Lift Up Your Hearts!

Visit Stephan's blog to enter your guesses about Little One Stücklin's arrival details.  Here's a teaser to help you guess:

Barefoot, (very) pregnant, but that's not their kitchen.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this resolution, and I really have no business adding another when I haven't made much progress on the others yet.  But it's the 8th of the month, and this one intrigues me.

Fear and worst-case-scenario thinking has too much influence in our lives.  It's natural:  One phone call with really bad news can make one jumpy every time the telephone rings, even though the ratio of bad to good (or at least neutral) calls is very small.  It's natural, but it's not right.

I haven't thought much beyond that yet, but I know that two passages are going to play a large role in the outworking of this resolution.  The first is three lines from one of my favorite choir anthems, And the Father Will Dance^* by Mark Hayes:

Cast away fear for you have been restored!
Put on the garment of praise as on a festival day.
Join with the Father in glorious, jubilant song.

The second is one of my favorite Bible verses, Philippians 4:4-7.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

It remains to be seen how this all plays out, and whether it merits its own number or should be considered part of Resolution #3 (Learn to Relax).  But this is a beginning. 

And now, the part of the post wherein I am forced to admit my lack of progress:

#1  Read More Books  Yech.  Only two books read in May, and one ridiculously short.  That's partly due to still plowing my way through the The History of the Ancient World and The Chronological Guide to the Bible, and partly to having more distractions in May than usual, but mostly I must admit I haven't been making reading a priority, which is exactly where I was when I made this resolution in the first place.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  Nothing much to report, although we have been consistent in keeping Wednesday as a weekly fast day, which both of us have found beneficial, mentally and physically.

#3  Learn to Relax  I haven't made any more effort to find an Alexander Technique teacher here, though I am hoping to have some time with Janet's teacher when I go to Switzerland.  My doctor told me that I am hard-wired as a "hot reactor," which merits a blog post of its own at some point.  I find most of the symptoms way off base for me, but some are spot-on.  In any case, I'm determined to prove him wrong about the hard-wired part (being convinced of my own neuroplasticity), so I need to give this higher priority.

#4  Like More Things  Spinach:  I've liked it raw, in salads, for along time, but spinach is actually better for you if it's cooked a bit, and I've detested cooked spinach ever since I discovered that—contrary to what I saw in the Popeye cartoons of the early 1960's—it was green, not black, and didn't give me super strength.  I still don't care for spinach plain, but now I love mixing a handful of spinach leaves with other vegetables on pizza, or in an omelet or quesadilla.  So that's a victory.  On the other hand, I bought a can of sardines planning to force myself to eat a small bit:  they're so good for you, but the thought and smell turn my stomach.  I backed out at the last minute and let Porter enjoy all of them.

#5  Pay Attention  At least I can say that I've been paying attention to paying attention, and trying—albeit with limited success—to bring my mind to focus on the moment instead of always being in three places at once.

What could be more American than hot dogs?

Lawsuits, apparently.

I bought a package of hot dogs yesterday.  I'm probably a little behind the times—we don't eat hot dogs very often—but since when did they come with warning labels?  Not the kind of warning I might expect, e.g. "this product is full of fat and dangerous additives, and is made from parts of the animal you don't want to know about," but the following:

Come again? You must be six years old to eat a hot dog?  I remember the day when hot dog-shaped meat sticks were a staple toddler "first finger food" in the baby food section of the grocery store.  Not that we ever bought them:  they were disgusting.  But there they were.  Clearly, somebody sued somebody over a hot dog incident, and now we get warning labels.

The chief problem with such inanities is that they lead to a cavalier attitude towards all warning labels.  In between "children under six must have their hot dogs cut into tiny pieces" and "remove plastic from pizza before putting into oven," someone's going to miss "poison—do not drink."

Check out our^* Steph Shaw on a very early morning TV gig in New York today.  The guy out front who keeps hogging the camera?  That's Swedish singer Anders ("the Sting of Stockholm") Holst. Okay, so he's the star and she's the backup.  Some folks need to get their priorities straight.

Here's the link.  (I can't embed the video.)

Mutton dressed as lamb.

I can and do text, finding it quite useful at times, mostly because not all phones send and receive e-mails, and because our overseas friends can receive texts for free...

...but I just don't get why anyone who knows how to type would prefer texting.  And although in extremity I will do it, I have a deep aversion to abbreviating words, omitting capitalization, and leaving out punctuation.

