Let’s start with the word. It comes from French for “arm protector,” referring to military uniforms that morphed into breast plates. Hence the mighty brassiere that I remember from my childhood: steely, pointy, sometimes lengthy undergarments which extended into a girdle, stuffing everything in and keeping it rigid.
As an aside, the current French term [...]
Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category
*This Is About Bras
Posted in My Life, Politics & Economy, tagged the origin of bras on November 3, 2009 | 10 Comments »
*Today: Go Forth
Posted in My Life, Spirituality, tagged Halloween and healing, Lech Lecha on October 31, 2009 | 10 Comments »
For most people in our culture October 31 is a day of fun, a day to mock traditional icons of evil, spurn death, costume oneself in an alternative identity. It is a day of acquiring masses of goodies, which is more than gold to children.
For some people, this is a day of fear. There are [...]
* Piggie Update and Books
Posted in Literature, My Life, tagged Books, h1n1 on October 30, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Children are doing well, bouncing off the walls because they feel healthy and have to stay home today. We’ll be having a couple more of same. We played 2 games of Clue, whereupon I bailed due to the extreme giddiness of said children and the poking of my bottom with a pen every time I [...]
*Pig Has Landed
Posted in My Life, tagged h1n1 on October 28, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Yup. Yesterday after school, both my daughters came down with a high fever and cough. One of them headachey, the other with sore leg muscles. Sore tummy. Fatigued. Today we took them to the pediatrician. She confirmed what I suspected. Though she can’t say 100% sure (because in our fair province only hospitals are allowed [...]
*Reunion
Posted in Adoption, My Life, Spirituality, tagged adoption reunion on October 27, 2009 | 10 Comments »
This weekend we had a reunion. It was the best kind, where nobody was showing off, and nobody dreaded being seen as a loser, the very thought of such a thing, in the context, being preposterous. It was the kind of reunion that makes people wish they saw each other more often, and regret having [...]
*Blog Action Day: Bikes and Feet
Posted in My Life, tagged bicycles, blog action day, Climate change on October 15, 2009 | 14 Comments »
The theme of this year’s Blog Action Day is climate change. There are many science bloggers who have a lot to say about this a lot more knowledgeably than I can. But my post today isn’t here to warn, admonish, or predict.
I want to talk about bikes and the joy of them. My first [...]
*Standing on the Roof
Posted in My Life, tagged fall views on October 9, 2009 | 11 Comments »
We took the air conditioner out of the bedroom window on Wednesday. The window now offers a good sized view, just over four feet by four feet, or 1 3/4 sq metres facing east. The window slides sideways, which is a pain for the a/c but lovely for a breeze, and I climbed [...]
*Positive Psychology
Posted in My Life, Nature & Science, Spirituality, tagged happiness, peace, positive psychology on October 8, 2009 | 11 Comments »
About ten years old, positive psychology studies how individuals and communities can thrive. A reaction against psychology as the study of mental illness, it aims to redress the imbalance in understanding human nature and what makes us happy and healthy and peaceful individually and socially.
This reminds me of a book I read years ago: The [...]
*Nature and Nurture
Posted in My Life, Nature & Science, tagged effect of nature, house plants on October 1, 2009 | 4 Comments »
A new study, due to be published today, shows that people who have even the most cursory contact with nature, show greater compassion, caring and generosity.
In one type of experiment, the participants viewed either buildings, roads, city or deserts, lakes and other natural landscapes on a computer screen. The views were chosen to have similar [...]
*Shoes and Women
Posted in My Life, tagged women's shoes on September 30, 2009 | 10 Comments »
There are women who adore shoes, high heeled pumps, dazzling fabric, toes peeking out, polished, showing what I hear is called cleavage.
I have never had cleavage in my toes or further north either, not because I don’t have enough, there is a size C upstairs, but, rather like the brain that accompanies them, they have [...]
*Forgiveness
Posted in My Life, Spirituality, tagged forgiveness, Yom Kippur on September 28, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holy days. It is the day of atonement, at one-ment, the day that exists to clear the slate between human beings and God. It’s a day for soul searching. And then you get to start fresh.
In preparation, you have to do your own work to clear the [...]
*Vinyl Cafe
Posted in Literature, My Life, tagged Stuart McLean, Vinyl Cafe on September 15, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Most of my spare time is spent with my kids and so some things I used to do have gone by the wayside for a long time. While sick and in the stage of having no energy for anything, just well enough to be bored, I had time if nothing else. The kids were out [...]
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