How can I get rid of a barometric pressure headache?

Soothing symptoms depends on each individual – someone who drinks, say, barely a bottle of water a day will suffer more than someone who drinks 2L, for example – but there are a few things Dr Chris recommends.

1. Pain relief. Popping standard over the counter paracetamol can do the trick. Be sure to stick to the recommended dosage. If this doesn’t work, a registered GP may be able to prescribe you triptans – a stronger form of painkiller – to tide you over.

2. Stay hydrated. Down at least 2-3L of H2O per day to limit pain. If you don’t get enough fluid, your brain temporarily contracts, which is where the aching comes from, but as soon as you’re fully aboard the hydration station, your brain will return to its usual state.

3. Try not to miss meals. Your blood sugar levels plummet if you haven’t had any food for a while, which then causes your body to release the hormones that tell your body it’s hungry. These hormones increase your blood pressure and tighten your blood vessels, which materialises as a headache. Make sure you’re fuelling up at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

4. Stay active. Dr Chris tells us regular exercise can also help ease symptoms of a barometric pressure headache. The biology behind this one is simple: when you exercise, you release endorphins (the happy hormones), which are also the body’s natural painkillers and therefore work to put paid to a sore head.

5. Practice mindfulness and relaxation. Massage, meditation and yoga can all work wonders for a barometric pressure headache, so says Dr Chris. In the same way that exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, so do these, making them further alternatives to popping manufactured pills.

https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/barometric-pressure-headache

Muffin Batter

 Muffin batter in the waffle iron is like twitter for bakers.

I LOVE George Bilgere's Poems

 STARGAZER
by George Bilgere

Midnight. Midsummer.

A man steps out to his back yard
and listens to the crickets
pining for other crickets.

A dog barks at the cosmos.

While others lounge in their Barcaloungers
the man is having a kind of Dover Beach moment
in which he hopes to have an immense thought or two.

So he looks up at the glittering god-haven.

And there’s the Milky Way, the Pleiades,
along with some quarks, dwarf stars, and supernovas.

And the thought the man has is of insignificance.

Under the bright furnaces of Orion
he contemplates his inconsequentiality.

It is a good feeling to have for several minutes,
reflects the man, who is holding a glass of pinot noir.
It puts things in perspective.

But it’s also good to go back inside
and resume one’s place
in front of the local and regional news,

if only to get, to some degree,
one’s significance back.

 

George Bilgere, “Stargazer” from Blood Pages.  Copyright © 2018 University of Pittsburgh Press.

Eye in the Sky

The eye in the sky (from writing) is consciousness and it's the piece of you that pays attention. Does that make sense? This is why writing is sacred and so many mood-swing folks become writers. Just a theory.

Philip Pullman

Writing is a process that’s entirely totalitarian. A writer is a tyrant, a dictator. He has complete power over every comma, every sentence, every character. When I’m writing, I’m the boss — I’m in charge. When the book is published, the political nature of it changes completely. People can read my books in whatever way they want to. I don’t want any control over the process of reading, it’s democratic: and furthermore, between the reader and the book there opens up a space of complete freedom, which is also private. In a democracy, we have a private voting booth. It’s secret. So the difference between reading and writing is the difference between democracy and tyranny. 

PHILIP PULLMAN

My Lonely

“Lonely, ain't it?”

“Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.”

― Toni Morrison, Sula

Toni Morrison

 “Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

if you are free, you need to free somebody else

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison

You Wanna Fly

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon  

Sweet Crazy Conversations

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

The Neighbor Rats

"My husband is poisoning them," she said. "They're everywhere. Mice too, but I have two cats."

She continued. "Stabbings, shootings, I don't want to live here anymore. We're going to move out of the city."

"She always says that," my husband quipped, while reading his paper. "She has said that since the day they moved in."

You just do it

 “You just do it. You force yourself to get up and God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.” 

 — Elizabeth Taylor

Pablo Picasso Quotes

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

“The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.”

“It takes a long time to become young.”

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently    believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

“The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face.”

“Give me a museum and I'll fill it.”

“The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? ”

“It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. ”

“Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. ”

“Everything you can imagine is real. ”

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary. ”

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ”

“An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought. ”

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. ”

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. ”

“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar. ”

“He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law. ”

“I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents. ”

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. ”

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction. ”

“I do not seek. I find. ”

“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. ”

“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. ”

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth”

“Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.”

“He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.”

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

“Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.”

“Youth has no age.”

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”

“Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”

“To draw you must close your eyes and sing.”

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

“I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”

“It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”

“The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.”

“We don't grow older, we grow riper.”

“You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.”

“There are only two types of women - goddesses and doormats.”

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”

“When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”

“To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.”

