Author Archives: lydias

“April showers bring May flowers.”

My husband quoted this old saying to me yesterday after I commented on how many rainy days are predicted for Toronto’s longterm forecast.

“What do May flowers bring?” he asked.

For a split second, I wondered if Canada had another stanza to this rhyme that I’d never heard before. There are small but noticeable differences between how Canadians and Americans pronounce certain words or how they describe what happened when the White House burned down.

As far as I can tell, this isn’t the case for this rhyme, though. It’s the same in both countries.

What could May flowers bring?

Pilgrims.

Death.

Hay fever.

Strawberries.

June bugs.

Wedding floral arrangements.

Bees.

Angry letters from your HOA if your landscaping doesn’t fit their strict rules.

Ethical dilemmas for the scientists who operated on Algernon.

Long, complicated conversations about the dangers of longterm exposure to pesticides in poorly regulated overseas greenhouses.

Lunch.

I have to admit that these people knew way more about U.S. geography than I know about Irish geography. Good for them!

One of the reasons why I love spring so much is that it’s the nicest time of year for taking long walks. The weather is usually warm enough to leave the hat and gloves at home, but it’s cool enough to keep my body comfortable if I start to sweat from walking briskly or up and down hills.

(I envy those of you who can spend a lot of time outdoors year round! I know that not all of my readers live in places that have cold, snowy winters).

For those of us who do, though, the beginning of spring is a relief. Why should you go take a walk like I do?

Walking is a great way to watch the world wake up. Soon I’ll start to see flowers poking through the soil and buds appearing on trees. Any remaining pockets of snow will disappear, and the ugly, brown landscape will suddenly turn a brilliant shade of green.

The squirrels that were pleasantly plump last fall will probably look pretty slender these days. I always like hearing them chatter as I walk past them in the park. Hopefully it means they’ve found some food or have spotted an old friend on a nearby tree. I always like to guess what they’re saying to each other, especially when the noises they make suddenly grow loud.

These are a few of the many small changes that you can notice more easily on foot.

Walking clears your mind. One of my favourite things to do when I’m in a bad mood is to pick a direction and start walking. It’s difficult to stay grouchy when you see an impossibly fluffy little dog wiggling in joy as their owner takes them to to the park. In a more rural setting, I’d keep an eye out for wild animals instead of domesticated ones. You can spot all kinds of creatures if you walk quietly and pay attention.

I also like to observe the people, places, and items, around me. You can learn a lot about them in the few seconds or minutes that you spend walking near them. It’s fun to imagine where they might be going if they’re human. Non-human sights can also be entertaining. Last year I saw a bicycle that was covered in dozens of artificial flowers. I still wonder how the owner had managed to attach so many flowers to that bike and why they did it. It was gorgeous, but it didn’t look very practical for riding.

Walking is good, low-impact exercise. There are certain types of exercise I strictly avoid because of how much they hurt. The low-impact nature of walking makes it enjoyable for me, so I do it much longer and much more regularly than I would something that was painful or left me gasping for breath.

I wouldn’t invite everyone I know to dance, swim, hike, or  lift weights, or try yoga with me. Our fitness levels for these activities could be wildly different, and some of them work best for people who have roughly the same stamina and mobility.

It’s easier to play around with the difficulty level in walking. In a group, I usually walk less briskly so that everyone can keep up. When I’m alone, I walk as fast I possibly can without actually breaking into a run.

Either way, you’ll get your heart pumping and your muscles working. That’s a good thing!

I hope I’ve convinced you to go take a walk today. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Eat Your Veggies. I don’t actually like the taste of meat very much. Fish is my exception to this rule, so I completely understand where these characters are coming from. Haha!

Snatching History’s Forgotten Women from the Evil Clutches of the Patriarchy. Wouldn’t it be interesting to uncover all of the people that were purposefully forgotten? I sometimes wonder what kinds of inventions, stories, or medical/technological breakthroughs we’d have now if our species had been more cautious about preserving knowledge.

The Gravekeeper’s Paradox. This kind of stuff makes me grateful that I’m planning to be cremated after I die. It’s cool if other people find meaning in what kind of gravestone they have, but it’s not the sort of thing I’d ever want someone to fuss over in my name.

Is Death from Pain a Natural Death via LynnRWebsterMD. What a sad but also interesting debate.

Why I’m Letting My Hair Go Grey via CTCsite. Readers, how did you (or how are you planning) to react to grey hair? I haven’t decide what I’ll do yet, but I might go grey naturally like this writer.

From To My Daughters on International Women’s Day via LithChronicles:

I know you’re scared; but I need you to know that it’s okay to be scared. I’m going to tell you something that I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time now. I have a secret: Being scared is a good thing.

