WWURA News
Western Washington University Retirement Association
February 2023
INSIDE this Newsletter:
President's Notes
Events
Interest Groups
Health Notes
Cooking for One
Book Review
Getting to Know Members
Writing Group pieces
PRESIDENT'S NOTES
I am so happy that that dastardly cold weather has moved on…I remember a conversation during my interview visit to WWU in June of 1976 with Jack Smith at Lakewood, in
which he told me it doesn’t get below 40 degrees in the winter or above 80 during the summer in Bellingham! Well, that has certainly changed in the last 45 years. I’ll blame it on
climate change…I’m starting to think I’m back in the Southern New England weather system.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find a good time and place for the announced Valentine’s Day event. Another complicating factor was prior commitments of Board members for what dates were available. In short, we will not be doing that event this month.
“Hope Springs Eternal…” for gathering as a group, sharing food and companionship, and to that end, the Board is working on a Spring Fling Pot-luck in mid-April. Hopefully, the longer lead time for this event will allow us to find a good site and day. More information will be shared as it becomes available.
Barbara Davidson and myself have been seeking input and volunteers for bringing back the Informal Dining Program… we found strong positives about the activity but a somewhat
“tepid” response to the volunteering part. We started a discussion at our Board meeting about starting with an Informal Gathering model whereby we would ask individuals to set up a gathering at a restaurant, coffee shop, or lounge for 6-8 members at a specific date and time, then seek members that are interested in joining them. If you have any thoughts
on the viability of this idea, please let Barbara or me know.
I really enjoyed Lynne Masland’s story in the “Cooking for One” article in the January Newsletter; reminded me of similar experiences with my lack of cooking skills. But tuna,
butter, toasted bread, and a few other items…what could go wrong! The recipe is posted on the front of our refrigerator and I see a vibrant lunch in my near future.
Stay safe…Kevin
EVENTS
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY
There is no February event for WWURA [See Kevin's Notes above ]
***
In mid-April, there will be a Spring Fling Potluck Lunch
In mid-July, there will be the Summer Picnic
***
Travelogues are also being planned.
***
YOU can help make plans for more events and socials.
Contact any board member with your suggestions.
INTEREST GROUPS
If you are interested in one of the groups please call or email the contact person.
BOOK GROUP - Donna Moore, 360-733-5769 dfmoore12@gmail.com
Tuesday, Feb 21st, 2:00 pm meet via ZOOM - Lina will send the link.
Book: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn- discussion leader, Suzanne Krogh
March book: A Long Pedal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
April book: The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
INFORMAL DINING - Interested? Barbara Davidson, 350-734-8782 B_Davidson33@Hotmail.com
OPERA GROUP - Evelyn Ames, 360-734-3184, eames@comcast.net
The Met Opera: radio trans: Feb 4: Macbeth, 11th (to be arranged); Feb 18th: Don Carlo;
Feb 25: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk;
March 4 is listeners’ Choice. (CBC radio 2 starts at 1 pm. King FM starts at EST)
Live in HD: Lohengrin (Mar 18), Falstaff (Apr 1), Der Rosenkavalier (April 15),
Champion (Apr 29), Don Giovanni (May 20), Die Zauberflote (June 3).
Seattle Opera: A Thousand Splendid Suns (based on the book): Feb 25, 26, March 3,5,8. Vancouver Opera: Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Feb 11, 16, 19
Western Washington University: The departments of Music and Theatre & Dance present the American opera “Street Scene” with music by Kurt Weill; lyrics by Langston Hughes. Featured is Western Symphony Orchestra. The plot centers around the conflicts and entanglements between residents of a New York City tenement building in the heat of summer in the 1940s.
Production dates: April 14, 15,16. Check web by searching WWU opera production “Street Scene”.
