Curiously, when Marcy suddenly sounded like Curly in “We Want Our Mummy,” I thought back to a phone conversation we’d had last fall. I was on the Appalachian Trail, she was in our Cary backyard. I was in the wild, she was in suburbia. I was lounging at my campsite in the woods having tea, she was trying to figure out what to do with the four-foot copperhead sunning on our back deck. Subsequent Googling suggested that the sizable snake was likely a pregnant mama looking for a place to hunker down for the winter after giving birth — to as many as 14 slithering offspring. Marcy’s yelp this suggested that she had found said offspring.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Introducing the GGNC Comprehensive Calendar Collection
The weekend approaches. You’re eager to do something, but what? And when? And where?
Behold the GetGoingNC Comprehensive Calendar Collection. For a while now I’ve been mulling a unified calendar that would include every outdoor activity — from nature hikes, to bike rides, to paddle trips, to 5Ks, to Yoga-in-the-Park to whatever — going on across the state. I’m still mulling (I’ve discovered that such a calendar is a lot of work), but in the interim I’ve come up with the next best thing: a collection of event calendars culled from across the state that should clue you in to dang near everything going on on any given day in North Carolina.
14 hours, 35 minutes, 14 seconds: Use it all
Today is the longest day of the year.
OK, so technically, at 14 hours, 35 minutes and 14 seconds of daylight there’s only one second of daylight more than there was yesterday and three more than there will be tomorrow. And we won’t be seeing appreciable changes in the length of day until late August. But spiritually, emotionally, physically, it’s important to know that today you have 14 hours, 35 minutes and 14 seconds of daylight (or 15 hours, 35 minutes and 14 seconds if you count civil twilight) to work with. Taking full advantage of that 14 hours, 35 minutes and 14 seconds, you could, conceivably:
Stand-up paddleboarding: The video
Thursday, I went to Lake Crabtree County Park where the Great Outdoor Provision Co. was holding a boat demo. Included in the demo fleet: stand-up paddleboards. I took my river shorts and my video camera and came back with a 5-minute video about what this modern-day sport that grew out of Polynesian mass transit is like. Check it out.
Zumba, Pilates, aqua exercise: Where the classes are
Today, our print alter ego in the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer looks at popular exercises for a demographic that, a new study finds, is particularly challenged to lose weight and stay in shape: women in and about to enter menopause.
The good news: there lots of exercises especially good for women in the 45-and-up range. As the story notes, our experts are particularly high on these four: Zumba, water aerobics/swimming, walking, Pilates. The better news: It’s not hard to find a class for any of them — and in the case of walking, you don’t even need a class, you can just walk out your front door.