1219

 Monday, December 19,  2022

Homecoming Day

In bed at 9:3-, awake at 5, up at 5:15, 3 or 4 pss, no toddy. 9 degrees outside, wind out of the NW, wind chill -4.  Nearing the shortest day of the year, sunrise at 7:19, sunset at 4:18, 8 hours, 59 minutes.

Shaking Tokyo.  I watched this very interesting French film set in Tokyo on Ovid last night.  It is about competing duties and divided loyalties.  Long distance marriage, wife and children in Tokyo, husband in Hong Kong? France?  Fukushima earthquake and tsunami sets off great fear in Tokyo of radioactive cloud moving toward Tokyo.  Wife sends children away with trusted neighbors to Kyoto, but stays in Tokyo out of shame when her Japanese staff members show up at the office because they didn't want her to be alone.  Well done, thought-provoking depiction of work/home pressures, especially hard for a woman with children at home.

Stats in this morning's WaPo.  About 5.8 million adults over 65 in the United States live with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia disorders, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in 9 Americans over 65 has Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.  While there is as yet no surefire way to prevent dementia or cure it, the Lancet in 2020 identified 12 potentially modifiable risk factors for the condition; they include physiological (blood pressure, diabetes, hearing loss), lifestyle choices (smoking, drinking, physical inactivity), environmental (air pollution) depression, social isolation and a lower level of education. The Alzheimer Society of Canada is also clear about what we can do to help minimize our dementia risk: keep cognitively engaged, learn new things, meet new people, keep a diary, remain curious and engage in conversations.  According to Gallup, the average age of retirement in the United States is 61 in 2022. The Pew Research Center reports that just over half of Americans over 55 had retired by the third quarter of 2021 — a statistic exacerbated by the pandemic and one that will rise as a generation of boomers hurtle toward pension age. The average life expectancy is 76.1 years.

Geek Squad arrived to ascertain what part we needed on the new built-in oven.  I thought that was covered by the last installers.  This is service call #3 with #4 now scheduled for 12/29 between 12 and 2.  Probably all based on mistake by first installers in not retrieving the border strip from the oven's cardboard box when they left it here on the dining room floor.

Ma must be the strangest movie I have ever watched.  Supposedly a take on the BVM's journey to Bethlehem, or something like that.  No dialogue, zero words spoken, nada, zip, zilch.  Set in the American Southwest.  I have no idea what viewers were intended to take away from this flick.  On Ovid, but not clear why.  Weird.  Spooky.  Inane. A movie like this always makes me wonder who paid money to produce it.