Bodyfat, a bit of memory

Some 40 years ago, when I graduated from High School, I weighed less than 120 pounds. In the decades since then, I have grown up to as much as 160 pounds on a small boned body towering perhaps 5 ‘ 6”. I now float around 155 pounds. But that’s still a 25 pound increase. And it most certainly isn’t muscle that has grown!

I, as have many others, attempted over the years (and now decades) to slow or even stop this ‘creep.’ I may even have learned a few things that approximate reality. I don’t guarantee that what I say here is reality, just that it approaches reality -- a distinctly different thing.

So, let’s just begin.

First, let me consider what life consisted of back in the day -- keeping in mind that everything from the past is either recovered archival information (Journals, photos and the like -- the detritus of life) or remembered -- and just how trustworthy do we really consider our memories?

But I digress….

I ate what mother put in front of me. Breakfast consisted of hot or cold cereal with a good dollop of whole milk or perhaps a couple of eggs with toast and a bit of butter. Lunch remains a bit vague in memory., most likely soup and sandwich with a soda and perhaps a cookie. Supper always had meat, usually beef, potatoes and some vegetable of color (usually cooked to utter limpness). We also had some sweet dessert to top the meal, ice cream, pie, or perhaps simply a bit of jello (sugared processed animal hooves).

Snacks were limited, a cookie after school and maybe a middle of the evening bit of the old some thing.

So I consumed a steady diet of high fat, moderate to high calorie food.

Given this diet how did I manage to stay skinny?

*****

I have come to believe that weight control consists of several factors. Part of this matrix is what I eat compared to how I exercise. Another element seems to cluster around BMR -- Basal Metabolism Rate.

The ideas behind BMR suggests that since muscle burns energy faster than fat, I am probably better with a lot of muscle and only a little fat (well, duh!). In fact, it appears that thin, muscular people (= high muscle to fat ratio) can eat more than people with more body fat (with a lower muscle to fat ratio), even when they are the same weight. This disturbing fact suggests that it’s possible to be a fat skinny person! It also means that eating less only helps a little for a person who is already overweight. Ugh.

*****

Sherman, set the Way Back machine to Huntington High School, c. 1965.

*****

I loathed gym class. And the ultimate awful gym activity consisted of running back and forth on that shiny wooden floor in that large smelly room with abysmal acoustics while one person managed to run while bouncing a round ball. Occasionally this runner-bouncer would stop, twist from side to side and then hurl the ball at some other unfortunate young man running up and down this wooden courted area.

Once some person threw the ball at me. Surely, this had happened before, but I cannot remember ever catching it and when, this time, I did catch it, I had no idea what to do with it.

What I did do was instantly stop running and freeze. I had learned (through osmosis, I’m certain, since no one had ever bothered to instruct me) that among the strange and arcane rules for this activity was one that demanded the possessor of the ball not move unless bouncing the ball, lest he occasion a violation given the odd name of double dribbling. And since I had no idea how to walk while bouncing the ball (much less run) I preferred the safe course of doing nothing.

So I stood holding the ball and looking, I suspect, much the way a ‘possum looks in the headlights of an oncoming car and feeling about the same…. I vaguely heard voices calling to shoot the ball, but having no gun or other projectile weapon at hand, I merely threw the ball to the nearest person, who turned out a member of the opposing team….

No one ever deliberately threw the ball at me again -- to my utter and lasting relief.

But I digress….

I discovered that, in it’s glorious and profound wisdom, the PTB (the Powers That Be) had decided that a student who participated in an organized school sporting activity would NOT have to take a gym class.

One of the only pleasures I ever had in Gym class consisted of running around the gym or even around the block, probably because the enormous agony of such activity exhausted even my athletic betters (everybody), thus reducing the energy they had to harass persons of less than athletic demeanor (me, among others -- you know who you are!). And so I began to associate running with pleasure (or at least the absence of pain, which, sayeth Epicurus, is pretty much the same thing)….

…. And so the next autumn I attempted to join the Cross Country team. But, alas, running requires endurance and training, of which I had little. And so I found myself unceremoniously tossed from the team (oh, and also I lacked the winner’s spirit, which I seem never to have found, but that’s another story).

