WWURA NEWS
. . . . Western Washington University Retirement Association
October 2022 . . . . . . . . . . www.wwu.edu/wwura
INSIDE:. . . . . . . . . .
Interest Groups........................ page 2
Health Notes ............................page 3
Cooking for One....................... page 4
Book Review .............................page 5
Getting to Know Members ......page 6
From the Writers Groups..........page 7
Membership Form................... page 8
President's Notes
Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 PM, I boarded a plane at National Airport…8 1/2 hours later at 12:00 AM I arrived on the shuttle from SeaTac, once again reminded that cross-country flights are not exactly my “cup-of-tea.” While in DC I had the opportunity each morning to walk from our friend’s flat to the Capitol, Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress…even with all the strife and derision currently in our country it was a daily affirmation of what binds us together…and I was able to renew my reader card with the Library of Congress, I love visiting the incredible LOC Reading Room for reading and research.
Yesterday I ran into Burl Harmon at a local restaurant and he showed me his new memoir Combat Missions, sharing his memories of his WWII experience flying B-24 missions from Italy. I’ve always enjoyed Burl’s stories of his life experiences and I’m looking forward to reading his new book….check it out!
A quick shout-out to Evelyn Ames for her work in September’s travelogue presentation of “Where in the World…” sharing photos of WWURA members on trips and challenging the viewers to identify the sites… a very creative idea and a positive WWURA event. If you missed the presentation check with Lina about seeing the recording.
If you haven’t paid your dues yet…it is time to rejoin the Association for this coming year. It is also a good time to visit the revised website…in particular, the Book Reviews and Health notes provide great information.
While we were in Washington DC for September, Sally and I helped out some friends by taking care of their children (three 12-year-old triplet boys and their four-year-old daughter) for 6 days while they attended a wedding. We were reminded how much energy it takes to care for kids, came to the realization that we are not 60 anymore, but also how wonderful the 24/7 experience can be
.
As always….stay safe!
Kevin
WWURA October Financial Report from Treasurer, Norm Lindquist
We currently have $2682 to last until next summer.
Our principal expense is for our newsletter which costs about $215 each month. We have $1108 saved for next year's Scholarship which we will combine with $1500 from our endowment with the WWU Foundation.
FOR YOUR CALENDAR
Travelogues:
Oct 19th, 4:00 Pm Lina will send a Zoom Link
Join us for another adventure with our popular travelogue presenters, Veronic and Edoh. They will guide us on a canoe trip into the wilds on October 19th at 4:00 PM.
NOV16th: - London Trip
JINGLE BELL RUN/WALK
Sat. Dec 10th
Register now for the WWURA Team:
ACADEMY for LIFELONG LEARNING
No stress - No tests
Anyone can enjoy these great "classes" - check out the current programs: https://oce.wwu.edu/academy-lifelong-learning
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Health Notes by Evelyn Ames
INTEREST GROUPS
BOOK GROUP - Donna Moore, 360-733-5769 dfmoore12@gmail.com
We will meet at 2 PM on Tuesday, Oct 18 via ZOOM - Lina will send the link.
October book: Caste by Isabel Wilkeson - discussion leader - June Hopkins
November book: The History of Love by Nicole Krass
INFORMAL DINING - To be revived when we can!
OPERA GROUP - Evelyn Ames, 360-734-3184, eames@comcast.com
MET HD begins the new season on October 22 with Medea sung by Sondra Radvanosky.
To listen to 7 minutes of finale of Medea on youtube go to: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?&q=medea+opera+on+you+tube&view=detail&mid=22643F01 C6B9EFA3135422643F01C6B9EFA31354&form=VDRVRV&ajaxhist=0
Metropolitan Opera provides a listing of operas, 2022-23 broadcasts: check this web link: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=met+opera+2022-23+live
+hd&docid=608025124503362391&mid=1DC8706CD2840A6974E61DC8706CD2840A 6974E6&view=detail&FORM=VIRE (note Falstaff is substituted in place of Don Carlos)
Opera Radio (10 am KING FM and 1 pm on CBC radio 2):
Upcoming opera productions in our area:
Pacific Northwest Opera (Mt. Vernon): 2022-21 season:
Otello (Nov 4, 6, 11,13),
Der Rosenkavalier, April
Vancouver Opera: The Pearl Fishers Oct 22-30. Listen to the famous temple duet with
Björling and Merrill. https://youtu.be/5PYt2HlBuyI
Seattle Opera; Tristan & Isolde: Oct. 15-29;
Samson et Delilah in concert from Jan 20 and 22.
WRITING GROUPS
We have decided to keep our group all female. We meet on the second and fourth Thursdays from 2p.m till about 4 p.m. If you would like to be part of a supportive group where your writing can be heard and receive feedback, as you wish, at every meeting, we welcome hearing from you.
Contact: Lynne Masland: Lynne.Masland12@gmail.com (360) 676-9821
- A second writing group is accepting new members. Any gender.
Usually meets every two to three weeks.
Contact: Bill Smith 360-920-5390, billsmith1545@yahoo.com if interested.
Exercising the Brain to be Positive!
“Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the Negative!” Johnny Mercer
7 Exercises That Train Your Brain to Stay Positive
The past several months have been times that have tested our patience and positivity. We have endured limited time for socializing with family and friends. We have had less time exploring our community activities and events. Various forms of media keep at the forefront negative thoughts about what is occurring nationally and internationally. Negatively seems to creep into our daily existence. It is time to practice exercises to train our brains to stay positive. The suggestions are simple. Depending on one’s state of health and environment, they can be done sitting, walking, thinking, writing, cooking, reading, etc.
1. Feel like you are stuck in a negative spiral? Surround yourself with happy, warm, and genuine people.
2. Practice being grateful. Consider this: write down each day at least three things you are grateful for (e.g., the sunrise/sunsets we have in our neck of the woods, your family,
friends, home, food, pets, and waking up in the morning). Accentuate the positive!
3. Recall what you are enthusiastic about and follow it.
4. Be active and be a doer. When you are active, you stay focused and have less time for negative energy to intrude! Your mind gets set to complete the day’s project!
5. Nourish yourself with sleep, food, and hydration. Research studies show that lack of sleep, poor diet, and lack of water influence a range of health issues from mood to
anxiety, depression, and stress.
6. Smile. Did you know that smiling enhances your mood and can reduce your level of
distress? For walkers, note how often or not how often the people you meet on the trails smile at you. Be sure to accentuate your smile! Try forcing a smile and feel what happens inside your body!
7. Find time to help others. Helping others gives you new outlooks on the world.
More suggestions: Do something fun! Do something for someone else! Do something productive! Get some sunlight, which is more difficult in fall and winter! Get some physical exercise! Compliment someone! Learn something new! Work towards a goal! Repetition of positive energy avoids the spread of negativity!
Sources: https://www.hecspot.com/7-exercises-that-train-your-brain-to-stay-positive/ https://www.acentsationallife.com/list-of-positive-things-to-do-everyday/#:~:text=List%20Of%2010%20Positive%20Things%20To%20Do%20Everyday,...%208%208.%20Compliment%20Someone%20...%20More%20items
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COOKING FOR ONE (or two) by Suzanne Krogh
My father maintained that he couldn’t cook. It was, after all, woman’s work. But he’d been a short-order cook in his earlier years and that seemed to be his excuse for knowing how to make a Denver omelet. They often appeared for family supper on Sunday evenings.
While omelets are usually thought of as a French creation, the Denver omelet is distinctly American. Its exterior is typically browner, and it is likely to have a bit of milk added rather than water as the French prefer. Diced ham, onions, and green peppers are an American must.
Although this recipe calls for two eggs per person, Dad would have fed four of us with just four eggs, plus a fifth one “for the pot”. Historians think the Denver omelet was originally a sandwich created by 19th century cattle drivers or Chinese railroad cooks. I often eat it sandwich style.
My Dad’s Denver Omelet for One
Ingredients
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon chopped green pepper
2 tablespoons diced cooked ham
1 tablespoon chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons butter
Instructions
1. In a small bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, add a bit of salt and pepper and set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a small, non-stick fry pan over medium heat. Add the green pepper,
ham, and onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion is soft and translucent.
3. Add the eggs and swirl a couple of times with a spatula to spread out the various bits and
to scrape the raw egg from the bottom. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook to the degree of doneness you like. Covering with a lid can speed things up.
4. When it’s done, use a spatula to fold the omelet in half and remove it to a plate.
Tips
1. Denver omelet recipes often call for grated cheddar cheese. To add, sprinkle ¼ cup over the eggs during the last one or two minutes of cooking.
2. An omelet for two just requires double ingredients and a larger pan.
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BOOK REVIEW by Minda Rae Amiran
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, Ed Yong (2022, Random House)
We know that some animals have much sharper senses than ours, and that some have senses we lack. Dogs clearly have a more powerful sense of smell than we do, and migrating birds navigate by sensing our planet’s electromagnetic field, to which we are oblivious. But An Immense World goes far beyond describing different animals’ abilities: it explains how their different senses work, biologically, and why they evolved—the purposes they serve. Beginning from the propositions that a creature’s senses define its world, which may be completely different from the one our senses reveal, and that we don’t really know how many senses there are, Yong crowds his pages with remarkable information about worlds and senses.
Red-eyed tree frog embryos can sense a nearby snake and hatch out prematurely to escape its jaws. Catfish have taste buds all over their bodies, and scallops have eyes along the inner edges of their shells, as many as 200—whatever for? Like bats, dolphins use echolocation to find their prey, but in water sound can penetrate bodies, so dolphins can “see” a hook inside a fish, and avoid eating it. Birds and monarch butterflies use the earth’s magnetism to create “maps” that guide them on their way, but exactly how? Since owls, hunting by night, find their prey by sound, how do they overcome the sound of their own wings in flying after mice in a field? Closer to home, how, exactly, do we perceive colors, and how do other animals perceive different frequencies of light? Yong explains all these phenomena and hundreds more in twelve very readable chapters organized by sense, and ends with workable suggestions for reducing the harm we do to other species with our noise and artificial light.
