by friend to friend, by master to disciple, by lover to mistress, that ineffable something which makes a difference in quality between what each of us has felt and what he is obliged to leave behind at the threshold of the phrases in which he can communicate with his fellows only by limiting himself to external points common to us all and of no interest, art, the art of a Vinteuil like that of an Elstir, makes the man himself apparent, rendering externally visible in the colours of the spectrum that intimate composition of those worlds which we call individual persons and which, without the aid of art, we should never know? A pair of wings, a different mode of breathing, which would enable us to traverse infinite space, would in no way help us, for, if we visited Mars or Venus keeping the same senses, they would clothe in the same aspect as the things of the earth everything that we should be capable of seeing. The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is; and this we can contrive with an Elstir, with a Vinteuil; with men like these we do really fly from star to star.

So there you have it. Maybe this adds to the meaning of the more-familiar “quotation.” Or maybe it lessens it, in your mind.

Maybe, for you, this is no longer a phrase about travel. Or maybe it is now much, much more so.

DIY Rose Perfume

 https://www.beautylish.com/a/vxqir/diy-natural-rose-perfume

Garrison Keillor

I sit looking up at that skinny triangular tower and a man and woman sit down a few feet away; he’s wearing a sweatshirt with a big TEXAS on it and I say, “How’s the city treating you?” They’re teachers at a Baptist school. I grew up evangelical. It’s their first time in New York. Their daughter lives here, wants to take up acting. There’s plenty to talk about. They both attended public schools but now they worry about bad influences. I understand. It was good to meet them. This is why people wear clothing with writing on it: it’s an invitation to conversation. Garrison Keillor

Spring is here, time to get to know each other

The Column: 04.22.24

What’s something that’ll make a British person say, “ooh, someone’s doing alright for themselves”?

A friend tells a story which he swears is true. That he was behind two old biddies in Asda in Gloucester. One looked into the other’s basket and said ‘Coleslaw eh? Very lah-di-dah’.

Years ago my wife was making a sandwich and her Mum walks in.   "Oooh!" pipes up her Mum.  "Ham AND cheese.  Bit extravagant isn't it?"

My Dad said to me “your brother is doing really well for himself he has a bin that opens when you put your hand near it”!!

 Or when someone says ‘I knew you when you had nothing’ when you buy a slightly more expensive supermarket meal deal. Or my grandad used to say when I asked for a sugar in my coffee ‘all luxury you’ x

read more

The Men

The men in hard hats and excavators have arrived for the day. The dozen yellow saw horses have turned our street into a western prairie for the second week.

I'm hearing the beep beep backup sound and occasional jackhammers and dump trucks unloading gravel and then sound of asphalt pressing machines.

Total silence at coffee break.

I will miss them when they're gone.

Angry farmers in a once-lush Mexican state target avocado orchards that suck up too much water

Holy Guacamole

Article

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. John Muir

Produce & Produce

Being able to produce a story or buy produce (broccoli, cabbage apples, oranges) are the things that make me happy.

going on a date with index cards

 My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it’s like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person. 

George Saunders

AMEN!

Olympics

Justice Department settles with Larry Nassar victims for $138.7 million

By Will Hobson

Updated April 23, 2024 at 2:50 p.m. EDT

United States gymnasts Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Maggie Nichols testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2021. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Justice Department announced Tuesday it has agreed to pay nearly $139 million to victims of former Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, settling legal claims brought over the department’s failure to investigate allegations that could have brought the convicted child molester to justice sooner and prevented dozens of assaults.

One of the largest of its kind in the history of Justice Department, the settlement brings to a close the last major legal case over Nassar’s prolific abuses, which occurred over a span of decades at international sporting events including the Olympics, as well as at Michigan State University, where Nassar worked, and at local gymnastics centers in Michigan and around the country.

Once well-respected in elite gymnastics circles for his association with Team USA, Nassar committed hundreds of alleged assaults over the years, often under the guise of medical treatment. Members of multiple U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams have alleged abuse by Nassar, including Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and McKayla Maroney.

Nassar, 60, is serving an effective life sentence for federal convictions relating to possession of child pornography, as well as state convictions for sexual assaults of patients under his care.

A 2021 Justice Department inspector general’s report found that FBI agents in both the Indianapolis and Los Angeles field offices failed to adequately respond to allegations against Nassar raised in 2015 and 2016.

