Baby, it's hot

It's about 100 degrees in the shade today. While I was (literally) chilling in Starbucks earlier, this couple came in and the guy said, to no one in particular, "Is it always this hot here?" And I said yes, and he said, "Why do people live here?" And I said, "Because of the winter."

Hydration calculation

On a lighter note (unless you are working outside today in our 95-degree heat), here are some factoids and a quiz about staying hydrated.

Can't think of anything else ...

Internet, I'm sad over a friend who has inoperable brain cancer. Tomorrow there's a big party for him and his family, at which nearly 100 people are expected. He was diagnosed two years ago this coming August. The prognosis has become more bleak in recent days, and my heart has simply hurt for this family, over and over. .... Then also today I was e-mailing with a new friend whose son was killed tragically in a freak drowning accident almost a year ago. He was a teen-ager, about to go off to college. His whole life ahead of him and all that.
She and I were discussing how difficult it is to accept the mystery of it all. She wrote: "I am a person who practices and values fairness and this is so unfair. I keep trying to reconcile it but yet realize there is no reconcilliation to be found."
On some level, she will never be able to reconcile it. Nor my friend, after her husband dies. (And of course if you want to get all philosophical about it, we're all in the process of dying; and none of us is promised another day.) Living with, and into, that mystery, will be lifelong--which is why I become agitated with folks who say stupid things like, "The reason so-and-so died is because ..." Our Western culture leans too much on the parts that can be reconciled and explained away. How could anyone possibly know why my friend, not even 50, will likely die this year of a brain tumor? How can my other friend "get over" the death of her younger son?
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke (in photo) once wrote:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." (From Letters to a Young Poet).
Thoughts?

This airline is ready when you are

Did y'all see this?
It seems a passenger gave birth while on a Korean Airlines flight from the Philippines to the U.S. (Awkward.)
The baby was born about two months premature, but delivered successful by its father and a Korean doctor aboard. The baby remains in a New Jersey hospital.

Nap time!

We at the Spin Cycle love naps, and apparently so do our friends the Lowdogs. As you can see, they are keenly in love with naps.
Click here for their June 2 installment.
In Googling the word naps, one thing that popped up was the National Association of Postal Supervisors. Not exactly what we were looking for.
Click here to read about how naps are good for you.
(Though not a fan of mandatory naps in kindergarten--the kind on the red, white and blue mats--I grew to appreciate them more as I aged. Wish we could institute them at work. Pork Chop, what say you?)

Food on a desert island

Internet, if you were on a desert island, what food would you choose to have with you?
Mine? Pasta.
My husband said his would be pork tenderloin; and if long-term health were an issue, baked sweet potatoes.
You?

Kennedy news

First of all, my husband told me some years ago he was disappointed not to be marrying one of the rich Kennedys. Haha.
Second, one of them — Sen. Ted Kennedy — had surgery today for his brain tumor at Duke University. One of the premiere brain tumor sites in the country, Duke is home to renowned surgeon Dr. Allen Friedman who did the surgery (in photo) and who is also guiding cancer treatment here for a good friend of ours.
For the Ted Kennedy story, click here.
To read more about the Duke facility, click here.
Hope everyone is off to a stellar Monday.