The hot days of sum­mer are upon us. We wait all year for our beau­ti­ful island sum­mers, but still, some days are just too hot. Old­er adults are more vul­ner­a­ble to super hot weath­er. Dr. Basil Eldadah of the Nation­al Insti­tute on aging explains, “As we age, our abil­i­ty to sweat and to dilate blood  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Mullis Cen­ter Book Club has a new coor­di­na­tor. Now that Beth Hel­stien has retired from the San Juan Island Library (thank you Beth!), Wendy Wax­man Kern, the library’s new Out­reach and Tech­nol­o­gy Coor­di­na­tor, will be facil­i­tat­ing the Mullis Cen­ter Book Club. Wendy pre­vi­ous­ly served as San Juan County’s 4‑H Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor and has a rich  Con­tin­ue Reading

The equinox has passed and Fourth of July week­end is upon us. For islanders this gen­er­al­ly marks the true start of sum­mer both weath­er wise and in terms of increased activ­i­ties and vis­i­tors. One sure sign that sum­mer is revving up is that our local farm­ers mar­ket is invig­o­rat­ed with plen­ty of fresh pro­duce among  Con­tin­ue Reading

When the nutri­tion­ist at Peace Health asked me what sort of phys­i­cal exer­cise I would be will­ing to com­mit to, I declared bold­ly that I would do yoga three times a week. I had just dug up my old yoga pro­gram that with enough adap­ta­tions I could still man­age to almost do. What has helped  Con­tin­ue Reading

Last month, the Mullis Cen­ter cau­tious­ly tip-toed into restart­ing the onsite com­mu­ni­ty lunch pro­gram. With COVID cas­es remain­ing high and with guid­ance from the health depart­ment and our recent com­mu­ni­ty sur­vey, the Mullis Cen­ter is exper­i­ment­ing with a new, less for­mal, more open, and adapt­able lunch pro­gram. The com­mu­ni­ty we serve is right­ful­ly cau­tious when  Con­tin­ue Reading

The advice colum­nist known as Dear Abby once said, “These days it takes nerves of steel just to be neu­rot­ic” — and she said that in the six­ties. In today’s world there is plen­ty to fray our weary nerves. We have all the usu­al caus­es for men­tal dis­tress: anx­i­ety, iso­la­tion, loss, health issues, all mag­ni­fied  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fri­day Har­bor suf­fered a great loss recent­ly when fire took some of our most cher­ished his­toric build­ings, shock­ing­ly gone overnight. While we reach out to help those whose lives and liveli­hoods were irrev­o­ca­bly impact­ed by the loss, once again, whether we want to or not, we face the per­sis­tent life les­son of the inevitabil­i­ty of  Con­tin­ue Reading

My friend David Bent­ley reports that he enjoys hav­ing a game of cards with friends at the Mullis Cen­ter on Mon­day after­noons. The Mullis Cen­ter is open for cards and board games on Mon­days and Wednes­days from 1 to 3 p.m. Besides the social con­vivi­al­i­ty, a study from Scot­land says that game play­ing helps keep  Con­tin­ue Reading