YouTube sites to consider: witches chorus (Macbeth):
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=witches+trio+from+verdi+macbeth&view=detail&mid=0C4D73B120AD0D16557C0C4D73B120AD0D16557C&FORM=VIRE
S. Milnes, 1981 as Macbeth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ZyXep6pt8)
duet from Don Carlo (Hampson and Kaufmann): Jonas Kaufmann & Thomas Hamspon - Verdi Don Carlo Dio, Che Nell'alma Infondere Amor - Bing video
Highlights of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?&q=Lady+Macbeth+of+Mtsensk+you+tube
“Street Scene: Weill's Street Scene | John Fulljames & Tim Murray | Teatro Real 2018 (DVD / Blu-ray trailer) - Bing video
WRITING GROUPS
- The original group is all female. We meet on second and fourth Thursdays from 2 p.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)
- The second writing group welcomes any gender.
Usually meets every two to three weeks.
Contact: Bill Smith 360-920-5390, billsmith1545@yahoo.com if interested.
HEALTH NOTES ~~~ by Evelyn Ames
Exercise Snacking for Fitness and Well-Being
Physical activity can preserve physical function and mobility and delay onset of major disability.
For readers who have followed recommendations of doing 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week, “exercise snacking” is an alternative to accomplishing physical and overall well-being.
What is exercise snacking? Exercise snacking is performing movements in short bursts throughout the day. It is engaging in an exercise snack multiple times per day. It can be a break from sitting or being sedentary. It is moving around, tapping the feet, doing short chair yoga exercise, lifting leg/arm while sitting, or simply stretching. It can be climbing stairs a few times.
Several recent exercise and fitness studies show that small amounts of exercise have a variety of positive health effects. Specifically, “Just 10 minutes of slow cycling on a stationary bicycle improved memory and increased coordination in different parts of the brain in college students.” “Using a database of about 500,000 people from various studies, a review in The Journal of Happiness Studies discovered that just 10 minutes of exercise per day was enough to lift the mood of participants.” “Another study found that even five-minute bouts of exercise increased longevity and reduced the risk of premature death.” “Five minutes of moving around every hour can combat sitting diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, and obesity and improve mood and alertness.”
How many exercise snacks do we need per day? The CDC recommends seniors engage in roughly 30 minutes of activity, 5 days per week to help keep our bodies and brains fit and healthy. This breaks down to 3 10-minute exercise snacks each day, 5 days a week. This is possible if exercise is woven throughout the day. The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends seniors try to work up to 300 minutes per week, which means roughly 60 minutes per day, 5 days a week. If this seems like a lot, remember you can work up to it! If you are currently sedentary most of the day, add one exercise snack to your day. Over time, you’ll be able to add another and still another. Before you know it, you’ll be snacking your way to better health.
What ‘counts’ as exercise? It may be much easier to embrace exercise if we don’t think of it in such a one-dimensional way. Exercise isn’t just a run on the treadmill, an hour of dance aerobics or a weight-lifting session. It can be stretching, gardening, playing with grandchildren, climbing stairs or sweeping the floor. Think of exercise as movement. Examples: standing up to prepare lunch, slicing fruit and mixing yogurt is movement. Taking laundry from the dryer and standing to fold it is movement. We can move in many ways throughout the day, and when we make the conscious effort to do so, we are engaging in the exercise snacks that help us maintain muscle tone, balance, good mental health, and healthy hearts. “Exercise snacking helps many of us avoid the all-or-nothing mentality of fitness. Rather than focusing on a full hour workout or getting to the gym for a cardio dance class, we can fit exercise into our daily schedules and the rhythm of our lives. Just 5 to 10 minutes of movement can make a marked difference in our health and wellbeing. From increasing our cardiovascular health to balancing our moods, movement is good for us from head to toe.” Choose exercises you enjoy and those that fit naturally into your daily life and schedule. Avoid sitting for extended periods of time. Set snacking alarms if you find it helpful and motivational as reminders to get up and get moving. Start small and build more movement into your day over time. Remember the goal is health and wellness rather than stress and exhaustion. Listen to your body and move it in ways that feel good!
