June 11 2022 - I haven't been the same since

 

I am intrigued by Frank Epperstein's elusive statement:  "And I haven't been the same since."  It sounds sad, depleted, reduced, and melancholy.  There's no indication from the definition that this might be the case.  What is of concern with the definition is whether it is inclusive or exclusive of the time before referenced.  It is inclusive.  But somehow since has become an anthem - a marker of a catastrophic event.  There are a number of songs lyrics that include  line and substantiate the idea:  I haven't been the same since I lost my bro I haven't been the same since I loved that hoe Things haven't been the same since you got back from Italy Things haven't been the same since we left (Explicit)  They all seem to extend the phrase into the realm of the "cynical absurdist".  It is the disdain rather than despair that stands out, along with the mocking quality.  Here's the sticker/t-shirt on eBay:   I haven't been the same since that house fell on my sister I had to scroll through a lot of jokes to find some to share.  I thought there would be lots but what is there is mostly demeaning sex jokes.  Here are my chosen few: The Supreme Court has changed dramatically since Justice Ginsberg died. It has become Ruth less. Ever since I became the new produce inspector I've been visiting local grocers and supermarkets; but they're always surprised to see me. It seems nobody expects the spinach inquisition Ever since the storm started, my husband won’t stop looking through the window. If it gets any worse, I will have to let him in And this one - not in the time sense of the definition, but definitely in the cynicism club: Devil: This is the lake of lava you will be spending eternity in Me: Actually, since we're underground, it would be magma Devil: You understand this is why you're here, right?   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 17 2022 - And on to Aquafit

 

There's a lot of jarring of the joints in exercise classes.  Jumping jacks, skipping, running are essential parts of cardio classes.  I decided that I would give aquafit a try starting in January 2022.  Our Y is only 10 years old, and it has amazing facilities, including an excellent swimming pool.  Aqua aerobics are much easier on the joints and muscles given the support of water.  There is a greater range of motion allowed because of the lower impact of gravity.   There seems to be emphasis on calories burned in articles describing the benefits of a water aerobics class, so how many calories would we burn in a work out class? Take our Wednesday HIIT (high intensity interval training) class.  It follows a pattern of 20 seconds of intense burn followed by a 10 second rest.  It consists of a circuit of different exercises so there's lots of variety. While our classes are 45 minutes, a one hour class is said to burn between 600 to 900 calories.  That seems like a lot. In comparison, my guess is that our cardiomix class burns the most calories as there are no intervals off.  The articles say 600 calories for a cardio class.  And our water aerobics? Water aerobics is expected to burn between 400 to 500 calories per hour.  Ours seems to be a gentle sort - aimed at the seniors in the pool. I'm now at the 5 month mark of doing aquafit two times a week.  And the promise is accurate - there is a definite  increase in strength in arms and legs -the pushing and pulling against the weight of water is excellent resistance training. As I check out the calories burned in a typical exercise class, it is very funny that exercise programs have strange and very noticeable names.  The example that got my attention: "The Insanity workout "  It involves bodyweight exercises and high-intensity interval training.  Insanity workouts are performed 20 to 60 minutes at a time, 6 days a week for 60 days.  Who would produce something called an Insanity workout? Beachbody with their Battle Tested Programs.  That's who.   A double daffodil in the garden. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Aug 23 2021 - Wellington's Big Trip

 

Wellington, Edward and Annie lived a quiet life.  It would be considered very confined, really, in their small place.  While there were lots of people around, they didn't get to go lots of places.  They were stuck where they were because where they were was the Chicago Shedd Aquarium.  Then the pandemic came.  Living in an Aquarium, it was suddenly quiet, and it was really isolated.  The caretakers thought that Wellington and his friends might take a field trip through the aquarium.  And this would give some publicity to the aquarium during the quiet times of 2020.  It turned out to be tremendously popular, and Wellington, the penguin,  became a star.  There are a number of YouTube videos and Wellington with the Beluga whale and the otters is great:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEu8DPq2-Y  There's another episode of the three of them walking through the theatre aisles.  Penguins are really fun to watch.  Everything they do is cute.  It turns out that Wellington may be the oldest living penguin at over 33 years, and that he's distinctive for contributing to medicine having had cataract surgery.  Here are a few screen shots that show what made this so compelling to us - pandemic or no pandemic, this is photogenic material.   I also saw a subsequent episode with them visiting Soldier Field, and running through the grass.  Given that was 2020, I would expect there might be well over a dozen now.  How many places has Wellington been now? Our picture of the day is a pastel Calla Lily portrait.

