Orangutans Have Feelings Too.

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If you give a chimpanzee  a screw driver he'll break it; if you give a gorilla a screw driver he'll toss it; but if you give an orangutan a screw driver he'll open his cage and walk away. 
- Sumatran Orangutan Society

Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty apes.  - Charleston Heston, The Planet of the Apes, 1968

The Planet of the Ape movie series has given us mixed messages about Orangutans.  They, in fact, share about 97 percent of the same genetic material as humans.

They're smart - they use tools, apply insect repellant and use soap.  They have feelings like love, empathy and a sense of humor.  They also lie.  (Just like us.)

And they are in danger of going extinct.

With all that in mind I read the most tender obituary in the paper the other day.  It was written just like a human obituary but it was for Bonnie, a 31 year old orangutan, who died in surgery when the folks at the Miami Zoo were trying to save her and her unborn baby.  The sweetest and most humanizing line in the obit was the last one which read:

She is survived by her mate, Mango.

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Miller's and Ammo

A week ago yesterday, as we do every Saturday, we walked through my favorite hardware store, Miller's Hardware in Winter Park, Florida.  We usually cut through the store to get cooled off but sometimes we buy something as well.  And we are always treated well no matter how little we spend our how much help we need.  Because that's what Miller's is all about.

But a week ago yesterday I was greatly disturbed because the big clapboard sign on the sidewalk out front said "Ammo."  I wasn't disturbed because they sell ammunition but because the store is located about five miles from the Pulse Night Club where the massacre of 49 young people took place only weeks ago, I thought the sign on the sidewalk was in poor taste and offensive.  However, I said nothing.

But I thought about it for several days.  And then on Thursday there was a letter to the editor in the paper about the ammo sign.  This made me feel bad because if I'd said something Miller's might have removed the sign from the sidewalk and avoided the bad publicity.

So yesterday I was determined to tell them, in a loving way, how I felt.  But when we got there the sign had been removed so the problem was solved.

What I wanted to remind them of was that the big "ammo" sign on the sidewalk is not who they are.  They are not about dividing people.  They treat every person with kindness.  Decades before the big box stores started treating women with respect because they realized it made them richer, Miller's was known as "the women's hardware store."

They are fair and impartial.  For instance, they are selling Chia heads of both Trump and Hillary.


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The Best Restaurant in the Country - Or Is It?

This week's New Yorker Magazine has an article by Nick Paumgarten that I couldn't put down.  Damon Baehrel is the name of both the chef and the restaurant that  Bloomberg News calls  "the most exclusive restaurant in the U.S."  It's also the hardest to get into.  Mr. Baehrel says he's booked up through 2025.

The restaurant is located in Earlton, New York, in the basement of his home.  The dining room can accommodate only 16 diners.  FoodieHub named Damon Baehrel the best restaurant in the world in 2015.  Writer Nick Paumgarten tells us:

Baehrel derived his ingredients, except meat, fish, and dairy, from his twelve acres of yard, garden forest, and swamp.  He made his oils and flours from acorns, dandelions, and pine; incorporated barks, saps, stems and lichen, while eschewing sugar, butter, and cream; cured his meats in pines needles; made dozens of cheeses (without rennet); and cooked on wooden planks, soil, and stone. 

I am not a gourmet but I know some.  And, apparently, folks fly in from all over the world who either have, or want to, eat in this basement.  One man told Paumgarten he hated long meals but Baehrel served him and his friends twenty-three courses over seven hours and the time "just flew by."

The food prep takes days and weeks and years.  For instance, he makes his flour from cattails, pine, dandelions, clover, goldenrod, beechnut, hickory nuts and acorns.  It takes one to one and a half years to make acorn flour.

Following is a description of the first course (of nineteen) Baehrel served Paumgarten:

The first course was served on a slab of sawed wood.  It was a small rectangle of what looked like salami atop a curled cracker.  He said, "It takes me sixteen to eighteen months to make cedar flour...so the crisps is made from cedar flour, with a little hickory-nut oil, duck-egg-white powder, water, sea salt, which I sometimes render....The rectangle of meat, he said, was blue foot chicken cured in pine-needle juice, pulp and powder for eighteen months.

