WISHING YOU SMOOTH SAILING IN 2024

SOME YEAR-END FEEL-GOOD TIDBITS

Hiya Friends,

Just wanted to say thank you so much for being here in ‘23. This cozy community brings me loads of joy and it warms my heart to connect with readers who are truly In With The Old.

Wishing You Smooth Sailing in 2024! xo Captain Noodle and His Crew (Jared & Me)

YEAR-END FEEL-GOOD TIDBITS

TO WATCH:
Julia on Max.

This effervescent series about Julia Child’s rise to TV stardom at WGBH in Boston is my favorite dopamine hit right now. Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax) gives a sublime performance as Child—the cheerful, American chef who brought the art of French cooking to the stateside masses. The show also features the-always-captivating Isabella Rossellini as Julia’s cookbook coauthor, Simone Beck, and reunites Frasier alums, Bebe Neuwirth (Avis DeVoto) and David Hyde Pierce (Paul Child) to boot. Season 2’s finale just aired, so binge away.

Some fun facts about Julia Child you may or may not know:

• As a young woman, Julia worked as a top-secret researcher in the Office of Strategic Services (The OSS) — the US intelligence agency during WWII. She’d wanted to join the Women’s Army Corps, but was turned down because she was too tall.

• At the start of WWII, over 20 Naval officers were attacked by sharks! One of Julia’s responsibilities at the OSS was to help come up with a way to prevent sharks attacks. This was long before she’d ever dreamed of becoming a chef or knew the definition of a quenelle, and yet, she was part of the team that cooked up a bunch of ingredients to create shark repellent. “After trying over 100 different substances—including common poisons—the researchers found several promising possibilities: extracts from decayed shark meat, organic acids, and several copper salts, including copper sulphate and copper acetate. After a year of field tests, the most effective repellent was copper acetate.'“

• Julia Child was 49 years old when the seminal cookbook she co-authored with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, Mastering The Art of French Cooking, was published.

• Houghton Mifflin had originally offered the three authors a contract, but rejected the completed manuscript claiming it read too much like an encyclopedia, which makes me think of this hilarious scene in my favorite movie, Defending Your Life ⬇️.

• Alfred A. Knopf snapped up the book and of course, it went on to become a timeless best seller.

I love that Julia Child never let the naysayers or gatekeepers quash her dreams.

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PETS HELP STAVE OFF DEMENTIA

Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash

Good news for pet lovers! A recent British study of 7,945 participants 50+, found that people who lived with pets had slower rates of memory and verbal decline than folks who lived alone. The results were the same for people who lived with other humans, so if you’re allergic to pet hair or can’t take on the added responsibility of caring for a pet, a human roomie is a good alternative. :)

Pet ownership has been shown to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation in those living alone, but up until now, no study had directly compared rates of cognitive decline between pet owners and non-pet owners.

Dr. Leah Croll, assistant professor of neurology at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, commented on these findings, stating that pet ownership may potentially represent an "alternative option for people whose social circumstances don’t allow for them to have frequent interactions with other people."

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SAUNAS MIGHT BE THE KEY TO HAPPINESS
Earlier this year, I shared the report that Finland topped the list of happiest nations and that, according to the an article in the New York Times, their secret had something to do with managing expectations and appreciating what they had in life.

And while that seemed like a healthy approach, I suspected it might not be the only reason the Finns were happy. Sure enough, a new article in The Guardian suggests that contentment may actually be transmitted via heat and steam at Finland’s THREE MILLION saunas. I Googled that number just to make sure it wasn’t a typo and by George, there are indeed 3 million saunas in Finland and many are FREE to access.

Unlike in other countries, where saunas are usually marketed as an expensive activity for the few, in Finland they have a far more everyday role. Many people have saunas in their homes; lots of older Finnish people were even born in saunas. But they are also considered a sacred space and a place to find community as well as peace.

From therapy room to pub, refuge, debating society and creche, it’s a place where people of all ages connect. Elderly regulars check up on each other if they don’t turn up at their usual sauna time, and young children play in bathtubs on the floor.

THE POWER OF LÖYLY

At the heart of it all is löyly (pronounced low-lu), a word that literally translates as steam or heat. But that doesn’t come close to capturing it. Lembke compares the experience of good löyly to an intense hug. “It’s a spiritual thing,” he says. Every sauna has a different löyly and its quality can vary in the same sauna from day to day, or even hour to hour as the heat drops.

The löyly vibe described at these saunas reminds me of time spent at the Hollywood YMCA pre-pandemic. A nonprofit gym and recreation center, the Y is one of the few destinations in Los Angeles that serves a multigenerational community and offers a sliding scale membership fee.

I met my octogenarian friend, Harry in Zumba class at the Y in 2016.

Harry and Me in June 2021. He passed away a couple of months later. 💔 Some day I’ll publish a very long piece that I wrote about my lovely friendship with Harry.

Each week, I’d pick him up and we’d take Zumba class together, then grab lunch afterwards. If I ever turned up to the Y without Harry, other gym-goers would rush over and ask if he was okay. They were keeping an eye out for him.

I should not be surprised if an older sauna-goer asks me to scrub their back, says Alexander Lembke, as he talks me through the workings of Finland’s oldest working public sauna. “You just do it, help them.

For folks in Finland, this is the norm. As a society, they have each other’s back, literally.

Student Iida Korpela, 26, comes most days. “I don’t know any place in Helsinki or the whole of Finland where there are so many different people – young, old, students, foreign people, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds,” she says, sitting at a piano under a wooden shelter. “When you’re in the sauna you don’t have your fancy clothes; we’re all just people in the sauna. That’s the best part.”

As this year comes to a close and we head into 2024, perhaps we can all try to think about how we might create some löyly in our hometowns. Seems like everyone could use “an intense hug” right about now, don’t you think?

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Okay. That’s a wrap for today and 2023! If you enjoyed any of these musings, hit the ❤️ button or leave a comment. I always love hearing from you. And if you know anyone who might enjoy In With The Old, please forward this on.