Sources for ideas: https://fitonapp.com/fitness/exercise-snacking/
https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/body/exercise/exercise-snacking#:~
Exercise Snacking: How Small Chunks of Movement Add Up to Better Health - Aging Outreach Services
COOKING FOR ONE (or two) ~~~ by Suzanne Krogh
HOW (NOT) TO FOLLOW A RECIPE
A Tale of Two Cookies
Just this once, let’s get right down to business and start with the recipe. Today, it’s for those delicious little nuggets you might call snowballs or Russian teacakes or Mexican wedding cakes. According to Betty Crocker, you simply mix 2 sticks soft butter, ½ cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¾ cup finely chopped nuts. Chill the dough for about a half hour, then mold it into 1-inch balls. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees. While the cookies are warm, roll them in powdered sugar. After they cool, roll them once more in the sugar.
What could go wrong?
Practically everything, it turns out. Last week, WWURA member Lina Zeine and I each made the cookies, but they were not at all the same. It was her first time making the recipe and Lina swore she followed it exactly. So, we poured ourselves some tea, gave each of us two cookies, one from each batch, and sliced the cookies in half for closer inspection.
First up for a closer look: the powdered sugar. My cookies were covered with a luxurious coating of the soft, white stuff, while Lina’s appeared to have been dipped just once, despite what she said. The answer: She hadn’t let the cookies cool completely before the second dip and all the sugar had soaked in.
Second, Lina’s cookies had an indefinably different taste to them. Long experience with trying different brands of vanilla identified that fairly easily. Lina’s Costco brand has a somewhat different flavor than my King Arthur. Costco, of course, charges far less, a difference the baker has to decide for him/herself.
Next, we wondered about a missing hint of saltiness that perks up a baked good. Lina had used unsalted butter without making any adjustment in the recipe. It turns out to matter. By now, it was all starting to make us laugh. But…..
….moving on, we came to the texture which, for me, was the biggest mystery. Why, I wondered, did Lina’s cookies appear to have tiny specks running through? And the overall texture was just…different. There were actually two answers. First, Lina had used Pillsbury’s bleached flour, while my flour of choice was King Arthur’s unbleached. We’re not totally sure that made a difference, but think we should list it. Second, after she had chopped her nuts, Lina gathered up the little leftover fuzzy bits and added them to the dough. Hence the specks all through.
And there you have it. Every ingredient had differed in some way. If you ever try making something new and plan to follow the directions exactly, be sure that’s what you really do! Next month: Lina’s crazy but delicious biscuit cake. I haven’t tried making it yet, but I will be sure and do exactly what the recipe says.
P.S. Lina's cookies were 'wrong' but still tasty!
BOOK REVIEW ~~~ by Minda Rae Amiran
All is not well in the English cathedral town of Barchester. The new bishop and his overbearing wife are imposing a puritanical version of the established religion on the liberal, easy-going cathedral clergy. The previous bishop’s son, Archdeacon Grantly, is fuming. He would have succeeded his father in the bishop’s chair if the Government hadn’t changed just as Bishop Grantly was dying. The new bishop’s wife’s ambitious chaplain is serving her for now, but is determined to become the real bishop in her place. He has decided to overcome the enemy by courting the Archdeacon’s widowed sister-in-law, a beautiful, rich, and innocent young woman. What next! Next, Mr. Stanhope is ordered to return from Italy, where he has been neglecting his Barchester duties for these many years, and with him comes his family, including his charming wastrel son (he informs the Bishop, “”I was a Jew once myself” ) and his femme fatale daughter
If you have the patience for Victorian fiction, this is the funniest of romps. A satirical comedy, it takes on the Church, the political establishment, the cross currents of a parish, the old gentility, and every kind of egotist. It gives us a spirited heroine and a brilliantly heartless enchantress, men who severely underestimate the good sense and powers of women, and a bunch of women who really manage everything, rightly or wrongly as the case may be.
Here is the chaplain proposing to the young widow, who is trying to avoid him: "'Do not ask me to leave you, Mrs. Bold,' said he with an impassioned look, impassioned and sanctified as well, with that sort of look which is not uncommon with gentlemen of Mr. Slope's school, and which may perhaps be called the tender-pious."
