Retirement Milestones - Blog Anniversary Stroll

This post marks the one-year anniversary of the RetirementSparks blog. The impetus to blog arose from my frustration with the paperwork that came with Medicare applications (Toe in the Water, Complexities of Simplification Sep. 1 and 7, 2010.)

While 18 of my posts have been about Medicare, Social Security and general health issues (FDA to Issue Medicare Warnings Nov. 17, Acronyms for the Jargon Dec. 15, Retirochondria Mar. 26, 2011), 13 of them were about downsizing in retirement (Facing the Music, Thinning Out the Closet Sep. 4 and 5, St. Joseph the Realtor Aug. 20.) I’m still trying to make that happen, so you can expect to see more posts on downsizing in year two.

Topics have ranged from the sublime (Patron Saint of Retirees, Retirement Beatitudes Feb. 9 and 26) to the ridiculous (What If There Were A Final Exam Oct. 2, Ice Cream Flavors for Retirees Jul. 16) and everything in between (Species of Retirees Dec. 22 and Venice Expo as Metaphor Jun. 8.)

I’ve learned that my readers particularly like posts that include lists of things (Warnings and Contraindications Jan. 12, Retirement Commandments Mar. 12 and 16.) You also like posts that remind you of how hard we have worked to get to retirement (Signs It’s Time to Retire Jan. 29, Crankypants Apr. 16.) So expect more of all of these in the coming year.

I began blogging with some simple goals: to create material that would amuse my readers (Lawn As Metaphor Sep. 8,) and perhaps inform them(Alcohol Really Is Medicinal Sep. 15,) and to polish my writing skills. I also began with a schedule of daily posting, which I quickly scaled back to twice weekly. (That happened in week two.)

It turns out blogging is hard work (Tough Work Sep. 29.) Not only must one find the time to write and to edit, but it also takes time to come up with topics (Creative Sparks Dec. 4,) and in many cases, to research them and add “color” (Name that Paint Color Jul. 9.)

So my goals expanded to include having the discipline to post on a regular schedule, no matter how much I wanted to take a break (Going with the Flow June 1.) I was doing reasonably well at this, but by month twelve, it was getting harder, not easier (Taking A Pass on Posting Aug. 6.)

As year one comes to a close, there are 111 RetirementSparks posts (including this one.) I’m seriously considering self-publishing them as a holiday gift book. Not all are top quality, IMHO, but most are as good as the fare one generally finds in those slim little impulse purchases with the catchy titles.

In an effort to provide an ever-higher standard of writing, I’ve decided to once again adjust my posting schedule. Beginning in year two (September 3,) I will be posting just once a week, on Saturdays. My goal is to provide pieces that are funnier and more interesting. In short, posts that are more worthy of your reading time.

So look for RetirementSparks on Saturdays only, beginning in September. And look for my year one anthology (insert catchy title here…) around the end of this calendar year. Finally, if you have suggestions for topics (or catchy titles), please send them to me. My email door is always open.

Retirement Issues - Whose Nostalgia Is it Anyway?

A side bar in this week’s Advertising Age made me sit up and take notice. The main article was on the Pan Am brand and new TV programs scheduled for this fall that are tapping into a nostalgia trend. On its face, this is nothing to write home about. Or more to the point, nothing to blog about. What caught my eye in the side bar was the elaboration about nostalgia.

Before I plunge into that, let me provide some context. Influenced in part by the success of the AMC TV series Mad Men about the advertising business in the sixties, at least two new shows on major networks this fall hark back to that same era. One is Pan AM (ABC.) The other is The Playboy Club (NBC.)

I’ve seen the promos for these shows. They remind me that I wanted to be an airline stewardess (that’s what they were called back then) because I longed to travel the world, but I wasn’t tall enough. Even as the height requirements dropped yearly as airline travel exploded, they never got close to 5’ 2” in stocking feet. (And yes, we always wore stockings. Pantyhose had not yet been invented.) Even in heels I would barely have stood higher than the beverage cart. “Has anyone seen the stew?” would have echoed up and down the aisle. (And yes, there was only one aisle back then.)

