Live in

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

abookandashortlatte1 asks

If you had to choose to live within a novel, which would it be?

Without much ado Harry Potter's Hogwarts! What a place to explore! I'd like to transfigure arrogant Malfoy into a cross-eyed cockroach. *kidding* And when I feel like cutting Snape's class I'll hang out at Hagrid's hut. Then during summers head to The Burrow. As Ron Weasley says, "it's not much, but it's home."

Thursday 13: My favorite places in Harry Potter

1. Hogwarts the moving staircases and all the magic learning!
2. The Burrow 'dilapidated and standing only by magic' ah!... wonderful
3. Hogsmeade Village appeals to the country girl in me
3. Madam Puddifoot's is where we will have high tea
4. Diagon Alley shop til I drop
5. Shell Cottage a newly-weds' home must be sweet and lovely
6. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes I want their anti-acne cream
7. Honeyduke's Sweetshop for my sweet tooth
8. The Leaky Cauldron when one day in Diagon Alley is not enough
9. The Three Broomsticks running a pub and living above it
10. Scrivenshaft's Quill Supplies good old writing paraphernalia
11. Magical Menagerie offers advice on animal care and health
12. Florean Fortescue's choco-raspberry with chopped nuts
13. Flourish & Blotts books of course

Higher heels, shorter strides

"Walking in high heels changes how women walk, puts strains on muscles, and raises risk of injury."

We know, we know, don't we? The bit on discomfort at least. But they are irrisistible wardrobe items. Could that be why we may also be aware but not really taking heed of expert observation that wearing high heels takes a toll on muscles and the pocket book?

According to a scientific study published on Medicinenet, the discomfort of wearing high heels can be explained by the changes in mechanics in the way women walk. They walk with shorter, more forceful strides; more muscles are employed and changes persist even when they wear flats or go barefoot.

Nine women who wear high heels for 40 hours or more per week for two years were compared with ten women who rarely wear heels. This is how the study was conducted:

Women walked at their own pace along a 26-foot, flat walkway while wearing electrodes on their feet and legs to measure muscle activity. The walkway was also equipped with a plate to gauge ground reaction forces, and cameras recorded their gait. Both groups walked down the walkway 10 times in their bare feet. Then the high heel wearers walked it another 10 times in their favorite high heels.

The results showed that the high heel wearers had shorter strides and mostly used their muscles to walk rather than the more efficient combination of muscle and tendon stretching employed by the women who wore flats.

Because their feet were stuck in a flexed, toes-pointed position for so long, the calf muscles of the women who wore high heels had also shortened and were under more strain. For example, the muscle strain rate in high heel wearers was about six times higher than in the other women. 

While I am aware of the toll high heels could take on feet, I did not know there could be changes in the way I walk as well. Aha! a duck and a zombie just came to mind.

Because of my job, wearing high heels is a default. I wish I could sometimes wear flats and jeans like university instructors in the US, but that is not the case in Thailand.

What are your reasons for wearing high heels? What kind of shoes do you wear to social activities? I would love to know.

Justified exposure

May 3-5 came and went. I monitored CJ's convention activities online. From the grandma's daily updates I learned that CJ found a friend and was out playing with that friend while sessions went on. Brilliant. But then I go back to conscious-of-his-issues mode and I reiterate brilliant. He socialized and that's big deal to me. Day 3 was spent celebrating this -

I am happy to see familiar faces: neighbors' and church friends' kids. Some of them are regular guests at CJ's birthday parties for two consecutive years now.

They seem to be sharing a light moment with the audience -




Now I understand why CJ's developmental pediatrician shook her head firmly when I asked, "is it autism, 'Doc?" I braced myself for the worst; and it's one of those rare times when my heart leapt to Cloud Nine for not getting what I expected.

Never mind that I ended up paying for what turned out to be play convention. I just love signs that my money is not wasted on expensive therapy and even more expensive hours at the specialist's office.

River city shopping complex

Quick info

Business hours: 10 AM to 8 PM, Sunday to Saturday
Majority of merchandise:  antiques, (specializing in Thai art and culture)
Feature: monthly auction (every first Saturday) in the 4th floor auditorium

Event going on: Nude & Erotic Painting Exhibition, 23 April - 31 May 2012 @ The Art Zone, 2nd floor

Location: 23 Si Phaya Pier, Soi Trok Rongnamkaeng, Yota Road, Sampantawong
Fastest way to get there: take the Silom Line BTS skytrain to Saphan Taksin Station. There's a free shuttle boatto the River City Shopping Complex.