The very richness of these chapters makes it best to read them in smaller segments, or at most one chapter at a time. But all of the information is fascinating. Yong leads us to see not only exotic creatures but the ones we notice daily—spiders, dogs, hummingbirds—with greater understanding of how the world appears to them. Along the way, he also answers some long-standing philosophical questions about the relation between body and mind and between our experiences and a possibly non-existent or unknowable external reality. He points out that we are not conscious of the way our senses work—for example, we aren’t aware of the photoreceptors firing in our eyes when we look at something. Hence, “Our experiences of the world feel disconnected from the very sense organs that produce them, which makes it easy to believe that they are purely mental constructs divorced from physical reality.” Not so: we live in a real world, and our minds and bodies cannot be usefully separated.
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GETTING TO KNOW OUR MEMBERS.................. by Lynne Masland
This month: Pat Fabiano,
retired Director of Health Promotion and Wellness Services and Woodring College faculty.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in McKees Rocks, PA, a small industrial town south of Pittsburgh. My father was an immigrant from Calabria, Italy who came to the United States during the great 1920 migration and my mother was a first-generation Italian born in the Pittsburgh area. Neither of my parents were able to finish high school. My father was a steel worker and my mother was a self-taught artist who spent her life keeping house and raising children. Neither ever understood my intense love of and desire for education.
What was your job at Western?
My life at Western had two distinct phases. I was Director of Health Promotion and Wellness Services for nearly 20 years, where I was privileged to work with an exceptional group of students called the “Lifestyle Advisors” and to engage in grant-related research which brought to Western programs like the Campus Community Coalition, Western Men Against Violence, Alcohol-Risk Reduction, and CASAS (Crime and Sexual Assault Services). The second stage of my professional life at Western began after I got my PhD at age 55. I joined the faculty at Woodring College and taught for 8 years in the Student Affairs Administration Program. Being faculty and working with students in the classroom felt like a homecoming for me.
What did you like best about WWU?
What I loved best about students was their “sense of place.” When I worked at Stanford University and Southern Illinois University, I found students wanting to “get on with it” and leave their home bases. At Western, I found students who wanted to stay in Washington and give back to a place that they loved. Regarding programs toward which I feel a sense of legacy, I feel honored to have started the Diversity in Higher Education undergraduate minor with Larry Estrada and Susan Mancuso.
What have you been doing since retiring?
“What have you been doing since retirement” is always a hard question for me. I have found the blessed time that retirement gives to be a wondrous period of doing less and reflecting more on those things which nurture this quieting-down stage of life. I have found a daily practice of quiet, reading, studying, and walking are a welcome, unexpected gift after a lifetime of doing, working, achieving, acquiring. After years of teaching the importance of being a “human being” instead of a “human doing,” I think I finally understand it.
Hobbies? Interests?
I have been a long-time member of the Kulshan Chorus, and I am active in groups who work to make the last years of life and end-of-life a meaningful experience.
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SOCIAL SUGGESTIONS:
Invite others to share our Travelogues - Page 1
Consider starting an activity or joining an interest group.
Check out the ALL link on Page 1 and Interest Groups on Page 2.
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FROM THE WRITING GROUP
SKIN by Nanette J. Davis
Who gives a thought to it?
Philosophers, poets, artists ignore it,
superficial, not worth spending time.
Only covering for muscle,
tendon, ligament, fascia, and bone.
Parents know differently.
Breathing tender, lovely, scent-filled infant skin
makes up for sleeplessness, exhaustion, chronic vigilance.
Replaced by odiferous knicks and bruises, splits and rashes,
bumps and bashes, contusions, discolorations,
soothed by vibrant bandages.
Despair, the adolescent cry. Help! I got zits!
Creams and lotions barely penetrate the angry pustules
leaping across the face, splattering on the neck, scattering over the back.
Blessed young adulthood, the damage temporarily stopped.
Skin, now beauty, clarity, joy mark the visage, turn it luminous.
Time is the enemy ever lurking as ever-so-slight, the wrinkles emerge, momentarily disappearing under a load of expensive treatments: creams, Botox, surgery.
An unwinnable battle against the skin’s natural and inevitable erosion.
July 28, 2022
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WWURA Membership Application or Renewal and/or Scholarship Donation
Name ___________________________________________
Spouse/Partner's name (if applicable) _______________________________
Address _____________________________________
City ______________________State ___ Zip _______
Phone(s) ___________________________________ Email ________________________________
Year retired ____ Years of WWU Service _____ Department ______________
*If not a WWU Retiree, check one:____ Friend of WWU, ___Spouse/Partner of Retiree____
Retiree of what institution/organization/company?_______________________
*Select Membership (includes spouse or partner);. . . . . . . . . . . ._$____________
. . . . Contributing Membership $50.00 or more
. . . . Regular Membership $35.00
. . . . Surviving Spouse or Partner $10.00
* Contribution to WWURA Scholarship Fund (Deductible) . . . . .._$____________
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Total amount enclosed .. _$____________
.
Signature _____________________________________ Date ______________
Please Mail form and check (payable to WWURA) to;
WWURA Membership, c/o Barbara Evans
715 North Garden Street #502
Bellingham, WA 98225