Oct20

Paris Rental Turned Out Great!

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Paris Rental Turned Out Great!

274RueSaintHonore
I was very nervous about renting this Paris apartment through HomeAway.com. There were no reviews, and the landlord required my deposit via bank transfer to a French bank, nearly half up front, and for the remainder to be paid IN CASH, in Euros, on the first day of rental. Plus, I had to provide a check for 500€ for the security deposit when I got the keys. I leave tomorrow morning and I am thrilled to report that the apartment was just as promised, and I have now received back my check for the security deposit! I am a very happy traveler. It was much less expensive and more fun than a hotel or AirBnB. I saved a fortune by preparing all my own meals with the gourmet foodstuffs available all around.

I didn’t have to drag my luggage up any stairs because the apartment was in a ground floor courtyard behind a heavy, locked door to the street and I felt super safe. The room was quiet, with no one above — skylights on the roof of the little unit which is essentially an enclosed porch of an 18th century building. While there are three floor-to ceiling French doors with arched transoms looking out to the cobblestone courtyard, as in the picture, all are protected by locked steel doors which can be opened in the daytime to let in light.

There is high-speed ethernet access and I could stream Netflix. There is switched wi-fi which I could to turn off at night. The cellular signal is strong for both voice and data.

The rusted, slanted, noisy microwave is designed to make sure you don’t microwave French food. There is no oven, no disposal, no freezer, no ice cubes. The glass cooktop works like a charm if you read the manual that is buried in the cloth napkins. Hint: “Lo” means Locked.

The two electric heaters keep the tile-floored room snug. There is plenty of hot water and the water pressure is good.

The studio is well-designed and well-maintained. I couldn’t be happier.

Oct20

France: high fat diet, lowest heart disease

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France: high fat diet, lowest heart disease

quicheAccording to Healthline, the French have the lowest heart disease rate in the world. This quote is from my friend RDS who just returned from two weeks driving around the provinces of France:

Much of the time it was just us and the cows. And the food really reflected that. Lots of meat, cheese, and cream. The only way to get a veggie in a restaurant was to order a meat or fish dish and get a veggie side dish. But as always, everything was beautifully prepared and presented, even in the smallest rural towns.

On the week-long boat ride from Paris to Normandy and back, we got very few salads or vegetables — meals were pretty much as RDS described them. Now that I am at the end of my ten days solo in Paris, I can say that it was a challenge to include salads in my diet, and forget cooked vegetables! But really confuses me is that 99% of the French are thin, many smoke, and based on what is in the stores, sugar must account for 40% of their daily calories.

Yet Americans get heart disease and the French don’t. What is different? For one thing, the French walk everywhere. I am planning to drag my suitcase for 20 minutes tomorrow morning along Rue de Opèra to the Roissybus stop because it is easier than dragging it DOWN into the subway and UP 3 stops later. I could take a cab, but it would still take 20 minutes from start to finish and I am afraid I would get pushback from the cabbie about such a short trip.

Shall I tell my no-oil Vegan friend, a heart attack survivor, that her strategy might be the opposite of what leads to a healthy heart.

No. My new resolution is to stop trying to improve others. Okay, I think I will just go eat some quiche now and wait for the nice French lady to pick up the key for my Paris rental.

I am so happy. It has been a great 10 days.

Aug28

Turner Exhibit – de Young

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Turner Exhibit – de Young

turnerSnowStorm
When I was a teenager, J.M.W. Turner was one of my favorite painters and I squeaked with glee when I discovered that the London museum had an entire WING of his paintings. I think I spent a couple of days there. I liked blurry paintings then — they seemed more artistic than photographic paintings.

Now that everything looks blurry, I prefer paintings with sharp lines, but I didn’t want to miss this show. I enjoyed the movie with some of my art friends, but none of them could go to San Francisco when I could, so I went by myself. It was very crowded, even at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, so now I know to go as early as possible, and to leave by 1 p.m. to beat the traffic back. It only took about an hour, each way.

This show focuses on work Turner produced from age 60 to 75 and includes some of the scathing criticism by his contemporaries. My favorite is the image on the right, above, of a steamship in a snow storm. The apocryphal story is that Turner had himself lashed to a mast for two hours to experience the storm and watch the steamship founder. The art books at the museum question this story but the painting is very dramatic.

I was struck by Turner’s work ethic, and how much he traveled to find compelling subjects. The watercolors from his visit to Switzerland come with detailed descriptions of the techniques and materials he used. My watercolor friends will love the show!

Jun4

Tin Foil Hat

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Tin Foil Hat

Tin Foil Hat and Feathers

Tin Foil Hat and Feathers

Yesterday I received a flyer from Science Buzz Cafe of a glamorous event to be held at the French Garden that very evening. The flyer said, at the bottom

“Every scientist dreams of seducing people with the beauty and wonder of the natural world. But few take it as far as Lynda Williams — the Physics Chartreuse — who puts her microphone where her mouth is. I really liked the feathers part.” The audience is encouraged to come in costume, especially tinfoil hats and feathers.

Well, she is a chanteuse and she is not chartreuse. Worst of all, I actually CAME in a tin foil hat and feathers!

And no one else did.