In this regard, I was lucky, because one of my friends (how did we become friends? I have no memory….), Mickey Thabit -- 2^nd generation Lebanese-American from Kafar and genuine good guy -- being equipped by nature for speed and agility rather than slogging endurance, also found himself off the team.

We now had the choice to either go back to gym class (!) or find a way to run through the fall and winter in preparation for the spring track season.

With this in mind we visited Coach McCoy -- Raymond McCoy, may he ever be blessed! -- who simply said OK when we asked permission to leave school an hour early, walk over to the school used by disabled kids (and which in the not too distant past had served as the -- segregated -- school for children of color) and then run for an hour or so.

How gloriously insane was it that Coach McCoy trusted two 17 year olds to do what they said they would do? Hah. Thank you! Thank you!

Well, it never even occurred to me not to go running every day. And so, every day, we walked the half mile or so to the school, changed into our running gear and ran. First, we ran around the building and that pretty much wore me out. Mickey, being a truly nice guy, was willing those first few days -- OK, those first few weeks -- to trudge along at my sluggard’s pace while I acted as a drag to his progress.

But by the time the weather had become cold enough to necessitate sweat pants and shirts, we found ourselves able to run-jog over to Ritter Park. I won’t go into how the park has changed over the decades, but suffice that the place had then an open primitive opulence about it.

Then sometime before Christmas break the PTB finally noticed that 2 boys left the campus every day an hour before classes ended and that no one seemed to know where they went nor why.

The Assistant Principal called me in for a chat.

“You leave the building at 2:30 every day?”

“Yes.” Imagine me stuttering this out. The AP terrified me!

“And what do you do?”

“Oh, we run.”

“You run?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. And did anyone give you permission to do this?”

“Oh, sure. Coach…” And about this time I had one of my wonderful blank spaces, where I cannot remember someone’s name.

“…. Ah…. Coach…. The track coach…. He said we could. And…”

“Do you mean Coach McCoy or….”

“Yea, Coach McCoy. He….”

And that was that. Somewhere in the labyrinth of the high school, they must have found Coach McCoy and he, sainted man, must have green lighted us, although, as I suggested, I have no idea why.

By winter, when we would sometimes wrap a towel around our necks to keep the icy draft out of our sweat shirts, Mickey and I would run all over the place and on occasion run the incline up from Ritter Park along twisty 8^th Street Hill Road (I don’t have a map right now, so I may have misnamed this) where the rich folk (and Mickey, whose family had money, but you’d never know it…) lived. We would scramble up hill sides in the rain and later, in the sleet and snow, we looped around back roads with abrupt dead ends where we would turn around amid trash and the random condom or two.

Finally, spring arrived and I had never been in finer physical condition. My body fat must have been below 10% and I weighed under 120 -- not that I ever weighed myself.

Only I did not realize then the extent of my social needs.

Running in theory is an individual sport. However, I had never actually just ran as an individual. I really enjoyed the talk and camaraderie of the trail. Once track season began, Mickey transformed back into a hurtler of some ability (he managed to earn a ‘letter’ for his running talents) while I found myself relegated to running around the track pretty much by myself. As a distance runner I should have fitted in with the other guys who ran a mile or more, but they had all arrived from the autumn Cross Country team from which I had been tossed. So I just ran around and around pretty much all by myself, although I would sometimes start with (or, to be more accurate, beside) the others. And then watch as they looped around the track at blistering speeds. I had terrific endurance, but not much in the way of speed.

I still enjoyed my running, but I missed the chit-chat. So sometimes as the days grew hot I would wander over to where the hurtlers and pole vaulters lurked. But after a while Coach McCoy would himself just wander over to tell me to run a few more miles before we quit for the day.

It never occurred to me that he had a plan for me. A decade or so later, my brain finally caught up. I realized that he knew that with only a year of base fitness building (the best runners had been at this since Junior High!) I needed a lot more time to ‘toughen’ up into a decent runner. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand. Coach McCoy pretty much spelled it out for me, but I didn’t get it. Well you tried, Coach, you tried. Thanks for the effort. I haven’t forgotten you tried….