One of the first Playboy Clubs was about a half hour from my home, but I never had a desire to be a bunny. Despite what you’re thinking and although true, that was not because I failed to meet the minimum physiological requirements for that profession, too. Likewise it was not because they didn’t make bunny tails sufficiently poufy to cover my ample posterior. (We could have clumped three of them together, after all.)

Enough about my anatomy. Let’s talk nostalgia. The Ad Age sidebar by Brian Steinberg opined: “…nostalgia is a powerful lure to reach the 40-something… upper end of the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 audience…” Bad enough he’s rubbing it in our faces that after age 50, we’re not considered valuable targets anymore, but it gets worse.

Steinberg quotes Denis Riney, a brand consultant, with a point worth bringing to the forefront in this nostalgia discussion. “Brands like Pan Am and Playboy are emotional signposts that transport us back to an era when America was No. 1.” Riney goes on to reference “the swagger of the Rat Pack era” and what was then considered a classy lifestyle.

Hang on. Steinberg just said that the networks are using nostalgia to lure 40-somethings, but those “nostalgia” shows are about the sixties and seventies. The sixties are when the Sinatra Rat Pack was swaggering, too. The oldest 40-somethings were still having bed-wetting accidents in the sixties and the youngest were just popping out of their mothers’ ovens in the early seventies.

The same advertisers that cast us aside like a pair of old saddle shoes are now coopting our nostalgia. They can’t seriously believe that shows about those decades are going to provide “emotional signposts” for these kids. Apparently they do.

Google “emotional signpost” and you’ll find pages about the stages of labor (as in popping out babies,) and links to YouTube videos for a song of that title by a techie musician who goes by Gannon. These sites are far more likely to be of interest to 40-somethings than Pan Am stewardesses or Playboy bunnies. Hello, advertisers, are you listening?

Enough, I say! I have absolutely no desire to watch either Pan Am or The Playboy Club. But if those of us over 50, and especially those over 60 and 70, watch these shows in large enough numbers, we can mess up the audience delivery metrics big time.

The networks will likely guarantee their advertisers some nostalgic percentage of viewers in that coveted 40-something audience. The actual figures, skewed by all of us, dear readers (or rather, viewers,) will be vastly depressed for the coveted group, and wonderfully inflated for the age group that truly owns this nostalgia. The advertisers may actually schedule some ads that are targeted to us, if they can figure out what those should be.

Here are some hints. Where did Pan Am fly in the sixties and seventies and what travel bargains can get us there today? If you put Giada De Laurentiis in a bunny costume in my kitchen, what fabulous dish would she be cooking and where can we find the ingredients? What kind of wine should we be drinking with that meal and out of what shape glass?

If advertisers still don’t pay attention to us, we should speak out with one voice and tell them where they can stick their emotional signposts. I’ll drink to that.

Retirement Musings - More Potpourri

It looks like today’s post will be another of those potpourris that I slip in now and again. Usually (and today is no exception) it’s because I don’t have a particular theme in mind, but I’ve collected a few tidbits that I want to share.

Let’s begin with some snippets from Time magazine over the last few months. These are mostly items of limited words and no elaboration. They usually appear in the World section, the numbers column in the Briefing section, or some other similarly quick-read section.

My favorite in this group is the blurb about exploding watermelons. No, these were not IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) set out to trick unsuspecting soldiers in Iraq. Farmers in eastern China planted these melons using some type of growth chemical to fatten them up. It must have been exceptionally effective, because about 115 acres of watermelon fields were destroyed in the great fruit explosion. I don’t even want to think about where all those seeds might have wound up…

The same section snapshots a UN report that 1.3 billion metric tons of food is lost or wasted worldwide. There was no mention of how much of that is exploding watermelons.

Another odd snippet is that four beehives from a research project in Scotland were stolen from a university laboratory. One imagines these poor bees as conscripted laborers, forced to pollinate acre upon acre of flowers. Perhaps they were shipped off to China to get those watermelon fields back into production. More likely, they’re being used to make honey.

