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Clouds
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Little Londoner plants
Saw these teeny tiny moss flowers on a walk with GC, BW, and HB yesterday. <3
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Getting STRONG
I want to get STRONG
Yoga is relaxing but expensive, and I’m not sure about learning it at home. Gyms suck. Swimming is *lovely* but doesn’t do my angry skin any favours. Can’t run much b/c of lifelong knee issue. Excuses, excuses.
At-home bodyweight exercises FTW. This is what I’ve been trying recently, every other day for about 30 minutes. I can do all of them within the confines of a yoga mat in my postage-stamp flat.
They’re based on a few decent exercise vids on YouTube, but I prefer not to refer to the full videos all the time. Too high-energy / shiny. Instead, I’ve got the movements programmed in to a circuit training app and I listen to that alongside a mix.
Glute + quad workout
About 11 minutes. Need a yoga / exercise mat. Related video
0:30 – Pulse lunge, left side
0:30 – Pulse lunge, right side
0:30 – Lunge with leg raise
0:30 – Jump squats
0:30 – Side squat steps
0:30 – Sumo squats
0:30 – Abductor squats
Move to mat, tabletop position
0:30 – Donkey kicks, left side
0:30 – Donkey kicks, right side
0:30 – Fire hydrants to straight kick back, left side
0:30 – Fire hydrants to straight kick back, right side
Lie on stomach, head resting on forearms
0:30 – Frog kicks, alternating legs
0:30 – Frog kicks, both legs
Lie on back
0:30 – Glute bridge
0:30 – One-leg glute bridge, left side
0:30 – One-leg glute bridge, right side
0:30 – Glute bridge, narrow stance
0:30 – Glute bridge, alternating leg raise
0:30 – Glute bridge, hold it
Standing arm workout
About 4 minutes. Completed standing in one spot, arms extended the whole time. These are hard to describe, see related video.
0:30 – Arms extended, palms up and then down
0:30 – Butterfly stroke then curling under as if holding beach ball
0:20 – Pulsing with palms facing forward
0:20 – Pulsing with palms facing backward
0:20 – Small circles clockwise
0:20 – Small circles counter-clockwise
0:20 – Forward, bend elbows, up, down
0:20 – Up, bend elbows, forward, back (reverse of above)
0:20 – Straight arm clap
0:30 – Trace ball in front
I’ll add more as I come across things that I like.
I found Piskel while writing this post, what a cool little site / tool. Neat CSS tip via SB: use image-rendering: crisp-edges for extra crispy pixel art.
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Flourless peanut butter cookies
Makes about 10 cookies. Can use crunchy or smooth peanut butter.
Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) and line a tray with baking parchment.
In a large bowl, combine 66 g (⅓ c) brown sugar, 66 g (⅓ c) granulated sugar, and 1 t baking soda. Add and blend in a pinch of salt if using unsalted peanut butter. Next, add 1 large egg and 250 g peanut butter, and then mix thoroughly to combine.
Use two spoons to maneuver walnut-sized balls of dough on to the tray, leaving ample space between each cookie since they will rise and spread. Flatten the balls slightly with a fork, creating a cross-hatch pattern.
Bake in a 175C (350F) oven for 8–10 minutes. Allow them to cool on the tray for at least 5 minutes, then move to a rack to cool further. They will be very soft to the touch fresh from the oven and firm up as they cool.
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Ceramic cat by a young David Hockney
Ceramic Cat
David Hockney 1955On loan from Jean and Paul Hockney.
This cat was given to David Hockney’s brother and sister-in-law as a wedding present in September 1955. It was one of approximately four cats made by the artist whilst a student at Bradford College of Art. After the model was produced the mould broke, making this sculpture unique as it was the only one with indentations. Subsequent versions were produced with a smooth finish and in different colours.
This life-size ceramic cat with stubby little legs is in one of the display cases in the ground floor of Salts Mill alongside many other pieces by David Hockney.
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Recipe for Toll House chocolate chip cookies
I grew up with Toll House chocolate chip cookies. Until today, I didn’t know that the Toll House recipe is supposedly the original chocolate chip cookie recipe.
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The youngest lifeboat crew rescue airmen
A story from the past via the Whitby Lifeboat Museum.
