I’m Six Again At Christmastime

The Christmas season is upon us and I’m once again in high gear. It’s one of my favorite times of the year. Our family has slowed down on the gift giving, which enables us to focus more on the warm and fuzzy stuff. Since Jagdish and I expect to be downsizing to a condo next spring, I’m taking advantage of the ample space that our house offers to put out even more holiday décor than usual.

I have an entire closet filled with almost nothing but house and tree decorations. The first things I put out are usually the snowmen and Santa-like items. This year, I found myself talking to them as I placed them throughout the rooms. It dawned on me that it’s like I become six again at Christmastime.

Hello, Italian snowman (round belly, red and green hat) with your Chanukah snowmen friends (blue clothes). Hey, Humpty Dumpty Santa and Mrs. Humpty Claus. How was your summer? Snowman family on the piano keyboard, will your kids be applying to colleges this year? I don’t care that they never answer me. I just move on to the next grouping. There’s the Laurel and Hardy snowmen—one super thin, the other round as a pumpkin. Or maybe they’re Jagdish and Elaine.

It’s Christmastime and I’m 26 again. I’m unwrapping an ornament my father gave me for one of my first trees living on my own. It’s a brass mask from Venezuela, still in the tissue and plastic bag it came in. My father asked a co-worker going on a business trip there to bring back something appropriate for a tree ornament for him to give me. He was hugely disappointed in the mask. I think he was expecting a star. I always loved it, especially because of the story behind it. His name, spelled wrong by his co-worker, is still penciled onto the tissue.

It’s Christmastime and in my mind I’m 39. I’m unpacking the silver snowflakes and brass stars from the Metropolitan Museum gift shop. My parents gave me one each year, but my father picked them out. I’m missing the one for 1984. He died that year. My mother wanted to get the ornament for me, but it was just too painful for her to deal with. It was painful for me, too. I started buying them on my own the next year. In my collection over a 31-year period, the only year missing is the one my father died.

I’m baking Sunset Cookies from my mother’s recipe. I’m 50 and it’s my first Christmas without her. These cookies remind me of her. If I made struffoli, I’d feel even closer. She made the dough and rolled it into finger-width strands. I cut them into dice-sized pieces. After they were fried, she drizzled them with honey and I formed the ring around an upside down glass. When we removed the glass, we decorated with colored sprinkles and her “Italian” plastic holly. I don’t have a deep fryer, so I make her cookies.

I’ve reached my 68^th Christmas. I’m cranky. I have very little patience. I say things that aren’t appropriate to repeat here to people who don’t put on their left turn signal and just stop dead in the fast lane, waiting to make the turn. Also to those who drive behind me as I’m backing out of a parking spot in the supermarket lot, even though I’m already more than half way out. I back up ever so slowly, because I know some idiot is going to be in a hurry to get the cantaloupe that’s on sale yet again this week.

I silently give thanks that our family has cut way back on the exchange of presents and that almost everyone is on a diet. But it’s still Christmas, so I put up three trees. That includes the little one that is now Luke’s, but is full of ornaments bought for Tulip and Daisy and Lily and Pansy. Bittersweet memories.

We’ve been in our house on Oriole Avenue for 22 Christmases. Each of the last three years, I’ve considered the possibility that it could be our final Christmas here. It makes me sad, but I remind myself that Christmas is not a physical place. It’s a place in one’s mind and in one’s heart. No matter where we relocate, I’ll be able to unpack Christmas from my ornament boxes and bake it from my recipe file. If I can just remember where I put the patience I had when I was younger, it will be as perfect as when I was six.

Christmas Carols Redux

Sharing little known verses and variations on two Christmas Carols you thought you knew:
Deck the Halls and We Three Kings of Orient Are…

DECK THE HALLS

Deck the halls with greens and bows,

Fa la la la la, la la, la, la.

‘Tis the season to overdose,

Fa la la la la, la la, la, la.

Home baked cookies and peppermint bark,

Yada ya, yada ya, ya da ya.

Tipsy carolers after dark.

Yada yada ya, da ya da ya.

Tiny meatballs and cranberry punches,

Yummy yummy yum, y yum yum yum.

Leftovers for a week of lunches,

Yummy yummy—hmmm, and ho ho hum.

Oh, how good that eggnog tastes.

Slurpy slurp, slurpy slurp, drip drip drip.

Hail to thee, elastic waists!

Slurpy slurpy slurp and drip drip oops.

Months of dieting gone to hell.

Oofy oofy oof, y oof oof oof.

Today the scales reads… (I won’t tell.)

Oofy oofy oof, y oof oh my.

Fast away the season passes,

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

Still can’t find my reading glasses.

Blah blah blah blah blur, blur blur blah blah.

Relax! Rejoice! Be of good cheer!

Fa la la yourself and yada ya.

January starts another year.

Yummy slurpy oof and blabbety blah blah.

WE THREE TREES

We three trees from Oriole are,

Bearing glitz from near and afar,

Field mice, found gems,

More glitz, round men,

 

Following shining stars.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

May you follow your shining stars in 2014 with peace, joy and good health.

