I have spent far too much time studying the cats in my house and wondering—deeply, for long, embarrassing periods of time—how I could possibly turn into one and spend the rest of my life napping in the pool of sunlight on the warm, beige carpet, not so that I don't have to go to work or don't have to fix the broken water purifier in the kitchen or don't have to beat myself up for not learning Spanish or even taking a self-improving pottery class....but so that I don't have to exercise again. It's not that I am lazy. I am tired. I am busy. Most of all, I am uninspired about slapping on some jiggle-enhancing Lycra pants and lugging myself over to the dreaded giant purple ball over which I am supposed drape myself and engage in stomach-firming crunches.
Meanwhile, miles and miles away in Brooklyn, a 15-year-old boy is keeping busy watching a different kind of animal. Henry Lim, who, as the New York Times reported won a Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History, has been observing the troop of six baboons who live in 4,000 square foot rock enclosure at the Prospect Park Zoo. Baboons, apparently, have 67 previously identified behaviors observed in the wild, which include: approach, look, grunt, lip smack, carry on back, genital inspect, eyebrow raise, short running attack, grimace, and sleep. But as young Henry told the Times, there is a "60 percent chance that a baboon will spend time sitting."
In addition, he produced a stopwatch for the reporter and recorded the following observations of one particular male baboon:
2:00pm: Sitting
2:30pm: Sitting/shake fur
3:00pm: Sitting/scratching
3:30pm: Sitting
Reading this, it dawned on me that I no longer have to wish I were a cat. For all intents and purposes, minus the hair, I am a baboon.
3:00pm: Sitting/scratching
3:30pm: Sitting
Reading this, it dawned on me that I no longer have to wish I were a cat. For all intents and purposes, minus the hair, I am a baboon.
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale
The heart-breaking setup: Pregnant, motherless, 14-year-old Esch lives with her 3 brothers in the hardscrabble deep country of Mississippi.
today, the novel:
By Jesmyn Ward
The heart-breaking setup: Pregnant, motherless, 14-year-old Esch lives with her 3 brothers in the hardscrabble deep country of Mississippi.
The plot twist: Hurricane Katrina is gathering steam off the Gulf of Mexico—while the family fails to prepare for its arrival, focusing instead of a new batch of pit bulls that may (or may not) bring them $800.
The true-life irony: Even in a time of impending disaster, we still care about the ordinary things: why the person we love doesn't love us back, why we still miss those who we have lost, and if (and when?) we will ever grow up and be the person we want to be.
The hard-to-face Southern poverty we all should know about: dog fights, squirrel hunting, black kids in white schools, warm sugar juice, dinners of raw Top Ramen noodles and "potted meat."
The natural Southern beauty we all need to see: "Bits of sunlight bite through the tops of the pines that murmur once and twice and are quiet...A rabbits sits, watching us as we make the halfway mark about the circle of the field...It twitches its ears, stares at us in profile, one large black eye like a wet marble in its face, wide and glazed as if it seeing something supernatural."
Read more:
Monday is too stressful. Wednesday is already hump day. But Tuesday is "you" day: a day when you have the energy to do—or plan—something fresh and unexpected that might just turn your whole week around.
Have fun (really) getting your kids ready for school. How to whip up a goofy but practical lunch-money change purse out of a child's sock whose match was (once again) eaten by the dryer.
Relax at your Labor Day barbecue. How to cook for the masses without stress (using the secrets of cruise ship chefs) and how to grill the world's easiest and most perfect main dish (hint: it uses only two ingredients).
Celebrate the other holiday that takes place on September 5th—also known as Be Late Day. How to let yourself be tardy and stop the crazy anxiety that comes from watching the clock.
Invested a little more than you want to in a iPhone or one of the new tablets? How to expedite the return of your portable electronics—easily, cheaply and greenly—in case they get lost.
After watching the terrifying path of the hurricane up the East coast for the past four days, some of our all too human creations on television now seem a touch overwrought in comparison—for example, last night's MTV Awards.
Which is why this unexpectedly simply performance by Adele singing Someone Like You profiled on PopCrush—executed without gender-bending disguises, smoke bombs, sequins, flying trapeze wires, four french hens, three turtle doves, or even any mis-timed lip synching—seemed so poignant and moving. Even for those of us who no longer watch the MTV Awards or, okay, let's admit it, date back to an ancient time when MTV actually showed music videos....
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Army boys put on their own musical
A love letter just for you
| Photo: Thinkstock |
I am not the kind of person who hangs up on her mother. But I sometimes pretend the stove is on fire and drop the phone and run off screaming. Now, I can just stay on the line; knowing the ending actually improves a person’s enjoyment of a film or book. A recent study by researchers from the University of California at San Diego, Reuters reported, gave reader stories by John Updike, Roald Dahl, and Agatha Christie, only with two versions—the original, and another with a "spoiling paragraph" inserted in the text.
The verdict: readers preferred the amended stories. My kids of course could have explain this to me—without words even. One look at their bewitched, glazed expressions as they watched Dinosaur Train, the underwater episode, for the millionth time proves the whole entire theory. (Just to increase your enjoyment: the little fish without any names do get eaten by the big friendly dinosaurs).
From now on, I will enjoy my mother's plot references, as long as my mother does not find out that I am enjoying them, at which point either I will be compelled to admit or she will be compelled to point out that—like our long hot endless childhoods visits to Civil War battlefields—this is officially for my own good.
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At last: a proved route to wisdom.
The back-from-vacation ah-ha moment!