Anna Pugh, Artist

 Checkout Anna Pugh's paintings. I LOVE THEM!

https://www.lucybcampbell.com/artists/25-anna-pugh/works/

Dream

I dreamed our friend Jamie and his wife bought a Jamaican church in Coventry to have an arts center. His wife was planning to teach dance. In the dream Coventry had an urban center.

Talking with strangers

The experience of sharing so much with someone you don’t know is rare. Many of us never speak with most of those we see around us; we truly get to know even fewer. As the writer Joe Keohane explains in his book The Power of Strangers, this aversion is rooted in social norms (talking with strangers is simply not done) and the complexities of human psychology (we tend to underestimate how much we’ll like strangers—or them, us). But Keohane’s book also emphasizes a second point: Talking with strangers is good for us. The practice can bring a sense of comfort and belonging—positive emotions that we miss out on when we stay quiet.

“Again and again, studies have shown that talking with strangers can make us happier, more connected to our communities, mentally sharper, healthier, less lonely, and more trustful and optimistic. source

Eggnog Ice cream

We're making eggnog ice cream to enjoy on our pie except it was so good we ate it before we baked the pie! It was like eggnog soft-serve. The eggnog was Garelick Farms brand and it was perfect and not overly rich. If you prefer very rich add cream.

Gabe Hudson Interview

Another thing that gives me courage is the opportunity to tell the truth. If, in the present moment, I feel I have the opportunity to tell the truth, I feel inspired & optimistic. I don’t mind talking about my own struggles with mental illness and depression because I know there are a lot of people out there who are suffering. And if by acknowledging my own struggles I can possibly alleviate someone else’s sense of isolation & anguish, I am happy to do it.

To that end, I find that I am most courageous when whatever I’m doing is ostensibly in service of others. And that includes writing. If I write exclusively for my own ego and glory, I don’t feel motivated. I know there are some writers who do and achieve great success with that mindset. More power to them. For whatever reason I’m not wired that way; sometimes I wonder if it would be better if I were. But if I think of my writing as somehow being in service of others, I can draw courage and inspiration from that.

-Gabe Hudson

https://anita-felicelli.ghost.io/q-a-with-gabe-hudson-about-writing-into-risk/

 

Randy

Randy lived on the corner and was friendly with everyone. He was always standing outside surrounded by people. "I grew up here, in that brick building across the street," he said, pointing.

When I cut my hair short he said, "I used to cut hair with nail clippers when I was in the tank. It took a while but we had time."

Randy would often be seen holding his infant grand-daughter in his arms waving to everyone out on the corner while wearing bunny slippers and black and yellow plaid pajama pants.

One year three pairs of new black cotton khaki school pants were delivered for my husband and they were swiped off the front porch within minutes.

Over time I learned that Randy stole from everyone in the neighborhood. He'd get his thugs to chase the UPS trucks on foot or on bicycle and then grab whatever package was left on the porch.

My neighbor, Josie told me she had a new mattress stolen from her foyer and within minutes spotted the guys loading it into Randy's apartment. She had a perfect view of them through the gap between the buildings.

"I marched right over and demanded my mattress back and when Randy said he didn't have it, I walked into his apartment and found it myself. I have a black belt in karate," Josie said. "Nobody messes with me."

One evening in December after dinner we heard gunshots. The neighborhood learned that Randy had been shot in the arm and his brother Mork was injured too. We figured that the brothers had finally double crossed the wrong guy.

Randy was immediately told by his landlord, Mr. Prince, to move out. "We can't have this here!" Mr. Prince said to Randy, outraged. I couldn't help wondering what took the landlord so long. 

Randy didn't go far, a mile and a half down the road. Now occasionally we'll see him driving, his six foot frame folded into a bright orange plastic electric Barbie mobile, cruising along the city sidewalks. The hood is decorated with a huge silver fuzzy glittering mustache. He makes the rounds delivering and purchasing questionable substances.

Dierdre Wolownick

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/28/dierdre-wolownick-oldest-woman-climb-el-capitan

Deception

Deception in a family is destructive. The truth always prevails. Sometimes it may take years or even a generation for the lies and deceit to become known, but know that they will come to light someday. If you can’t be honest with your family, who can you be honest with?

Lying to family or using deception to keep secrets leads to brokenness in a family. This brokenness comes from trust being corroded. The bigger the lie, the bigger the corrosion. Some lies, such as secret children born from an affair, can create insurmountable corrosion that will leave a family damaged for generations.

Your actions have consequences. Not just to you, but to your extended family for generations to come. It is much better to admit your wrong doings and work toward healing, than to lie and work to carry that lie around indefinitely (or until you are found out). Don’t burden yourself with lies. Be open and honest with your family. If you have done something that is hurtful to family members, then you need to apologize and make an effort to rectify the situation for the sake of family unity. Trying to hide the truth only compounds the hurt. The longer the truth is hidden, the more compounded the hurt.