Movie Rating System for Retirees

One of the most popular forms of entertainment for retirees is going to the movies, especially on Senior Discount Day. The two key seasons for movie releases are the summer months and December. If you’re planning to see a film over the holidays, you should familiarize yourself with the new rating system for retirees.

If the movie you’ll be seeing is rated B, make sure you go to the bathroom just before you take your seat. You should also refrain from drinking any liquids for at least three hours prior to show time. A B rating indicates either an extremely long feature (2½ hours plus) or lots of scenes with beverages being consumed. Enough said.

A rating of H alerts you to be sure your hearing aid has fresh batteries and the volume is set to the maximum. Films given an H either are filled with soft-spoken dialogue or have a cacophony of sounds that overlap. Either way, it’s hard to keep up if you miss even one line. Be sure to adjust your aid to the setting that filters out background noise.

To better enjoy a feature that carries a D rating, wear your distance glasses. It was shot in what the cinematographer calls the “artistic style.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and one person’s “artistic” is another person’s eyestrain. Most scenes will be either darkly lit or out of focus, much like highways appear at night at our age. My distance glasses have become my cinematic essential, especially for a D flic. My typical challenge is remembering to bring them into the theater from the car.

If you’re catching a movie rated I and you’re not up on pop culture, bring a younger friend to act as an interpreter. Otherwise, you’ll have trouble keeping up with the lingo and the visual jokes. If you’re as pop savvy as I am, but the person you usually bring along with you (read: husband) is out of touch (read: totally clueless), you might want to attend an I film alone. Or else sit in the back of the theater so you won’t disturb others as you patiently explain (and re-explain) what’s going on.

The S rating stands for “snoozefest,” which you’ll be at risk of having if you don’t drink at least 16 ounces of a caffeinated beverage before the previews finish running. You’re probably wondering why you’d even go to see a feature that’s an S. Sometimes we’re not the masters of our own destiny. Drink up! Just be sure to hit the bathroom when you’ve finishing gulping.

Warning: R does not stand for Retiree-friendly. It means Restricted, aka Raunchy, and no one under 17 can attend without a parent. R is not as bad as NC-17, which is almost porn and cannot be attended by anyone 17 or under, period. The retiree equivalent is the NC-80 flic, which cannot be attended by anyone 80 or older. NC-80 was set up to prevent the elderly from having a coronary in the middle of especially graphic sex scenes. Apparently the rating board never heard what goes on in The Villages in Florida.

The commonly-seen PG indicates that a movie is relatively innocent. Retirees have the GP rating, which stands for grandparent. GP features are ideal for an outing with your grandchildren. You won’t long for a 5-second delay on the dialogue. You won’t need to keep one hand at the ready to cover young eyes. Best of all, the story line will be entertaining enough to keep you awake (and bathroom free) for about an hour and a half. (Films longer than that have a GP-X rating, for “extended.”)

Speaking of X, our final rating for retirees is the new X. The old X was replaced by the NC-17, a trademark controlled by the Motion Picture Association of America. The new X is loosely controlled by AARP. The X still stands for “explicit,” but what’s shown is not graphic sexual content. It’s close-ups of bunions, wrinkles and sagging body parts. If you see enough of this in your real life and don’t care to see more of it in the theater, avoid an X-rated flic like you do caffeine after 3 pm.

There you have it, a comprehensive guide to movie ratings for retirees. Refer to it when selecting your holiday season entertainment. Be sure to collect the appropriate movie-viewing tools. Or, you could just stay home and turn on the TV. The snacks are less expensive, and the line to the bathroom is shorter.

Epsom Salt—Miracle Cure?

A friend emailed me a link to an article on the benefits of Epsom salt. This friend is big on alternative remedies; she also loves the Tea Party, so her endorsements are subject to scrutiny. Some people will not see using “alternative remedies” and “Tea Party” in the same sentence as an oxymoron. I would not be one of them. However, the “9 Reasons To Use Epsom Salt” intrigued me, so I clicked through to TheAlternativeDaily.com.

First, they tell us: “Epsom salt is a mineral compound comprised of magnesium and sulfate... used for centuries as a natural remedy for a number of ailments.” My attention is waning, but I keep reading about this supposed miracle cure.

The site claims: “Both magnesium and sulfate are readily absorbed into the skin which makes the health benefits readily accessible. Over 325 enzymes in the body are regulated by magnesium... Sulfates improve the rate at which nutrients are absorbed and help to flush out toxins.”

I’m surprised that there are 325 enzymes in our bodies, period, much less ones that pay attention to magnesium. The site http://genomebiology.com explains that “622 of the (human) enzymes are assigned roles in 135 predicted metabolic pathways… (which) closely match the known nutritional requirements of humans.” Of course they do.

I Google “Uses for Epsom Salt,” turning up another website, http://www.saltworks.us, which has either directly quoted TheAlternativeDaily.com or has been plagiarized by the latter, in either case with no attribution. Since I don’t know which is the chicken here and which the egg, consider both sites as my sources. I should research this further (Is there a third, primary source?), but I want to get to all those uses.