I had two moments which were glorious. Two times when I achieved beyond what I imagined I might do, but those stories must wait.

There’s a point of this story. Even with no athletic ability I managed to develop a skinny, yet low fat and thus ‘muscular’ body. My muscle to fat ratio must have been ridiculous -- more or less the same as a world class body builder (only stuck onto a 115 pound body!).

So I ate a typical early ‘60s diet, but matched this with a lean body with a high muscle to fat ratio… and stayed skinny.

*****

Time passes…..

*****

Interim (as time continues to pass): I just looked over the Huntington HS 1965 yearbook and I note two things of no particular importance.

First, the picture of the coach for the Track Team which we see beside the bio of Coach McCoy is a picture of Coach Miller, the football coach. The only pic of Coach McCoy is one where he is seen beside a young man practicing his sprint starts -- and that picture fails even to mention Coach McCoy by name. It’s been 44 years since then… and this is the first time I ever noticed this error. My apologies to Coach McCoy for my extended state of obliviousness!

Second, there is no evidence in the yearbook that I ever had anything to do with the Track team. I never received a ‘letter,’ so I’m not in the group picture and…. Oh wait. In the back there is a listing of all our names and beneath a list of whatever honors and/ or activities we took part in and there I find the magic word: ‘track’ -- ah, sweet, my tale is vindicated!

*****

The clock back ticks into the 21^st century and I now weigh around 155. I’m not obviously obese, but I’m certainly visibly plump!

What has happened?

Irrelevant. Something happened, but it’s not important what.

And do I care though that this ‘something’ has happened? And if I do care what am I going to do about it?

I care because I don’t feel as good at 155 as I did at 135 or even 145. There appears to be a weight -- or actually most likely a muscle to fat balance point -- at which I (and probably you, but that’s not up to me!) feel best. And 155 just ain’t it.

Back up a few years to when my friend Noreen needed to gain a bit of weight (yea, I know, but you have to meet her to understand….). She began to write down everything she ate. She kept this up for a few months and I, for some silly reason, decided to ‘support’ her efforts by doing the same thing. Not to gain weight, but to (hopefully) loose weight.

I lost about 10 pounds. And, really, all I did was eat with more awareness. Of course, at the time I actually counted the calories and found myself consuming about 1800 calories a day, while Noreen managed around 3600 per day. She gained a bit, I lost a bit. The universe remained in balance….

She still eats about 2 breakfasts, a good lunch, an afternoon piece of chocolate (‘just 1 small piece, a tinsy, tiny piece.’ he said, suddenly channeling Monty Python), a hearty supper and fruit or juice in the evening (and just manages to maintain her weight…. Go figure.).

I, on the other hand…. Well, I didn't keep the weight off -- let it go, let it go….

So now I’ve begun writing down everything I eat. Calories? I have no idea.

But since I started doing this again, I have managed to completely avoid sugar ‘stuff’ -- no candy, no ice cream, no sugar in the occasional cup of (decaf) coffee -- although I do add a bit (just a tiny bit!) of honey (which I’m told we metabolize in a different way than sugar). Of course, some days, I do still have a glass of (red) wine....

So here’s the real deal: I’m trying to become aware of what I eat...

… And increase my exercise. I’ve done Tai Chi since 1983 (studying with Lau Mok for about 16 years) -- but not every day…. I walk and, now that I’m back living in a village with real sidewalks (finally!) I can do this every day -- but I don’t…. I ride my bicycle -- but not everyday….

Well, you get the drift. I get exercise, but not enough. But perhaps there is a way to do this and make it fun.

Martha King, nee Wild (Susan Wild’s cousin and a graduate of HHS 1966) has a project to ‘walk around the world’ -- she’s about 3500 miles into this -- which, as she reports, puts her “somewhere in the Atlantic now”.