Dr. Magdalena Battles , big mistakes that destroy-family relationships

Time

 “Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Chandler, Raymond

“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

The Adverb

 The adverb is a form of poison

This is Stephen King on adverbs. “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one in your lawn, it looks pretty and unique.

If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions.

By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s — GASP!! — too late.”

— Stephen King

Patricia Highsmith

“My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace.”

― Patricia Highsmith

He was a Guy

 “He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

When in Doubt

“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.”

― Raymond Chandler

Chandler

“I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.”
― Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life

That Trick

“She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.”

― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Inconspicuous

 “He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”
― Raymond Chandler

To Say Goodbye

“The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Raymond Chandler

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”
― Raymond Chandler, Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories

someone you never met before

 “A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Magic

“Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.”

― Raymond Chandler

Neighborhood

“It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

30 Feet

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”
― Raymond Chandler, The High Window

David Foster Wallace

The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.

 DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

The Window

Billy Wilder: “An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.” 

St. Francis de Sales & Calliope

Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.

SARAH WATERS

Sarah Waters

 “I barely knew I had skin before I met you.”
― Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests

Toni Morrison: Let it In

It’s that being open—not scratching for it, not digging for it, not constructing something but being open to the situation and trusting that what you don’t know will be available to you. It is bigger than your overt consciousness or your intelligence or even your gifts; it is out there somewhere and you have to let it in.

TONI MORRISON

Francis Phillip Wernig aka Alan Ashley-Pitt

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
― Francis Phillip Wernig aka Alan Ashley-Pitt

In conclusion, based on current evidence this saying was probably crafted by Francis Phillip Wernig who was using the pseudonym Alan Ashley-Pitt.  The earliest known version referred to a “man”, and later versions switched to “one”, “person”, or “woman”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/18/follows-crowd/

So keep on keeping on

One word after another. That’s the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it’s the only way to do it. So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

NEIL GAIMAN

Chipotle Sauce!!

El Tesoro Escondido  (Hidden Treasure)

1047 Social St, Woonsocket, RI 02895 

Hours: Open ⋅ Closes 8PM

Phone: (401) 765-6280

Three Days of Rain

Three days of chilly rain required us to keep the blinds closed to keep in the warmth. It became a perfect vacation from the nefarious parking lot. We will be hanging thermal curtains to further improve the situation. Sometimes pulling the shades is the best way to have peace of mind.

Protein

Why is protein important?

First thing’s first. Why is protein essential for your health?

“A diet that’s high in protein can help lower blood pressure, decrease your risk of developing diabetes, help you lose weight and build muscle,” says Hopsecger.

Here are some other reasons why protein is important. Protein:

• Oxygenates red blood cells, helping to supply your body with nutrients.
• Regulates hormones.
• Aids in digestion.
• Speeds up exercise recovery and injury.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-are-the-best-sources-of-protein/

How the Maestro Got His Hands Back

At the time, he was preparing for a big Carnegie Hall comeback concert for this fall, practicing for two to four hours every morning, but that's been pushed to next year. These days, Martins gets up at 5 a.m. to make the most of his time. “Sebastian, my dog, he licks my forehead and he asks for a little banana treat. I can't go back to sleep after that,” he tells me in a charismatic rumble. (Sebastian, a miniature ball of white fluff, looks exactly like a dog who would demand little banana treats at 5 a.m. with zero remorse.) “Then I open up the newspapers to see whether or not my name is in the obituaries. If it's not in the obituaries, I ask for two fried eggs, and then I start the day with the stamina of a 20-year-old young man.”

Thirty-five minutes of calisthenics, 250 crunches, and 500 stair climbers later, he'll sit down at his Steinway for some Bach. “Bach is my real breakfast,” he says. “That's my spiritual breakfast.”

https://www.gq.com/story/pianist-joao-carlos-martins-bionic-gloves

Waffled Eggs

 We love to scramble up eggs and pour them into the waffle iron. They come out light and fluffy. Today I added freshly cooked kidney beans to the egg batter. So good especially with habenero sauce. Read more here.

healthy boundaries

"Take care of yourself. You have to draw healthy boundaries around your own soul so that you can mature and reach the destiny of greatness that's within you." 

 — Edward T. Creagan, M.D.

Dream

I dreamed a rollerskating man in suit and tie came over to Bill near a construction site and said to Bill, "This man has good touch. He stopped me when my brakes didn't work and kept me from falling into the hole."

Funny

The blog post and comments about the scent of pumpkin pie are all very interesting.

Pumpkin Pie

 Original post adapted 10/27/2021

I just made pumpkin pie for the first time and it came out great! I put it in front of the tiny fan so it would cool off fast so we could eat it. I am so excited. I think pie is my new friend.

This is a delicious whole wheat crust and the pie is light like Indian Pudding and not too sweet. This is an adaption of the Libby's Pumpkin pie label recipe and the One Pie brand label recipe. I love pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ice-cream pumpkin
everything!!

