#sixty something

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10 more physics review questions pray for me

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[violins-beat-violas]

I made five phone calls! I think that’s good adulting

[onphire-blog]

July 1, 2013

I woke today thinking about the weekend events.  Though it was a wonderful weekend with friends, I miss my daughters.  I really miss my daughters.  I miss seeing them on a daily basis.  I miss their smiles.  I even miss their messes! 

What is this familiar feeling?  Yes, it is a familiar feeling—the empty-nest feeling.  I laugh to myself, as I feel the anxiety and apprehension rising.  I am already anticipating my drama.

My daughters live in New York.  They have become New Yorkers.  You know what I mean.  Even the New Yorkers out there know what I mean.  A place that houses the best restaurants, the best bars, the best cultural events, the best parks, the best doctors, the best hospitals, and, of course, the best bagels.  Yes, New Yorkers believe that there is no better place than New York.  “They” may be right about the bagels!  But really?  Come on.

My daughters were raised in the midwest.  Ann Arbor, Michigan has been our home for about eighteen years.  Before that, we lived in another beautiful, but smaller, midwestern town—Milford, Michigan.  We had a garden the size of a football field!  Well, not really, but it sure felt like that when we were out there weeding.  We went for long walks in the woods near out home. It was during those walks that my husband made up stories that he would tell the girls, stories about the “Little People in the Woods.” 

The “Little People” protected the woods.  “Stoney,” protected the stones and the rocks.  “Barkey” guarded the trees.  “Leafy” was in charge of the leaves.  The “Little People” always won the battles when the “bad people” tried to destroy the woods.  The “Little People” even showed up just at the right time and helped the girls get out of whatever jams they got themselves into.  Kir, our dog, also traveled along—she acted as a protector for the girls.  The girls loved the stories.  Ah, nostalgia.

I think one of the reasons the girls moved to New York was because we lived in the country, and we had to travel to the grocery store, to the schools, and to just about everywhere!  I think all that traveling was just too much for them.  Now, they don’t have to spend every waking hour in a car.  Rather, they walk or take a cab or take the subway.  Food is just a phone call away and delivered to the door.  They live in neighborhoods, where the dry cleaner, the pharmacy, and the nail salon are within a short distance from their houses.  Everything is close.  Yes, those are all good reasons to be in the city.

I am proud of my daughters.  I see their beauty, inside and out.  I am very proud that they have chosen me to be their mother.  I have enjoyed the journey of motherhood.  I love watching my daughters grow into adulthood; the adventures.  Yes, I miss the little-girl times, but I embrace, with misty eyes, all the moments that I have had with them and I look forward to the next steps of our journey, but not without some more advice from the mom.

I want my daughters to know that I have made many mistakes in my life.  It is okay to make mistakes.  In fact, we learn through those mistakes.  Just take responsibility for those mistakes, and hopefully, they won’t be repeated! 

And, there will be many people who will help you along in this thing we call life, but also know, there will be those who don’t, but they are there to help you too; to let you know that life is not a bowl full of cherries.  It is not meant to be.  Keep that in mind.

Things will happen in your life that you cannot control, but it will be you who decides how to handle them.  Try to change those things but if you can't, then try to change the way you think about them.

Do not whine.  Not only is it unattractive, it lets the “all-powerful” know that you feel victimized!

And, maybe, just maybe, it is good to tell the truth!  Telling the truth can be liberating, but remember you don’t have to “tell all,” but rather, just enough for someone to know that what you are saying is the truth.  Now, when someone asks you, “How are you,” have the hutzpah to sometimes tell them the truth!  And, watch their expressions!

I love my daughters!

So, I put on my Nike + watch, my heart monitor, and my lunar glides, and off I go for a forty-five-minute run.  It is a new week.  How do I feel?  I feel like crap!  I miss my girls!

[onphire-blog]

June 25, 2013

Oh my, it’s that time again.  The alarm goes off.  It’s sixty-thirty in the morning.  Once again, I look around me and realize another “Groundhog-Day” routine is about to begin.  My husband wakes.  I call my mom.  And, I will spend another day analyzing my life.

When I read the book-review section in the Sunday paper this past weekend, I found a book I thought might help me get my life back on track—“Moonwalking with Einstein,” a book on how to improve your memory.  It was one of Dan Brown’s favorite books.  I thought to myself, “Well, if it’s one of his favorite books, then it must be a good book.”  Dan Brown is an author so he must know something about books.

