Loose Leaf Notes

1.  I love to swim but I don’t like swimming in cold water like I don’t like biking up hills.

2. The first full dunk and breast stroke in the Great Oaks pool is like the first haul of a good IPA.

3. I don’t suppose I can get one of THESE for Christmas

4. This is not the first 13 Invitation. See HERE.  And HERE is the Open Door Invitation.

5. Does This Mean We’re a Two Stoplight Town Now? See HERE (where I photographed the chair above).

6. I just learned that Fred Rogers name was Fred “McFeely” Rogers.

7. Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after the magazine’s humorous “Feedback” column noted several studies carried out by researchers with remarkably fitting surnames… We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions—The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London—A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench… Aptronym merely means the name is fitting, without saying anything about why it has come to fit. The idea that people are drawn to professions that fit their name was suggested by psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud who studied pleasure and whose surname means ‘joy’. More from Wikipedia HERE.

8. I once met a woman who made sock puppets, not the Sesame Street variety, but matriarchal figures, wise women, and witches. When I learned that her last name was “Weinstock,” I couldn’t help but point out that her name also said “Wise in Sock.” When I mentioned to another woman that if she added a G to her last name, “Robinson,” it would become “Robinsong,” she changed her name! I believe that our names are our assignments and that there is mathematics to language. If we take a letter away or add another, everything changes. I don’t think it’s a mistake that the word “spell” means to put letters together in the right way, and it also means to make magic. -More from my Essay “Word Play” HERE.

9. Mr. Rogers is the sixth cousin of American actor Tom Hanks, who portrays him in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which we watched and enjoyed over the weekend.

10. We also heard some live music outside at the Buffalo Mountain Brewery by a duo named The Paranormals, or “a Pair of Normals?”

11. “Don’t just do something. Sit there.” – My Dharmacratic poet friend Will

12. A battle with deer / for my lilies and phlox / Saving corn and hens / with an electric fence / The click of a cold can / Sparkling black cherry / Sliced ripe tomatoes / Flat beans to snap… More from Heat Wave 2020 HERE.

13. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” —Anne Lamott

____________Thirteen Thursday