Ingredients 

1/2 or (1/4 cup) granulated sugar ( I like 1/4)(can add 1 tsp vanilla)
1/8 cup of dark molasses
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt (half if using regular salt)
1 teaspoon ground ginger (I used freshly finely grated frozen ginger root)
2 large eggs
1 small can of pure pumpkin (15 oz.)
1 can of evaporated milk (12 fl. oz.)
1 home made nine inch unbaked whole wheat pie shell (4-cup volume)

Directions for making the pie:
Mix sugar, dark molasses, cinnamon, salt, ginger and eggs in large bowl. Whisk in pumpkin puree and evaporated milk. 

Pour into pre-baked (5 minutes) pie shell.

Bake pie in preheated 425° F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 more minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Some bakers use sweetened condensed milk so I tried it but I discovered that it is cloyingly sweet and drowns out the pumpkin taste compared to a pie made with evaporated milk and 1/4 cup sugar. The evaporated milk pumpkin pie is much more like Indian Pudding and tastes like a food!

Pie Crust
1 cup of whole wheat flour 

4 Tablespoons corn oil 

3 tablespoons sugar (the sugar is the glue, holding the crust together)

2 Tbs cold water or milk (if needed to moisten)

1 teaspoon Kosher salt (less if using regular salt or white flour)
(sometimes I add molasses to make brown sugar)

Mix flour and oil with fingers so it is pebbly then add a little bit more so it becomes like Play-Doh consistency. Press into pie pan with fingers. Prick dough with fork and make pressed fork pattern on edge. It is very sticky and hard to handle but hang in there, it will be delicious. Pre-bake at 350 for 5 minutes.

Storm Day

I promised my husband I'd make his favorite, pumpkin pie for his birthday. I wanted to make it last night.

"I bet school will be closed with this storm. I'm ready to stay up and make your pie!" I said. He laughed and we went to sleep at our normal time.

This morning after my early bird swim I discovered my husband home. "School was cancelled, no electricity for most of the state." he said greeting me at the door.

"I knew it! So now I can make your pumpkin pie."

Our boiler valve malfunctioned this morning and so we had to turn off the boiler until he could take it apart like he's done before.

While Bill took apart the valve I was reviewing my pumpkin pie recipe and getting started.

Bill fixed the valve and the pie was delicious. We hate half of it for lunch!

My insomniacs kitchen blog recipe here.

Buttermilk Chicken

On my dog walk I found a big 20 year old stainless steel Kenmore propane grill being thrown away. I know the owners from years of walking by their house and they were very kind and delivered it to us in their big white truck. 

Over the weeks following my husband took it apart and sent for a bunch of new parts and basically rebuilt it and then bought a tank of propane and hooked it up. It's amazing.

We made and keep on making marinated chicken breasts, buttermilk chicken. Here's what you do:

Buy boneless chicken breasts and marinate them in low-fat buttermilk with sprinkles of Adobo seasoning and squirts of sriracha hot sauce overnight in the fridge. The buttermilk breaks down moisturizes and tenderizes the chicken and seasonings do their magic!

With tongs lift the chicken out of the marinade and bake it in the oven (single layer) in a Pyrex baking dish at 450 for 30 minutes or until done. 

To grill using propane preheat to 450 and cook it 9-12 minutes a side depending on the size of the pieces.

If using hardwood charcoal it will cook in a shorter amount of time.

You won't  be sorry! It's  moist and delicious and the chicken is equally good COLD or at room temps or hot. Don't reheat it in the microwave because it will change the texture and make it taste like a boiled chicken.

(I liked this web site for buttermilk chicken too)

Into the Blue

https://thegloss.ie/into-the-blue/

Firstly, water offers us a natural, enticing invitation to move. Moving our bodies increases our cardiovascular fitness, releases mood-enhancing endorphins and helps with muscle building and bone density improvement. A walk by the water is the preferred environment of many humans.

Gary Shteyngart

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/books/gary-shteyngart-our-country-friends.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/a-botched-circumcision-and-its-aftermath

Kill the leaf Blowers

 

Opinion

Guest Essay NYT

The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers

Oct. 25, 2021

By Margaret Renkl

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.

NASHVILLE — Into these perfect October afternoons, when light gleams on the red dogwood berries and the blue arrowwood berries and the purple beautyberries; on the last of the many-colored zinnias and the last of the yellow marigolds and the last of the white snakeroot flowers; on the shining hair of babies in strollers and the shining ponytails of young mothers and the tender, shining heads of old men walking dogs — into the midst of all this beauty, the kind of beauty that makes despair seem like only a figment of the midnight imagination, the monsters arrive.

They come in a deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them mechanical locusts, descending upon every patch of gold in the neighborhood the way the grasshoppers of old would arrive, in numbers so great they darkened the sky, to lay bare a cornfield in minutes. But that comparison is unfair to locusts.