If so, those bee thieves had best keep that honey out of North America. My online sleuthing discovered that The True Source Honey Initiative was set to launch a program sometime in 2011 to certify the origin, food safety and purity of honey. The True Source Honey Traceability Program was created by Canadian and U.S. honey companies and importers to address illegally sourced honey, which is a major industry concern.

Here’s where this gets interesting. Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the DOJ indicted a passel of individuals and companies for conspiring to illegally import $40 million of honey. It was coming from—you guessed it—China, the land of exploding watermelons. Some of the honey contained an unapproved antibiotic used to fight a bacterial epidemic that attacked hundreds of thousands of Chinese beehives. So, maybe we know where those bees were abducted to after all.

Finally—and you’re going to love how I manage to tie this report in to the others—a June issue of Time reported on knitters as the new graffiti artists. Many folks out there will argue that their work is really conceptual art. I’ll let you be the judge.

This new trend is called “yarn bombing.” It involves yarn artists surreptitiously taking to the streets to cover all sorts of unexpected items and places with their colorful works, creating Dadaesque installations. Time’s photos showed a tank blanket in Copenhagen, a leg warmer on an enormous statue in Paris and subway seat covers in Philadelphia. Canada declared June 11 International Yarn Bombing Day.

You’re probably thinking: “Just mentioning Canada does not qualify as a segue from the honey story.” Not to worry. I’ve saved one last yarn bomb. A photo from Vancouver showed firefighters at the end of their extension ladder hanging knit cherry blossoms on a tree. This of course begs the question: if knit cherry blossoms are here, can crocheted honey bees be far behind? Let's hope they're not made in China.

Okay. You can applaud now.

Retirement Downsizing- St. Joseph the Realtor

Those of you who follow me on other on-line fora will know by now that the deal to sell my house has fallen apart. Not one to be deterred by a bump in the road, I’m taking action to find another, better buyer. To wit, we are taking the first price markdown next week, and I’ve just come in from burying a statue of St. Joseph in my front yard.

A few of you out there look perplexed. Let me explain. There is a long standing (sub)urban myth that burying St. Joseph upside down in your yard will help you sell your house. It’s unclear why he must be upside down. Is he really likely to wander off (under ground) if upright?

I considered burying him sideways, like a ship in a bottle, but in an empty Pinot Noir. I guess the notion of “sideways” reminded me of the terrific movie of that title, the one that had a stream of Pinot running through it.

You probably think of St. Joseph as Jesus’s carpenter father. Or perhaps as the inventor of children’s aspirin. It’s unclear how he came by his role as real estate sales facilitator. It was probably some extension of carpentry and building.

This of course makes me wonder if he is as effective selling brick houses as wood ones. Fortunately for me, my home is good old New England clapboard. (It’s pronounced “clabberd” up here, by the way, not “clap-board.” True New Englanders also spell the old nursery rhyme mother “Hupboard.”)

Another possibility for how St. Joe got into real estate sales is that it’s one big headache, especially for the seller. Before Excedrin, aspirin would have been the drug of choice to deal with this. Today, there’s Vicodin, but I don’t think it has a saint endorsing it yet.

However it came about, the notion of burying St. Joseph upside down has so many proponents that you can buy little kits, complete with instructions. Mine came courtesy of my Realtor. Here’s what I learned from the material that was included.

There are several acceptable places to bury the statue. These include by your doorstep (facing away), near the street (facing the house) and by the Realtor’s sign (no advice re which way to face; read into that what you will.) I’ve opted for the doorstep approach. It will be easier to tell if the squirrels have dug it up, mistaking it for a plant bulb.

The advice is clear as to the depth to bury it—8 inches, not 3 feet. No arguments from me on that. I have trouble getting to one foot when I’m gardening. These and several other tidbits are bulleted neatly on the back of the instruction card.

Below the bullets, there’s a paragraph that advises that St. Joseph’s power lies in the prayers you say to him and how faithful you are in your devotion. (A separate prayer card is provided.) I had been wondering how the Catholic Church could countenance this practice, but the focus on the prayers answered that.