Now Martha WK reports that her goal is 25,000 miles which indicates she is walking the equator (and thus not cheating). Now by my trusty calculator I concluded she’s walked an average of 1.47929 miles every day for the past 2367 days -- and at that average it will take her…, let me get the calculator…. OK, 14,533 days before she completes the trip. And that’s just a bit under 40 years…. But the nifty thing is that even if she sprints the last 10,000 miles or so and finishes in, say, 35 years, she still has the North to South Pole jaunt to enjoy.

Now, I don’t know if Martha does this, but one could put a big world map on the wall and pick a start point on the map -- I find that Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is on the Equator, so that might be a good start. Then every week or so a person could mark how far they had traveled on the map.

Just get a good map that will not fall apart over the next 30 or 40 years that it may take to walk all around.

*****

So, perhaps the key is just to eat well, but not too much; avoid the sugars; walk a lot (by which I mean: walk, bike, swim, do Tai Chi or whatever); and keep smiling….

*****

Hmm…. Does this mean Epicurus had it right all along?

My Uncle Bill Webb

Why am I not surprised that I cannot precisely nail down when my Uncle Bill was born or died?

I have tentatively decided it must be from 19 April 1914 to 1 July 1985 (Dear cousins: Please correct me if I am wrong….). That would have made him 71 when he died, which should be about right and 26 when WW2 swept the world.

And it would make him about 3 years younger than Bea, our aunt who became his wife.

Bea, according to my perhaps not so accurate notes, was born on 26 February 1911 and died 14 October 2005 at the age of 94; outliving Bill by 20 years.

The ladies of the family are a long lived bunch -- accidents and strange seizure related ailments notwithstanding. That my Uncle Earl lived only into his 80s seems most likely the result of a decade of strain coping with the aftermath of his wife Margaret’s stroke.

But I was speaking of Uncle Bill. Image a man of medium height, well rounded and sliding toward baldness. He always seemed old to me (consider that I was a baby when we first met and from that perspective everybody looks old), but oddly enough I can’t quite remember him seeming at any time older. In my memory, he seems to have frozen in time, old perhaps, but never actually aging.

Bill had a few eccentricities that made him ‘interesting.’

He was really loud. And by that I mean, LOUD!

He was pretty deaf -- which I suppose relates to being loud….

He had really strange feet.

And, he never gave much thought for politics. And that was REALLY strange in the 60s and 70s (I mean, there was Nixon, Viet Nam, guys with long hair, Nixon, Mrs. E. Wyatt Payne, and… hmm, did I mention Nixon?).

But he did do some really nifty things.

He was the first person I know to fish for squirrels.

Yea, I know…. But it’s still true.

He would sit in the apartment where he and Bea lived (this was after they had lost their house and before they managed to regroup and move to their little cottage in Chesapeake, just across the Ohio River from Huntington). And, seated in more or less comfort (a foot often elevated), he would tie a bit of bread or perhaps a peanut onto the string of his fishing rod.

He began by casting out the open window -- the one facing the big tree just outside -- and slowly lure a squirrel toward the window. It took a while, but he eventually managed to get the critters close enough to begin the next part -- where the magic began.

By the time he had finished, he could open the window and hand feed the squirrels from a bowl of critter food (which looked a lot like people food) he kept near the window.

I once saw a squirrel tap on the window for a snack….

Anyway, did I say he was really LOUD? But for some reason neither the squirrels nor our Aunt Bea seemed to mind.

And he liked to be warm. Really warm. Some might even call the temperatures he enjoyed, hot.

But then he did spent a couple of years basking in the sun and surf of the Solomon Islands back in the ‘40s.

Of course, during the 1940s the Solomon Islands were the site of some of the nastiest, most bloody, most awful fighting during WW2. And Uncle Bill took part in a good bit of it. More than he would have liked. Sun and surf indeed!

He never talked much about it. At least not to me…. Of course, I was not only just a kid, but a bit of a jerky kid who knew it all -- or thought I did… but, wait, this isn’t supposed to be about me.

Bill served in the island hopping campaigns of WW2. During that time, he spend days, perhaps weeks, without dry feet. And wet feet and fungus go hand in hand.

And then there were all those unpleasant people spending a good deal of time trying to kill him! And all those gun shots going on around him all the time.

So he ended up deaf (and LOUD) and had ‘funny’ feet most of his life. The Veteran’s Administration doctors did what they could, but they really had nothing that got rid of the fungus (or managed to regrow blown out ears). At least not for most of Bill’s life. He did seem to have a bit of relief during his last decade, so perhaps science finally caught up with his needs.

And then there’s that political thing….

This was a guy who didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics. Well, OK, maybe he did, but I never noticed. I don’t even know if or how he voted….

…. Hmm, I’m having a problem forming my thoughts here. I know what I want to get across, but I’m struggling to come to grips with how to present it…. You see, Bill supported his country. He came from that generation when a fellow just went off to fight when they told him he was needed. It wasn’t something that fellows like Bill thought much about.

Reminds me of my friend Jim Buckley (... Hey, Buck). Different generation, same set of feelings.

Now back in the day, this being the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, most folks had strong feelings about the romp going on in Viet Nam. Nobody liked it, but some folks thought it important to just go and do as the country -- as the politicos -- said. Others didn’t exactly think that was such a good thing. I fell into the latter category.

Now back then I was in college and full of myself. I had friends who understood the world pretty much as I did, but the rest of the world of Huntington didn’t exactly agree. And so, with a belly full of 3.2 beer or perhaps a bit of bootleg whisky, hippy baiting became not just entertainment but a way of defining how much one loved his country…. Evening and weekend recreation for the good ole boys! One of their more interesting variants was to lean out the car window, wave a large knife toward a guy with long hair and shout, with more or less clarity, “Get a haircut, hippy, or I’ll cut it for ya.”

Happened to me at least twice. And each time I gave the proper response, “Thanks, I’m just on my way to the barber,” followed by a wave of the hand and a cheery smile.

Sheer cowardice, of course.

But, then, would you really want to get in a street shouting match with a drunk waving a (large) knife at you from a car window?

But anyway, my Uncle Bill….

I didn’t visit Bill and Bea much. I mean he was LOUD…. And then there was that strange thing with his feet…. And Bea’s elbow…. I’ll get to the elbow later (maybe…).

I sure did have a bunch of reasons.

Oh, and he kept the place too hot.

And since he’s that LOUD, he must be dumb. Aren’t loud people always dumb?

Lots of reasons….

Now, of course… I’d give a good bit to sit and have a nice talk with Bill, he’d only be in his mid 90s, if he were still here….

First, I’d ask him about the squirrels.

And then, I’d ask if he’d let me listen to a few of those old 78s he and Bea collected. I heard a few, but not enough. Not enough….

And I’d surely not refuse a slice of Bea’s pie -- she made damn fine pie.

And eventually I’d get around to asking just why he never got onto me about my hair or the business about Viet Nam.

But maybe I understand now, a little bit at least,

Maybe he just thought it didn’t matter that much.

You see, he saw friends die in WW2 and maybe it was just enough to be alive (deaf and LOUD and foot fungus and all…) and to have a few friends and,,,,

Here it gets difficult since I know nothing about this…. Sorry.

But maybe it’s just that people like my Uncle Bill just understand things too well -- at that level I’d like to be able to get to someday -- to let themselves be too critical of someone else.

Hell, I don’t know.

Maybe he just liked me…

My Quest for a Great Rosin

Rosin is essential for playing the fiddle. A good rosin allows the bow’s horse hair to grip the strings as it passes over them. Without rosin no sound emerges. Or, if it does, it comes out in bleeps and squawks. Not a pretty sound.

Virtually any rosin can give your bow enough grip to play. And, in fact, many advanced players regard rosin with indifference. My first teacher actually said, “Oh, any rosin will do. They’re all the same.”

Nope.

A wide variety of rosins exist and the different properties of each do make a difference.

As I write this, I have around me 5 different rosins and if I took the time I probably could find a couple more stuck in a corner somewhere. None of these 5 are bad. Each does what it must do. But some do it better than others. Some make my sound better -- to my ear at least. 

And this last point is important. Sound quality has both an absolute and a relative aspect. 