Grasshoppers belong here. Gasoline-powered leaf blowers are invaders, the most maddening of all the maddening, environment-destroying tools of the American lawn-care industry.

Nearly everything about how Americans “care” for their lawns is deadly. Pesticides prevent wildflower seeds from germinating and poison the insects that feed songbirds and other wildlife. Lawn mower blades, set too low, chop into bits the snakes and turtles and baby rabbits that can’t get away in time. Mulch, piled too deep, smothers ground-nesting bees, and often the very plants that mulch is supposed to protect, as well.

But the gasoline-powered leaf blower exists in a category of environmental hell all its own, spewing pollutants — carbon monoxide, smog-forming nitrous oxides, carcinogenic hydrocarbons — into the atmosphere at a literally breathtaking rate.

This particular environmental catastrophe is not news. A 2011 study by Edmunds found that a two-stroke gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck. Jason Kavanagh, the engineering editor at Edmunds at the time, noted that “hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor.”

The two-stroke engine found in most consumer gas-powered leaf blowers is an outmoded technology. Unlike larger, heavier engines, a two-stroke engine combines oil and gas in a single chamber, which gives the machine more power while remaining light enough to carry. That design also means that it is very loud, and that as much as a third of the fuel is spewed into the air as unburned aerosol.

How loud? “Some produce more than 100 decibels of low-frequency, wall-penetrating sound — or as much noise as a plane taking off — at levels that can cause tinnitus and hearing loss with long exposure,” Monica Cardoza wrote for Audubon Magazine this year.

In his Oct. 2 newsletter, the writer James Fallows summarized the emissions problem this way: “Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are poisoned by it.”

As Mr. Fallows’s last point suggests, what’s bad for the environment is bad for humans, too — most menacingly, of course, for the employees of landscape services, who are exposed to these dangers all day long.

The risks come not only from the noise and the chemical emissions that two-stroke engines produce, but also from the dust they stir up. “That dust can contain pollen, mold, animal feces, heavy metals and chemicals from herbicides and pesticides,” notes Sara Peach of Yale Climate Connections. All this adds up to increased risk of lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, premature birth and other life-threatening conditions.

This month, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a new law making his the first state with plans to ban gas-powered lawn equipment along with other machines, like generators and pressure washers, that use gasoline-powered engines.

Only the Environmental Protection Agency can set emission standards. But California, owing to its unique climate and geography, which allow airborne pollutants to coalesce and linger, is the exception to this federal limitation. Other states can opt to follow California’s more stringent tailpipe emissions standards, as 12 states and the District of Columbia do. Thanks in part to those standards, the passenger vehicles on California’s roads and highways collectively produce less pollution than off-road machinery does. Think about that for a minute: Lawn-care equipment creates more pollution in California than cars do.

More than 100 cities across the country have already passed regulations to ban or restrict gas-powered leaf blowers. For people committed to their manicured lawns, the good news is that powerful electric and battery-operated leaf blowers now exist, and they are quieter and greener and healthier than gasoline-powered blowers. Their market share is also growing rapidly; electric equipment now represents roughly 44 percent of lawn-care machinery sales.

But the trouble with leaf blowers isn’t only their pollution-spewing health consequences. It’s also the damage they do to biodiversity. Fallen leaves provide protection for overwintering insects and the egg sacs of others. Leaf blowers, whether electric or gasoline-powered, dislodge the leaf litter that is so essential to insect life — the insect life that in turn is so essential to birds and other wildlife.

The ideal fertilizer and mulch can’t be found in your local garden center. They are available at no cost in the form of a tree’s own leaves. The best thing to do with fallen leaves is to mulch them with a lawn mower if your lawn consists of entirely of unvariegated turf grass (which it should not, given that turf grass requires immense amounts of water and poison to maintain). Our yard is a mixture of grasses and clovers and wildflowers, so we can safely let our leaves lie. If a high wind carries them away, it’s hard not to wail, “Wait! I was saving those!”

And the leaves that fall across every inch of this wild half acre of suburbia are so much prettier than any unnaturally green lawn beaten into submission by stench-spewing machinery. All those golden sugar maple leaves hold onto the light, and for weeks it looks as though our whole yard is on fire, even in the rain. Who could be troubled by a blanket made of light? A blanket keeping all the little creatures safe from the cold?

Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South” and “Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.”

Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan + Charles Eisenstein

 a friend sent me this...

https://soundcloud.com/charleseisenstein/dr-e-ubuntu-chan-e-50

more https://soundcloud.com/charleseisenstein

Rainy Day Miracle Soup

 I am always thinking about my next meal. While walking ROMEO I thought about what to make with this weeks leftovers.  Rainy day soup.

 I had 3 cups of leftover potato+carrot stock from when I pressure cooked potatoes, then I added four wonky cooked apples and four cooked carrots. They cooled off and I buzzed them with the stock in the blender. Then I added leftover mushroom stuffing (toasted pignoli nuts, fresh parsley, garlic, cream cheese + sausage) and stirred it up. It's out of this world. Oh, and a dash of chipotle sauce.

Poems

listen to the poet reading...

https://poetryarchive.org/poet/brendan-kennelly/

Brendan Kennelly’s Favourite Poetry Sayings:

“I dabbled in words and I found they were my life. ”

 – Patrick Kavanagh

“He does not write at all whose poems no-one reads.” 

– Martial

 “The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” 

– Jean Cocteau

“Poetry is the ultimate democracy.”

 – Brendan Kennelly

“I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.”

 – A. E. Housman

Mozart Moment

This morning Mozart was on the radio when all of a sudden rap music cut in. 

Bill said, "He added that part later!" 

I laughed so hard I cried.

Fuzzy Fans

While my tea was warming I hosed off two of the fuzz covered fans using the extension hose in the bathtub. I look forward to this shortcut every year and watch the dust blow out and wash down the drain. We must wait three days to let them thoroughly dry out before they can be safely plugged in again.

John Berryman

You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.

John Berryman

From an Elder of the Cherokee nation:

Your medicine that you carry is your life, and your life is represented by all those things that you have said, that have been given to you and that you have given to others. It is all that you are and all you have done. Your medicine that you carry is all the things that you bundled together. These things you hold sacred in the world this is your gift to the world.

Medicine of the Cherokee: The Way of Right Relationship  by J. T. Garrett, Michael Tlanusta Garrett

May I ask what that's for?

 Great dialogue in Charlie Varrick:- 

 Varrick has just bought dynamite and detonators from a store. 

Clerk: May I ask what that's for?

          Varrick: You certainly may. 

 [walks out]

Brendan Kennelly

The Reason 

You ask me why I like the country air. I never meet you there. 

Brendan Kennelly

The Asthma-Migraine Connection

News

People who experience occasional migraine headaches may be at greater risk of developing chronic migraine headaches if they also have asthma, according to a study published online in November in the journal Headache, a publication of the American Headache Society.

“Migraine and asthma are disorders that involve inflammation and the activation of smooth muscle, either in blood vessels or in the airways,” says Richard Lipton, MD, director of the Montefiore Headache Center and the Edwin S. Lowe Chair in Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City. “Therefore, asthma-related inflammation may lead to migraine progression.”

The study, led by Vincent Martin, MD, co-director of the Headache and Facial Pain Program at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute, involved 4,500 individuals. Researchers found that those diagnosed with asthma were more than twice as likely to progress to chronic migraine compared to those without asthma.

Further, the risk of worsening migraine increases with the severity of asthma symptoms, Dr. Lipton says.

Migraine headaches are chronic when they occur in an individual 15 or more days per month. About 12 percent of the U.S. population experiences migraine headaches, according to the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study (AMPP), which was directed by Dr. Lipton. Migraines are three times more common among women than men.

According to Dr. Lipton, people with asthma who experience migraine headaches should do the following:

• Manage each condition by learning to identify and avoid triggers for asthma flares and migraine headaches. “Migraine is often triggered by hormonal changes, stress, not enough sleep and a range of dietary factors,” he says.

• Talk with your doctor about preventive medications that can reduce the frequency of migraine headaches, especially if they increase to more than three or four per month. Review all prescription and over-the-counter medications, as well as vitamins and supplements, with your healthcare team, as some might conflict. For instance, people with asthma should avoid certain migraine medications, including beta blockers (such as propranolol), which can impact lung function.

https://allergyasthmanetwork.org/news/the-asthma-migraine-connection/

Exquisite Corpse

  A twittering of poets

 read...

http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=361&Itemid=1#char

American Haiku by Jack Kerouac

The taste
of rain
– Why kneel?

***

The bottom of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain.

***

Snap your finger
stop the world –
rain falls harder.

***

After the shower
among the drenched roses
the bird thrashing in the bath.

***

Early morning gentle rain,
two big bumblebees
Humming at their work

***

Birds singing
in the dark
—Rainy dawn.

***

The rain has filled
the birdbath
Again, almost

***

Useless, useless,
the heavy rain
Driving into the sea.

***

The little worm
lowers itself from the roof
By a self shat thread

***

Nightfall,
boy smashing dandelions
with a stick.

***

frozen
in the birdbath
A leaf

***

In my medicine cabinet
the winter fly
has died of old age

***

Missing a kick
at the icebox door
It closed anyway.

https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/2017/05/29/the-taste-of-rain-american-haiku-by-jack-kerouac/

Jack Kerouac

"The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese
Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined
to seventeen syllables but since the language
structure is different I don't think American
Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be
completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry
about syllables because American speech is
something again...bursting to pop.

Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free
of all poetic trickery and make a little picture
and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi
Pastorella."

Jack Kerouac



Early morning yellow flowers,
thinking about
the drunkards of Mexico.

No telegram today
only more leaves
fell.

Nightfall,
boy smashing dandelions
with a stick.

Holding up my
purring cat to the moon
I sighed.

Drunk as a hoot owl,
writing letters
by thunderstorm.

Empty baseball field
a robin
hops along the bench.

All day long
wearing a hat
that wasn't on my head.

Crossing the football field
coming home from work -
the lonely businessman.

After the shower
among the drenched roses
the bird thrashing in the bath.

Snap your finger
stop the world -
rain falls harder.

Nightfall,
too dark to read the page
too cold.

Following each other
my cats stop
when it thunders.

Wash hung out
by moonlight
Friday night in May.

The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain.

Glow worm
sleeping on this flower -
your light's on.

(source)

Selima Hill

Paper Napkins

 Those nasty points, on such a perfect day. 

Selima Hill

Dave Troy

1/Disinformation is the operational end of a process designed to break down society and radicalize it into cultish forms. This process leads people away from truth. We can’t address this process by distributing truth; the cure for disinfo is not simply truth.

2/Instead, we need to counter the “lytic” process of breakdown with a different process that pulls people into common cause. That’s very hard to do but we know that just “distributing truth” won’t work. Truth is, rather, a goal we must arrive at.

3/This is why “Cambridge Analytica, but for truth” is so wrongheaded, and why the breakdown process is so diabolical. We can’t fix society any easier than we can un-stir coffee, or un-burn a fire. Fixing this requires different thinking than that which got us here.

4/Unfortunately, we will likely have to address the “breakdown” with a new, synthetic approach to rebuilding social capital and trust, from scratch. That’s doable, and I have ideas. But it will be like new growth in a forest after a fire. The old forest is, sadly, gone for good.

5/We need to turn our attention to what is being lost: social ties, social trust, social capital — choose your term, but that is the hidden thread that binds us all together and it is what has been burned away these last few years.

6/And, what about truth? An artifact of our shared reality, and now the loss of it. Raining down water on a burned forest is, well, not going to change anything. We must instead lay the groundwork to rebuilding social ties. And that may take generations.

7/Only when sufficient social fabric is re-established does truth once again have a shot at thriving. So, let’s mourn our loss and set about the work of rebuilding, while curbing the fires that still rage. And that’s a matter of shutting down the infrastructure fueling the fire.

8/We don’t look enough at the relationship between identity, in-group, and belief. They are all reflections of the same thing and you can’t alter one without altering the others. This is why injecting garbage breaks down social ties and alters belief and identity.

9/Sufficiently radicalized, people won’t recover their prior social connections, leaving them stranded on “islands of dissensus.” There is no natural pathway back from this. It’s a one way process. Throwing truth at them doesn’t restore lost social/family ties; it alienates them.

10/So we must instead find new strategies that meet people where they are and start to rebuild social connections. That’s very hard, very expensive. That’s why disinfo and social breakdown is perhaps the most effective weapon in an asymmetric hybrid war like the one we are in.

11/And to be clear: I’m not suggesting that we not assert and share truth wherever and however we can. That’s table stakes; bedrock. But it is a necessary vs. sufficient condition for dealing with the actual societal effects of disinformation.

12/People working in this field or wishing to learn more about this set of ideas are welcome to DM me for more info. I have a draft of a paper I’ve been working on that outlines this all in more detail. Thanks for the interest.

13/A corollary here is that every platform design and every intervention must be evaluated in terms of whether it harms or promotes healthy social ties, or diminishes/creates unhealthy social ties. We are not talking about this, and we should be.

Dave Troy 

@davetroy

Helping reality assert itself; anti-BS. Data + Counter-intel. Speaker. Curator,

@TEDxMidAtlantic

. Veritas vos liberabit. http://davetroy.medium.com

control can never be a means to any practical end

 “You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...like junk..”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch 

so grey and spectral and anonymous

“I know this one pusher walks around humming a tune and everybody he passes takes it up. He is so grey and spectral and anonymous they don't see him and think it is their own mind humming the tune.”

― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

total need

 “The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.”

― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

“If all pleasure is relief from tension, junk affords relief from the whole life process, in disconnecting the hypothalamus, which is the center of psychic energy and libido.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

his senses at the moment

“There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose “story” “plot” “continuity”... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer...”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Nathaniel Lande

Let your vision take you as far as your imagination can take you. Be true to your story. And in time, work with an editor and agent who is supportive, one that you trust and appreciate, one who will help make you better than you are.