Baehrel is a one man show, chef, waiter and clean up guy.  So the writer found some of his claims hard to believe - like what kind of records would have to be kept by one person to handle ten years worth of reservations.  Other food critics have reservations as well.  But most of the skepticism iso about the reservation list.  One reviewer called it "Brigadoon" because it seems to pop up only occasionally.

Ken Morris, who once worked for Damon Baehrel calls him a "crazy genius."

If you are a foodie, you will love this ten page article by Nick Paumgarten in the August 29, 2016 issue of the New Yorker.


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We Still Have Our Marbles

Two Healthy Brains - So Far

As you know Dave and I work hard to stay healthy.  But we do normal boring stuff and have for decades.  That means eating right, exercising, blah, blah, blah.

I love the ads for really expensive creams and such that will "reverse aging."  What?  I always think about having to explain to a four year old why "reverse aging" is doable or even a good thing.

The three things about aging that scare us the most are cancer, heart disease and dementia (Alzheimer's decease.)

We've been waiting for a magic bullet for Alzheimer's for a long time but it has not yet appeared.  Now new research out of the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in July suggests that - guess what - the same boring things we do for our physical bodies over the decades may also be what's needed for dementia.

Here are the six changes they're suggesting:

1.  Keep your heart healthy.  Look out for high blood pressure and, cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes.  And how do we do this?  You already know.  (Besides the diet and exercise I eat a piece of dark chocolate and drink a glass of wine every day.  But the trick is not to eat a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine every day.)

2.  Exercise.  Apparently, it keeps your brain as well as your body ship shape. 

3.  Learn new stuff.  Read and write.  It's simple and fun. 

4.  Be social.  Easy to do if you have close friends and relatives but if not, get out there and find some. 

5.  Treat depression.  Hint:  If you are sitting at home in your P.J's watching Fox News all day - stop it. 

6.  Sleep Well.  I have to work hard at this.  

OK, this is what they now tell us to keep our healthy brains.  And - guess what? - it doesn't cost much of anything - and it makes us happy.


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Another Python Story

Python that has eaten something BIG.

I've written several times about our trespassing Burmese Pythons that hang out in our Everglades.  Apparently there are more than 150,000 of them.  They're not indigenous to Florida.  They got here courtesy of the exotic pet industry that continues to smuggle strange beasts into our state, sometimes in their underwear.

The problem is that the pythons eat our Florida wild life, including protected species.  A while back, as a solution to the problem, the state sponsored Python Challenge was begun.  This last time 104 pythons were killed in the hunting contest.  And this time an examination of the digestive systems in these pythons produced the remains of the following:

Python eating an alligator

7 Alligators
2 Deer
38 Birds
16 Rats
8 Opossums
7 Muskrats
3 Raccoons
3 Rabbits
2 Squirrels
1 Wood Stork


For the life of me, I can't imagine who would want an 18 foot Burmese Python as an "exotic pet."


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The Contemporary Resort Hotel

Around 1974 my husband Ken, our four small children and I went to Disney World in Orlando and stayed at the splendorous Contemporary Resort Hotel.  It was, at that time, a futuristic icon.  The atrium was larger than a football field.  The main hall has one of the world's largest mosaics, 90 feet tall, with 18,000 hand-painted tiles representing an artistic view of the Grand Canyon.

The year before we were there President Nixon chose the Contemporary to deliver his "I am not a crook" speech.

But the coolest thing about this space-age hotel is that the Disney monorail goes right through the lobby.  And the most exciting thing to happen to us was, as we boarded the monorail, our little daughter, Sarah's flip flop fell off her foot and floated several stories down.

18,000 hand made Mosaic
tiles in the lobby

We were all new to the magic of Disney and so for years we told the story of how Sarah lost her flip flop on the monorail.  It became legendary.

 I still think of the Contemporary as....well...contemporary.  But it's not.

The hotel is being celebrated this month, along with other architectural landmarks,  as the futuristic icon that Walt Disney World unveiled in 1971.  So, while I may think of the Contemporary as still contemporary, it's no longer new.  It's 45 years old.

And my four little kids have grown up to have big lives of their own.  Including Sarah who was then and is still, an undeterred force of nature.  I remember several years ago seeing her, as an assistant district attorney, give instructions over the phone to have a guy arrested while she was making dinner for her own four kids.

