I recently heard about a woman who, as she neared her 60th birthday, decided to take on something challenging. “I know,” she said. “I’ll swim from Cuba to Florida!”

I, too, have a birthday approaching, and I’d been thinking in terms of new challenges, but more along the lines of adjusting a succotash recipe, or organizing my sock drawer. If I told my husband I wanted to swim 103 miles, he would have me committed, or at least suggest I upgrade my bathing suit. But we live by different standards than the woman quoted above. She is Diana Nyad, once the country’s most famous female long-distance swimmer.

Ms. Nyad swam around Manhattan in the 70’s, which made her famous for way more than fifteen minutes. Shortly after that, she made her first attempt at the Cuba-to-Florida swim, She failed (due to bad weather), and gave up swimming for thirty years. This fall, she’s again undertaking that 60-hour swim. She’ll be followed by a boat whose crew will hand her food and water. These are the rules: “You can stop, “ Nyad says, “But you cannot touch the boat.”

I am quite a bit younger than Nyad. (Well, maybe not quite a bit. Let’s just say I’m younger than she is and older than Justin Bieber.) But I am inspired by her example. I went in the pool the other day and swam twice as long as usual. While swimming thirty minutes using a flotation device does not put me in Nyad’s league, I felt that it was a step in the right direction.

More to the point, when my birthday comes next week, I am going to make my goals for the coming year a little loftier. I might even start that new writing project that seems so huge, so daunting. I know that to get through it, I will have to stay focused, pace myself, maybe stop occasionally along the way to summon fresh energy. But I’ll be thinking of Diana Nyad, and, I will try my damnedest not to touch the boat.

The Russians have really got it going on.

So, their economy sucks, right? Big deal, whose doesn’t? But they have a unique suggestion for stimulating it. Unlike our boring attempts to pump things up here in the U.S. Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin just came right out and told everyone to smoke and drink as much and as often as possible.

While some would call this stimulus agenda a good reason to pack up and move to Russia, others say that while it’s fun to party to your heart’s content, it may also lead to your heart’s demise. Well, not so fast, you negative nudnicks; don’t rain on Russia’s parade yet. First, consider a new study that just came out of England.

According to the study, people who drink heavily live longer than teetotalers. While some doubt the study’s validity (they say it was influenced by participants’ wishful thinking), I’m willing to believe anyone who speaks with a British accent, especially as happy hour approaches.

So, scan the news and draw your own conclusions, but it’s all adding up like one plus one: Drink your way to a healthy economy and a healthy body. Start by making yourself a tasty Moscow Mule cocktail (click here for recipe), in honor of the wise Russian guy (who would rather you drink three or four and smoke a pack while you’re at it).