In Indianapolis, the report found, one top FBI official overseeing the investigation also was applying for a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee at the time, and later lied to the inspector general’s office about the situation. In Los Angeles, the report found, agents failed to alert local authorities in any of the places where Nassar continued to treat young gymnasts while he was under investigation.

More than 70 girls and women later alleged in court filings that Nassar assaulted them between 2015 and when he was arrested in November 2016.

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray publicly apologized to Nassar’s victims, and the bureau fired an agent in the Indianapolis office involved with the case.

In a news release Tuesday, the department said it had agreed to pay $138.7 million to resolve 139 legal claims over its handling of the Nassar case.

“For decades, Lawrence Nassar abused his position, betraying the trust of those under his care and medical supervision while skirting accountability,” acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said in a statement. “These allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset. While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing.”

Tuesday’s announcement brings the total sum paid out by institutions to Nassar’s victims over his abuses to nearly $1 billion. In 2018, Michigan State agreed to pay $500 million to more than 330 victims. And in 2021, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee agreed to pay $380 million to hundreds of Nassar’s victims.

John Manly, attorney for more than 100 of the women involved with the Justice Department settlement, said in an interview that the settlement will bring closure to his clients, but still falls short of the criminal charges they wanted to see against the agents involved.

“For many of these families, knowing that the premier law enforcement agency in the U.S. knew their child was being treated by a child molester and did nothing for the better part of two years will always trouble them,” Manly said.

In 2021, after victims including Biles and Maroney offered emotionally wrenching testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department agreed to review its decision to not criminally charge two FBI agents from the Indianapolis office accused of making false statements by the inspector general. But the review concluded with the department again deciding not to charge the agents.

The Justice Department previously has agreed to pay similar sums to victims of mass shootings where federal agencies faced accusations of negligence.

Last year, the Justice Department agreed to pay $144.5 million to the families of 26 people killed in a 2017 mass shooting in Texas, resolving allegations of failures involving the federal government’s gun background check system. In 2021, the department struck a $130 million settlement with 40 survivors and families of a 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla. over accusations the FBI failed to investigate tips that preceded the massacre.

Home made Peanut Sauce for Noodles or Veggies

https://www.loveandlemons.com/peanut-sauce/

https://www.loveandlemons.com/peanut-noodles/

It's 1960 All over Again!

“Everything that I know about play suggests that if you take play away from children, there’s going to be negative consequences,” said Gray, whose 2013 book “Free to Learn” argued that free play is the primary means by which children develop resilience.

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/22/metro/depression-teens-social-media-free-play-childhood/

In a recent paper, published in The Journal of Pediatrics late last year, Gray and his colleagues made the case by drawing from a voluminous body of evidence spanning developmental psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and other fields. While it may be true that the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and suicide among children and teenagers appears to have risen in tandem with the use of smartphones and social media, they concluded that teen and child mental health has actually been on the decline for at least five decades. That period coincides with the decline in opportunities “for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults,” they wrote.

Procrastination, in its weird way, is part of the process. Dawn Raffel

Procrastination, in its weird way, is part of the process. While I’m procrastinating, I’m never really free of the task; I’m turning the creative problem over and over in my mind, consciously and unconsciously, reformulating the terms. At some level I am saying no to the easy, knock-it-out solution, the tired-and-true, the familiar. Dawn Raffel

Human empathy and vegetable empathy aren’t so far apart.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/04/22/how-to-cook-okra-rutabaga-eggplant-radicchio-selengut/

Nestlé adds more sugar to baby food in poorer countries, report finds

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/23/nestle-sugar-baby-food-childhood-obesity/

Glitch!

Peter's wife Nancy signed the title in the wrong spot, where it says Lien Holder. Luckily the RI DMV lady was nice and said, "We have a remedy for everything." Then she gave me the remedy form and used glow marker to indicate where we had to sign.
"Okay, so she and I only sign where the glowy lines are?" I asked, smiling. She said yes and smiled back, and then said, "Tell her to explain the error here."
"Oh, could YOU explain the error there for her, please?" She did. "Thank you!"

Later my husband noticed her big loopy handwriting, and also that she had spelled "lien" wrong, but hopefully that won't be another glitch!

I got the bright idea to have us drive over to Nancy's house since Peter was at work and his phone was overloaded with messages when I tried calling him. I knew that Nancy wouldn't answer the door, but Nancy's sister Linda knows me and lives next door to Peter and Nancy.

