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Lessons from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

1) Don’t give up. A Ford Anglia can fly up to your window at any time. Or you can pretend a Ford Anglia has flown up to your window. In fact, you don’t even need the Ford Anglia. First floor window? If you are in good shape, try carefully exiting through a window today instead of the door.

(Or decide to be sensible and save the window entrances and exits for heroic firefighters. This blog is about resting, after all, not falling out of windows. The point here is that we often have more options than we believe.)

2) Your Dobby could arrive at any moment. How do you know he won’t? You have never seen a house elf before? Well, neither had Harry.  Has it been a long, dry spell? Too many muggles and too little butterbeer? Magic may pop up in your bedroom, laundry room, or classroom tomorrow.  Magic has its own timing. Your job is to recognize magic when the sparks start to fly or, trickier yet, when they don’t.

Coaching Tip for Today: Believe in magic and butterbeer. Believe that when the door closes, you can open a window. We mostly end up stuck in ticky-tack boxes because we use heuristics that require door knobs as part of our exit strategy.

When you don’t have a door knob, a clamp will work as well.  Or a window. Or a house elf — with or without a Ford Anglia.

Practical advice: Believe in magic. And while you wait for your Anglia or elf, make yourself a hot chocolate with marshmallows or whipped cream. Sprinkles are optional. I recommend real Hershey’s syrup with milk, but if you like those little Swiss Miss packets, go for it. Do you need to put sprinkles on your shopping list?

Zombie phrase for the day:

I always spill the sprinkles.

Ahhh uhhhuhhh bihhll duhh bihnnnguhhh.

This post title comes courtesy of a young man in a plaid shirt and backwards baseball cap that reads, “Give Life to Your Story.”  Definitely a thinning-hair hat. He’s no gansta. He’s sitting with two girls, possibly past their teen years, but not by much. They are deep in gossip about some poor woman who apparently, in the words of baseball cap guy, is “definitely not over it.”

You hear many stories sitting in Starbucks. Especially when your laptop is sitting in front of you, people seem to assume you must be deaf.  My three pseudo-companions have been hashing over this relationship struggle for nearly half-an-hour.

Baseball-hat guy may be right. If you have to say you are over it, you are definitely not over it. How did you get to the point where you made that declaration, after all? You were ruminating. You were reviewing a sad past.

Watch for these sad past moments today. Just for today, leave them alone. Don’t try to fix or change them. But keep an informal count. How many times did you return to the promotion that should have gone to you? Or any of the many other issues that task us in our daily lives?

Rumination can wreck happiness.

Life Coaching Moment: The past is dead. Evil memories of the past are dead. Bury those sons-of-bitches.  That’s easier said than done, of course, and you don’t want to discard the lessons of the past. But you can disconnect lessons from memories.

Yes, the evils of the past slip off their leashes.  Pat them on the head, then put them outside, out of sight and out of mind. Distract yourself. Go build something. Bake a cake. Start a puzzle. Read a piece of fan fiction. Or just turn on the TV.

I would want my friends in Starbucks to be discussing my first Red Velvet cake, rather than my schmuck of an ex-boyfriend. In fact, I want to be so boring that no one in Starbucks dissects my life ever.

P.S. Did you get out the comfy slippers yesterday? I did. I am wearing them now and my feet are happy.

Zombie Phrase for the Day:

I need a recipe for blood pudding.

Ahhhhh ddeeeedd uh wehhpeepohhr uhhhhd oouhhdig.

 

As we wait for the zombie apocalypse, which has been very slow in coming, we are bombarded with News. Can we make heads or tails of this stuff? Or piñatas?  I liked Putin’s assertion that the alleged Russian hacking was actually U.S. hackers attempting to frame Russia. Who the hell can prove it? Who the hell can refute it? If someone could prove it, would anyone believe them?  Another perfect addition to post-apocalyptic life without zombies.  In the meantime, I am seeking a raison d’etre for this blog. If it’s not zombies, and it’s not politics – I can’t listen to too much more news, guys – then what is it?

Should I become a reluctant, tired, wish-I-could-stay-in-bed-all-day-reading life coach?  I perceive a gap here. We have a fair number of “Rah! Rah! Let’s run another mile!” life coaches. We have many “You can meditate, I promise!” coaches. But where are the, “It’s great to make cups of tea and read paranormal romances all day!” coaches? Of course ????, we should be trying to get our 10,000 steps in while  going back-and-forth to make tea and then traveling back-and-forth to the bathroom, but where are the people to affirm our desire not to necessarily always improve ourselves?

Improvement should be in the eye of the beholder. Improvement should be whatever makes sense for you, whatever puts you more in touch with your essential self. Unless your essential self is a serial killer – in which case I suggest you go look up the running or meditating coaches instead.