***

Some fascination for antiques motivated this adventure.  With very limited Thai I took a shot of the address and asked a sky train station guard to write it in Thai. This is the Saphan Taksin pier where I waited for the boat to RCSC -

Capacity of this boat must be between forty or fifty passengers but there were only three of us on this trip: a European couple and myself



 Some of the sights during the boat ride are temple spires, facade of international hotels and high rise condominiums. Bougainvilleas did a pretty job on this building -



A boat carrying RCSC shoppers arrives at the Si Phaya pier

For some reason unknown to me the complex was virtually devoid of shoppers that day which was fine by me. Admiring these paintings was better in the quiet



The undisturbed shopping gave off a  'night in the museum' effect



Some of the art pieces on display: staring at these antiques could transport one to the whimsical orient -



This is RCSC entrance opposite the banks of Chao Phraya river. I like how it looks so modern on the outside but a different world on the inside.

 Our World  *   ABC Wednesday

In or out

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Heidi asks:

Do you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert?

Perhaps a combination of both. I have been living alone since my big D in 2006 and I don't seem to mind; rarely wish for company. Seventy five percent of my king size bed is littered with books. I occupy the remaining 25% when I sleep. As for socializing I am happy meeting friends for lunch, dinner or high tea in or outside my nook. I love cozy cafes. Church, concerts, lectures, or family get-togethers  - I welcome them as revitalizing shot to my routine which is being alone.
 

Thursday 13: They are also in and out

Breakfast this morning was spent watching CNN's Pierce Morgan talking with people about President Barack Obama's support for gay marriage. I wonder what would these writers have said if they were the ones interviewed.

Source: Famous Gays and Lesbians in History

1. Sappho (600 B.C.) Greek poetess
2. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) British statesman and writer
3. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
4. Lord Byron (1788-1824) British poet
5. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) Danish poet and writer
6. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) Euro-American writer and journalist
7. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Euro-American poet
8. Herman Melville (18-19-1891 Euro-American writer
9. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish writer and dramatist
10. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French writer
11. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) British writer and dramatist
12. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) British writer and publisher
13. Truman Capote (1924-1984) Euro-American author

Quaint

Medieval justice was a quaint thing ~ Frederick Pollard

I have yet to read what is that about, but the line appeals strongly to the history lover in me.

Quaint has become one of my favorite words since I searched the net for info and pictures of England in preparation for a trip there in 2006. There are several definitions of quaint. These are what I like the most:

• having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque


• strange, peculiar or unusual in an interesting, pleasing or amusing way


• skillfully or cleverly made

If you clicked images for quaint on Google, you will find mostly European cottages and churches in the countryside. As for quaint places in Asia, I'm sharing one that has been hibernating in my archives since I took it two years ago - part of Angkor Wat in Cambodia


Shakespeare's wife's cottage has to be quaint too.

ABC Wednesday

Siblings

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Heidi asks:

Do you have siblings? Do they like to read?

As an only child I often wondered what it was like to have siblings who like to read. Would we have a contest on who could read how many books in a month? Share and discuss each other's reads while munching chocolate? There were cousins. But all one did was devour comics while another read the same author I read hundreds of full moons ago - Irving Wallace. Parents regulated my reading pile, and Wallace wasn't exactly on their list of approved material, so it was fun sharing the secret read with a cousin who did the same experiment. We were probably looking for supplemental info to our high school sex education. I'm a fan of my parents' literary gifts; didn't mind reading alone almost all the time.

Thursday 13: Famous siblings - except perhaps the last pair, there's one common denominator among most of them: rivalry

1. Kate and Bianca in Taming of the Shrew- fought bitterly
2. Orlando and Oliver in As You Like It - relationship was marked by antagonism
3. Cain and Abel in the Bible - one brother's jealousy led to murder
4. Leah and Rachel in the Bible - competed for the love of Jacob
5. Ares and Athena in Disney's Hercules- competed over territory
6. Venus and Serena Williams, in tennis - compared with each other by the media
7. Janet and Michael Jackson, in music - compared with each other by the media
8. Rose and Maggie in In Her Shoes - alternately loving and argumentative
9. Michael and Fredo in The Godfather - their conflict was fatal
10. Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, advice columnists - very close and publicly antagonistic
11. Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, actresses - had an uneasy relationship from childhood and later stopped talking to each other completely
12. Ann and Mary Boleyn, The Other Boleyn Girl - contended for the affection of King Henry VIII
13. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - two sisters very different in their ways of thinking and feeling

 Reference for nos. 1 - 11 here.