You will often see me with headphones on and mp3 player in my pocket...

...but today's Zits is me!

Our Memorial Day celebration concluded with a lovely dinner at at a friend's house, to which we brought wine and dessert.  This friend is one of those on whom I am not hesitatant to inflict culinary experiments, and this cake was one.  I began with a simple vanilla cake base from my Boston Cream Pie recipe (credit my friend LCS).  It is a single-layer cake, which I sliced in two horizontally with a serrated bread knife.  I heated passionfruit jam a bit to make it thinner, and mixed it well to make it smooth.  This I spread generously on the first layer.  After adding the second layer, I used a pastry brush to glaze it and the sides with the thinned jam.  Then I added the fruit:  fresh strawberry halves and whole blueberries, canned apricot halves and peach slices.  Using the brush again, I glazed the fruit with the jam.

I must say we were all very happy with it!  Apricot or currant jams are more traditional for this sort of dessert, but I think the passion fruit flavor made this cake the success it was. 

What I plan to do differently next time (and there will be a next time):

• Use a higher percentage of whole wheat flour in the cake.  (This time I used a 50/50 mixture of white whole wheat and all-purpose flours).
• Use less sugar in the cake (the recipe calls for 1 cup, but I think less would work well—the jam makes it sweet enough).
• Possibly make the inner layer of jam thinner.
• Use fresh fruit exclusively if I can't find firmer canned fruit; the apricots and peaches were rather mushy—though that did make cutting the cake easier than firm fruit would have.

One of the reasons I like Mallard Fillmore is that he can always be counted on to remember:

This Memorial Day I also want to honor a living veteran, who served as a WAVE in World War II, and who is

90 years old today!

(Not that she's likely to see this...but I honor her anyway.)

Today I almost gave up before I started.  First, there was a blog post that I felt needed a comment, and I was guiltily trying to get it written without using up the entire hour, when I learned that there was yet another wrinkle in my ongoing struggles with the insurance company over a medical procedure from last year.  (It isn't even an acrimonious battle; everyone agrees that the company should have paid.  But one small error in a procedure code has taken months to rectify.)  I thought we had finally gotten it straightened out, but this morning another charge popped up that the insurance company says it has paid but the provider says it hasn't received.  I managed to take myself out of the middle and now have them talking directly to each other on this one—but by the time I was done my computer time was well over an hour, and the day barely started.

Still, I plowed on, deciding merely to log the time while trying to keep it down.  That worked somewhat (though I did keep coming back to the machine more than I had hoped), until mid-afternoon, when I realized that the timer had been running throughout a long conversation with Porter and now read nearly four hours.  Probably three of that was legit, but not really knowing the truth I again gave up the fight.  At least I lasted longer than I did yesterday.

Ganbarimasu!

Last night I finished a project that had kept me welded to the computer for the better part of several days, and I awoke wondering if it would be possible to go through a day limiting my computer use to one hour.  The experiment started out well enough, though I had accomplished but the minimum of my normal morning computer routine when I realized I'd already used up a quarter of the time.  It was not too hard, however, to set the routine aside and turn to (mostly) non-computer-related projects.  I felt empowered, and looked forward to a day of accomplishment.  Occasionally I needed the computer briefly for something I was doing, but managed to do the job and get off, resisting the temptation to check blogs, news, or e-mail.

That lasted till maybe 9 a.m.

I had successfullly prepared, assembled, and packaged two boxes for mailing, but printing the postage for one turned out to be a bit of a problem and involved an online chat with USPS customer service.  Another half hour of computer time gone, just like that.  Then there was a problem with a recent Amazon order that could not be put off, and included another customer service exchange.  After that, the allotted hour was completely gone.

For some of the day I continued to try to minimize computer use, but then we worked on researching and purchasing a new camera (shhh—it's an early birthday present for me!) and that ate up hours of computer time—so I just plain gave up.  Which is why I'm able to write this post.  One thing I know for sure is that I can't limit myself to an hour of computer use a day and do any significant writing, let alone make any progress on many important projects.  But even an hour a day is so much time!  How different might I be if I spent that hour reading, or praying, or learning to play the piano!

One thing I know:  the important work I do, in this stage of my life, requires time on the computer.  A lot of time on the computer.  That's simply the nature of the work.  Some things are plain impossible without it; others possible, but much less efficient or effective.  I am in no danger of giving in to Luddite tendencies.

