Adventure Aging: Open your own coconuts

First: the girlette calendars have arrived, one week early. Yay! They look terrific--Mixbook.com did a great job.
(Not the cheapest, but they've printed four years of calendars for me. If you use them, search for coupons--they often have some going, and always discounts for orders of 10 or more.)

If you haven't sent me your address, please do. (M, K, and LS, I have yours.)
If you said you want one, but now don't--no problem. I have no extras and would be happy to have some.

Update: bink was pretty low with Covid after Thanksgiving--fever, headache, cough. She is feeling a lot better now--up and dressed--but she still tests positive, after nine days, and her senses of taste and smell are off. Not gone altogether, but food mostly tastes salty, sweet, or bitter.
Luckily no one else at Thanksgiving has become ill.

I. Two Funnyish Reddits

Searching for local dolls-&-bears field trips, I came across the reddit for my city. These two posts made me laugh:

^ "[update] got some whole coconuts and learned how to open em!"
There ya go, that's the spirit.

When I was a kid, we hit a coconut with a hammer until it cracked.
Seems "hitting it" is still the approved method.
Here's how, with and without tools, from the Art of Manliness:

Myself, I would hit the coconut with the rock, but perhaps this is the more manly-muscle way. :)
Also, doesn't that rock look like a cabbage? A cabbage will not do the trick.
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And, the second reddit:

 

^ "They don't mind walking but nothing too crazy as they are in their late 40s." Oh, those old people...
Commenters replied with good but obvious suggestions (the art institute, the conservatory (for plants)).
But let's see...
What are some not "too crazy" local things to do indoors? (The post makes it sound like age is the only impediment. )
I came up with a couple fun ideas (that I didn't post because they don't quite fit though):

Our women's North Star Roller Derby offers roller derby skating lessons for ALL SKILL LEVELS, with an emphasis on Safety. That could be good for someone who maybe doesn't heal as fast as a young person.
(But, whoops--but no classes until January.)

Vertical Endeavor "a cutting edge climbing facility for people of all ages" offers private lessons.
Facing a wall--maybe not the best sightseeing? Still, if the visitor learned how, they could return when it's warmer and climb outdoors.

Here's an article on starting to climb in your sixties, like Kitty below, who started at 67:

When I walked Camino at fifty years old, I met a woman in her sixties who worked with seniors. She told me that ADVENTURE is a key helper in aging.
And adventure is whatever is adventurous for you.

What is Adventure for me?
I've never been much attracted to physical feats. (Camino was a social and spiritual undertaking that was physical.) But I do want to keep up the spirit of adventure.
That takes some conscious choice (for me, anyway).
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II. Adventures NOT at Work

My job is adventurous, often taking me into the unexpected. "I never thought I'd see THAT in a workplace." Sometimes even in the fun way.

BELOW: Santa Holding Dino & Shark, set up by coworker Grateful-J.

But, I want to invite some other adventures in.

And, I need to refocus at work. I was badly out of sorts earlier in the week, feeling really down--discouraged and disgusted.
A couple days off work helped, and when I went back yesterday, I was able to reset my mood by focusing only on MY areas (books & toys).

I always, always get thrown when I step outside my areas or try to improve the store. There are ogres or something, I swear, that protect the store from improvements.
The ogres are in myself, perhaps...? They lumber out when I get frustrated with other people (but also with myself). I have a low threshold there, which is not helpful.

I do not have a reformer's stick-to-itiveness.
I was reminded of that when I read Lytton Strachey's bio of Florence Nightingale. She reminded me of Abraham Lincoln--those people who wear themselves to a nub, working for change. They're constantly raging against the ineptitude and inertia of other people, but they don't give up. Of course, they also pay a high price.

"Choose your battles," my father always said.
Yes.
I decided to give up one of mine:
I am going to stop trying to keep TOYS in good order.

Every day parents leave their kids alone in Toys, as if it's an IKEA play area. The kids literally tear the area apart (ripping open bags and boxes), and I have to sort it out.

Except... I don't have to.
Toys were never in order when I took them on. I can let them sink back into disorder. Since there is no management, no one will say anything, if they even notice.

It's nice if Toys are in order, but honestly, I don't much care.
I care far, far more about the books, and they are not getting the attention I want to give them. Like, I still! haven't made new signs for the rearranged sections.
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III. Adventures in NonFiction

Researching and going on Dolls & Bears Field Trips = a new adventure.
Also, I realized I've read--or don't want to read--most of the fiction on many "100 Best Novels" lists, but I have not read many of the books on the "100 Best Nonfiction" lists.
Starting to read some, also = a new adventure.

* * * ANYONE have Non-Fic Recommendations?

Eminent Victorians (1918) by Lytton Strachey is the first one I read from some list.
(There are many lists. Oh--it was the Guardian's < links to the article on EV--very fun! I'm going to read each article for the 100 books, even if I don't read the books.)

Strachey's book has been on the shelf at work for eons--I even marked it down to 49 cent, but it didn't sell.
I decided to try it because, as I've mentioned, I'd been reading Frances Partridge's diaries ––
(or despite that!--she's so boring--she says so, herself, complaining she had "one creative idea a month", I stopped reading her)––
and Frances's husband, Ralph P., had been one of Lytton Strachey's lovers and had also married LS's platonic love, Carrington.

"A diagram of their [the Bloomsbury group's] love affairs would look like an underground system where every train stopped at every station," writes Roger Ebert in his review of the film Carrington (1995).

Ralph is "Rex" in this preview of Carrington (1995), below.

I'd only known Strachey as a character and was surprised that he's such a good writer--and so funny in his wicked snarkiness.

And look, he used the word "apotropaic"! I only learned that word practically the other day. He's talking about General Gordon, who I know from the movie Khartoum (and from writing a kid's book about Sudan--my post about Gordon from 2008.)

“Gordon’s fatalism … led him to dally with omens, to search for prophetic texts, and to append, in brackets, the apotropaic initials DV [Deo volente – God willing] after every statement in his letters implying futurity, led him also to envisage his moods and his desires, his passing reckless whims and his deep unconscious instincts, as the mysterious manifestations of the indwelling God.”

Eminent Victorians is Strachey's famous book that makes the lists--I wonder if his others are good too. I'll probably never know, as they're never donated to my workplace.

My choices of nonfiction so far are guided by what we have at work.

Last night I started The World Without Us (Alan Weisman, 2007), from a 'Best Nonfiction of the 21st Century' list, which is often donated, being a relatively recent bestseller and adapted to TV. I'm interested in the topic--what would Earth do if humans all of a sudden disappeared (say, from a human-only virus)?

The science is fascinating.
But I don't know if I'll keep reading the book--I don't like how emotional AW's writing is, as if in the style of War of the Worlds.
Bridges are "under constant guerrilla attack from nature"; plants are "accosted" by "invasions" and "fight to reclaim their birthright" from "alien species".

I felt manipulated into being frightened, which I don't enjoy. (I don't read or watch horror for its own sake.) It's as if the publisher said, "You must make this entertaining to the average reader of genre fiction".
I just want to know How Things Fall Down!
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BEST ADVENTURE: Write your own.
Open a coconut your own damn self.