Luka; Lily; Birthdays; Blog Pictures; Brain; Memory; Boston U; Howard Stern; Earthquake; Bodywatching; Cheek Screw; Stripes; Dreams; Prohibition Joke

Rainy Thursday.  We treat Mat and Emily and Lily and Luka to supper at the Towson Diner. Lots and lots of food!  Today is Luka's birthday.  Elaine got some nice things for him, and also for Lily.  We won't be able to go to their birthday party on Saturday because we can't get Elaine up the front steps at Emily's house.. also, the rest room is a tough squeeze for Elaine.  Sad situation for Grandma.


I've been trying for some time to get some pictures posted to this blog.. unsuccessfully .. I'll keep trying.  Meanwhile, here are some old blog entry items:


The Brain


Dr. Howard Eichenbaum, director of the Center for Memory and Brain at Boston University, "is studying the firing of neurons in the hippocampus, a structure near the center of the brain that plays a major role in memory. Decoding the machinations of the hippocampus could help us design drugs to treat memory disorders such as Alzheimer's."


BU is doing great research on Brain matters. Nice school.


Boston University


I found out last night that Howard Stern attended B.U.  OMG! Perhaps he might like to donate his brain to Dr. Eichenbaum's lab.  Just kidding.  I am seeing a remarkable down-toning of Howard's scatological silliness since he's been a judge of America's Got Talent.  That's good.




Anticipation?


Five to 10 seconds before an earthquake in August 2011, the orangutan, Kyle, and the gorilla, Kojo, at DC's National Zoo, climbed to the top of trees.   The Zoo master suggested that the animals may have detected the "P waves" that struck Washingotn 15 seconds before the "surface waves."

Does this kind of thing happen with cats.  Whenever there is a violent thunderstorm, SuZee disappears before the first rumblings.


Bodily Clues


Desmond Morris' book Bodywatching was published some time ago, but it is still a good read, as discussed by Jerry Ford.


Desmond reveals some little-known secrets about how to "read people."


Although we can fake a smile, our legs often give us away because we have much less control over our legs and feet.. so we tend to try to hide them when we are under stress.


The "cheek screw" reveals different things in different countries:
In Italy, screwing a finger in one's cheek means "good".
In Southern Spain, it indicates that a man is effeminate.
In Germany, it indicates that the object of the gesture is crazy.
(In my own experience, in Southern U.S., the gesture often indicates that the person in question is "black.")


Desmond also discusses circumcision, as an act equated with a snake's shedding of skin.  By shedding foreskin, older cultures believed that they might become immortal.


He also discusses feet binding by the Chinese and butt binding by Victorians.


Stripes


Why stripes on zebras?  Why, of course, to repel flies, you dummy!  Researchers have discovered that when they set out black, white, and zebra-patterned horse statues in a field, the striped models attracted the fewest horseflies.  Over long evolutionary periods, zebra striped animals suffered less bites from insects and were favored by evolution.


That reminds me of what is told to medical school students.. If you see hoofprints, think Horse instead of Zebra.


Dreams


My daughter, Elizabeth, called to tell me that she had a very realistic dream about her mother, my late wife, Elaine.  Sometimes such dreams are very traumatic.  Often, we try to find meaning in them.
For a long time after my wife died, I would dream of being on a trip with her, when she went on ahead of me and turned a corner, and I couldn't find her.  I can still feel the sense of loss that entailed.


In 2011, I dreamed that I was talking to my boss at Social Security and I was told to be very precise because a famous technical consultant was listening in the next room.   When I looked in to see the Tech..it was my late wife.


Around the same time, I woke up in a sweat as I tried to stomp some kind of white animal that was trying to eat one of our cats, SuZee or Lucky.


Psychologists could probably learn a lot about me from the telling of these dreams.


Prohibition Joke


At a revival meeting, the minister yelled: "If I had all the wine in the world, I'd throw it into the river!"
"And if I had all the whiskey in the world, I'd throw it into the river.!"
"And if I had all the beer in the world, I'd throw it into the river!"
"And now, let's sing the next hymn: 'Shall we gather at the river!"
.............................................