Spenard Divorce
There's always the fella whose wife has got old and fat, and he fancies a younger hotter specimen two doors down and one over.
It's time the old lady was put out of her misery. We called it a *Spenard divorce. You got in more trouble for shooting a moose out of season.
*Spenard is a suburb of Anchorage.
Elbows on the Table?
Supposedly elbows on the table can encourage poor posture. Also it can cause the table to become tippy or unstable.
But I wonder if elbows on the table doesn't encourage an ancient habit of wrapping one's arm around the plate to defend the food and lowering one's mouth to the plate to shovel the food in.
EDIT:
Not that I do that very often.
CULTURAL NORMS
😍 I like people, and I'm intensely interested in them, but I do a double-take when accosted by a stranger. If he has sufficient reason, it's fine, like maybe my pants are on fire. If not, he is rude and aggressive and not to be encouraged.
One does not approach strangers where I come from. That's where broken noses are born.
I'm picking berries one day when a stranger, a young man, maybe 35, comes sidling up, very hesitant, to say, 'Please excuse me for bothering you but could you tell me please what kind of berry you are picking?'
'Certainly', I sez. 'I'm picking red currants, also known as high-bush cranberries. They're not a desirable berry, but useful as a filler for cranberry sauce.'
'What's a cranberry?' he says, I swear to God.
So, I told him all about cranberries and Thanksgiving and we jawed awhile and parted fast friends.
Don't Lose Money in Your Investments
If your investment balance dropped 50%, what has to happen to
get it back to where it started?
IT HAS TO DOUBLE to get back where it was.
Say today you have $1,000 invested, market drops 50%, so now you have $500.
Tomorrow the market goes up 50%. So your $500 goes up 50%, that puts your investment at $750, not back to $1,000, so even though the market is back where it was you are still down $250.
You lose money twice as fast as you make money in the market!
At the clinic my blood pressure (bp) was high, like 170 over something. It always is at the doctor's office --white-coat syndrome.
So I worried that they would again recommend an rx which I would refuse and then maybe be labeled noncompliant.
I told them (the truth) that, taken at home, my bp ran around 136 over something, but I hadn't bothered with it in a long time.
I was told to take a reading every day for the next five days and report the results. At home, after a nap and a couple hours relaxing, I took my bp. It read 147/89!
A friend, now deceased, always meditated to lower his out-of-control bp. It does not work for me. So. I read all I could find about lowering bp without drugs and here's what I did about this small problem.
1. I ate my main meal of the day, thoroughly enjoying it.
2. I entered instant relaxation meditation for 15 minutes. (For me that means Solitaire. For others it might mean a coloring book or a crossword puzzle or a light-hearted book.)
3. I rose and walked for ten minutes, just a comfortable pace.
4. I returned to my chair, relaxed completely, breathed for ten minutes playing Solitaire, and took my bp. It read 115/72! I took it again: 112/71!
5. This morning, fasting, having risen two hours ago, it reads 148/96.
This has convinced me that four small meals will serve me better than my normal two solid meals.
We don't want high blood pressure, it's not good.
**My mother buried three husbands and two of them were only napping. --Rita Rudner
Not a Good Day
So, I'm in a Baaad Mood this morning because
I'm not feeling well because
I ate a couple pounds of raisins reading myself to sleep last night because
of sugar cravings because
my diet has been slipping for awhile because
I haven't been cooking because
of the total distraction of cataract surgery.
So I'm trying to snap out of it because
I want to live a happy carefree busy life.
**I keep chocolate nearby in case I have a grievance which I also keep nearby.**
On Happiness
1. The universe is pervaded by nature, subject to its indisputable control.
2. It is impossible to enjoy anything not given us by nature.
3. Renounce, do not desire, anything not given us by nature.
4. It follows that we do not covet the possessions or privileges of others. --Inspired by Gandhi who previously had difficulties justifying untouchables
Wholesome Sleep Habits
A loosely followed Ben Franklin schedule works best for me:
Rise at six
From six to nine: prepare for the day
From nine to one: work
From one to two: rest
From two to six: work
From six to ten: evening activities
From ten to six: rest
I can legally cheat by spending the six-to-ten evening activities period in bed reading myself to sleep. Then I stay in bed until six am. This helps bring me around to healthy sleep habits.
Also it helps me to spend the first eight hours winding myself up for work. And the last eight hours winding down for rest.
No rx drugs for me. Just carefully chosen medicinal foods and herbal teas.
House of Cards.
In order to push our house of cards forward we have created all manner of new and unnecessary professions. Realtors, paralegals, travel agents, decorators, compliance specialists, lobbyists, telemarketers ...
It's a wholesome feeling to be truly useful, even essential in society, as for example a cook, a baker, a candlestick maker.
On Death
All I do all day every day is maintain, maintain, maintain. There's little time left over for fun or progress. When the day comes that there's no time or opportunity for good times, and no change in sight, that's the day I should question the value of my life.
It will be best then to embrace the inevitable if only for the sake of the eternal dreamless rest that I can look forward to.
Life is for the living. Just keeping up with laundry and bill paying is not living. Yet, now I think about it, it's all I've ever done.
But it's getting late and I'm probably cross. Anyway, now I think about it, it's the thinking I do during all this maintaining that is fun.
