Le Marais de la Riviere aux Cerises

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Literally “Swamp of the Cherry River,” Le Marais de la Riviere aux Cerises is a square kilometer or two of marsh, woodland, gravel trail and a boardwalk through the marsh over a kilometer in length.  Alas, walking only; no biking.  Kayaking and standup paddleboarding too.

Speaking of which, “You seem like a stand-up guy.  That’s why I’m not inviting you to my sit-down dinner.”

Book Corner 2019.28

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Happy by Derren Brown

**

This book didn’t make me happy. Frankly I skimmed a lot of it. I thought it was going to be a kind of self-help guide to applying Stoic principles to a normal everyday life. But lots and lots of it was the author’s personal feelings about fame and his weird psychoanalytic digressions on relationships. Derren Brown apparently has some small amount of fame in the UK as a magician of sorts. So we get to hear about how he feels about that. I didn’t care. Nothing he said about relationships ever really resonated with me. And when it was actually about applying stoic principles to modern life, it wasn’t the best treatment of the subject I’ve ever read, either. Still, I had some takeaways. You know how we think about what we would say if we could go back in time and talk to our younger self? Why not imagine that your older self has come back to talk to you? What do you imagine she’d say? Mine would probably say something like, “Relax, idiot, enjoy life.”

Smash the Wellness Industry

Smash the Wellness Industry  – a NYT editorial by Jessica Knoll

I’d like to start my commentary by quoting Red: A History of the Redhead by Jacky Colliss Harvey: “[Red hair] is, with me, as with many other redheads, the single most significant characteristic of my life.  If that sounds a little extreme to you, well, you’re obviously not a redhead, are you?”

I am a woman; therefore, I diet.  If that sounds a little extreme to you, well, you’re obviously not a woman, are you?

It’s time we did “Smash the Wellness Industry”.  What does that mean?  Well, make no mistake, as Knoll says, “at its core, ‘wellness’ is about weight loss.”  “Wellness” has now become one of my trigger words/phrases, like “lightly breaded” and “light cream sauce.”  Oh, we are all about health and wellness, that is why we are avoiding dairy and doubling down on grain bowls… yeah right.  You’re trying to lose weight; whether directly and consciously or indirectly by approaching it sideways, you are hoping this will make you thinner, er. more “well”.  (Or keep you that way, if you’re already there.)

The article is fantastic start to finish.  But here’s the other best part – those who do attempt to finally throw the whole dieting thing out the window are often counseled to do so by first accepting and loving their bodies as they are.  Why, Knoll asks?  Why indeed.  “I think loving our bodies is not only an unrealistic goal in our appearance-obsessed society but also a limiting one.  No one is telling men they need to love their bodies to live full and meaningful lives.”

Part of my hopes and dreams as I transition to the big 5-0 involves finally shedding the mentality of the dieter.  Just let the whole thing go.

That said, this should be my final word on the boring subject.

 

Book Corner 2019.27

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The New Republic by Lionel Shriver

My fourth Lionel Shriver and alas my least favorite.  Granted, it’s three stars – I read the whole thing and was interested each night to get back to the story.  But nobody was likeable, least of all the awful main character, who had something snide to say about EVERYONE; and since it was told from his perspective, the over all vibe was relentlessly ugly and negative.

The protagonist, Edgar, switches careers midlife to become a journalist; and he is sent to Portugal to cover a fictional separatist movement.  The area and the ethnic group Shriver is writing about are fake; but even so, I winced at her constant disparagement of the environment and its inhabitants – can something be “racist” when the “race” it’s taking shots at is entirely fictional?  I think so.  This is beyond having a nasty protagonist with a tendency to put everyone down – Shriver is the narrator and she’s no better than her character.

I’m neglecting to mention a significant part of the plot – the mysterious disappearance of the journalist who preceded Edgar.  I guess I didn’t much care.

I don’t want to give away spoilers; what drove the plot and my interest was how Edgar chose to become involved, at first very peripherally but then more and more directly, in the violence that is at first distant from him, then literally surrounds him.  This is what kept me coming back night after night.

Shave ’em to Save ’em #3 – dyeing

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My third project for Shave ’em to Save ’em was white roving (Cotswold I think), but it’s officially Dye Season.  This was in a ball, and the outside of the ball soaked up more dark than the inside.  I will even it out a bit with the drum carder, which will make it easier to spin anyway.  This is Greener Shades dye, a half teaspoon of yellow with a couple of smidgens of black (I couldn’t find my smidgen-sized measuring spoons, though I did later, so I don’t know the exact amount of black I used).  It ends up a nice green.