Tip for June 7: Find the comfy slippers. Wear them for awhile today. If you have no comfy slippers, declare a Comfy Slipper Emergency! Go out and buy the soft, cushy supplies you need. Take a few moments just to enjoy the feel of your slippers.

Zombie phrase for the day (because we cannot abandon the past and must prepare for the future):

Mr. Rogers was the best.

mihhhderrrahderrr uhhhzzzz uhhhh ehddd.

 

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They come. They go. Sometimes they go very fast and other people go, “What the hell?” Our resilience is being tested by current events.

Say to yourself, “Well, at least this is not the zombie apocalypse.”

I find that helps.

One less FBI director? Comey did have a few dubious moments. He may have cost Hillary Clinton the election with his ham-handed handling of the email issue. His firing might as well have been done with a bazooka, but …  They hardly snuck the guy out the backdoor in the middle of the night. In the Blue Room, we are staying tuned for further developments.

We are ignoring contradictory press statements, although we will confess to having watched Kellyanne and Anderson. Did he roll his eyes? Was that sexism? I’d say she did an amazing job of perky under a rather withering stare. If that stare withered upward, well, newsflash: Anderson does not like that girl. She will have to find someone else to take her to the prom.

Now to the news:

Nietzsche and Francisco Franco remain dead.  Nietzsche’s name remains too difficult for the average American to spell. Will we ignore this matter, another name to be lost in the dead letter office? No! Shasta the Invisible Slug and her Adoptive Mother Jocelyn see yet one more opportunity to flood the offices of our representatives in pursuit of a greater social good. Let’s tweet these representatives and their minions in search of new, linguistic clarity.

The time for a phonetic alphabet has come. Freedrick Neechee. It’s that simple.  I say we gather our foremost linguistic experts, or just a gaggle of unemployed former educators with time on their hands, and tackle this urgent issue. We are not without precedents. Think Mao-Tse-tung or Mao Zedong. Think Peking or Beijing. Why not?

My phonetic alphabet plan has to be better than watching the news.

 

 

 

Where are our Martian colonies? Where are the hardy settlers setting up shiny, silver domes and trundling across the sandy, red landscape in their special Marsmobiles? Where are the potatoes, carrots, squashes, turnips, and tomatoes grown in recycled air by brave men and women, a few of whom no doubt will be ready to kill for Whopper® or Dove® bar as the months unfold?

We are easily a quarter-century overdue at planting the flag on Mars.

But events may finally be working in favor of visionaries and would-be space travelers. What has blocked our colonies? A number of factors are in play, of course, but one major roadblock has been the alleged high expenses required to create and maintain those colonies.  The U.S. cannot afford such pricy ventures, we are told.

But that was before the POTUS!! I admit he seems to have bogged down a bit over the Mexican wall, and he has not yet convinced the South Koreans to pay for his missile defense system (or whatever he was talking about) but his concept seems sound. We get other people to  pay for what we want.  Who can disagree with such a convenient solution to economic reality?

I say, make the Koreans pay for the Martian Colonies. Make the Mexicans. And while we are at it, let’s coopt the Chinese, Russians and a few larger economies.  We will need a few big players to make my plan work. These colonies won’t come cheap and we can’t just take floo powder to Diagon Alley to get the supplies we need. (A few readers are suspecting I snorted the floo powder right now ).

But we have a big world filled with economies that are wasting their resources on day-to-day living while our Martian colonies await us. Why should we let trivial concerns such as national sovereignty stop progress? We have the POTUS!

The POTUS is bold. He is not afraid to stand up for his convictions. Frankly, he does not seem to be afraid of anybody. And he has shown he is not afraid to act.

Readers, I suggest we all Tweet the POTUS to get the Martian Colonies project off the ground.

P.S. Please share today’s biographyjar entry with friends, family and other concerned sentient creatures. My dog Ginger fully supports my plan for example, although she remains unwilling to ride a rocket.  We will probably need many thousands of Tweets to get our agenda to the forefront.

Zombie phrase for the day:  It’s a cookbook!

Ihhzzzuhhh ooogghhhhooohhhgg.

How about a border planter box?

In the background, Albert is listening to the news. I’m not sure why he wants to do this, but a small group of well-dressed pundits are debating problems with the border wall. How will we pay for the wall? We are beginning to have doubts about our Mexican benefactors, I fear. We are beginning to realize that fences are damn expensive. Even a white picket fence would pick lots of voters’ pockets. Peter Piper picked a peck of pissed-off Hispanic expatriates…

I say forget the wall. We’ll put in laser beams. We can put Skynet in charge. We’ll build an army of cyborgs to manage the beams and arm them with additional light sabers. Nobody will get through. Nobody will dare challenge our cyberwall.