Or here is the femme fatale speaking of her daughter to the Bishop: “‘The blood of Tiberius,' said the signora, in all but a whisper; 'the blood of Tiberius flows in her veins. She is the last of the Neros!' The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to have the last of the Neros thus brought before him for a blessing was very staggering.”
If you can resist this kind of narration, you're much to be pitied. Trollope wrote many novels, but none as amusing as this one.
GETTING TO KNOW OUR MEMBERS ~~~ by Lynne Masland
This Month: Lina Zeine, Professor of Speech & Language Pathology
Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Winters were spent in the city and the hot summers in the mountain home about an hour away. There were three of us. My sister and I were sent to the French Protestant School (my mother always said “It is important for girls to know French”) and my brother attended the American Preparatory school (he eventually picked up conversational French!). So we all grew up painlessly speaking three languages: Arabic,
English and French.
My studies, work and travels have taken me to France, Boulder, Colorado, Missoula, Montana, Seattle, Canada where I worked in the hospital in Sherbrook, Quebec, Lawrence, Kansas and finally to Bellingham.
What was your job at Western?
On August 4, 1981 I flew from Kansas, where I was finishing my doctorate, to Seattle, then hopped on a 9-seater San-Juan Airlines (which I almost missed because I could not see it from the waiting lounge window!) and arrived in Bellingham, for my interview. As I looked down at the gorgeous scenery of the San Juan Islands on that lovely summer day, I prayed very hard that I would get the position. I did. One month later I started as a member of the faculty of the Speech Pathology and Audiology Department, as it was known then. Now it is the Communication Sciences and Disorders. I retired in 2013 as Professor emeritus.
What did you like best about Western?
I liked pretty much everything about Western! My kind and helpful colleagues- the collegiality of the faculty and clinical supervisors, teaching, both undergrads and graduate students, demonstrating therapy techniques and supervising students. Not to be forgotten: the lovely campus, the lovely city of Bellingham and the view from Sehome Hill.
Activities since retiring?
I have enjoyed my involvement with the Academy of Life-Long Learning by taking and giving classes. I have participated in WWURA by serving on the board and in truly enjoying the Book Group. I have also worked on improving my cooking skills (which were abysmal!) and developing my baking skills (which were non-existent- except for baklawa).
I do enjoy taking study classes on various aspects of the Baha’i Faith and other faiths; these come from all over the world (hurray for Zoom!). My most recent hobby is painting birdhouses! Each side of the birdhouse is a separate “canvas” for tropical, Mediterranean, pastoral and Northwest scenes. Someday I will “graduate” to real canvas.
From The Writers Groups
Walking with Alacrity*
Walking with Alacrity
I put my hand in hers.
“Come on,” she urges, “keep up!”
“Time to move it, move it, move it!”
The bed is warm,
The couch is soft,
I want to read a book.
But Alacrity comes calling,
“Rise up, let’s take a walk!”
Outside there’s mist
The sidewalk’s wet.
The temp is only 40.
But Alacrity says “do it now!
Take my hand, we’ll go together,
Rise up, we’ll take a walk!”
Lynne Masland, 2022
*Alacrity: Brisk, cheerful readiness; speed, eagerness. In older times, people sometimes named children for special qualities, i.e. Prudence, Felicity and, in the poem above, Alacrity.
***For Your Information***
This Newsletter is distributed to each WWURA member in 3 ways:
*** A printed copy is mailed.
*** A pdf is emailed.
*** A slightly different SMORE edition is produced for posting on the WWURA Website at WWU.
wwura.wwu.edu
The extended SMORE version can have more photos, is in color, and can directly connect to internet links. It is more 'accessible' - that is, it is more easily read by anyone that is handicapped or requires larger print.
There are also archives of previous newsletters, articles, and lots more WWURA information on the website.
More Opportunites for Activities in Our Community
No stress - no tests
Anyone can enjoy these great "classes" - check out the current programs at:
https://oce.wwu.edu/academy-lifelong-learning
Bellingham Senior Activity Center
A variety of wellness programs, classes and other activities. Computers and coffee bar.
Membership is open to anyone age 50 and better.