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I saw dill pickle cucumbers at one of the vegetable and fruit stands on the weekend.   We mostly pickle vegetables - and really, cucumbers for dill and sweet pickles in North America.  But there is a long list of fruits and vegetables that are pickled in every country. I decided, though, that most people don't have my fascination for pickles, chutneys, relishes and salsas.   What did I decide we are all interested in?  The recent story of the lobster diver in Cape Cod having a Jonah experience - that is compelling.   I find out that a Jonah experience is considered only possible with a sperm whale as it is the only whale that can possibly swallow a human.  The Cape Cod story involved a humpback whale, which cannot swallow a human.  The only other story of this sort was that of James Bartley (1870-1909) being swallowed by a whale near the Falklands - and was in its stomach for 3 days.  However, while this story has been much repeated, it was never proven. Moreover,  the wife of the ship's captain who travelled on the ship at that time said it was false.  Our recent story was verified by Michael Packard's partner: "A commercial lobster diver says he escaped relatively unscathed after nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, in a biblical-sounding encounter that whale experts describe as rare but plausible.  Michael Packard, 56, said in local interviews and on social media that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up. "I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out," Packard later wrote on Facebook. "I am very bruised up but have no broken bones." More about the story HERE. And if whales don't swallow people, and people don't survive being swallowed by whales, what is the Biblical story of Jonah, really?  Check out the Wikipedia entry - everyone weighed in on Jonah and the symbolism of his 'giant fish' adventure. A Daylily flower is particularly beautiful because of its little slippers. They are bluish-brown so I"ve given them some colour treatment to make them such a shiny blue colour.   Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 6 2021 - Herd Immunity

 

Whenever I hear the expression "herd immunity",  I think of cows, sheep, buffalo, and deer.  I wonder if it is a small herd or bid herd.  And then I start to consider whether they are free range on a farm or while, like buffalo and deer.  I don't think that's where the mind is supposed to go with the expression.   It is also known as 'population immunity'.  But we don't hear that expression - the more common one is herd immunity. It definitely is more noticeable.  It turns out the expression did start with cattle and sheep.  They were having epidemics of spontaneous miscarriages in the early 1900s.  Farmers were destroying or selling affected cows, but veterinarians warned this was the wrong approach.  That was in 1916 in the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association where "herd immunity" was envisioned.  Adoph Eichhorn wrote in 1916 that herd immunity could be achieved.   Sheldon Dudley wrote on the topic in 1923 and his writing is the most extensive on what herd immunity means to humans:  “I will now consider the community, or the herd… Nations may be divided into urban or rural herds. Or we can contrast the shoregoing herd with the sailor herd, or herds dwelling in hospitals can be compared with those who live in mental hospitals.” The Lancet observes:  "Dudley's glide from animal to human drew on established British traditions of animal symbolism. As historian Harriet Ritvo argues in The Animal Estate, animals have long served in England as figures for representing national types, lineages, and identities. When Dudley, as surgeon, researcher, and medical administrator, wrote of the “English herd”, he tacitly invoked his own role in a project of national stewardship." And so “herd immunity” became a fixture of epidemiology by the 1930s.  Where does that lead us today?  We become familiar with the work and words of 100 years ago.  With such a long history, are there any jokes or stories that I have missed? I found this amusing headline:  William Shakespeare Received a COVID Vaccine and Everyone’s Got Jokes: ‘The Taming of the Flu’ - it turns out that the second person in Britain to receive the vaccination was named William Shakespeare.  That got my attention after considering names yesterday.  Can you imagine the reactions and remarks all through his life?  I didn't find any jokes about herd immunity.  I guess it has made it to popular culture just recently as the retrievals are memes.  Memes are meant to be a 'bit of humour'.  The Memes on herd immunity and vaccinations seem to have bypassed humour, and moved on to opinions.    Cute little Muscari (spellcheck wants it to be Mascara0  or Grape Hyacinths in the front garden this week.  Spring's colours are so delightful. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

April 18 2021 - Beautiful Towns with Beautiful Beaches

The 25 most beautiful towns/villages in the world sort of articles have Spain, Greece, Italy, and various mountainous sea towns on display.  Their houses are perched on cliffs that descend to the ocean. Without doubt, Niagara-on-the-Lake is a pretty town too.  It is perched at the fork of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, so there's much water scenery. And the houses are heritage and historic, like those seaside buildings on Mediterranean cliffs with matching red roofs. I realize that Ontario has lots of seaside and lakeside towns that overlook expanses of water. So which ones are at the top of the list? Perhaps it would be Wasago Beach - as it is the longest freshwater beach in the world.  It is 90 minutes north of Toronto so accessible to millions.  It has warm and shallow water - this sounds ideal.  Quieter and more natural areas are considered perfect for settling down in the sun with a good book.  Really? Why would you put your head down in a book rather than looking out to the vast blue waves? I suggest moving on to the part where you bring your dog with you and head to section 3 where they can "frolic in the waves".  Wasaga Beach's beautiful beach means beautiful sand, and that's what made it remain undeveloped.  The land was too poor for farming in the 1800s. But the Lake's beautiful sand also means lots of maintenance as Lake Ontario water levels that have been rising.  And sand shifts in  the big November storms each year causing damage.  But still all that sand and water is a delight to the human eye. As we consider this summer, we might not get to Wasago with COVID, but we can know it is close-by for future visits. I couldn't resist showing you aerial images of the vast curve of beach along with the splendid river beside it.   Here's a happy collage of lilies. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

