So yesterday, there was a huge pouring thunderstorm and lightening.
After a bolt or two that must have hit our power line, ALL the power went out.
That was not fun when sitting in an La-Z-Boy electric recliner chair.
Where the f*** is the safety release on this thing when there is no power? 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I heard my daughter laughing from another room.
A real hearty bellyaching laugh.
Then she came in and shared a WhatsApp post from one of her friends which said:
I ate 11 times and took 5 naps and I woke up and it’s still today!
Then I couldn’t stop laughing. 😉
(Credit Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
This was one of the most interesting facts that I learned recently.
Dolphins needs to come up to the surface to get air to breathe.
But how do they do this when they sleep?
The answer is that only part of their brain sleeps at a time, so that they can continue to rise to the surface for air 24/7.
Part of their brain sleeps while the other part stays awake.
I think that this truly happens with people too.
If you have ever been overtired, your brain still needs to sleep.
At some point, you can literally feel part of your brain go to sleep even as the rest is awake to do what it needs to do (even at suboptimal functioning).
This is beyond fascinating how G-d created us to adapt and survive. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Loved this tie dye hammock by Enonation (Eno) from Australia that I saw at REI.
It’s called “DoubleNest,” so I guess that means it fits 2 people.
So open, colorful, and inviting to rest and relax in.
Sillily, the store only carries the hammock and not the stand…so good luck with that.
Also REI clumsily filled this gorgeous hammock with Nalgene bottles–on sale 30% off!
Uh, if you make even the nicest stuff look like junk for storage, you’re not gonna get the brand image you want.
Anyway, the hammock was awesome! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Daylight saving time makes NO sense.
It does NOT save us a lot of energy as designed.
Call it the wrong assumptions or bad science.
The law requiring daylight saving–switching the clocks (“Fall Back” and “Spring Forward”) is archaic and needs to be repealed.
We’re messing with people’s sleep cycles and their health.
People waking up groggy all over the country, feeling crappy during the day, and losing much needed productivity.
How about we repeal this stupid law NOW and not waste any more time on the squabbling politics of the day?
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel, called “Shabbat Menucha.”
Friday night–the start of the Shabbat–oh, thank G-d we made it (and TGIF). Usually such a wonderful time to catch up on some extra sleep from the whole week of work. But last night it’s different…the fire alarm suddenly comes alive and the voice over the loud speaker tells everyone to exit the building immediately. It is 1:00 AM in the morning.
Carrying a head cold, medicated, and sleepless, this is what happened to me. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So lots of people like to drink tea.
But the other day, a nice person was telling me how they drink tea all the time.
It’s not just that they like tea, but there was an important true story behind it.
You see, they said, when they were young growing up in a foreign country, they often didn’t have enough to eat.
So instead, they had resorted to drinking lots of tea.
They went on to say, that as children, they often had to go to sleep hungry.
It is truly a wake-up call for those of us who, thank G-d, have what to eat and so much choice and plenty in this great country.
Not everyone in the world is so blessed to eat heartily and go to sleep with a full and satisfied belly.
It is especially saddening and tragic when we are talking about innocent children in this world.
As we go from the workweek to the weekend, perhaps it is a good time to reflect on how much we have to be grateful for and to wish blessings of peace, health, and prosperity on all our fellow mankind, here and all around the world. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumethal)
So the flight coming back from Israel was technologically challenged.
I’m sitting toward the front of the plane…more room, that’s good.
But there are a bunch of families with small children and babies…and that ends up being bad.
The flight attendants bring out this contraption to hook up a crib device to a front wall of the plane for the parents to put the baby in to sleep.
But there ends up being one small problem.
The overhead lights are seriously messed up.
This passenger with the baby tries to use his button next to his seat to turn the bright reading lights off–this is like row 10 or something.
But when he hits the lights off button–instead the lights go off in row 22.
And they stay on in his row keeping his baby awake and crying virtually the whole flight.
The stewardesses are going crazy trying to figure out where the “wires got crossed” here.
When they go to row 22 and ask them to turn off their lights–thinking maybe that will turn off the lights in row 10 that is keeping the baby up and crying–but instead that turns off the lights further in the back of the plane in row 30-something.
This was a really bad comedy going on this plane.
The baby keeps crying and crying.
The stewardesses keep running around trying to figure out how to get the lights working where they are supposed to be working.
And the parents are frustrated as hell trying to calm the baby and get some rest on this lengthy, cross-ocean flight.
Needless-to-say, all the other passengers trying to get some rest weren’t thrilled at this ridiculousness going on.
The plane got us home, but the electrical system didn’t inspire any confidence and kept the baby (and us) up almost the entire flight.
When you think that this was just the lights–oh boy!
Because what if the wires had gotten crossed between something important like the accelerator and the brake instead? 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Just a quote from the show Homeland that I wanted to share:
“My dreams have a realness…
My Reality has a dreaminess…”
This is so true!
Dreaming and reality have a definite touchpoint and carryover between them.
In Judaism, their is a saying that:
“Sleeping is one-sixtieth of death.”
Life-sleeping-death all exist along a continuum.
The elements of our being cross all three of these domains.
When we are alive, there are elements of dreaminess–and it often doesn’t feel quite real.
When we are asleep, our dreams can often seem so real that we actually feel them and physically react them–we may even scream and wake up an incredible fright.
When we are dead, I believe that we live on–that our soul never ceases–that it is a part of our everlasting G-d. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So life is generally supposed to be a series a peaks and valleys.
There are highs, but also lows.
No one and nothing can perform at peak all the time.
Like the commandment to keep the Shabbat, everyone needs a rest.
And studies have shown that getting a healthy dose of sleep, pause, and rest in life is healthy.
When we force ourselves or others to perform past their “designed” limits, then we risk a breakdown.
Machines break and people can break.
The risks are either explosion or implosion: some people can frighteningly “go postal” and others end up on psychiatric medication or even sick and in the hospital.
What is key to remember is that you can push the limits of performance so far, but then no further without a healthy, recuperative rest period and down time.
If you want to raise the bar on yourself, others, or your organization, you need to do it strategically so there is a surge forward and then a normative recovery and energy buildup again.
As we all know, life is a marathon and not a sprint, and the journey is as important as the destination. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Alan Levine)
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