But the taste of freedom this morning was so sweet I'm continuing the experiment tomorrow.

I am not going to join the recent chorus of voices crying that multitasking is a bad thing.  It can relieve tedium (listening to lectures while ironing), increase efficiency (knitting while keeping an eye on swimming children), and add to enjoyment (conversing while eating).  What's more, if mothers couldn't multi-task, the whole world might crash to a halt.

Nonetheless, there is increasing evidence—in scientific studies and in my own life—that multitasking can also lead to poor performance on all tasks.  Conducting a business deal via cell phone while driving may increase your productivity, but not if it distracts you from brake lights suddenly appearing on the car ahead.  Fixing dinner while talking to a friend on the telephone may cause you to miss a critical change in her tone of voice—or to burn the meal.

I was inspired a month ago to make Pay Attention this month's resolution.  If there was a specific reason I no longer remember it, but the decision was confirmed when I read The Brain that Changes Itself, a book that showed up in my mailbox after I unexpectedly won it in a contest.  Here are some of my thoughts as I evaluate multitasking, and areas in my life where I need to be more attentive.

I've been a mental multitasker for as long as I can remember—before the word was invented, actually (1966, according to Webster).  My mind is always active in its own world, no matter what else is going on.  Li'l Writer Guy is a significant, but not exclusive, contributor.  The Good:  I do a lot of thinking, and am almost never bored.  The Bad:  I am rarely paying complete attention to what is going on around me.  It requires an almost physical effort, for example. to pay attention to the music in a concert, rather than to let the sound serve as an enjoyable accompaniment for whatever direction my thoughts take me.  My hope for this resolution is not to squelch my active mind, but to discipline it.  I need to be able to distinguish between activities that work well in the periphery of my attention, and those which deserve to be in clear focus.

Anything I want to be able to learn, and remember, is in the latter category.  The Brain that Changes Itself is about the plasticity of the brain, and the ability of even adult brains to change and grow and re-wire themselves.  For a long time we believed that there is a critical period in which the brain is plastic and learns easily, and that after adolescence we are pretty much stuck with the brains we have at that point.  Some skills, such as learning a foreign language with complete fluency, were considered nearly impossible for adults.  Recent studies (and much older studies that had been ignored) have shown, however, that the adult brain is also plastic and can change far more than we thought.  Yes, young children do have a great advantage, in that their brains are always "turned on" for effortless learning in a way that ceases by adolescence.  Adults retain the ability to rewire their brains, but a crucial component of the process for them is paying attention.

Paying close attention is essential to long-term plastic change.  In numerous experiments [Michael Merzenich] found that lasting changes occurred only when his monkeys paid close attention.  When the animals performed tasks automatically, without paying attention, they changed their brain maps, but the changes did not last.  We often praise "the ability to multitask."  While you can learn when you divide your attention, divided attention doesn't lead to abiding change in your brain maps.

This explains many things, including the fact that I am totally hopeless in remembering a route taken, even many times, in a strange city, if I am merely following a leader rather than making the navigational decisions myself.

So how about some concrete examples?  What situations are amenable to multitasking, and what not?

• I loved nursing my babies, but I must admit that part of the pleasure was that those moments were just about the only time I had to read books, one of the great delights of my life.  I later found out that other mothers spent nursing time gazing into their babies' eyes, fondling their little hands, and otherwise bonding.  I think my babies and I bonded quite well, but I do sometimes wonder what I missed.
• I've already mentioned concerts, and I was quite successful at not letting my mind wander during a recent series of lovely medieval music recitals.  It helped a lot that the works were short.  Maintaining concentration throughout an entire symphony is still beyond my grasp.
• Listening to audiobooks or reading during long car rides is a mixed blessing.  It can make the time pass much more pleasantly, especially on an Interstate in the Midwest, but it can also be a loss.  I was a teenager when my family took an amazing cross-country automobile journey—and the scenery I saw the most was inside the large collection of science fiction books my uncle had given me at the start of the trip.
• One area in which I want to harness, rather than suppress, multitasking is in my projects.  I am quite capable—perhaps too much so—of sustained, concentrated focus and effort when my work is going well.  When I hit a snag, however, I tend to veer off into something else.  For the most part, this is a good thing, and having a full to-do list makes it possible for me to still be productive.  Very often I find that my brain will continue working in the background on the difficulty, and I can return to the first project with the problem solved and something else accomplished as well.  It's much better than spinning my mental wheels.  However ... I know there are times when I should push through the difficulty rather than fleeing from it, and I also know that I sometimes flee to less than useful work, such as checking my e-mail for the fourth time in the past hour.
• I need to pay more attention to people.  Scanning photographs while IM-ing with a friend is a good use of multitasking, because scanning is otherwise tedious and does not distract from the conversation.  Reading blogs while IM-ing, however, is a poor combination, even though there is time between exchanges to do so, because it leads to me not paying sufficient attention to either.
• Some areas I think I will not bother to work on:  Movies tend to drive me crazy if I don't have something else to do at the same time.  (I need to learn to knit.)  I suppose I could be a better player if I concentrated 100% on a game, but I rarely find games interesting enough to do so.  (This is why I prefer fast games, and ones in which my lack of attention doesn't hurt a partner.)