 

March 25 - The Song is Ending

CBC interviewed REM band member Mike Mills on the weekend.  The hit End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) came out in 1987 and became a satiric and defiant anthem.  So 30 years on, it has come back into the social consciousness and is being played again. What did I find most compelling in the interview?  He and Michael Stipe wrote the music first, then gave it to Peter Buck to write the lyrics, and this is what he came up with. They had no idea this music was going to say this much.   So while this song is about the 'ending', I started to wonder about how songs conclude.  What kind of endings are there? Some of the songs we were singing in the choir have a little 'hmm', 'ooh' or 'ahh' to signal the end, a sort of fade out.  And some come to a leaping big chord and just stop.  These are pretty fun to sing.  We're singing a sort of Celtic orientation/religious/inspirational set of songs. What comes to my mind on the thumping last chord songs? Oscar Peterson and his big endings.  I found this description of his version of West Side Story's Tonight (1962): "Tonight swings mightily right from the downbeat. Peterson twists the melody and trades lines with bassist Ray Brown as drummer Ed Thigpen lightly stabs and jostles the duo with his sympathetic brush work. And then there’s the big pay-off — chorus after chorus of burning swing, round after round of exuberantly shouted choruses, and finally, a stop-time ending." What are the most famous and enduring song endings? In our time, it is an easy answer: the Beatles ending for A Day in the Life.  "Following the second crescendo, the song ends with a sustained chord, played on several keyboards, that rings for over forty seconds. " This ending is considered to have made history and is the  #1  popular song endings.  For classical songs, the #1 ending is Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 – IV. I haven't looked at the most interesting song ending lyrics, or the songs with long endings.  There likely are more variants on endings - that's for another day.  We likely have lots ahead. Yesterday's weather was too cold for me to garden, so I created spring with some spring flower photo processing.

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Feb 27 - Chocolate Month Completing

Our winter months' celebration days are colour-coded.  Christmas is red and green, Valentine's Day is red, St. Patrick's Day is green.  As we move into Easter, it is pastel colours, but not a dominant  colour theme.  We go on to Victoria Day - and abandon colour coding.  We pop up with the national flag of red and white on July 1st, but don't worry about colours until Christmas again.  We do sprinkle a little orange in for Thanksgiving and Halloween, as though in readiness for the darker, colder, and starker days of winter. I became aware of this at the long-term care home yesterday, where the St. Patrick Day display is up with its shiny, green hats and clover leaves replacing February's red hearts. February being the chocolate highlight month, I can let you know that February concludes with a chocolate theme - it is National Chocolate Soufflé Day tomorrow, February 28th.   And while February has a high concentration of chocolate celebration days, there are chocolate festivals, fairs and celebrations all year long, and national chocolate days throughout the entire year.  Here are two stories that popped up: What is the longest chocolate truffle?  A choo-choo. This 111-ft 8-in-long (34.05-m) chocolate choo-choo was put on display at Brussels South railroad station in Belgium on November 19, 2012. The tasty train was crafted from Belcolade chocolate by master chocolatier Andrew Farrugia (Malta) as part of Brussels Chocolate Week. A jazz band provided the musical accompaniment on the day, with the keyboard player tinkling away on a grand piano that was also made from chocolate! The Chocolate Fashion Show. This is an annual chocolate trade show in Paris in October - the link is HERE. You can see the dresses, purses, decorations on shoes - chocolate creations everywhere.  We enjoy summer skies by Skylum today with pictures from the Minneapolis Arboretum.

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A Birthday Today - February 11 2015

A Special Birthday Today

Today in History I did a search on what happened today in history.  An excellent find - it is Thomas Alva Edison's birthday - born in 1847. The Rockefeller Center in New York commemorated the 75th anniversary of Thomas Edison's first light bulb by lighting a 75,000-watt light bulb in 1954.   If you are in or near Fort Myers, Florida today - go to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates and you will get in free to celebrate his birthday.  The month of February has a series of Edison birthday activities and celebrations, including the Edison Festival of Lights. Do you wonder about the middle name of Alva? A google search brings a number of answers, and the most prevalent story is that its meaning is 'white', related to Latin Albin. It is a popular girl's name in Sweden.