Taking my survey + whales + Benji

Jun 13, 2021

May I recommend

Taking this very quick (six questions - totally anonymous!) survey to make the newsletter better!

I’ve been at at this for six months and I want to check in and figure out if I’m on the right path.

Ugh, Amy - you are turning my world upside down and I CANNOT HANDLE IT. I spend all week managing my life, managing other people’s lives, tidying up papers, making meals, dealing with the recycling, remembering to floss, replying to emails and this is the one, small space where I don’t have to make any decisions. Now you’re asking me to answer six questions? I don’t want to do it!!! I come to this newsletter for bossy recommendations from YOU. I don’t want to tell YOU how to do something. You have upset the fundamental balance of the newsletter forces and I am annoyed.

Guess what? You don’t have to answer the survey. Move on down to those sweet sweet TikToks… I will never know.

But, if you do have the mental space, please do pop over to the survey (link is that big purple button up above that says “Survey says!”) and answer my six quick questions (I tried to make them kinda funny!).

Come, on do the survey, you will be like a contestant on Family Feud

Did you take the survey? Why or why not? Talk to me in the comments below.

Man literally swallowed by a whale

“I was completely inside”: Lobster diver swallowed by humpback whale.

I am obviously going to lead with this story.

Also, just as an FYI - my forthcoming novel, The Honeybee Emeralds (Keylight Publishing - March 2022), features one character who has a profound connection with whales… Though isn’t LITERALLY swallowed by one.

“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled Friday afternoon following his release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”

Yoga with Adriene’s dog, Benji

Benji is one down dog

I enjoy Adriene’s yoga classes, but her dog Benji truly is the star and he’s getting the attention he deserves.

Benji, a six-year-old, forty-pound blue heeler, is the canine companion of YouTube yoga celebrity Adriene Mishler. We meet outside one of his and Mishler’s favorite coffee shops, in East Austin, on an overcast morning in May. The decor is all clean lines and pale wood and concrete, the coffee beans sustainably sourced. Benji himself is dressed tastefully but minimally, in a navy-blue harness that flatters his broad chest and shoulders, and a faded navy rope leash with elegant brass accents. This is basically the extent of Benji’s regular wardrobe. He doesn’t enjoy collars or bandannas, so except for his harness and leash—which he is required to wear periodically, both for personal safety and in compliance with Austin’s leash laws—he prefers to greet the world au naturel whenever possible.

Sometimes, someone has an Ur-Recommendation list

Your Afternoon Chat: What’s the One Thing You Recommend For Summer?

A wonderful crowdsourced roundup of things and activities to make your summer even more pleasant. To wit:

ANNE
I’m obsessed with my hammock (I have the ENO DoubleNest), which I immediately put up anytime the weather is nice and which I can confirm is excellent for reading, napping, bird watching, and beer drinking!