Stacy Horn

“Data from the United States, England and 11 other European countries suggest that the earlier people retire, the more quickly their memories decline.” (From today’s Times.)

I’ve started home schooling myself on subjects I’ve never been good at or just missed altogether. First up is geography. Beginning with Asia, every day I test myself by naming countries on a blank map. I learn a few each day, but by the next day I’ve forgotten most of the ones I’d learned. Very frustrating, but eventually it started to take and I’m up to 40 that I can consistently remember every day.

Yesterday I couldn’t help thinking it was kinda pointless, and maybe there was something more useful I could be learning, but now I’m thinking if nothing else it’s good brain exercise.

A biker riding past Madison Square Park.

If you feel like helping a friend, please go to this link for the Travel Channel’s contact page and tell them you would like to see Extreme Paranormal on Travel following Ghost Adventures. Thank you in advance!

I don’t know how successful this shot is, because you can’t even tell what’s going on. This is a picture of a handball game at night. This looking through a fence into the park, which is higher than street-level. You can see the spectators, but not the players.

My camera battery always dies at the most inconvenient times. I was meeting some friends for dinner and I was a little early, but I was in the mood to walk around and take pictures of the night life and boom. My camera battery dies. Stupid battery.

Right now I’m deciding what to do today. Be a slug, or go to one of the Open House New York things. Of course many of the ones I would have liked to have gone to are booked or were only open yesterday. But not all.

On the weekends, the rescue organization Mighty Mutts sets up in front of the greenmarket. I can never resist taking a look. There was a chihuahua there recently, too.

I finished The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain.

Here’s what we can do now for our brains, even in middle age and beyond. You’ve heard them all before, but I’m really sold after reading just what it’s doing in the brain (generating brain cells, increasing white matter in the brain, and building something called “brain reserve”).

1. Exercise. 2. Nutrition/eat well. 3. Continue education (those of us who went to college are going to fair better in the end, the more education the better).  4. Socialize. 5. Volunteer.  6. Be positive and cheery.

Being in a choir is as perfect as can be because it involves socializing, learning, a little exercise, and in my case volunteering (I do work in the Grace Church archives). Also, whatever mood you are in when you walk into rehearsal, you come out feeling very positive.

I am now on the look out for another weekly group activity that has similar benefits.

Here is Finney in the sunlight. When I catch my cats in the sunlight I sing the sunlight song. “Finney in the sunlight. Do-da-do-da-do. Finney in the sunlight. I’m so in love with you.” (I am the ultimate cat dork.)