Everybody will be afraid to get near the United States. Or northern Mexico. Or Arizona.  Or New Mexico. The Texans have cajones and I think they will manage to hold their ground, maybe even finally fly their own flag again. Under my plan we should be able to shift a great deal of the far southern population to the North, while solving the Southern border problem once and for all.

Shall I tweet the POTUS? My plan’s as good as his plan right now. Better, except for the fact that Skynet is a fictional corporation. But as he himself would agree — there’s a lot of fiction floating around out there.

Zombie Phrase for the Day:  Where is the Play-Doh?

Weehhhrrrzzzz uhhh baayyyy-dohhh? (Note that those without lips will not be able to include the “b” sound. )

A sign that this country’s educational system needs some serious work:

The phone menu cannot understand me, so the software passes me to a human at Walgreens. She sounds friendly, if a bit confused.  She does not have an accent. I explain my mission, starting with do we have medications ready to pick up. She is struggling to discover whether or not my husband has prescriptions in the bins. She wants to know his birthdate, then says, no, his address. She decides she needs both. I have no problem with this. I wonder if she is new.

We ended the conversation when she tried to put his name into the computer and asked, “Is that Turner with two Ns?” I told her not to worry, I still had to put in a prescription of my own and I’d call later.

Where do the Ns go? I wonder. Tnurner? Turnner? Turnern?

Was she a pharmacy tech? Is she filling bottles of pills?

I offer this scary thought, for readers who call Walgreens and somehow find themselves in the Twilight Zone.

Zombie phrase for the day: How do I spell my name?

Owwwdddduhhhh ayhhhh beehhhhbuhhh daybbbuhh?

Slow disaster created something fun, linked below.

At this point, being an aging crone, I’ll violate a cardinal precept of fandom and question a choice of favorites:  Why do people always want to make life tough? Are you Sherlock? Find John Watson. Find someone who will appreciate you for you, who will bring you toast and tea.  But this world seems to be full of Sherlocks looking for their Moriarties.

Zombie phrase for the day: I want drama in my relationships.

Ahhhhvvahhhnddd aahhhhbaahh di buyyy aaayduhhhihhh.

Biojar admin: To each their own, I guess. As the years go by, I am becoming a tea and toast girl. But I thought this vid nailed it.

I look out the window at the white, wooden board sitting on the sidewalk outside LePeep Restaurant. In black print, I see specials and blurs that must be prices. I squint. I change angles. I move my multifocal glasses.  I am stopped at a light directly across from that board. Instantly, I realize a large, new problem exists.  I can’t even guess at these prices.

“Albert,” I say, “my glasses have gone bad. I can’t see the prices.”

He laughs.

I point out that glass is considered a liquid due to the fact that its molecules slowly descend over time. Obviously the glass has been running downhill.

Albert appears to doubt my explanation.

Being a rational person, I discount the possibility that LePeep deliberately smeared out all of its prices.

Trouble. I fear I will have to see Dr. Beckerman again. Once glasses have gone bad, only a new pair will fix the problem.

Yrs from the blue room where we see things differently.

I tried to determine where my “waist” might be located this morning.  Ominous sources tell us that we are doomed to suffer an early demise if our waist runs over thirty-six inches. * Alas, one more peril to manage. I decided to do a threat assessment.

But where is my waist?

Some sources put this invisible line at belly-button level, a distorted vesica piscis horizontal to the Earth, bisecting the belly-button. But expert opinion varies! Other sources suggest the true waist to be an arbitrary inch above that belly-button. The functional definition requires a woman to bend sideways. The natural fold-line that results becomes the height of the waist. But I am so pear-shaped. Whether I like them or not, I have big hips and I cannot lie. So that fold comes up near my ribcage. Ummm… that seems a little high. Of course, the fold is lower if I bend toward the other direction.

Since the difference in waist measurement between the belly button and lower fold is about four inches, my choice of waistline matters. I decide to go higher where the measuring tape comes in lower. I am fine and getting better as I head toward my ribs.

But this just reminds me of all the silly numbers out there.  Not to mention how one can squander minutes on the internet trying to nail down questions of alleged “fact.” Forget fake news for a minute. Even real news cannot be trusted, not when educated personal trainers can all start their own websites.

My wisdom for the day: Always go with the number you like best.  I guess we can make this the zombie phrase for the day as well.

Zombie Phrase for the Day:  Ahhhhzzzz guhhhhddd uuuhhmbuhhh oooohhh aygghhh ehdd.

*The number may be different for guys. Men will have to do their own research, although if you actually read this post you may justifiably decide not to bother.