The museum is at the end of Pier Road just past the arcades in the old Whitby lifeboat station. The station was one of the first, established in 1802. It was taken over by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) after the 1861 lifeboat disaster which resulted in the tragic loss of 12 from a crew of 13. The station was closed and turned in to a museum in 1957 and was temporarily brought back in to service in 2005 while Whitby’s existing station was demolished and rebuilt.
YOUNGEST EVER LIFEBOAT CREW RESCUE AIRMEN
25th March 1942
At 10.55 am, a telephone message was sent to the lifeboat station from H.M. Coastguard stating that an aircraft was down in the sea 1 mile off Sandsend and that the lifeboat was
requested to launch immediately.
The Motor Mechanic Jim Philpott realised that all of the regular crew were at sea fishing, and after the maroons were fired, he subsequently managed to find a retired Coxswain Thomas Welham (71), and mustered 5 more crew who were all just 16 years old.
The lifeboat proceeded to sea in patchy fog and soon found traces of oil on the water. Eventually, after a short search, the lifeboat located a rubber dinghy with four aircrew inside.
The airmen were taken aboard the lifeboat suffering from head wounds and one a leg injury.
All were landed at the fish quay about 30 minutes later and transferred to Whitby Hospital.
The Aircraft was a Lockheed Hudson of the R.A.F. which had earlier sunk.
The photograph below shows, left to right:
F. Russell, P. Storr, T. Lewis, Cox T. Welham, R. Russell, J. Philpott
A photo of R. Murfield is not available.
Each man (and boy) received 19 shillings (95p) for their services.
The Pilot expressed gratitude to the lifeboat crew, and also his surprise at the speed of their rescue.
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Sandsend → Whitby
This new year, we stayed in a cottage in Sandsend with a bunch of close friends. On the 30th, we walked to Whitby along the beach while the tide was out. Top-notch dog watching. It was gorgeous, sunny and around 50F/10C. We all had to take our coats off. Shame it wasn’t so warm on the 1st, we ended up chickening out of a new year’s dip in the sea.
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To read: “The Ego and Its Own” by Max Stirner
To read: The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner. Via a black-crowned night heron in a midnight pond:
stirner’s whole schtick was being against ideology in general. […] behaving a certain way in the name of an Idea is therefore completely illogical, because, it’s not real! what’s real is your own happiness and comfort in the world.
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“it is possible to imagine [a critical sensibility] in which social paranoia is not foundational”
The sore winner is a product of the hyper-surveilled and personalized world in which we all now live, one in which people feel both nebulously responsible for everything wrong while also feeling responsible for nothing at all.
From the Outline article “A decade of sore winners” by B.D. McClay. A lot of stuff in this article is spot-on. It also relates directly to the response I received from my Republican representative regarding the impeachment of President Trump.
One of my rep’s many dubious points was that Ukranian leaders publicly attacked candidate Trump in the press, and that this was evidence of Ukranian meddling in 2016 elections. Specifically, he linked to an article in The Hill by Ambassador Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2019. I read the article by Amb. Chaly, and all I can see is an opinion piece that fairly criticises statements made by a candidate for one of the most powerful positions in the world.
How do you make the mental leap necessary to conflate principled criticism with personal attack? Furthermore, how could anything in that article be considered meddling in an election? The vast majority of Chaly’s article is a recent history of events in Ukraine.
This is sore winner territory. Here’s how McClay illustrates it in their article:
Worse still than the idea that things are for you is the extension into identification: that these things literally are you. If someone writes books for teen girls, to criticize her books is to criticize teen girls. Expressing something other than support for Taylor Swift guarantees you a place in that special hell for women who don’t support other women. If you like superhero movies and video games, and somebody outlines the reasons they think superhero movies and video games are a waste of time, that’s an attack on you, personally, not a disagreement over aesthetics.
How do we get past this? More critical thinking taught in schools and beyond? More restrictions on social media? Surely it has to be a personal exercise but it seems like such a fundamental and widespread problem, almost a public mental health emergency (one of many).
It is impossible to imagine a critical sensibility that does not exist socially. But it is possible to imagine one in which social paranoia is not foundational, and in which social reception — of work, of ourselves — does not have to determine our reaction to each other.
It’s possible to imagine it, but it’s pretty difficult to picture without some sort of major overhaul in day-to-day life.