Next is the sentence that makes me sit up physical-therapy-straight and take notice. “You can also increase your chance of selling your home by making sure it is in good condition and by asking a realistic price.” Spoken like a true Realtor. Then I notice that the section with the bullet points is titled “How-To-Myths” while the paragraph below them is titled “The Truth.” This must be the liability disclaimer. I can hear it now:

“I buried the statue and nothing happened. I want my money back.”

“Did you pray daily?”

“Well, not exactly…”

“Um hmmm. And was your home in good condition and did you price it realistically?”

“Let’s put it this way. It never looked as good as when I first put it on the market. And the price seemed realistic when my Realtor and I first sat down with comps.”

“And what about three weeks later, when the stock market tanked and Congress went home for Summer recess?”

“Yeah, well, maybe you have a point.”

“You might want to try burying two more statues of St. Joseph in the other locations we suggested. We have a buy-one-get-one-half-off promotion going on now.”

“Won’t that give him an identity crisis?”

“Not if you pray at each statue individually…”

And that, dear readers, is why I put one of my bottles of Pinot Grigio into the fridge before I started writing this. It just so happens that I had two of them in my wine cupboard—one for each of the promotional St. Joes. The Lord does indeed work in strange ways…

Retirement News - Fat Is Good, Sometimes

At last, some news that actually puts a spring in my retirement step. A recent study written up in York University’s Faculty of Health News blog shows that, under certain conditions, people who are obese are actually less likely to die of cardiovascular causes than skinny folks.

The study was conducted by a team of mostly Canadian scientists over a 16-year period and was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism. The team compared the mortality risk of 6,000 obese Americans with that of lean subjects. Although not stated in the summary, one assumes the lean ones were also Americans, though I’m not sure that would have made a huge difference.

Here’s the catch. The chubby folks had to already be a tad overweight as young adults and had to have been less obsessed with losing weight than the lean folks. That is, they would have tried less often throughout their lives to lose weight.

The pleasingly plump also had to have no serious “physical, psychological or physiological impairments.” I did not dig deeply enough to get the details on what impairments made this list. In my experience, the Canadians have a much higher tolerance than Americans for non-conforming behavior, so I’d probably clear the hurdle on this one.

Apparently, being content with ones body, even if it was carrying a few more pounds than ideal, meant that these subjects were likely to have a healthy lifestyle. They were physically active and ate healthy food (though probably too much of it.) That combination of activity and a balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables seems to lead to healthier hearts than yo-yo dieting.

I’ve been on more than an occasional diet throughout my life, but I can’t say that I fall into the yo-yo category. I was more of a “special occasion” dieter. You know, upcoming vacation to a Club Med, good friend’s wedding, high school or college reunion. By the time I reached my forties it was more like “important job interview.” You can imagine how rare those were as I got older.

Moving on to one of my favorite medical subtopics, acronyms—the researchers for this study used (and I quote) “a new grading tool, the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS.)” This new tool was developed at the University of Alberta and has been shown to be more accurate than the more widely known and enormously popular BMI (Body Mass Index) in targeting folks who need to lose weight.

For those not familiar with the BMI, here’s a layman’s description of how it works. You fill a bathtub to the brim with water and plop your body into it. If the water that overflows takes more rolls of paper towels to mop it up than you got on sale at Costco last month, you’re probably too fat. Likewise, if you float when you get into the tub, you should think about toning up.

BMI is also sometimes shortened to the catchy “pinch an inch” criteria, meaning that if you can pinch more than an inch of fat anywhere on your body, your B has too much M. (Or as my internist would so tactfully put it, “There’s too much of you.”) Personally, I think that the fat under one’s neck should be excluded from the pinch test for those over 60. Also upper arms for women over 55.

The EOSS incorporates the BMI, waist-to-hip ratio and some clinical measures of obesity-related medical conditions (such as hypertension and diabetes.) High blood pressure runs in my family, and it caught up with me years ago, so I’m not sure how I would fare with the new grading tool. I figure I can’t do any worse than I would with the old one, even disallowing my neck wattle and arm flaps.

