Darkness can lead to light
when you find what you love
or love what you find
Love isn’t always
at first sight
Legume by Peggy
“The associations were limited to tree-nut intake and were not significant for consumption of peanuts or peanut butter,” said Fadelu. “The biologic mechanism is unknown but is likely related to the effect of nuts on insulin resistance.”
*Temidayo Fadelu, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
― Omar Khayyám, The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam
High on the Hog by Peggy
Dear human-beings,
Besides being soft and cuddly a mission of mine is to bring poetry to the masses, of which you are some. And I am here to bring you the truth . . . even though it might hurt.
Santa was frantic at the North Pole
Finances in the red, he was in the hole
Mrs Claus couldn’t afford sugar
For her cookies sublime
Dear old hubby didn’t have a dime
North Pole employment had exploded
and Santa’s credit was eroded
He’d spent his last cent on black Friday deals
and turkey with the trimmings for thanksgiving meals
The night before Christmas he no longer had clout
When all the elves threatened a walk-out
Elf-union held all the chips
As evidenced by the grin on all the elf lips
For every elf in all the land
had won a pay deal without tipping their hand:
Double pay all December
a free thanksgiving meal in November
Finally fringe benefits for elves was real
For Santa and the Mrs, there was no appeal
Santa had bitten his nails to the quick
Both right and left eyes developed a tic
All Santa could do was self medicate
So he stuffed his mouth from the cookie plate
And downed all the rum from a hot toddy cup
his blood pressure sky-high, went up and up
His big fat belly shook like a bowl full of lead
While visions of bankruptcy danced in his head
So all you children and adults too
Have compassion and learn to make due
STOP asking for presents and things you don’t need
YOU must now take heed.
It’s no time for greed
If you want Santa another Christmas to live
to every red-kettle-bell-ringer
Dig in your pocket and GIVE.
Poetically yours,
Freddie Parker Westerfield
Meowie Fly’n High by Peggy
It’s a strain on my brain
Trying To Remember Multiple Things May Be The Best Way To Forget Them
by CHRIS BENDEREV
“A new scientific model of forgetting is taking shape, which suggests keeping multiple memories or tasks in mind simultaneously can actually erode them.”
“Neuroscientists already knew that memories can interfere with and weaken each other while they are locked away in the recesses of long-term memory. But this new model speaks to what happens when multiple memories are coexisting front and center in our minds, in a place called “working memory.”‘
“It argues that when we let multiple memories come to mind simultaneously, those memories immediately lock into a fierce competition with each other.” When these memories are tightly competing for our attention the brain steps in and actually modifies those memories,” says Jarrod Lewis-Peacock, a neuroscientist at UT Austin.”
“The brain crowns winners and losers. If you ended up remembering the milk and forgetting the phone call, your brain strengthens your memory for getting milk and weakens the one for phoning your friend back, so it will be easier to choose next time you’re faced with that dilemma.”
(jw)
Dear Human-beings and other creatures,
Peggy & judy are undoubtedly trying to appease me (since they didn’t name this blog FREDDIE or EVEN dedicate it to me) by giving me guest posting privileges and as such I’ve been granted the dubious task of introducing Meowie and her body-double.
Meowie gets around (not in a salacious sense). She’s allowed to travel. However, in an effort to thwart the cataparazzi she often sends a body-double out in public.
Body Double Meowy: She’s had plastic surgery to enhance her looks. Judy Clemmer, sewing-surgeon-to-the-stars gave her a nose job and coiffed her coat to make her look fluffy. I suspect Judy C. used both Rogaine and hair extensions.
Body Double Meowy
Frankly,
Freddie Parker Westerfield, SE, SC
Senior Editor and Special Contributor
Meowie in Concert by Peggy
I admit it – My will power is puny. The more I try to eat healthy foods the more I scarf down sugar laden carbs. About 3-4 days is my limit for exerting will power. Finally! Research has confirmed I’m normal (sort of).
It turns out that everyone has will power, but only a limited amount to use each day.
Rather than depend on will power, it is easier to put ourselves in situations where little or no will power is needed: Easier not to buy ice cream, than to have it at home and not eat it; Easier to put a loud alarm clock far from bed so you have to get up than to have the snooze button next to the bed that you can tap (over and over) with your eyes shut and your head on the pillow.
Reference: Switch, How to change Things When Change is Hard Chip Heath and Dan Heath
by Peggy
There it sat, in the middle of Maui’s path, taunting him with texture. Maui knew his human would be upset if he scratched this BIG, TEMPTING scratching post called couch.
He had lost count of how many times he heard this. But every time he passed by that couch, his brain remembered how great the rough fabric felt and directed his claws to come out, longing for a manicure.
The Fate of young ladies who “demurred”
with Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg
“Each of us carries around millions of microorganisms – including bacteria, fungi and viruses — on the inner and outer surfaces of our bodies. Most of them aren’t dangerous. In fact, growing evidence indicates that they help us in lots of ways. Scientists call this collection of organisms our microbiome.”
‘”A lot of the recent work on the human microbiome has revealed that we’re kind of spilling our microbial companions all over our houses and our offices and the people around us.”
“. . . the findings raise a number of possibilities, including, maybe, one day being able to identify a criminal by analyzing the microbial cloud he or she leaves behind at the scene.”
Once a month I facilitate a free, non-denominational HeART of Spirituality workshop. Tapestry Unitarian Congregation hosts it. There’s a different theme each month.
For those of you who want to think about your own spirituality I’ll post the information and the exercises for you to do. For those who just want a peek at the heART the participants create take a look!
judy
When everything is going well we try to maintain the status quo (for good reason!). To change, learn and grow we all need an impetus. The most powerful stimuli for change and growth are when we face pain or fear.
In Buddhism there’s a distinction between pain and suffering: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Suffering is based on our perception and emotional response.
Basic to Baha’i beliefs:
Stacked writing is a great way to keep things confidential and not have to hide your journal under the mattress. You can spill your thoughts & feelings out on paper and no one (including you) will be able to read what you wrote.
Workshop Materials: I pasted colored tissue paper on large sheets of paper for the participants to write on. These sheets were later turned into mini 8-page journals.
Your Materials: A journal or just a piece of paper will do. A black marker or pen. A timer
Instructions:
Materials: Newspapers, sheet of blank paper, (we used black construction paper but a journal or any paper will do) glue sticks, scissors.
Instructions:
*“Free verse is an open form of poetry. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. Many poems composed in free verse thus tend to follow the rhythm of natural speech.” Wikipedia
Here are the participants Healing Poems. Take a look!
Poetry, ideally, is meant to be recited out loud. Get your moneys-worth and orate!
In my opinion, one of the most “damaging” things we can tell our children, or ourselves for that matter, is that if we set our mind to it and have the perseverance we can do anything, accomplish anything, be anything. WRONG.
No matter how much I may want to be a nuclear physicist my brain simply will not grasp the finer, much less coarser, points of physics or math. No matter how much I might want to be a sumo wrestler, my body, dexterity and athletic ability forbids it.
So if I were going to talk to The Cat in the Hat I would tell him to change what he preaches to:
(jw)