I rang Linda's bell. Luckily she was home. I told her about the glitch while apologizing for disturbing her. I showed her where Nancy needed to sign. She took the paper over to Nancy and was able to get the signatures. 

Back home I was able to get an early DMV appointment for tomorrow, right when they open. So I'm feeling pretty LUCKY! We texted Sam our mechanic and I will phone him when I have the plates in my hands! Fingers crossed!

Natalie Goldberg

If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you. Maybe it’s not quite that easy, but if you want to learn something, go to the source. Basho, the great seventeenth-century Haiku master said, “If you want to know about a tree, go to the tree.” If you want to know poetry, read it, listen to it. Let those patterns and forms be imprinted in you. Don’t step away from poetry to analyze a poem with your logical mind. Enter poetry with your whole body. Dogen, a great Zen master, said, “If you walk in the mist, you get wet.” So just listen, read, and write. Little by little, you will come closer to what you need to say and express it through your voice. Natalie Goldberg

Potato Spinach Casserole by Ellie Krieger

recipe

Eat the Rainbow!

 

“I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public, I’m looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.” ― Carlos Fuentes 12 likes Like “Originality' is the sickness of modernity that wishes to see itself as something new, always new, in order continually to witness its own birth. In doing so, modernity is that fashionable illusion which only speaks to death” ― Carlos Fuentes, Aura

“I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public, I’m looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.” ― Carlos Fuentes

“The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from whence no one can be expelled because, in a novel, no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be heard and understood.” ― Carlos Fuentes, Myself with Others: Selected Essays

Live free or Die is going for Die

 As New Hampshire’s state epidemiologist, Dr. Benjamin Chan, said during a state Senate hearing on the bill, “as vaccination levels decrease, this is putting our children and our communities and our childcare agencies at risk.” Article

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

Carlos Fuentes

WHRB Keb' Mo' Am I Wrong composed by Keb' Mo' from Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: Keb' Mo' (Epic/Legacy 1994)

Bernon Family YMCA Franklin MA

The staff at Bernon Family YMCA in Franklin MA are AMAZING. I switched my membership and joined their branch in December. I have enjoyed my interactions with every staff member at the place. Today I arrived to swim and realized my swimsuit and towel were not in my bag. I had left them home in Woonsocket. I turned around and as I was leaving I told Krystina the Aquatics Director about my error and she remedied the situation on the spot. She brought me to her office and generously loaned me her adjustable red lifeguard bathing suit and purple towel. KRYSTINA is THE BEST!! And All of the staff are excellent and go the extra mile. I am so grateful to experience a well run YMCA with attentive smart staff members. The postive vibes affect all of us who use the facility.

Tortilla Soup Gloop

My defrosted leftover blackbean pulled pork carrot cabbage soup became tortilla soup gloop because I added strips of corn tortillas, a can of crushed tomatoes a block of cheddar crumbled, frozen corn, a pound of frozen spinach, water, salt, olive oil, Chipotle sauce, chopped red onion and it is yummy!

peace and purpose and balance are deeply worthwhile

Life is absurd. But there is one meaningful thing, one inarguable thing, and that is that there is suffering. Fine writing helps alleviate that suffering – and anything that puts meaning and beauty into the world in the form of story, helps people to live with more peace and purpose and balance, is deeply worthwhile.

ROBERT McKEE

Delicious Dinner: Vegetable Stir Fry

chopped green cabbage

chopped red onions

chopped broccoli florets

green olives with pimentos

dried cranberries

frozen corn

Sriracha 

soy sauce

Stir fried in olive oil

Ovaltine for  after supper beverage (47 degrees out and raining)

Hoi polloi

Hoi polloi (/ˌhɔɪ pəˈlɔɪ/; from Ancient Greek οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloí) 'the many') is an expression from Greek that means "the many" or, in the strictest sense, "the people". In English, it has been given a negative connotation to signify the common people.^[1] Synonyms for hoi polloi include "the plebs" (plebeians), "the rabble", "the masses", "the great unwashed", "the riffraff", and "the proles" (proletarians).^[2]

Sourdough Seed Crackers

 Sourdough Seed Crackers Re-posted from this same blog on Dec 26th 2023

 CRACKER BENDER!!! Bake at 325 degrees

• ¾ cup (200 g) sourdough discard (stirred down)
• 6 tablespoons sesame seeds (untoasted or toasted)
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
  
• 3 tablespoons sunflower seeds (ground in mini cuisinart)
  
• dark rye flour for sprinkling
  
• whole wheat flour for sprinkling
• AP flour for sprinkling
  
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• herbs + spices like garlic onion or pepper your choice of flavors
• INSPIRATION

The miracles of technology cause us to live in a hectic, clockwork world that does violence to human biology. Alan Watts

Stepping out of the busyness is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.