Most websites group these into Health, Beauty and Home and Garden. Let’s start with Health, where there are a number of conditions that should prompt retirees to add Epsom salt to their shopping lists.

If you’re stressed (and what retiree isn’t), you could be deficient in magnesium. (Or, you could just be experiencing a normal retirement.) TheAlternativeDaily.com claims that “magnesium helps the body produce serotonin… a mood elevating chemical...” Call me a skeptic, but doesn’t a long soak in a tubful of Crabtree and Evelyn product do the same?

Got muscle pain? Again, what retiree doesn’t, at least occasionally? TheAlternativeDaily.com tells us: “The sulphates in Epsom salt draw heavy metals and other toxins from cells which can ease muscle pain.” Saltworks.us credits an Epsom salt soak with treating toenail fungus and easing gout—other senior plagues.

The last Health benefit is the relief of constipation. An empty container I have says take 2 teaspoons in water for a laxative effect, 4 for a cathartic. (That’s what Californians call a cleanse.) For those snickering about why I have Epsom salt, it was a yard sale find. I like the pink and black package graphics. It pre-dates zip codes, so it’s a collectible.

Moving on to Beauty. We’re told to use Epsom salt as an “exfoliating facial cleanser” by mixing it with coconut oil and rubbing it on our faces. It also serves as a “hair volumizer,” addressing that bane of senior women—thinning hair. This requires warming it in a pan with an equal amount of “deep conditioner,” then working it into the hair and leaving it on for 20 minutes.

Finally, let’s look at Home and Garden. The use that immediately catches my eye is for cleaning bathroom tiles. Mix “equal parts of Epsom salt with liquid dish detergent. Scrub tiles with the mixture and rinse well.” After reading this, I have two thoughts: Who would use the same product to cleanse their face as they use to clean tile grout? And then: Is it the Epsom salt doing this good stuff, or the coconut oil, the conditioner and the detergent?

Full disclosure: my research turned up a Canadian website, http://saveyourself.ca, that put the lie to virtually all the purported benefits of Epsom salt. The author, Paul Ingraham, could find scientifically-proven support for only one benefit: easing constipation, an internal use of the salts. He trashes all the external uses.

Ingraham claims that our “skin is almost completely waterproof.” I have two comments on that. First, we all know that “almost” doesn’t count. Second, tell it to the pharmaceutical companies that market patches for the transdermal delivery of drugs. Also to the makers of the caffeine-infused panties I blogged about two weeks ago.

Perhaps the most significant use for Epsom salt is as the inspiration for this Retirement Sparks blog post. On that note, I’m off to soak in the tub. But I’ll be filling mine with La Source body wash. I’ll also have a nice glass of vino by my side. Now that’s what I call a miracle cure.

Yoga for Seniors

Are you interested in lowering your BMI (Body Mass Index)? If your lingerie budget is as skimpy as mine post-retirement, before you spring for the caffeine panties I wrote about last week, you might want to look into yoga exercises. They not only relax you and tone your body, they’re purported to help keep your weight under control.

There are quite a few exercises that shouldn’t be too challenging for seniors, but would still provide benefits. Several of them can be done using chairs and walls, and therefore don’t require us to get down on a mat. Or more importantly, to get up from one when we’re done. However, most of the ones I’m sharing today have you at least partly on the floor. You can thank me later.

Yoga helps stretch our muscles, ligaments and tendons. It also improves our flexibility and increases our range of motion, all admirable objectives. According to health.howstuffworks.com, “you don't need to be able to tie yourself in knots to become more flexible.” That’s a relief. I always thought that true yogis needed the ability to turn themselves into pretzels. On that note, let’s try some poses.

We’re starting with the One-legged Breaking Wind Pose to help get rid of excess stomach gas. Lie on your back with arms and legs extended. Exhale, draw your knees to your chest and clasp your hands around them until you break wind. Straighten just your left leg, extending it along the floor. Then bring your left knee back to your chest and hold until you fart again. Release and extend your right leg. Bring your right knee back to your chest and exhale for one final wind breaker. I hope you feel better now.

Legs in Parentheses improves flexibility and has been adapted especially for seniors. Sit on the floor and spread your legs apart as much as you comfortably can. If you’re able to straighten them quite widely, by all means, go for the traditional Legs in V. But feel free to bend your knees slightly into parentheses. Lean forward and feel your leg muscles stretching as you count to ten. Lean back. Repeat.

The Shiva Shiver is an obscure yoga pose that helps you lose weight. Supposedly, if you shiver for one hour, you burn 400 calories. Stand in front of your freezer in your underwear. Open the door and put your head inside. Within a few minutes, you should start to shiver. Stay like this for 15 minutes and you’ll burn 100 calories. Hint: empty the freezer out first, in case you fall in, and set a timer to revive you when you’re done. The Shiva Shiver gives new meaning to the phrase “freezer burn.”

Quarter Spinal Twist is great for women with osteoporosis; it lengthens and strengthens your spine. So put on some Chubby Checker and let’s do The Twist. Sit with the bottoms of your feet under your butt. Then place your left foot flat on the floor next to your right knee. If you can’t reach the floor with your foot flat, touch with just your toe. