Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

And here's the wind up for 2018 and the pitch for 2019... This morning, driving to yoga, I heard a gentleman being interviewed on MPR talking about President Trump's disturbing description of Dr. Christine Blassey Ford's testimony during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  He used the analogy of the President speaking to a crowd at the Roman Colosseum as they cheered on his belittling words. This seems like a particularly adept way of looking at how we can react to the President's diatribes and verbiage.  We can simply stay out of the Coliseum, not buy into what he is saying.  Doing so give his words unwarranted power--and besides, they change within minutes (if not seconds) of spilling out of his mouth. Does this mean we give him a free pass?  He of 7,644 falsehoods in 2018? ( Washington Post )   Of course not.   It is our civic duty to pay attention.  (One end of the year wrap up article thanked all politicians for the crash cou...

Yes, this is me. Let's face it.  The Spousal Unit™ and I watched way, way, way too many Hallmark Holiday Movies this season.  So many, in fact, that as we scrolled through to find something to watch, we found ourselves saying, "Oh, I saw that one already."  Once, the Dan-o said that about one I hadn't seen.  I know, pretty pathetic, or, as our President might say, "Sad." Anyhow, they have an insidious way of creeping into your subconscious.  At an unnamed point this December, I found myself thinking how lovely it would be to engage in the activities that are hallmarks of the Hallmark Holiday Movies.   Going to the Annual Christmas Festival and Tree Lighting and Choral Concert and whatever else falls into that category.  Finding the BEST TREE EVER at the tree lot (even though my home is bedecked with 6 artifical trees). Decorating same with lights and garlands and stringing popcorn and perhaps even playfully tossing the popcorn at each ot...

A few random thoughts have been rattling around the aging brain... Propped Open Hearts:   (This has a religious bend to it. )   I'm a fan of Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper , as previously noted here.  She ends each post with a prayer, and this was last Sunday's:  Dear God,  this world is filled with so many people and so much good, yet it’s easy to slip into the feeling that I’m all alone. Help me remember that I am not alone. Help me remember that there are people who care. Help me to be a beacon of light and understanding for others as well. Amen. Something I've been having internal conversations about is my ability--or rather, self-perceived lack of ability--to formulate prayer.  Reading this one by Ms Shriver, who is a journalist I had to remind myself, hammered that home again.  My verbal prayers tend toward the formulaic and ritualistic, as in the Hail Mary, Our Father and I find great comfort in those.  I've decided that prayers ...

Every so often, someone utters a word or phrase that resonates with me, frequently in a manner it was not intended when said.  This was the case last week at yoga, when the instructor referred to the yoga block as a little rectangle of hope.  For the not yet members of the yoga tribe among these readers, the yoga block is usually used to facilitate the practitioner moving into a pose that might not otherwise be available to them.  If you can't reach the floor when going into a twist, for example, you move the yoga block close to your hand so you can hold on with the intention--hope--that at some point, practicing yoga will allow your muscles to become strong enough that you can reach the floor. I love this concept.  All around us, there are little rectangles of hope we can grasp.  You don't need to ask permission to hang on.  Some days you need that little rectangle, others not so much.  The rectangles of hope can be manipulated by you into any ...