The EOSS classifies five stages of obesity. The blog report does not itemize these, but after considerable digging, I’ve uncovered all five. If you recognize yourself as number three or higher, you need to lose weight even on the new EOSS scale. The five stages are (from least obese to most:)

1.     I bet everyone pinched your cheeks when you were a baby.

2.     Did you forget your Spanx, or is that a seriously out of control muffin top?

3.     This little piggy went to market, but apparently this little piggy forgot to go home.

4.     Jiggle, jiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Is there any part of you that doesn’t shake when you walk? And the highest level:

5.     EOSS, BMI—YAHO (Forget how we measured it—You Are Hopelessly Obese.)

Retirement Transitions - Lose Your Looks, Lose Your Money

As if retirees don’t have enough problems planning and managing their finances, especially with what’s been going on in Washington, this week’s Time magazine reports more bad news.

An economist from the University of Texas has written a book titled Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful. I’m a tad suspicious of the sources, since the article says simply that “studies indicate” that good looks can earn you a lifetime premium of $230,000 vs. an ugly otherwise equal peer. Supposedly, the discrepancy is even more pronounced for men, if you can believe that.

I did some quick Googling to see if I could turn up more about the study or studies that informed this book. Mostly I found reviews of the book, and I didn’t have the patience to dig very deeply. So, you can take this at face value or say phooey.

You might think that as a retiree, the earnings spread would be of little concern to me. However, one has to assume that if there is any substance to the good professor’s findings, you don’t just earn more if you’re good looking. You probably also pay less—get better deals on, say, a new car.

The reason this bothers me is that as I age, I see my looks fading away. As I peer into the mirror each day while I’m brushing my teeth, which mercifully are still all there, I can’t help but acknowledge that I’m not as attractive as when I was younger.

I don’t simply mean comparing the current me to the earlier me. I mean comparing the earlier me to my peers back then and comparing the current me to my fellow retirees. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that I’m going to be paying a premium for my purchases and services as I move through retirement.

There are other physical factors to further complicate my prospects for a financially stable retirement. I can recall many reports that tall people are treated as having more clout and are generally more successful than short people.

Like most folks over 60, I’m starting to shrink. I was flirting with 5’ 2” at one point in my life. Now I’m sneaking up on 5’ 1”. Does this mean my already disadvantaged height is going to become more of a bogey in my later retirement? Sadly, that’s likely to be the case.

I suppose I could budget more money for makeup and spend more time applying it. My physical therapist has me doing exercises to stretch my spine. I could plan to continue PT even after I’ve reached Medicare’s annual cap. But none of that would really be me.

No, I think I’ll just be happy with my shrinking body and the face in the mirror. I may not have as much money as my taller, more attractive friends, but I’ll always have my family. And a nice, but affordable, bottle of wine. I can live with that.

Retirement Lessons - Condo Associations and Home Buyers

Just back from our trip to Vermont to scout some possible condos for our downsizing. Since I’ve been driving four and a half hours, this will be brief. Here’s what I’ve learned.

A monthly association fee generally covers mowing, trimming hedges between units, garbage disposal and snow removal. If you have bushy plantings behind your condo, you and your neighbors hire and pay someone to trim them periodically. Kaching.

Yes, the association takes care of painting and a new roof if needed. However, those types of major repairs are generally paid for via an added “assessment” that is spread across all the affected condo owners. Kaching, kaching.

Condo boards have such power as to place a potential buyer in a “Sophie’s Choice” situation. One of the condos we looked at allows just one pet—one dog or one cat. We have two cats. So, if we wanted to buy that condo, we’d have to decide which one of our children to keep and which to give away. As if.

In Rhode Island, the seller pays the title transfer tax/fee. In Vermont, the buyer pays the title transfer tax/fee. So a seller in Rhode Island who is buying in Vermont (that would be me, dear readers) gets hit with a double whammy. Kaching, kaching again.

And finally, in a buyers’ market, deadlines must be adhered to rigidly by the seller. However, for the buyer, all deadlines are moving targets. Oh yes, and when a buyer misses a deadline, the closing date still stands.