But I still remember too - like it was yesterday - our whole family watching her flip flop float down several stories from the monorail in the Contemporary atrium.


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More Beach Tales

Dave and I just spent another few days at the beach.  We talked about how fortunate we are to live 45 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean.  (Some climate change folks, including me, think we might be getting closer all the time.)

Moon Jellyfish

Florida has about 1,500 miles of beach.  All good.  But our favorite is New Smyrna on the East coast.  Right along side the ocean runs the Intercoastal Waterway, all the way down the coast.  We wondered, again, how the first visitors to Florida felt about the magnificent waterway, sometimes called the America's first highway.

We saw lots of jelly fish washed up on the sand.  But just the beautiful clear umbrella/bell shaped caps.  No tentacles so there was no threat of stings.

We met interesting people.  We ate shrimp and grouper at JB's Fish Camp.  We are blessed.


***

Grapefruit, Oranges, Lemons, Limes

My Condo Pool

Every other morning since the middle of May I have walked to our condo pool to do water aerobics with my neighbors and friends.  We get a great workout.  It's one of the reasons I'm still strong and healthy.  I've done this almost every summer since about 1999.

Here is my latest success story:  I love McCormick salt and pepper grinders but I could never move the little tabs over to make the salt or pepper come out course.  When I looked up some instructions on the WWW, I found only a nice AlaskaGranny.com lady demonstrating how to replace the salt and pepper so you don't have to buy new ones.  That didn't help me but it will when my grinders are empty.

My problem was I wasn't strong enough to turn the tabs at the top from fine to course grind.

Finally, success!

At one place during a lull in our water aerobics we practice "opening jars" or "squeezing fruit" under water.  We sing "grapefruit, oranges, lemons, limes."   (We do this right after we sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" while swinging invisible bats through  the water and just before we do "The Twist.")   It's fun.

I bought our McCormick salt and pepper grinders in June and just a few days ago I was finally able to twist the tab to the correct position.  This makes me happy and I'm proud of my audacious grip.

You may think it's just coincidence.  I think it's "Grapefruit, Oranges, Lemons, Limes."


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How to Train a Rat

  

I love the New York Times magazine.  One of the reasons is the obscure articles written, not tongue in cheek but straight forward, about seemingly mundane things.  So, a  couple of weeks ago I loved seeing a little article in the Sunday Times magazine by Malia Wollan called, How to Train a Rat.

I immediately thought of the monster best selling "how to" book of a few years ago Who Moved My Cheese.  It was designed to help us deal with change.  However, as far as I can tell, the How to Train a Rat article is designed to tell us how to train a rat.  Period.

But as a former business consultant and a mother of four I can tell you that there are good tips for motivating workers and kids here.  For instance, below are some hints lifted directly from the article:

- If you're patient enough, any rodent can be trained, but some are inherently more pliant and endearing and less prone to biting.

- animals in training should be made to work for their sustenance.  Don't just let them sit in the cage eating as much as they want, getting fat.

- ...don't wait more than 30 seconds to reward a behavior.  The quicker the food comes, the better the trick sticks.

- Desensitize fretful rodents brains by frequently exposing them to different floor surfaces and new features in their surroundings.

- Don't bother getting angry.  You can't scold or punish them.  A rat does not understand discipline.

So, if you've tried  the book, Who Moved My Cheese and haven't had good results, you might want to try How to Train a Rat.

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Captain Fantastic

...should I make my way out of my home in the woods?  - from Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John.

Yesterday we saw the award winning, highly acclaimed Sundance film, Captain Fantastic.

 Dave and I have talked about it several times today.  It's a great movie to see and discuss because it raises lots of questions about raising children in today's world.

Viggo Mortensen is raising his six children off the grid.  Some would say they're in a self sufficient, utopian paradise.  I, of course, would not say that.  The kids don't know much about iPhones but, being home schooled from day-one by their parents, they do know lots of things including several languages and extreme rock climbing.

The film opens with the oldest son killing a deer in the forest with a knife and his bare hands.  The rest of the kids pop up, along with dad who  cuts the deer's heart out and feeds it to his son, while giving him the "today you are a man" speech.