This is going to be a difficult resolution.  During our recent trip to Switzerland, I tried forcing myself to pay attention as we travelled from place to place, but found it extremely hard.  Oh well—I learned from The Brain that Changes Itself that another secret to real, lasting change is small, incremental improvements over time.  Each moment spent paying full attention is a victory that enables further progress.

Progress report:

#1  Read More Books  Not so good in April—only three books completed—but that was not unexpected.  I've been working on two more difficult books (The History of the Ancient World and The Chronological Guide to the Bible), and this month also included some travel that left little room for reading outside of the airplane ride—which, I admit, I spent mostly doing puzzles when I was not sleeping. Still, my monthly average is six books, so I'm happy with this one.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  This month focussed more on feasting itself, rather than on the contrast with fasting and ordinary time.  Helped by something I learned from In Tune with the World (to be a link when I review the book), I was able to feast extravagantly during our recent trip to Switzerland, reining in any concerns about either calories or cost.

#3  Learn to Relax  I was much less stressed during our recent travel than I usually am, though I suspect it had more to do with increased travel experience than with anything I've done.  Oh, and the biggest factor—Stephan and Janet did nearly all the work of planning and guiding.  Having watched in jaw-dropping amazement Janet's Alexander Technique class, I think I may have discovered something to help with this resolution—although I haven't found a practitioner closer than an hour and a half away.

#4  Like More Things  No discernable progress here.  I need to find some small steps to take.  Stephan did try to introduce me to a new cheese, but it was not love at first bite and I ran out of time to learn to like it.

Our six year old grandson is brilliant, of course:  great in reading, great in math, and, as those of you who know our family will agree, also great in spelling.  (Photo credit the Daleys.)

What amazing natural phenomenon is this?

Looks to me like a NASA photo of some far-off nebula, but it's a lot closer to home.  You can find this and other photos of the erupting Icelandic volcano in this RoadRunner collection.

There's a radio show in Basel called The English Show, for English-speaking ex-pats, and last night Janet was interviewed about her upcoming recital, A Guided Evening of Medieval Music.  Stephan wrote about it, with links, and I cannot improve on what he said, so I'll quote him:

Yesterday, Janet was interviewed on the English Show at Radio X and got to explain some of what she does to the radio-listening expat community.  The entire show can be downloaded from the English Show link above or directly here.

It’s pretty large - 82 MB - but will give you a couple of on-the-air mentions of Janet’s name in various pronounciations.  At 2:15 she’s referred to as a “Gothic harpist,” which could be somewhat misleading, since she doesn’t dress in black and sport piercings, skull rings, and bullet casing belts; the brief mention after the news at about 34:00 is a little more precise.  The actual interview begins after the Tracy Chapman song at the 38:50 mark, and culminates in Janet playing a Trotto from 14th century Italy with her baby harp (”Arpa Doble”).  Her concert gets a fair bit of publicity and is mentioned again at about 55:00 in their calendar of events, alongside the Jazzfestival Basel and the Mamma Mia musical (and it’s the only free event).  I’m curious to see if extra people show up for the concert because of this interview!

I have, however, taken the liberty of extracting the parts more interesting to my particular audience.  :)

Trotto from a 14th century Italian manuscript, Janet playing the double-stringed harp in the picture (mp3, about 4MB)

(That's our newest grandchild in the picture, too.  For all I know, he/she was contributing a few kicks to the performance.)

Welcome home, Discovery.  It's always a thrill; what a pity this was your penultimate flight.