Jun3

Stress Can Be Your Friend

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Stress Can Be Your Friend
Stress Can Be Your Friend

StressIsYourFriend
People who feel that they control the events in their lives and believe that they can learn fast and perform well end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance, according to the team led by University of Florida psychologist Tim Judge.

When you can persuade yourself that you are in control, and you are confident in your ability to adapt quickly to life changes, you can be a top performer.

Ever noticed how you wait until the last minute to start a creative project? Our brains are hard-wired to need anxiety to get started. The chart they developed show that performance peaks and “flow” conditions are created with moderate, managed levels of anxiety.

Convert Anxiety into Excitement

The better you get at managing the anxiety, the better you will perform when facing uncertain or challengine situations. Some techniques”

  • What are the foreseeable pitfalls? Plan the action you will take.
  • Focus on positive actions you can take, turnout the fears of failure.
  • Re-write your script. We live our lives according to what we believe.

embracestress
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D tells us in this TED Talk that people who view stress as an opportunity for courage or a chance at joy bypass the damaging cardiovascular effects caused by a flood of cortisol.

So, what can you do to regain your center and make stress your friend? How do you turn nervousness into excitement?
unplug

May29

Receiving Gratitude

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Receiving Gratitude

GratitudeI undertook co-leading Women’s Support Group for 12 weeks and it finished yesterday. It was a marathon and I am exhausted. My co-leader quit at the end of the 12 weeks due to medical reasons, and her co-leader for the previous session quit, which is why the opportunity was offered to me.

Because I had never done anything like this before, I didn’t know what to expect at the final session. The eight women presented us with flowers, cards, and a nice lunch with sandwiches, veggies and cookies. One of the 91-year-olds (yes, we have two) hand-made cards for both leaders. It was very endearing.

flowersGroupI posted the cell phone picture on Facebook and was surprised at the 20 likes I got. Leading the group was so hard to do and it is easy to focus on what the endeavor cost me rather than notice the appreciation and gratitude. I read so much about the importance of gratitude, I keep a Gratitude journal, and I think grateful thoughts throughout the day… but I have never created the space to RECEIVE gratitude.

Maybe I should consider gratitude to be a two-sided virtue, and that receiving can be as important and as refueling at giving it. Nevertheless, the next 12-week session is expected to be my last.

May3

Yield to the Present – 10% Happier

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Yield to the Present – 10% Happier
Yield to the Present – 10% Happier

“Yield to the Present” was the sign near the door when Dan Harris, the ambitious ABC reporter, arrived at Spirit Rock in Marin for his 10 day silent retreat in an effort to become “less of a jerk.” The book was a dishy read of behind-the-scenes at ABC news, which I loved, and had a lot of good information on his walk toward Buddhism

Dan’s teachers suggest using our native curiosity to train our Default Mode Network to move from Aversion to Compassion. To move from being a jerk, in his parlance, to a mensch. He shows the brain chemistry and meditation techniques to do it, including asking yourself, when you are ruminating on the same thought for the nineteenth time, “is this useful?”

One of his mentors, Mark Epstein, explains on page 164 discussion Dan could become 10% happier because of mitigation of misery, not alleviation. The waterfall of drama is still there, you gain the ability to step behind the waterfall, creating a space to witness what is going on. Instead of the kneejerk stimulus —> reaction, you have walked behind the waterfall of emotion and created enough space to move to stimulus —> response because you are less caught up in the melodrama that is unfolding. You are less attached to the outcome. You have space for a little insight because you are not clinging to success so desperately. Here the metta prayer he learned at Spirit Rock:

May you be happy
May you be safe and protected from harm
May you be healthy and strong
May you live with ease

My favorite part was in the appendix where Dan Harris mentions the research of Jud Brewer, MD, PhD, addiction psychiatrist at Yale. Here’s Jud’s TED talk shows how to calm the posterior cingulate — get it to “turn blue” in the fMRI.

Mar29

Martin Walker: Bruno, Chief of Police

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Martin Walker: Bruno, Chief of Police

brunoIn Sept, 2012 I read book three in the Bruno Series, The Dark Vineyard. It has taken me this long to get to the first book in the series: Bruno, Chief of Police. It is a quick read and I love the way Martin Walker writes.

As a working journalist, 13 of his books have been non-fiction, with many about the Soviet Union. When he retired to the Périgord region of France, he embarked on his first fiction book, The Caves of Périgord which was very ambitious with three intertwined story lines. The first, in the prehistory of the area, described how the caves may have been created. The second story line dove deeply into the French Resistance in the Périgord region during WWII and the third story was set in present-day London and Périgord. It was very interesting but complex and sometimes hard to follow.

His next fiction book, Bruno, Chief of Police, is much lighter and more playful. The caves get only a few paragraphs and we meet Bruno who embodies the world-renown charm and discretion of Frenchmen. It also touches on the horror of war and the toll it takes on the bodies and souls of men, women and children. In this book, it is Bosnia as well as WWII. Martin Walker really has a reporter’s eye for detail and he moves us quickly through the mystery, but it is the charm of the people we meet through Bruno’s detective work that is the real pleasure in this book.

I am really looking forward to the next one. Thanks for loaning it to me, Russ!