Happy Friday! I’m very much looking forward to the weekend and hope you are too. Here’s the roundup!
Quote of the week:
“I wish you endless dreams and the furious desire to realize some of them. I wish you to love what must be loved, and to forget what must be forgotten. I wish you passions. I wish you silences. I wish you birdsongs as you wake up and children’s laughter…I wish you at last to never give up the search, for adventure, life, love. For life is a wonderful adventure and no reasonable person should give it up without a tough fight. I wish you above all to be yourself, proud of being and happy, for happiness is our true destiny.” –Jacques Brel
What I’m reading:
How to Be the Love You Seek: Break Cycles, Find Peace, and Heal Your Relationships by Nicole Lepera. I think the majority of human beings could benefit from this book.
What I’m listening to:
Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra. It’s sort of a slow-burn thriller and I’m curious where it goes.
What I’m watching:
I started Season 1 of Life & Beth last night and realized halfway through the fourth episode that I’ve watched this before. Ha. It’s okay because I’m getting caught up so I can watch Season 2 (which I definitely did not watch yet because it came out last month).
Interesting things I learned this week:
- Baby owls sleep face down because their heads are so heavy. I highly recommend googling photos of this because it’s adorable and hilarious
- A retired American diplomat named Peter Kaestner is the first person to document 10,000 bird sightings
- At Lululemon’s women’s-only 6-day ultramarathon which concluded on Tuesday, Camille Herron, age 42, ran 560.33 miles to break the 6-day women’s world record
- Scientists have discovered 100 new marine species in New Zealand
- The American Library Association reported a record number of attempts to remove books from libraries last year. In total. 4,240 individual titles were targeted in 2023, up almost 65% from 2022. Nearly half of the challenged titles address LGBTQ+ identities and/or issues of race and racism
- San Jose and San Francisco had the highest electric vehicle adoption rate among major U.S. metropolitan areas last year. EVs accounted for nearly 40% of new auto registrations in the San Jose area last year and about 34% in San Francisco
- The FDA granted breakthrough status to a medication derived from LSD for generalized anxiety disorder. A single (micro)dose showed significant results even after 12 weeks. And it shows promise even for anxiety that has resisted other treatments
- A gray whale, extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for 200 years, was spotted off the coast of Massachusetts. And scientists from the University of Texas at El Paso photographed a Yellow-crested Helmetshrike, a “lost bird” that hadn’t been seen for two decades, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“earth sandwich.” I saw something on Instagram about how these two guys on exact opposite sides of the globe put a piece of bread to the ground at the exact same time to create an Earth sandwich. This sounded so ridiculous that I had to look it up and, yes, it actually happened: A guy in New Zealand put a piece of bread on the ground, and at the exact same time, a guy in Spain—on the exact opposite point of Earth—also put a piece of bread on the ground. You can read more about this endeavor here.
What I’m grateful for:
Life is really good right now. I feel super grateful every day. Here are a few things that stood out this week:
- Lots of love and connection lately. I can get into my introvert bubble for long periods of time and it’s been nice to come out
- My health. So many viruses going around right now and I have somehow dodged them. Hopefully I didn’t just jinx it
- Lighter evenings. My daughter and I are still struggling with the time change in the morning, but it IS nice to have it stay lighter out longer
- Hangouts with friends and their kiddos, happy hour with my neighbor (which we had been trying to schedule for months)
- Working on my new novel. I am truly happiest when I am writing a novel. It’s such a process of discovery
Snapshots:
From top to bottom: A beautiful park day last weekend; yoga with cats (all the kittens in this litter are named after chefs; this one is Anthony Bourdain haha); gorgeous run views this morning.
