Retirement Continued

Spanish

ICS, for whom I volunteer to drive people just out of hospital, encouraged us to take Spanish.  They provided the instructor at the office and a free textbook.  I figured that I could use more brain synapses (which keep one from going senile), so I signed up.  Asked to work on it an hour a day.  I’ve been trying to sing along with Ya No Vivo Por Vivir on YouTube (Ya No Vivo Por Vivir), but es difícil, even following the lyrics I printed up, along with the translation.  (Lyn, Nancy, Melissa, you try the first two lines!)  I try to listen to canciónes en Español in the car when I’m driving, but only understand about one word per sentence.  And I did have three years of Spanish in high school (albeit many years ago)!  Got four kids’ libros de imágenes en Español de la biblioteca, but only understood one: Masas de Agua, Océanos y Mares.  Muy fácil and I liked reading it aloud.  Also encouraged to download Duolingo, but it has mucha repetición, and gets boring fast.  We’re basically only doing present tense, but were encouraged to purchase 501 Spanish Verbs which goes into 14 (!) different tenses plus le gerundio y imperativo.  You’d probably be surprised to know that English has 12:

The present, past and future tenses are divided into four aspects: the simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive. verb-tenses

Tennis

It was my daughter who said that we should get back into tennis, but after one clinic she decided that with her part-time work, a husband and three kids, volunteering at their school, and finishing her Masters, maybe she ought to wait until after she finishes the degree in May.

However, I took two months of clinics, mostly twice a week, along with two private lessons (serving and backhand), at the Tucson Racquet Club, where I had played for years, and am starting to relearn how to play.  The pro suggested I replace the 40-year-old racquet, then my ratty tennis shoes, and I bought a tennis skirt, an arm brace, a knee brace, and shoe inserts for arches.  But once I started on a team (USTA¹ 3.0, where 7.0 is a world-class player), and Queen of the Court, which is weekly competition, both for doubles, needed to get acupuncture and better NSAID² meds (Celebrex and turmeric³) from my doc.

Movie

Saw Gloria Bell with a couple of friends.  They loved it and Julianne Moore did a great job, but I thought it was too depressing.

Books

Finally finished The Overstory (see last blog).  Had liked most of it, when each of the myriad of characters had a chapter, but when they were combined in the final chapters, I felt that I needed a cheat sheet on who was who, like you find in the front of Russian novels, which you need to keep everyone’s names straight.  Plus I didn’t like the ending, although, of course, a friend remarked that I knew it would end that way.

Speed read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which is a true story.  At only 254 pages, it’s a two-day read compared to the previous tome, and seems to skim over details too fast.  I remember reading The Wall, by John Hersey when I was a kid, and thought that it was real.  Based on historical fact but using fictional characters and fictional diary entries, the work presents the background of the valiant but doomed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of Jews against the Nazis. Close enough to reality, I guess, even though the characters were invented.  From my recollection (which my brother often points out aren’t always true), I think The Wall was better, at 640 pages.

Continuing to have Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon read to me, either for  longer drives (as back-and-forth to the Racquet Club), or to put me to sleep at night.  I loved his Snow Crash but am having a hard time getting through this, first of all because it is 1,172 pages (downloaded on my tablet), and I’ve had to reserve it twice so far from the library, but also because it is heavier into war-related technology than I am.  I was a math major for a short time, and did get a degree in computer science, so I could picture the math nerds depicted.  Stephenson’s descriptions are a kick.  It does well, nevertheless, putting me to sleep.  This from Wikipedia:

…One group of characters are World War II-era Allied codebreakers and tactical-deception operatives affiliated with the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park (UK), and disillusioned Axis military and intelligence figures. The second narrative is set in the late 1990s, with characters that are (in part) descendants of those of the earlier time period, who employ cryptologic, telecom, and computer technology to build an underground data haven in the fictional Sultanate of Kinakuta…

Spring

Seen this last week: A bobcat slinking along my back fence – was just getting up when my cat saw it and stood on her hind legs to watch it, with large eyes.  A bee (only one in my whole garden!⁴) on the globe mallow outside the fence which was sprawling on the ground (the mallow, not the bee) but I tied to the fence with twine so I could see it.  The photo also shows, on the column, my resident dove who has a nest on the south wall, under my neighbor’s lady banksia rose.  Wonder if it’s the same one each year, in the same place.  A pair of rosy finches on this back fence, a popular spot above the birdbath.  Have seen mostly goldfinches at their feeder.

Between the snow⁵ and the summer⁶
When the temps are beginning to climb
Come two months of Tucson’s weather
That are the most benign.

It was 82° Sunday at Tonono Chul park when I and friends went to Sundays in the Garden Spring Concert Series.  We were seated in the Performance Garden under a huge mesquite, in the shade, peppered with its golden fuzzy flowers.  The two classical guitarists from the University were good, but we were almost dozing in the warmth.

¹United States Tennis Association
²Many patients are prescribed nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) for a variety of common orthopedic conditions including arthritis, tendonitis, and bursitis. These medications are particularly useful not only because they help decrease pain, but they also help control swelling and inflammation.  anti-inflammatory-medication
³Curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric. It has powerful anti-inflammatory effects and is a very strong antioxidant.  health-benefits-of-turmeric
⁴Insect populations are declining precipitously worldwide due to pesticide use and other factors, with a potentially “catastrophic” effect on the planet, a study has warned.
More than 40% of insect species could become extinct in the next few decades, according to the “Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers” report, published in the journal Biological Conservation…
In addition to the 40% at risk of dying out, a third of species are endangered — numbers that could cause the collapse of the planet’s ecosystems with a devastating impact on life on Earth. /www.cnn.com/2019/02/11
⁵See my-favorite-things for snow photos from mid-March.
⁶100° weather starts mid-May.

Tags: Cryptonomicon, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, NSAIDs, Spanish, tennis, The Overstory, The Tattooist of Auschwitz