Friday Flames: It's great to be back!
And other revelations about brains, parents, calculus, muscles, anchovies, and Florida.
Season 2 is upon us! It’s a great time to be alive. Magda is especially eager for autumn, since the last month’s summer scorch drastically reduced her ability to function. Still, she did manage trips to Maine and New Hampshire, which is exactly what you’re supposed to do when you’re stationed in Greater Boston.
Doug also spent some true quality time on the road and off the grid, because all forms of long-distance human interaction are terrible. Nothing launches an endorphin overload like hugs and meals and card games and eye contact with people you love.
Episode 56 (see below) is a real crackup, mostly because we recorded it about an hour after Doug had finished biking 72 miles in support of Active Against ALS. Apparently, the laughs flow freely when your body is pleading desperately for unconsciousness. Doug volunteered for this ride in part because he is turning 59 next week, and he wanted to see if he could ride his age in miles. Turns out, he could have stopped 13 miles out of town and just called an Uber.
Embers in the News
There’s been a ton of news during our podcast hiatus! Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle last month:
No more lines at the Passport Office If your passport has expired within the past five years, the State Department says you can renew it online.
This is your brain on pregnancy A new study of hormonal shifts in a woman’s brain during pregnancy is opening up insights into post-partum depression.
How much you bench, pops? Regularly lifting weights for a year in your mid-60s can preserve the strength of your leg muscles for years to come.
Wait. What were we talking about? We lose our trains of thought because our brains’ “working memory” is very small and finite and worsens with age.
This week on the podcast
Season 2 launches with a recap of the summer hiatus, including college drop-off, happy revelations about our parents, and basking in a wonderful, dumb impulse.
Currently reading
Magda is in the middle of Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe by Steven Strogatz. It's fantastic, and it's making her want to go back and learn calculus.
When Doug saw Zadie Smith speak last night, he was reminded that her brilliant White Teeth came out in 2000—or half her life ago! She says she wrote The Fraud in part to mirror the massive fraudulence of modern culture, and she admitted that the book is so full of frauds that it’s hard to tell which one the title refers to.
Currently watching
Three years ago, Doug was excited to learn that Bill Lawrence was adapting Carl Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey into a miniseries. And despite some stilted and over-quippy dialogue, the series has delivered by dramatizing a Hiaasen yarn in the only real format that can give justice to all the colorful characters and interwoven plotlines.
Magda and Mike started Columbo—yes, Columbo!—with the first episode (1971), directed by Steven Spielberg! They loved the first two episodes, but after that the quality started to wane. The episode in which the orchestra conductor kills his lover with a blow to the back of the head and then tries to make that look like suicide was a little excessive. Magda's still up for it, but eight episodes might be enough for Mike.
Currently cooking
Magda has been going all in on making tteokbokki (spicy Korean rice cakes) at home. It can be a trick to find the frozen ones (locally, she has found them at Well Come Asian Market in Natick, MA), but once you have those it's actually very easy to make and soooo satisfying.
Doug can’t believe he’s gotten this far in the “currently cooking” saga without mentioning a recipe from Nigella Lawson. Maybe that’s because the only other member of the household who can smell this amazing olive and anchovy pasta sauce is the cat, who is BONKERS for it.
Thanks for reading, and his butt is fully recovered, thank you.
Magda and Doug