One either hits the note or not. Most would consider that an absolute. But the violin, without frets, will make a note that is more or less at pitch. And here the relative aspects emerge. 

As our ears ‘bloom’ -- become more sensitive to sound -- what is considered OK changes. If a beginner hits a B, she should be content. Yes, it may be a bit flat, but no matter. A few months later, the student plays the same piece, hits the note in the same ‘old’ way and feels a kind of aesthetic discomfort that the note is wrong. And makes the needed adjustment.

This is normal. Hopefully, our student had a good teacher -- one who doesn’t go all medieval when the first note is badly played. Ain’t no good demanding perfection prematurely. It just won’t work.

But, anyway, back to rosin.

My first rosin was the no-name brand that came with my first instrument. It worked. I made a sound. Groovy.

But after a while I began to suspect I could do better and tried another brand. Something from my neighborhood music store -- you know, the one in the Mall that has a 1000 guitars, 50 electronic pianos and a stack of band instruments and, oh yea, those 3 violins over there in the corner.

I noticed that this new rosin played a bit different than the other rosin. 

So, I began to find out all I could about rosin. 

-- don’t ask! Too much information (TMI!).

Next, I tried Super Sensitive Clarity -- not quite an impulse buy -- because it was a “Hypoallergenic Rosin” -- says so right on the container. The block seemed hard and didn’t really  go onto the bow easily. I used a knife to scar the surface of the rosin block -- a clear translucent surface with a look quite different from other rosins. That seemed to help. But the result never sounded right to my ear. It worked. But…. 

About this time the internet was abuzz with positive reactions to Tartini Rosin. I ordered this from my nice internet suppliers and in a few days the friendly folks from UPS dropped it at my door. 

Now THIS is what rosin is all about! It went smoothly onto the bow creating a wonderfully resonant surface. I could notice the difference! I used my block Tartini ‘Silkier’ for about a year. 

Then one day I dropped it.

Did I mention that rosin tends to fragility?

Well, it does.

It didn’t shatter exactly, but it did break into several pieces and separate from it’s attachment to it’s container. 

It still worked like a dream, but now I had a bit of a clunky time getting it onto the bow. 

Also, about this time, I decided (again) to experiment with different strings. In a moment of questionable sanity, I put a set of gut strings onto my fiddle. And learned what a real violin sounds like. I also learned how often I had to retune (every few minutes). And, frankly, that’s not what I like to do during practice time.

But, since a set of gut strings is expensive, I wasn’t about to pitch them, so I bought new rosin…. 

And yes I know that makes no sense, but the brain on music has strange notions sometimes!

I tried Pirastro Eudoxa Rosin.

Good stuff. Pirastro makes strings -- they make some pretty good strings. They also promote the idea that different strings call for different rosin. I have come to believe they just may be correct in this. And, for the gut strings, at least, the Pirastro was as good as the (now clunky container-ed) Tartini.

But, since spending most of my life tuning my strings up (or down, depending on the direction of the temperature and humidity change) was NOT part of my long range plan, after a few months I said farewell to gut and tried to find something as pleasant to hear and play as gut, but without the need for constant retuning.

Now my instrument is an old German -- well over 100 years (perhaps a lot more) and, along with many old Germans (instruments, at least) it has a warm dark sound. The idea of the steel strings -- without a core of either plastic, gut or other material that might change with temperature and humidity -- seemed worth a try.

I tried a set of chroma-steel strings from Jargar. These definitely tend to a bright sound which helps balance the inherent dark sound of my Tedesco. And they are rock solid stable! Sometimes I tweak the tuning just because I think I ought, even when they are pretty much in tune.

And, anyway, the Jargars come from Denmark and have a nice exotic ring to the name.

Only now I realized -- again -- that I wasn’t quite pleased with my rosin. But, since I already had so many barely used blocks of rosin, it seemed a really bad idea to buy still another. And I did still like the Tartini, despite the challenge of finding a convenient chunk at any one time. 

I checked the internet, hoping that rumors that the Tartini had been discontinued were false.

