Just chat, chat...

Photo is of my mom, Ada Catherine Fritsch. Everyone called her Kay. I took the snap on July 28, 2007 at my brother Glenn's wedding to his lovely bride Ynez. What a great time we had!
The purse on her shoulder is the purse I'm using now.


Misplaced my keys this AM and wouldn't you know it, Sharon came over for a few minutes and found them in seconds. She's amazing at that. Oh, yes, they were in the cushions of the couch. Why didn't I look there? I went through the house, my purse got strip searched (and discarded), I even checked the car, it was locked so was hoping they weren't in there.

So keys restored and carrying a new purse. Well, it's actually one of my mother's purses that I inherited after she died last May. It's the first time I've used it. Smaller, but nicely organised with compartments. I can think even more often about mom by carrying it. Thanks mom, for everything you did for me over the 65 years of being my mom. I sure miss you.


After seeing the preview on another film, I ordered from Netflix the recent DVD of Charlie Bartlett. It's one of the best teen flicks I've ever seen. Which isn't saying much since teen themes are not on the top of my genre list, but this is an extremely well-cast (with Anton Yelchin and Robert Downing, Jr., etc.) , and has a good story flow. Compare to Ferris Bueller film. Laughs and tears in about equal portion.

On the same topic of films the new release The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett sounds like a premise I'm interested in. Sharon told me about it after hearing about my post on 'living life backwards'. John was interested enough to say he'd take me to a showing on Sunday or Monday night as part of Valentine's gift. The preview online looks good. They usually do, eh? But it's the premise that interests me and maybe the nostalgic ambience too.

Good news on the doctor front. The heart specialist says no problems with mine and he gave the green light on knee operation. Pre-op will be the week prior.

3 Easy Exercises for Your Brain

Since reading My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. I've become more interested in my brain, poor neglected thing that it is. It makes sense to me that both hemispheres could use a little exercise. I found these basic ones:

1. Blood Flow Switch On (especially good before studying or concentration) Sit or stand. On one of your hands, open your fingers so that your thumb and index finger are as wide as possible from each other. Place this open index and thumb into the slight indentations below the collar bone on each side of your sternum. Put the other hand over your navel. Press lightly in a pulsing way for about 2 minutes.


2. Cross Crawl (helps balance the flow between your 2 hemishperes, esp. for spelling, writing,listening, reading, and comprehension) Sit or stand. Put your right hand across your body to the left knee as you raise it, then left hand on right knee as if you were marching. Do this for about 2 minutes.


3. Hook Ups (good for situations where you are nervous to calm your mind and improve concentration) Sit, or if you must stand do so carefully. Cross your right leg over your left at the ankles. Lay your right wrist over your left wrist, link up your fingers, turn your hands toward your body. Rest your clasped fingers on your breast bone (center of your chest). Stay in this position, keeping ankles crossed and wrists crossed and breath evenly. You will feel noticeably calmer in a few minutes.

Another tip: Drink Water (before and during class or any stressful situation) Drinking water is very important since the brain is comprised of more water than any other organ of your body and under stress you can de-hydrate, negatively affecting your concentration.

The site I got these from was:
http://www.iolani.honolulu.hi.us/Academics/UpperSchool/English-Upper_School/EnglishFac/9braingym.htm

Living Backwards Might Be Interesting

I was finishing up Brad Meltzer's book The Book of Lies today and came across this bit on page 313:

" 'Wouldn't it be great if we could live life backwards? You start out dead and get that out of the way - then you wake up in old age and feel better every day. With each passing year, your illnesses disappear, and you get more hair, more handsome, more virile - and best of all, you keep getting younger, finally ending life as a fantastic orgasm.' "

As the father character says, the author meant it to be humorous, but it's interesting (to me) to ponder what that would be like; living backwards.

Seems to me you'd have to have first lived forward in order to have made the decisions that made up your life in the first place. Say that was the case. Then at a critical juncture, while living backwards, you see an important decision coming up that you could change. Perhaps you could change it and live forward again, just to see how that played out, then go back to living backwards again. Huh? Kind of a self-correcting life; a sort of post script?

Well, as you can see, I'm creating mind games. But if may be an interesting topic of conversation with certain of our family or friends perhaps. John and I had a good laugh talking about it.