What have you been reading?

Three of them matter for us: think of them as the Three P’s of the RPD. Players should

1. Be patient: Focus on the long-term benefits of finding a way to cooperate—don’t just focus on the short-run pleasures, whether it’s the pleasure of exploitation or the pleasure of punishment. Axelrod calls this “extending the shadow of the future.”
2. Be pleasant: Start off nice—make sure those bared teeth are part of a smile. And later in the game, take the ABBA approach, and take a chance on cooperating every now and then, even when things have gone south for a while.
3. Be perceptive: Figure out what game you’re playing—know the rules, and know the benefits and costs of cooperation.

I claim that people with higher IQs will be better at all three.

From Economist Says Higher-IQ People are Nicer and More Cooperative.

This is the most thought-provoking articles I’ve read in years, and I read for at least a few hours every day. It is well worth your time to check out the author’s full argument.

No, not every nice person I’ve met has been intelligent, and not every intelligent person has been nice. Every rule has exceptions.

When I think of all of the people I’ve known, though, I can see how these traits could be connected. Getting along well with others requires many skills that can’t be easily taught. You should know how to make small talk, solve a conflict, keep a conversation going, and make sure everyone is included.

You also have to memorize all kinds of small details about what others like, what interests them, and what topics are perfectly okay to bring up with Sonja but should be avoided completely when you’re talking to Pete.

I’ve known people who are far better at these things than I could ever hope to be. There have been other people I’ve known who push everyone’s buttons because they’re either oblivious of the rules or don’t seem to care at all about following them. (It’s never been clear to me which one of these is more true for them. Maybe it’s both).

Anecdotes aren’t date, of course, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic. What patterns have you noticed in your social circles?

Photo credit: Tomascastelazo.

This is the kind of photography that I love.

It reminds me of the walks I used to take on rainy days when I was a kid. Seeing all of the earthworms that wiggled their way onto the sidewalk if the soil grew too waterlogged was always interesting. Sometimes I’d rescue a few of them if I thought they were in danger of getting stepped on.

A few even ended up living in a terrarium in my bedroom for a year or two. When we finally released them back into the wild before moving to another state, the terrarium was full of large, plump earthworms.

I don’t know if nostalgia was one of the emotions that the photographer was originally trying to share with his audience, but it’s the first thing I thought of when I found this picture.

What does this picture make you think of?

I procrastinate.

I pick at the dry skin around my cuticles.

I worry.

When people suddenly start talking about the visceral details of their various medical conditions, I leave the room. There is never any reason for me to know about anyone’s mucous plugs, weeping sores, or bowel movements.

I hate making telephone calls and will avoid them if at all possible.

Olives and brussels sprouts gross me out. I refuse to eat them.

I fidget.

My mind loves to wander, and I don’t always reign it in.

Sometimes I don’t hold the elevator door open for people who are dawdling in the lobby.

I like to re-watch favourite TV episodes over and over again. This is an especially nice thing to do when I’m exercising or otherwise don’t want to give a show my full attention.

If a book doesn’t grab my attention within a few pages, I stop reading it.

Now you know my bad habits. What are a few of yours?

Here is this week’s list of comic strips, essays, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

What It’s Like to Be That Fat Person Sitting Next to You on the Plane via yrfatfriend. What a heartbreaking essay.

The Cult of Memory: When History Does More Harm Than Good. A long read, but also a good one.

There’s Still Good People Out There via ajgus83. I don’t know this blogger or the man who helped her, but I was really touched by this story. Isn’t it amazing to see how far a random act of kindness can spread?

45 Seconds of Sunlight. This is exactly how I feel every March.

From My Mom the Hippie via bjknappwrites:

The doctors asked what had stung him, and my Mom just simply replied “A bee.”  I don’t think she knew the different kinds of wasps and hornets.  Anything that stung was simply a bee.  The doctor wanted to know what kind.

From Am I Ugly?

And yet I judge myself to be not unattractive.1 Is that valid? Many researchers have examined the specifics of what we find alluring in another human face. So I decided to use these findings to critically analyze my own mug.

What have you been reading?

I’d like to introduce a new rule for the Internet: don’t disappear.

It’s more than fine to take a break. I’ve done so myself in certain situations.

It’s totally okay to cut back on how often you show up, what you share, or who you share it with.

But don’t disappear.

Not completely, anyway.

Keep someone updated on where you’re going if you go away.

We worry about you otherwise. 🙂

This entire video was fascinating. Having more friends is correlated with all kinds of good, healthy things.