For a long time, when I have been in-between jobs or just having one of my patented nightly anxiety spazes which inspires to me to mutter in bed—loudly—about mortgages and school bills, I have comforted myself with a few back-up plans. One of them is to invent a washing machine that comes preloaded with colorful little gumballs of detergent that pop out with each cycle (imagine: the end of lugging heavy, bag-breaking detergent bottles). The other is to open up a meatball shop called, uh, Leigh's Meatballs. For many years, when I mentioned the meatballs to strangers at cocktail parties, they would nod confusedly, and then say, "Oh......! You mean like meatball sandwiches!"
"No," I said, firmly. "Just meatballs. No spaghetti. No bread. A little sauce, that's it. The store is not for meatball dibble-dabblers. It's for hard core, committed meatball lovers."
Shockingly, about a year ago, a man (who will remain unmentioned in this article) also had a meatball epiphany. But he got it together and actually opened up a meatball shop, which has gone onto great fame and is opening new locations, hither and yon.
Today, stumbling on this video from Behance, in which This American Life contributor and producer Starlee Kine talks about Little Orphan Annie ideas (translation: ideas that we leave abandoned and un-actualized in our minds) I realized that I had a thing or two to learn. Kine's talk is long, but it is worth listening to, especially when she's talking about the need for a "the sheer force of will" to keep an idea alive and not letting an idea "die" on the car ride to hospital.
She doesn't discuss this in her talk but, no doubt, people also looked at her a little oddly, when she mentioned she was cold-emailing Phil Collins to talk about her breakup with a boyfriend and her idea as to how to fix herself. The next time, nothing is coming between me and my dream of meatballs (or whatever the next dream is).
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Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale today, the lovely and wholly original novel...
By Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The idea that caused us to swoon: When it comes to feelings, let flowers do the talking—a practice that dates back to the Victorian age when each kind of flora represented an emotion. For example, a yellow rose is just another word for infidelity.
The story you've never heard before: A young woman raised in foster homes goes from marigold (grief) and lavender (distrust) to pink rose (pure love), due to the attentions of a San Francisco florist and a young, sensitive—okay, dashing—flower farmer.
The extra bonus: The descriptions of food will propel you instantly to the nearest farmers' market. Expect rare steak in a sauce of "exotic mushrooms, red potatoes, and turnips" and plenty of blackberry cobbler with cream.
The painful question: If you grow up without love—or parents, or a home—can you find a way to give love to those who try, one day, to love you?
Read More
Monday is too stressful. Wednesday is already hump day. But Tuesday is "you" day: a day when you have the energy to do—or plan—something fresh and unexpected that might just turn your whole week around.
Celebrate Women's Equality Day this Friday by going completely housework-free. How to encourage your spouse—using scientific proof—to do more than his share of chores at home (for 24 hours).
Show your pet you really love him (or her). How to check your pet's August horoscope and be attuned to her (or his) astrological needs.
Take a guitar lesson with James Taylor? Why, yes, you can. How to play "Little Wheel" in e minor.
In honor of More Herbs, Less Salt Day next Monday, take a first step towards cutting down on sodium. How to live salt-free with tips from O's creative director Adam Glassman (hint: squeeze fresh lemon on sushi instead of soy sauce).
It's hard enough to keep a sense of humor on regular Monday, when say, you're late for work, your computer freezes, your dog needs some kind of inner ear surgery which isn't covered by pet insurance (does pet insurance cover anything?), and..drumroll...you reach over in the bathroom to wash your hands and get soaked by the puddle that someone left on the counter, making it appear as if you had an accident in your already rumpled pants.
But imagine you're in Afghanistan—now at month 106, the longest war in U.S. history. The members of 7 Commando battery, 29 Commando found a way to laugh at their day by creating their own version of Glee's Don't Stop Believing, which includes singing into radio microphones, singing while doing chin-ups, and singing while in the shower Not only is the show lovable, but it comes with added bonus that almost every one of these young, goofy yet incredibly buff guys has failed to put on a shirt.
Today's rule for life: If people thousands of miles from home, fighting a war, can laugh about their conditions (note the outhouse in the video), so can we.
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5 things happy people doThe Happiness Test
Imagine a world where four courageous yet completely ornery older people—Granny, Frank the Fixer, Madge the Merciless, and Emile the Organizer—take on the evils of today's society, battling nefarious financial planners and knocking out health insurance company representatives. This is the inspired, much-needed idea behind Coot Avengers, a comic book now being funded on Kickstarter. (Technically, the project has already reached its $2,500 goal, but we advise donating anyway—just for the free-with-donation gift comic entitled Everything I Know About Wall Street, I Learned From My Cat.)
The geniuses behind the mature, laugh-lined superheroes are Kay Wood (age 60), Michael Silverstein (age 70) and Doris Lane Grey (age 72) who got together one afternoon for pastries, only to begin discussing getting older and dealing with various bureaucratic agencies. Silverstein in particular was in the middle of a nasty battle with an insurance agent over who was going to pay for a colonoscopy. "People our age are in a daily fight with government agencies, city hall, and even private employers who don't want to hire anybody over 50," says Wood.
Soon the three had pooled their artistic resources to try something new for all of them—a comic, populated with characters who are "feisty, wise, and when circumstances demand, intimidating."
"The project has been so enlightening," says Silverstein, "to be able to have a medium that allow you to focus attention on these issues—not beat people over the head with them—but present them in a really poignant, fun way." His particular comic alter-ego, he claims, is Frank the Fixer: "a tall, slender, gawky guy who doesn't like to take a lot of guff from people."
The fact that originators of the Coot Avengers are seemingly as feisty and wise are their characters is not that much of a surprise, but one tidbit on their website did wow us: Some 44 million Baby Boomers will be eligible for Social Security between now and 2029. With those kind of numbers, you have to wonder if that particular group needs a superhero—given that the last time they stood up for something, it was for the end of the Vietnam War.
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