Tara Brach

10:34 AMClifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet Parisian Thoroughfare from Clifford Brown And Max Roach (Verve Reissues 2000)

Do Not Touch the Swimmer

As a swimmer I am amazed at the adults and the parents and Simon, one the lifeguards at the Lincoln RI MacColl YMCA Pool. This particular lifeguard is too young, shy and afraid to exert his authority. Yesterday three teens wandered into my lane while I was swimming laps. I crashed into one. The other two wandered in as I was switching to flippers and I explained that it was a lap swim lane. Meanwhile the parents of toddlers are glued to their phones. Many teens and adults and even fellow lap swimmers do not understand THE ZONE swimmers get into while swimming. Switching lanes can be like crossing a dangerous highway. I have had people grab me by the arm while about to do a flip turn at the end of the lane not realizing this is TERRIFYING and WRONG. Shouting to the swimmer is best. You wouldn't grab a runner or someone lifting weights. Be aware people!

What I tell kids is, Don't get mad, get even. Don't spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned.

“Censorship and the suppression of reading materials are rarely about family values and almost always about control; About who is
snapping the whip, who is saying no, and who is saying go. Censorship's bottom line is this: if the novel Christine offends me, I don't want just to make sure it's kept from my kid; I want to make sure it's kept from your kid, as well, and all the kids. This bit of intellectual arrogance, undemocratic and as old as time, is best expressed this way: "If it's bad for me and my family, it's bad for everyone's family."

Yet when books are run out of school classrooms and even out of school libraries as a result of this idea, I'm never much disturbed not as a citizen, not as a writer, not even as a schoolteacher . . . which I used to be. What I tell kids is, Don't get mad, get even. Don't spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know.”  

Stephen King

I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they’re telling the truth. Maya Angelou

Tangible Results

 I love to wash dishes. When I was 3 years old my mother put soapy water in a bowl outside in the driveway and I was happy to play for hours. I have been volunteering to do dishes at other people's homes since I was a kid. Years ago my sister in law in Maine saved a weeks worth of dishes for me. I was truly happy after a 3 hour car ride, to get soapy.

 I am an introvert. I'd rather be in the kitchen cleaning up than socializing. When I first came to RI I baked bread and washed dishes for my housemates. They were so happy. I even like washing my clothes (in the machine and then I have an indoor clothesline in the boiler room). Something about clean tangible results versus the creative unknown explorations of writing that I am regularly involved in.

9:02 AM Arturo Sandoval Manteca from Trumpet Evolution (Crescent Moon/Columbia 2003) WHRB Wow!

Small Skillet Cornbread and Indian Head Cornmeal Recipes

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup corn oil

1 cup Indian Head cornmeal

1 teaspoon salt

2 tbsp sugar

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

Mix we ingredients in one bowl and mix dry ingredients  in another and then combine. Bake in a pre heated oven in a greased skillet for approx 20 minutes at 350 F.  https://www.wrmills.com/recipes/indian-head-yellow-corn-meal/

What does it mean to speak truth to power? Stand up for what's right and tell people in charge what's what. That's the idea behind the phrase speak truth to power, an expression for courageously confronting an authority, calling out injustices on their watch, and demanding change.

“If you are abusing children, I will find out,” Hilton said. “I will find you and I will come with my huge spotlight and shine it on wherever you are.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/17/paris-hilton-speaks-up-californias-troubled-teens/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/18/paris-hilton-child-care-facilities-abuse-reform/

“Take that kid on a trip alone with you to the Grand Canyon or Greenland or some other stunning spot; the privilege will see that kid through many hard times.” Bestow yourself. Eleven is an age of wonderment. Take time to be wonderful.

 Garrisson Keillor

A morning walk along Columbus Avenue

The Column: 04.15.24

Garrison Keillor

Apr 17

Dr Priyanka Rohatgi, Chief Nutritionist, Apollo Hospitals, on what’s the right way of drinking coffee and getting an energy boost

Another reason why we shouldn’t drink coffee first thing in the morning is because our body is naturally dehydrated when we wake up. The body in sleep can use up to a litre of water. So what we need after waking up is to replenish it. Besides, caffeine is a diuretic and can make us lose more water.