The rumors were true. The fellow who had developed the original Tartini formula (with a wonderful story of finding a tiny 400 or 500 sliver of exotic rosin in a case stuck centuries in an attic); that fellow had now developed a whole line of rosins under his own name. But reviews were mixed and the price had become exorbitant. $25 for a small bit of rosin! Nope. I’ll struggle along with what I have, thank you.

Then I noticed that another player whom I really respect used W. E. Hill rosin. Noticeable as a slab of black colored rosin with deep grooves from years of rubbing. When W. E. Hill says dark rosin, they mean it. I picked up a block and resisted the temptation to take a bite to see if it tasted as much like licorice as it looked.

This stuff works with my strings on at least two of my bows. I’ve had it long enough to believe I will stay with it for a while. 

But if I could just find something that plays as well as the Hill dark, but lasts even longer without needing to be replenished….

Fibonacci's sequence

I find a pleasure in certain numbers and number patterns. For example, I like to think certain stores gained their name because 7 and 11 are prime numbers, although I’ve been told the name has to do with the hours these stores were originally scheduled to be opened.

Whatever. Reality is overrated.

And, while I find prime numbers interesting as singularities and the ratio pi a curiosity with it’s odd tendency to somehow not repeat itself, I really like the Fibonacci sequence.

First, consider the word Fibonacci. Nice. Rounded. Fills your mouth with just the right amount of foreignness. Of course, it’s the guy’s name. Mr. Fibonacci. Interesting fellow, but not my concern just now.

Nope, it’s the numbers themselves: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... continuing, I suppose, to infinity. I can’t help thinking there’s a mystery in this sequence. First, it delineates the spiral forms of nature. Think sea shell…. Or spiral nebula, if that works for you. That’s a pretty nifty thing.

But for me the real mystery is the sequence itself, or more properly, the first two numbers of the sequence, the zero and the one. You see, the rule for creating the Fibonacci sequence goes like this: you take the first two numbers, add them together and you get the third number -- which explains why the third number is 1. After all, 0 + 1 = 1…. And then you continue to take the last two numbers and add them together to get a next number in an ever expanding arc.

Fair enough…. But from where do the first two numbers come?

The zero and the one -- nothing/ nada and something -- In order for this process to begin you can’t have just the one thing, you have to have the ‘nothing.’ Both something and nothing have to exist at the same time. Except, of course, ‘nothing’ doesn’t exist -- it’s, well, nothing….

Now, OK, I know that we just have to set up a mathematical rule that you have a zero and a one and there ya go…. But, imagine you’re back at the beginning of everything; time, matter, whatever -- everything. Well, no, not at the beginning of everything, but just before the beginning of everything. Not a micro second before, since no time exists, but just before. There’s nothing/ nada… and then, poof, there’s a something. And since there’s a something, well, there’s no longer any ‘nothing.’

My point here is that you can't really have something and nothing at the same time.

But in the Fibonacci sequence, that’s exactly what you have to have in order for the thing to work -- or at least for the whole thing to begin. And I suppose if something never begins it doesn’t exist…. But of course it does exist.

Now what a pleasant paradox that is. Makes my brain itch. In a good way, I mean….

Now, I’ll confess that I don’t think mathematicians have a problem with this. As I said earlier, they postulate a zero and a one and Bob’s your uncle.

But still….

Considering Maccha Green Tea

Ah, yes, the elixir!

... first an interesting website for anyone interested...

www.maiko.ne.jp/english

... with a great cartoon visit to a Japanese Tea House. Only a Japanese tea site could be this much fun! I learned more about green tea than I ever imagined might exist!

And I decided what I've been looking for all along is Maccha (or Matcha, as I occasionally spell it). Maccha tea is powdered tea and is the traditional tea used in a tea ceremony. 

I had always considered this to be way beyond anything I might ever want to concern myself, but it turns out that the process isn't all that difficult. 

A nice bowl, a scoop of the proper powdered elixir, a drop of cold water (to smooth out the powder), perhaps 100 ml of hot (not boiling, thank you) water and perhaps 30 seconds of brisk whisking with a, well, a whisk....

And then you drink.

Ah, yes. Life is good.