Photos, blog posts

CNN photos of the week

1. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/05/world/gallery/photos-this-week-january-29-february-5

My older blog posts  https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

"Thank Q!"

I am still a big fan of "Call the Midwife", which I think I read has earned the title of a favorite program on British TV.  We use streaming, that is internet connection for the tv. I didn't realize how extensive the collections on Netflix and Amazon Prime are.  I have learned that there are other streaming services that specialize in art films and rare movies.  We watch Wis Public TV and Acorn and we have many other choices.

Lately, we have gotten interested in "The Closer" with Kyra Sedgwyck, as a deputy police chief.  Her role makes her somewhat obnoxious in my opinion.  She plays a woman police official who is competent but impolite and irritating to her fellow officers.  She is over-polite and is constantly thanking coworkers with her "Thank q so much", her rapid way of saying "thank you".

Hiding the price

If I come right out and tell you the price, you drop the whole deal.  Better I should insert a page where I state the price is lower than buying a house, then have you click onto another page that offers bank phone numbers to connect eventually to a loan department.  Prices are old hat anyway. Be modern and just SUBSCRIBE to continuing worry and pestering and owe some each month.

Dr. Brizendine's "The Upgrade"

Today I had to take my car for service.  It is a 2016 Honda Fit, a small hatchback model that is no longer made.  There are many non-standard things about me and one of them is that I have never been in love with cars.  Growing up in Baltimore, I used public transportation until a professor offered me a job IF I got my license.

While waiting for the maintenance service, I started re-reading Dr.Louann Brizendine's 3rd book, "The Upgrade".  Dr. Brizendine is a physician who has written three books: The Female Brain, The Male Brain and The Upgrade.  I have read them all but today I started re-reading The Upgrade.  I see that Jane Fonda has endorsed this third book, The Upgrade.  It's about women's brains after they go through menopause.  The Cleveland Clinic website says that an average age for menopause is 52.

I noted this statement:

There is no place for women to talk about the stand-off that is going on in so many homes (as post-menopausal women strongly drop interest in sexual activity.)

From 2017 - Midwinter

From 2017

Even though a season can seem long or short, each one is 3 months long, according to our calendar.  The earth and the sun don't always behave exactly according to human hopes and plans but it generally works to think of each season beginning on the 21st of March, June, September and December.  Three months is just about 90 days so half of a season is 45 days.  When you add 45 to the first day of a season, you get not the next month but the one after that.

So, winter began on Dec. 21.  Add 45 days you get to Feb. 4, today!  Today is the mid-day of winter.  That means we are passing the mid point and the remaining days in winter are fewer than we have already experienced.

Her documents

A friend called yesterday to tell us Wis. Public TV was showing a history of our town.  We watched it and enjoyed it, but it was quite similar to Lynn's "The Reasons for Stevens Point", a project in her master's degree program.  It, too, is about the founding and development of the town where we have lived since 1968.  She has a PhD from UW-Madison but I thought momentarily that that slide-tape/filmstrip was her only foray into history and the past.  No!  Definitely not!  She created a good sized paper called "Who we came from" about her complex background and family history.  Then, I remembered a second good sized paper about her childhood and growing up.  It turns out she is far more of a historian than I remembered.

Carl Zimmer books on science

Lynn heard a Wis. Public Radio science program that discussed "organoids" and mentioned "Life's Edge" by Carl Zimmer. We just finished "Patriot" last night.  So, we will start Zimmer this evening.  This Zimmer book is our 9th one.

& Juliet

I taught undergraduate and graduate courses to pre-teachers and experienced teachers at UWSP for 37 years.  It was a fun way to earn money and a way to spend my hours.  When I retired in 2005, I learned about the university's "learning in retirement " called the LIFE program.  LIFE stands for "Learning Is ForEver", which is a nice sentiment but it isn't true.  As I age, I find I forget more and more.  Still, the Life program has been a fun place for me to make presentations, to attend others' presentations and to take trips.

We recently signed up for a trip to Appleton to see the play "& Juliet".  Notes and web pages tell me that the play is an exploration of what might have happened had Juliet been inclined to live without Romeo, on her own.  Seems like a modern idea to me and I am interested in what the play shows.

I think it showed imagination and daring to name the play "& Juliet", to begin the title with an ampersand sign. 

I actually came into this life from the body of a woman, so I am told.  I am also told everyone else did, too. 

Nalvany

My wife is in a book club and I usually read the club's choice aloud to her.  This time it's "Patriot", the story of Alexei Nalvany, a political opponent of Putin.  We are about 75% thru the book.  I am surprised by the similarities between Russian politics and ours.  I hope we aren't using poisons and assassins but things are not so different here.

My father

When I was about ten years old, my mother said my father wasn't going to live with us anymore.  She didn't use the word "divorce" but I knew it was going to be different without him.  At first, he took my sister and I to dinner and a movie every Thursday.  She and I could pick any movie theater in the city and there were around 50 of them.  That might have been for a couple of years but over time, one or both of us had other things that called us.  Meanwhile, my father met another woman, they married and had a son.  Meanwhile, my mother advertised for boarders and one of them became my stepfather.

Now being much older, I realize I could have been better to both of my parents than I was.  I could have found out much more detail about my parents' lives before I was born, learned more about their ideas and leanings.