So what can you substitute your coffee with? Really simple things like drinking a glass of room-temperature water on waking up or tepid water with lime, stepping out in the sunlight and having a nutrient-dense, protein-rich breakfast. Then smell the coffee. article

In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig.

In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig.  The Swiss are known for their historic commitment to neutrality, but they’ve taken a firm stand on one of the most important issues of our time: guinea pigs. Because guinea pigs are social creatures who grow lonesome without a friend, it’s illegal to own just one of them in Switzerland.

The law was introduced in 2008 as part of a legislative effort to grant social rights to pets. Should one guinea pig depart this mortal coil and leave its companion alone — and its owner in potential legal trouble — rent-a-guinea-pig services have emerged as a temporary solution. Guinea pigs are named after the country.

Incorrect. It's a Fib Guinea pigs are native to South America, thousands of miles away from the African country. Some believe the name can be traced back to the cost of buying one in 17th-century England — one guinea coin — while others think it’s based on the Guianas, a region of South America. 

Guinea pigs aren’t the only pets afforded special status in Switzerland. Goldfish are also prohibited from being kept alone, cats must at least have access to a window where they can see their fellow felines prowling around, and, for a time, dog owners were required to take an obligatory training course with their pooch (although that law was repealed in 2016). For all this, Switzerland doesn’t have an official national animal — though both the country and the Alps in general are strongly associated with cows and St. Bernards. source

My joke is if I had 3 wishes it would be world peace, a cure for cancer and God please let me have coffee in the afternoon. Instead I swim in the afternoon.

Tonight I spoke to a young Brazilian man at the pool. He said he swims to cure his insomnia. I said so many PROBLEMS turn out to be GIFTS when we find good ways to help ourselves. I said I swim for leveling my moods. anxiety, depression and hypomania. I said I started writing because I had noise in my head and became a writer...

The Cool Down

I was getting terrible cramps in my hips and legs after swimming. I discovered it was because I was not ever COOLING DOWN. Now that I do I feel much better and the cramping agony has stopped.

https://swimswam.com/4-reasons-to-commit-to-cooling-down/

Swimmers have busy schedules and often have to cram in a training session as the sun rises or sets, or both. The cool-down portion of the workout tends to be the first thing we’re tempted to skip when we’re short on time. While it’s easy to jump out of the pool and continue with your day, taking the time to complete your cool-down will pay off, time and time again. At the end of your training, commit to tacking on 5-10 minutes of laps at a leisurely pace, in addition to any other cool-down exercises your coach recommends. Here are four reasons why your future self will thank you for finishing your workout by cooling down. 

Regulate blood flow: 

Cooling down allows the body to regulate blood flow, and gradually recover regular blood pressure and can help swimmers avoid what some refer to as “lead legs”. Blood pooling (“venous pooling”) can occur when the body goes from an all-out swim immediately to a state of rest causing a buildup of blood in the veins. As the movement of blood slows within the vascular system at the end of a workout and there is less available pressure to move the blood, which can lead to a build-up as blood becomes somewhat trapped between valves. Blood pooling might cause sensations of lightheadedness, or dizziness, or even fainting. In addition, cooling down helps to “clean” muscles by eliminating lactic acid and other waste products accumulated during high-intensity exercise.

Return to your resting heart rate:

Cooling down properly allows a raised heart rate to return to its resting rate safely. Check your heart rate before you begin swimming, so you can make sure you’ve reached your resting heart rate before you end your cool down. About 5-10 minutes into your cool down, check your heart rate to see if it has returned to normal if it hasn’t continue cooling down for another 5 minutes by tacking on a few additional laps at a leisurely pace. Returning your heart rate to normal allows you to restore your physiological systems to baseline and bring down your body temperature. This helps your body reset and prepare for the next round of exercise, which is crucial for any swimmer doing doubles or competing in multiple races in one day. 

Improved Flexibility:

A cool-down routine that includes stretching and is aimed at improving your range of motion, joint mobility and flexibility, will only help to improve your swimming technique. When your joints are able to move through their full range of motion, you’ll be able to consistently improve your technique, and ultimately your overall performance. You’ll get the most out of stretching when your muscles are warm and after a few cool-down laps. Improved flexibility will also reduce the occurrence of cramps and injuries, which can keep you from swimming at your best in your next training session, or race.