Nathaniel Lande

they begin arriving

My work accrues sentence by sentence. After an initial phase of sitting patiently, not so patiently, struggling to locate them, to pin them down, they begin arriving, fully formed in my brain. I tend to hear them as I am drifting off to sleep. They are spoken to me, I’m not sure by whom. By myself, I know, though the source feels independent, recondite, especially at the start. The light will be turned on, a sentence or two will be hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper, carried upstairs to the manuscript in the morning. I hear sentences as I’m staring out the window, or chopping vegetables, or waiting on a subway platform alone. They are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, handed to me in no particular order, with no discernible logic. I only sense that they are part of the thing.

JHUMPA LAHIRI        

accept myself as a decidedly imperfect person

“It becomes easier for me to accept myself as a decidedly imperfect person, who by no means functions at all times in the way in which I would like to function. This must seem to some like a very strange direction in which to move. It seems to me to have value because the curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Empathetic Stance

“If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change. So as I say, it is not an easy thing to permit oneself to understand an individual,”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified; or when he or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to identity, then understanding is called for. The gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic stance… provides illumination and healing. In such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another.”
― Carl R. Rogers

“We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person

Carl R. Rogers

  “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, "Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it's like to be me”
― Carl R. Rogers

“a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
― Carl R. Rogers 

“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
― Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
― Carl R. Rogers

“What is most personal is most universal.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Gray Robinson

 PEELING THE ONION

May 24, 2015/by GR

            Anyone who has been on the spiritual path or seeking anything in this lifetime has probably heard the term “peeling the onion”. There are many possible interpretations to this metaphor. The onion is a vegetable that has layers of edible goodness that can be peeled, diced, sliced or julienned for baking, frying and sautéing. I happen to love onions. I digress, back to the metaphor. Getting to the root of our psyche and the causes for our emotional issues and mental traumas is often called “peeling the onion”. We peel away layer after layer of memories, perceptions and traumas to get to what mental health professionals call “core issues”. Core issues are thoughts, memories, or beliefs that color our perception of the world and create suffering. Often buried deep in our subconscious minds, we may not even be aware of these core issues. Many times they are only discoverable by the symptoms that surface into the conscious mind in the form of fears, phobias, prejudices and beliefs.

There are as many different ways to peel the onion as there are therapists and patients. Peeling the onion can be specific to the person whose onion is being peeled, or it can be more general to help groups operate more efficiently and cohesively. Generally people start with what they know, and follow a path deeper into the core of their personality and belief systems until they find their core issues that are causing suffering in their lives. It could be a childhood event that took on distorted importance in their memories or a thought or belief that causes suffering.

I want to suggest one way to peel the onion that can be beneficial to just about anyone that can be honest with themselves. We can lie to therapists and our friends because we don’t want to be rejected. We can’t lie to ourselves because we know at some point what the truth is. So as long as we don’t try the useless exercise of lying to ourselves, this works just fine.

The first layer of the onion that needs to be peeled is the belief that we need someone to make us happy. A large part of the suffering I see among spiritual seekers is the angst of being with someone that is making them miserable or not being able to find that person that will “fulfill” them. We have to let go of the desire, the lust, or the need for someone else to make us happy. Let me be clear, this does not mean that we have to be a hermit or shun companionship and friends. It simply means that we need to let go of the feeling that something is wrong if that perfect “someone” isn’t living with us. Look at it this way, if we are peeling the onion to find out who we are, it is almost impossible to continue along this path if we are focused on people outside of us. To outsiders, they may not even know you have given up the need for a companion/soulmate. They may observe that you are a lot more relaxed and peaceful.

The second layer of the onion that needs to be peeled is the belief that we are victims. We are not victims. Life does not happen to us. We are simply experiencing the end result of our decisions, thoughts and behavior prior to this moment. All we need to do is clean up our act and we will start enjoying life rather than suffer it.

The next layer of the onion that needs to be peeled is our negative emotions. When negative emotions arise, and they will, we have to let go of them and not dwell on them. If we feel afraid, angry, jealous or other negative emotions, these are being caused by something deeper down and show us that we are on the right track. We have to sit with these emotions until we understand why we are feeling how we are feeling. The peeling process is simply the acknowledgement of the feeling and going deeper to the root cause. We do not resent the emotion; we do not fantasize about why we should feel this way, we simply say, “oh, I am angry. What is causing this?” and go look.

The last layer to peel is judgment. Judgment causes most of our suffering. We judge something as good or bad, right or wrong, like or not like, and depending on how we judge it we either feel pain or pleasure. It is probably the hardest layer to peel, because it is the basis of who we are and how we perceive the world. If we let go of judgment, we don’t have to do anything, we just are. Once we let go of judgment, we will find ourselves in a very peaceful place. It is almost like we are floating on amrita and experiencing a joy we never thought possible. If you look at an onion, you will discover that when you peel away the last layer, there is nothing left. This is the perfect metaphor for your spiritual journey. When we let go of who we are, there is nothing left but the divine.