I am so glad I bought two bottles of wine at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store at the rest area on our way home from Vermont.

Retirement Overload - Taking a Pass on Posting

Just a quick post to apologize for taking a pass on a real post today.
We had our yard/tag/garage sale and I was on my feet for most of the ten hours from set up to pack up. Virtually no breakfast; no lunch. But plenty of water to try to keep hydrated.

The sale started at nine AM with "no early birds" in ads and on sign at the house.
Someone was insistently ringing our front doorbell at 7:45 as I was climbing out of the shower.
Needless to say, I didn't answer the door. No point in scaring off the buyers...

Sold quite a lot, but it seems to have barely made a dent. Lots of boxes of things to donate next week, especially books. Fortunately, someone bought all three of the doll carriages I had for sale, as well as a large, decorative sleigh. Those were some of the items that would have been a challenge to take with us, even if they were destined for self-storage and an attempt at an EBay sale.
Now I'm hoping that the person who emailed a bid on the doll house but couldn't come to the sale decides to take that. It's even bigger and more challenging than the doll carriages!


Fingers crossed that the contract we have on our house doesn't fall apart in the next two days over inspection issues. It's supposed to be an "as is" deal, but apparently in this market buyers say "sure" so you'll accept their ridiculously low bid. Then they proceed to give you a list of things they expect you to accommodate or they'll walk.

It's possible that I'll miss my post this coming Wednesday, too, as we hope to be in Vermont Tuesday and Wednesday looking at condos. If you see a post, chances are we cancelled the trip because our buyers pushed me beyond my breaking point on Monday.

Stay tuned!

Retirement Tools - Weep Not, Wine Lots

Common wisdom says that crying is a good way to relieve stress and depression. Weep away all that bad karma and get it out of your system! Turns out, common wisdom may be wrong.

A recent study reported in the Journal of Research in Personality had about 100 women in the Netherlands keep diaries for several months noting their moods and crying habits. The authors found that in 61% of the crying jags, the women felt no better and no worse than before they spilled all those tears. Fewer than one third had improved moods and 9% actually felt worse after letting it all out. An interesting side tidbit was that most of the subjects cried when and where they thought no one else could see them.

If you feel like crying now that you know weeping may not perk you up, I know something that will. Advertising Age just reported some good news about the on-line wine business. Persistence and an accumulation of state legislative changes have sweetened the pot for on-line vino vendors. On July 1, Maryland became the 38^th state to allow out-of-state wineries to ship their product into the state. This trend has enabled on-line vendors to attract capital and expand their businesses.

Wine.com posted its first ever profit this fiscal year; it sold 2 millions bottles in the past year. You’ve probably heard of flash mobs. Well, WineShopper is a flash-sale website set up by Wine.com. Its daily emails offer its users discounts of up to 70%. The catch? They’re good for only 72 hours. It’s kind of like Groupon on steroids. A recent special was 1 cent shipping on orders of $99 or more. Specials count down in the web page header, much like an EBay auction. (Ends in 3 hrs 40 min!)

Lot18 has snared $13 million in funding from VCs; it acts as a middleman between wineries and oenophiles. Its wine “curators” select the wines and send out daily email reviews. Their CEO boasts that their site is so popular and their selections so good that some of their choices never even make it to bricks and mortar purveyors.

I think these websites are God’s gift to retirees who like to nestle into their favorite chair and relax with a really good glass of wine. In other words, gifts to me. Now we can even order our wine while we’re nestled in, provided we have a wireless router. Note to self: get one of those when we move to Vermont.

So the next time you’re feeling stressed or depressed, don’t go off by yourself and get weepy. It probably won’t make you feel better anyway. Just go off by yourself and enjoy an excellent bottle of wine. Don’t worry. There’s no more shame in drinking alone than there is in crying alone in some hidden, dark corner.

If you’re like most of us and have a life that’s quite stressful, you’ll plan ahead and have that wine waiting for you when you feel a crying jag coming on. While you’re drinking the one you have in stock, be sure to go online to order a few replacement bottles. But you’d better hurry. That deal on shipping ends soon!