Friday Flames: Strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage

We are held captive by the tales told by an idiot. And other news about Jaws, breath, space, regret, Tetris, schawarma, and leg cramps..

This Friday, we’re preparing for the soggy Heat Dome that will fry us pretty hard over the next few days. Magda is feeling shortchanged, thinking she could flee the muggy New England summer that has followed her to Detroit. At least she is farther from the Cape Cod beaches, where experts urge swimmers to be “shark smart.” Is that another thing we have to know about now? On top of all the rest of this stuff, we’re supposed to be connoisseurs of seal entrails, too?

The extent of our shark smartness is 1) avoid sharks. End of list. If someone says, “Hey, there’s a shark,” we go the movies. And! A quick shout-out to the first shark movie / summer tentpole / establisher of classic panic-inducing music that was Jaws, which came out 50 years ago today! Remember when you saw it and thought, “How could the mayor be that big of a horse’s ass?” Ah, to be young and dumb in the 70s again.

Now that jackasses have overrun the executive branch, processing news relies heavily on distinguishing the dumb stuff from the scary stuff. New mega-maga-flagpoles? Paving the Rose Garden? Dumb. (Also tragic and potentially dangerous.)

Dude proposes to his A.I. chatbot and can’t say he’d break it off if his real-life, in-the-flesh partner and mother of his child asked him to? Scary-ish. But also a bit comforting to see these emotional eccentrics selected out of the dating pool.

Meticulously planned political murders, followed by untrammeled lies and hypocrisy among GOP thugheads who love the J6 pardons? Scary as fuck.

Then there’s the infuriating and depressing Supreme Court decision that allows states to make healthcare decisions for children and limits the parents’ influence on their kids’ physical and mental health. No wonder the U.S. birth rate is plummeting; why would anyone have a child in a country whose highest court thinks the state’s ignorance holds more value than a parent’s compassion?

The best way we’ve found to offset fretting on the federal front is to work as tangibly as possible at home. So Mike attended the “No Kings but Yaaas Queen!” parade with a sign that got him interviewed by the Boston Globe:

And Doug spent the last Father’s Day of his 50s 1) biking 43 miles to help raise some seed money, and 2) lying mostly still after that. The money will help open an Ann Arbor chapter of Cycling Without Age, a worldwide movement that helps people with limited mobility get back on their bicycles:

bicyclealliance

A post shared by @bicyclealliance

You know that expression, “a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”? This is kind of like that, except he’s an old man planting seats he might ultimately sit in, possibly in a cozy fleece bag.

And at first glance, the URL looks like “Cycling With Outrage,” which also feels apt.

---

Embers in the News

Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle:

• Are these things on? If you’ve been diagnosed with hearing loss, here’s how to find the best hearing aids and how to use them properly.

• But there was only one Moonwalker Ever wonder how many people are in space right now? Now you know.

• Halitosis is probably relevant Every individual breathing pattern is as unique as a fingerprint and can help interpret brain activity and diagnose diseases.

• Sit and talk and rest a spell We’re always happy to read about groups that meet regularly to reduce the loneliness epidemic.

---

Currently reading

Magda is reading I Regret Almost Everything—restauranteur Keith McNally's memoir of restaurants, relationships, and the aftermath of having a stroke—and is way more entertained than she thought she would be.

Fresh off the re-read of A Confederacy of Dunces, Doug found a copy of Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin’s biography of John Kennedy Toole, which somehow creates more questions than it answers. He’s also finally reading The Sound and the Fury and has put Rowan Oak atop his list of things to see in Oxford, Mississippi.

Currently watching

Doug thinks anyone who panned Mickey 17 was probably too deep into a Parasite hangover. Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi premise is vivid enough for the characters to act plausibly (except for Mark Ruffalo, miscast in an impossible role). Ultimately, wacky premises like this must be supported before superheroes take over everything.

Magda and Mike loved Tetris, the movie about the development and licensing of the game. (It's extremely harrowing!)

Currently cooking

Magda perfected her palak paneer and is moving on to malai kofta, although she's really only into the malai sauce and doesn't care so much about the kofta. Her first attempt was too gritty and was missing something, so if you have a favorite malai sauce recipe, please send it over. (Full disclosure: During this brutally hot week, she'll be eating nothing but salads with ranch dressing.)

Doug is addicted to shawarma bowls. He makes them in massive amounts and nibbles at them all week, and they somehow get better with extra time to intermingle in the fridge. This will also be a heat dome staple while uses is oven only for storage.

Thanks for reading, and may all our kids’ partners be human.

Magda and Doug