This and that

Our community garden is now in full swing, as you can see here. I took this picture on Saturday, not wanting to wade into it since we have had almost two inches of rain these past three days. It was cloudy and rainy Saturday through most of Monday. Our temperature never got out of the sixties, while much of the rest of the country sweltered. Here's the latest forecast from the Climate Prediction Center for the coming 6–10 days:

Looks like the Pacific Northwest and the northeast part of the country will be cooler than normal, and the precipitation map (available from the link) shows those two places will be wetter than normal, too. Great for the garden but not so great for hiking, biking or skydiving. Although we go on our Thursday hikes rain or shine, it sure would be nice to have some shine for a change.

Last Friday, however, was a beautiful day and I rode my bike a fair distance. It surprises me how differently I use the quadricep muscles for bicycling, which is the only reason I can explain how sore they were after what I considered to be a short ride (10–12 miles). I got fenders so I can ride in the rain, but I had little desire to go out and break them in. It's amazing to me how many bikes are on the road: I never noticed before, but now I watch each rider and take note of their techniques for riding in traffic. I downloaded a map of the bike routes around town; there are quite a lot, and since I can ride the bus with my bike to avoid most traffic and get to parks and other places, I'll probably do a fair amount of that.

Yesterday my friend Judy and I went to see Hysteria, a move made last year with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, among others. It is a comedy set in England in the mid-nineteenth century, when Dr. Mortimer Granville invented the vibrator for the medical treatment of hysteria. That is historical fact, but the movie is a whimsical comedy with some really fun performances. It didn't get great reviews (only 55% on Rotten Tomatoes), but Roger Ebert liked it and wrote

This milestone in human progress has never received the respect it deserves, and yet vibrators have been selling widely and well ever since, even in the early Sears catalogs. ... The performances are spot on, and I especially like the spunky Gyllenhaal.

So did I. This is not a great movie, but I really enjoyed it, laughed a lot, and I thought the guy sitting next to me was going to have a paroxysm of his own, he was laughing so hard at times. If you want to laugh and appreciate some good period costumes and acting, this is the movie for you.

I'm also reading and enjoying a book written and released last fall by Dr. Andrew Weil, Spontaneous Happiness. I'm halfway through it, and I'm enjoying hearing all the ways he suggests finding my own pathway to mental health in a world that I find difficult to appreciate at times. I sometimes get overwhelmed with current world events and lose my perspective, and he suggests many ways to find balance.

Well, that's why this post is titled "This and That." Filled with unrelated stuff, with my own small universe right at the center. I so enjoy reading about what is going on in the lives of my blogging buddies; I hope you will find this a little entertaining.
:-)