Moonrise Kingdom made me think

On Friday night I was flying back from Melbourne to Perth, Western Australia and one of the movies that I could choose from was Moonrise Kingdom. I was on a Qantas A330 (my favourite plane), which has seatback screens. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Qantas is anything but brilliant. I love that airline. In the last few months Qantas has taken me  from Perth to Sydney, Dallas, LA to Sydney, back to Perth,  Adelaide, Melbourne (three times), from Perth to Singapore to Frankfurt and back. I have done a lot of flying and watched a lot of movies and I still haven't managed to watch all that Qantas has on offer.

Moonrise Kingdom is set in 1965 and what struck me was that no-one in it was overweight or obese. I had been watching it for half an hour or so before I realised this and that made me think that this must have been before we all weighed too much.

All the kids had skinny legs with knobbly knees and I thought that's how kids are probably meant to be built. I wondered how recently the overweight epidemic started. The film-makers had obviously done their research regarding body types!

Kids with skinny legs
Photo by Escape2Destinations

I went to Japan in about 2004 and again in 2008. The first time I went I saw probably two or overweight or obese people and the second time there were lots of them. I wondered what had changed in that four-year period. Were there more Western style fast-food outlets? Did people now eat more of a Western diet? Were they more sedentary?

Why do the US and Australia top the charts for overweight and obese people? 

Unfortunately, I am nearly one of them. I need to lose three or four kilograms and will work on doing this in time for Christmas.

Would anyone like to join me?

 

I Love Sleeping

I think sleeping is one of the most wonderful things on earth. I love the relaxed feeling just as you are waking up. Trouble is, that you become more and more awake and lose that lovely feeling. Every night I just can't wait to go to bed and to be nice and warm and snuggly....

....and then I wake up at about 2:30am and if I am lucky I go back to sleep until about 4am and that is it!

This morning I woke at about 2:15am and didn't go back to sleep. I lay there hoping and hoping and hoping. I turned my alarm off, which was set for 5am to go swimming. I didn't go back to sleep but I still enjoyed being in bed.

What's with being 50 something and not sleeping properly?

Health magazine has a good article about mixed up sleep in older people (is this us - older?) and says it may relate to the aging process and that the brain produces less and less melatonin as we get older. Apparently, this is the hormone that regulates sleep at night and alertness during the day.

At least I know now it's not just me! Does anyone else have interruped sleep?

Friends - how we keep them, how we value them

I had some friends around for dinner last night. Can you believe that three of them were named Kim? Two boy Kims and one girl Kim. I met all of these people, except one, when I was about 17 or 18. At 50 something, that means we have been friends for almost 40 years!
Amazing!

As we were having a good time last night I began wondering what it is that that made us stay friends for all these years. Of course, we had wandered in and out of each others' lives, but always maintained a sense of what the others were doing.

At the end of the Kakeroma, Japan, 16km swim



I wonder if it is because you have similar interests, or maybe just enjoy doing things together. In the photo above we had just finished a 16km swim. I did it as a duo with the lady on the left. She lives in Japan and I live in Western Australia and even though we only see each other every couple of years, if we're lucky, I just know that we will always be friends. I think it's not only that we share interests, but also because we just clicked straight away and enjoy each others' company.

I don't think 'just clicking' with my friends from the dinner party is why we are still friends, but maybe we did a lot of things as a group in our teens and twenties and then as people had kids, we still maintained our friendship by phone calls, coffee and going out together. I don't know, but it's very satisfying to have such long term friends.

That just reminded me of a book that I have just finished reading called "When God Was a Rabbit". It was about a girl, her brother and their friend and all the people in their lives as they were growing up. It examined what different kinds of friendship could be like. I couldn't put it down.

Am I Really 50 Something?

I am almost half-way through my 50s and can't believe it! What happened to the last 10, 20, 30 years? I suspect lots of other people feel like me, too.

I live in Perth, Western Australia, close to the beach and close to the ocean. It's a wonderful place to live and the lifestyle is fantastic.

I like to read a lot and sometimes in this blog I might mention a book or film that I have read that you might like to look at.

This blog will look at life at 50 something, which is a very weird stage of life. For some the kids are on the way out the door and others are beginning to look after aging parents. We will look at the fun stuff (and there's lots of that) and some issues in the general world that are relevant to us, which also may promote some discussion. The more we can discuss the simpler things seem and the more fun we will have.

At the moment my mother lives in Dallas, Texas and I can't think why someone would move from beautiful Perth to live in Dallas. Some readers may be able to help me with that one! Another topic that I find interesting is my aging body (it wasn't meant to happen to me, just everyone else) and what things there are out there to help me with it.

Why would you choose to live in Dallas instead of sunny, pretty Perth?

 

Chihuly exhibition (the only good thing about Dallas)

Chihuly exhibition, Aboredum, Dallas