BlogHer

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Thoughts On A Provocative Year


As this will be my last post in 2016, I’m compelled to write something that looks back on the year. Something philosophical. There’s certainly plenty of food for thought. And lots of thoughts that were food for bloggers of every persuasion. You’ll be happy to know I don’t intend to get into the weeds of the Presidential election. I’ll do that with my January post of my banned words and phrases for 2017.

However, in the abstract it’s impossible to write about 2016 without having that election in the back of one’s mind. By that I mean the year was nothing if not unpredictable and a break from tradition. On a personal level, that ended with me finally giving up on having a live Christmas tree. You may have read my earlier blog on my inner conflict on that front.

My loss was not just of a live tree at the end of the year, but of dear friends and family earlier on. Their deaths led to the realization that the roles each played in the traditions of my life were also inexorably gone. People move in and out of our lives, but as long as they are still living, there is the possibility that we’ll “catch up” with them again at some point. Reminisce about the good old days, the trips we took, the holidays we celebrated together. Death brings finality to that. Their book has closed.

Elections can also put the stamp of finality on hopes and expectations. Yes, I was able to vote for a woman to be President for the first time. But I might not see one inaugurated in my lifetime. I hope I live long enough to refute that, but for now, I feel a deep sense of loss.

On the brighter side, the events of 2016, both personal and public, remind me that change is part of being alive. How often do we hear the old saw: “Consider the alternative”? Technology puts so many new horizons within our reach. My sister had two knee replacements this year. The new parts were made on a 3D printer to exacting specifications that matched her body to perfection. We’re now looking forward to a trip to Italy together next October.

I’ve landed some new writing gigs with local publications. Beginning next year, my work will appear regularly in two newspapers and a magazine, and I’ll get paid for each article. I’ll also have one of my essays included in an anthology that will be published in 2017: Eighty Things To Do When You Turn Eighty. That milestone is a ways off for me, but I’m happy for the national exposure and they aren’t making me stop dying my gray hair.

My husband, Jagdish, travels to Providence every week for a few days to spend time in his store, Spectrum-India. He and his customers are happy to have him there and I have more than enough to keep me occupied while he’s gone. (Did I mention the senior cats we adopted in the spring?) I’m still playing the saxophone with a community jazz group. I haven’t practiced enough lately to make noticeable progress, so I’ve put my lessons on hiatus. I plan to reinvigorate that effort in 2017.

As I look back on 2016, I could easily become disheartened and bitter. So many of my friends have headed down that road. But I prefer to end the year—and this post—on an upbeat note. We rarely know where the year ahead is going to take us. Events outside our control may or may not impact us personally. But the ones within our control certainly will influence our lives. The year 2017 may surprise us all. I hope that if it surprises you, it’s in a good way. I’m determined to have it turn out that way for me!

Happy Holidays and a healthy and joyful 2017 to all of you.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Arcane Facts Exposed


Someone recently emailed me a list of facts with the title: “So You Think You Know Everything.” My first reaction was: “I used to think I knew a lot. Maybe not everything, but a lot. The older I get, the more I feel like I’m barely getting by.” So of course, I had to read the entire list of perhaps 40 factoids. Some of them were an absolute yawn, but many of them were quite interesting. Especially the ones about animals.

For instance, a cat has 32 muscles in each ear. Also, cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs have about 10. I have no idea what to do with this information, but since I’m sure most of you reading this have either a cat or a dog, I thought I’d share.

As I read some of the more unusual data, I found myself making comparisons to my husband. The fact that a goldfish has a memory span of three seconds evoked this thought: “Cross one with my husband, and you’ll get a memory span of about two seconds.” And after reading that a snail can sleep for three years: “Cross one with my husband and you get something that can sleep for four years.” Oh, stop feeling so sorry for him. He’s used to this.

Getting more generic about our spouses, did you know that in the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated—including husbands? And while we’re on the subject of conjugal partners, the fact that there are more chickens than people in the world made me wonder: “What about rabbits?” Everyone knows what happens when you leave a male and a female rabbit alone in a cage for five minutes. Remember the old joke, boy rabbit to girl rabbit: “It won’t hurt, did it?”

I’ve always been fascinated with language, and a lot of these arcane facts are on that topic. I never knew that a “jiffy” is an actual unit of time; it’s 1/100th of a second. I wonder why we never hear sportscasters at the Olympics telling us that the person who came in second missed gold by just two jiffies.

There are only four words in the English language that end in “dous.” Those are: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous. So why is it that it seemed like every fourth word Donald Trump spoke at any of his rallies ended in “dous”?

Here’s something I always wondered about: Using only one hand, what’s the longest word you can type with each of them? With the left it’s “stewardesses” and with the right it’s “lollipop.” This fact is obviously based on an old-fashioned typewriter keyboard, not texting. I’m still waiting to find out what the longest word is that you can text with your nose.

Not surprisingly, there were many interesting tidbits in the science category. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. And as any photographer can tell you, Elaine blinks three times as much as the average woman. People actually called me “Blinky.” I’m a real challenge in group photos.

This one grossed me out. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucous every two weeks or else it will digest itself. Eeww! Thank heaven for post nasal drip.

For trivia buffs, if the population of China walked past you single file, the line would never end, because of the rate of reproduction there. To which I am compelled to add: it’s the same for those horny rabbits.

Lastly in the science area, something I was grateful to learn. It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. At least now I can stop trying to do that while I’m driving. Seriously.

There were only a handful of interesting facts having to do with math. This one caught my attention. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. I leave you with this added caveat: until the penny is retired (which is being seriously considered). Then what? You might want to figure that out while you’re waiting at red lights, where Americans spend an average of six months. I assume that’s in a lifetime. Or maybe in a Manhattan decade. Either way, happy counting!