I guess being the owner of seventy self-help books isn’t enough.  But I didn’t own a single book on “How to Improve My Memory?”  I do now.

Besides, I can hardly remember anything these days, well with all the gadgets—day planners, GPS devices, cellphones that log every number I ever called, and, of course, my aging mind, who needs to remember anything.  That’s about to change. 

I immediately ordered the book on my Kindle.  Yes, my Kindle.  Talk about gadgets. But this is good because now I have no more worries about not having enough room on my shelves for another self-help book!  Anyway, I begin to read.  I am intrigued.

So, the author of the book is a formerly absent-minded, young science writer, Joshua Foer, who became the 2006 U.S. memory champion.  “Anyone can do it,” he says. 

I read on.  I can do this. 

Seriously?  Can memory be taught?

Josh says we are born with a blank slate of memory, and, over the years, we lose the incentive to store large amounts of information.  Really?  No kidding.  I have to remember this is Josh’s journey not mine!  I have no intention of becoming the next U.S. memory champion.  I just want to remember why I walked into the kitchen! 

Well, Josh says I need to learn the technique and practice.  So, what’s the technique?  I read.

Josh is not against our present-day technology.  He says it’s good but it takes lots of information away from us remembering because we no longer have to remember facts—we have the Internet—we look everything up.  So, no need to create new ideas, or to think about things, or to make new connections, or to make sense of the world.  I agree.  I read.

No technique yet but I am very interested in this young man’s journey.  I think the book is well-written.  Josh is wise and witty.  I like him, especially when I get to the chapter on “Expert Experts.”  I have always wanted to be an expert on something.  Remember?

So, what does it take to become an expert?  I am about to learn.

Josh talks about his encounter with Professor Ericsson, the world’s leading expert on experts, at Florida State University.  Professor Ericsson says experts require at least ten thousand hours of training to achieve world-class status. 

No wonder why I am not an expert on anything.  I don’t think I have spent that many hours studying!

Well, it turns out that experts see the world differently.  They notice things that non-experts don’t, they hone in on information that matters most, and they seem to have an automatic sense of what to do with it.  Josh says that it may appear experts rely on their “gut feeling.”  Rather, what they really are doing is acting unconsciously on their memories, not their gut. 

Take the chicken sexers for example.  The chicken sexer perceives the world in a way that is quite different, at least when it comes to the world of chicken’s privates!

I had no idea what chicken sexers were until I read about them in Josh’s book.  After reading about them, I am so glad I was not born a chicken, especially a male chicken. 

Male chickens are useless.  Hmm?  Can’t lay eggs, their meat is stringy, and they are ornery to the females who do all the hard work.  Hmm?

Anyway, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between a male and female chicken until the chick is about four-weeks old.  However, in the early 1920’s, some veterinary scientists from Japan discovered something about the chick’s rear end.  Inside, there are folds, marks, and bumps that to the untrained eye are nothing.  But when these folds, marks, and bumps are properly read by the expert, they divulge the sex of a day-old chick.  Of course, that takes years to master!

So, it turns out that chicken sexing is a delicate art.  Yes, it requires Zen-like concentration and the hands of a neurosurgeon.  The art goes like this.  The chick is held in the left hand and given a gentle squeeze—can’t squeeze too hard or it will kill the chick!  Oh my! Next, with his (not her) thumb or forefinger, and well-trimmed fingernails, the sexer flips the chick over, parts the flap on its hindquarters to expose the genitals, and then peers inside.  The sexer is looking for a protuberance, or the “bead.”  If the bead is convex, the chick is a boy and gets disposed.  Oh my!  If the bead is concave or flat, it’s a girl and gets saved.  Oh my!  And, the sexer has to make the diagnosis with just a glance!  Oh my!

The best part?  Chicken sexers get paid.  Yep, a penny for each chick correctly sexed.  The best in the business can sex twelve hundred chicks in one hour, with about ninety-nine percent accuracy.  But the chicken sexers can’t tell you how they do it because their art is inexplicable.  They simply say they have intuition!  Oh my! 

Yes, the chicken sexer perceives the world very differently.  I am happy for the sexer, but I am not sure about the comparison to memory---what does a chicken sexer have to do with improving my memory?  I guess I need to think about that and read on, but not today.         

So, I put on my Nike + watch, my heart monitor, and my lunar glides, and off I go for a sixty-minute run.  I think I won’t be applying anytime soon for a position as a chicken sexer.  Oh my!