Well, OK then.

Then a tragedy ensures and they are forced into civilization.  There are some sweet, funny, terrifying and very questionable moments like, for instance Viggo Mortensen, nude in the trailer park.

To me, the film is about compromise as a parent while trying to protect our children from today's world.  And allowing children to make their own choices.

I loved Viggo's speech to his son at the end.  The son is getting on a plane headed for Bolivia to try to figure out who he is.  His dad tells him, first off, how to make love to a woman (I like what he said) and a few more "do's."  He ends with saying "...and don't die."

I really like that.  But I wish he'd had that in mind when he was throwing his kids off cliffs in the rain  teaching them to hunt big game with knives - and to be cat burglars.



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Sweden's Problem

A few years ago I got to go to Sweden - more specifically, Stockholm.  I loved it.  A rich, beautiful, city built on 14 lakes.  One spot is covered with gorgeous high-rise apartments with great amenities and shopping.   Built for senior citizens, it's affectionately called "Crutch Island."

The Swedes live well.  They're pretty much  taken care of from cradle to grave.  And, yes, the tax rate is one of the highest in the world. But, still, you'd think these folks would have no worries.  How could these tall, beautiful, blond white people have problems?  But they do.

It seems they're not having enough sex.

Sweden is noted for meticulous record keeping so it's no surprise that the health minister is conducting a three year study to get to the bottom of this "not enough sex" problem.

I think I could be of help.  As my children will attest, I think sex is a big deal and the pros and cons need to be discussed.  Early and often.  So if Sweden's health minister wants to give me a call I'll be happy to discuss the "not enough sex" problem with him.


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Happy Anniversary Jimmy and Rosalynn

Only one tenth of one per cent of American couples have been married for seventy years.

The other day when I was on a plane I read an article in my New Yorker magazine about Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter celebrating their seventieth wedding anniversary.

When Jimmy (and I call him that with deep affection) was interviewed about this he said, "I hope we make it.  We still got a couple of weeks to go."  I totally understand his concern, since they are now in a tiny minority of couples.

Another couple I admire,
George and Barbara, have
been married 71 years.

However, I think we'll have the Carters around for a while.  They are still spunky.  They still travel all over the world doing good and when they're in their Atlanta apartment they sleep on a Murphy bed that Jimmy pulls down without the help of the Secret Service.

The Carters have known each other since they were babies.  Jimmy's mom, Lillian, helped deliver Rosalynn.

In the article Jimmy let us know that they're not a perfect couple - but - at this stage, "Ninety per cent of our arguments are about hearing."

Dave and I can relate,  Jimmy.


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Where Am I On The Family Tree?

One afternoon about ten years ago, Dave called his mother-in-law in Canada, to tell her that he and I were getting married.  How would she receive this news?  She had lost her husband and both of her children and now faced the prospect of losing this son-in-law whom she loved.

She was in her nineties and a wee bit confused at times.  This was her response.  "Will all of the children live with you?"  She had a right to be concerned because that would mean 25 to 30 (it ebbs and flows) people would be living in Dave's three bedroom house.

We've just spent most of the last two weeks with family. First with my big family and this weekend with Dave's family in Chicago. It's been so good.  Almost all of these people are successful and beautiful inside and out.  But trouble is always close.  Somebody's always falling off a limb of the (family) tree.

But, as we've become matriarch and patriarch of our big beautiful families I'm concerned with how I with navigate the next decade in that roll.  I love the book that's been discussed in Forum the last couple of weeks.  How Then Shall We Live? ask's me four questions.

Who Am I?  What is my true nature?  How does it help me give and receive strength and wisdom?  

Chicago's Millennium Park Last
Friday

What Do I Love?  This should shape my days and provide texture for my inner and outer life.  

How Shall I Live,  Knowing I Will Die?  I am aware at this stage of my life that time is short and every moment is a gift.  

What Is My Gift to the Family of the Earth?  There are many things I can no longer do.  That's okay with me.  I feel grateful every day for the gifts I can still give and to have some grace about receiving.  I'm going to try harder not to argue and just say "Thank you."

By the way,  Dave's mother-in-law never lost him.  He was with her to the end.  And that's exactly what I want to do.  I want to be with you to the end.


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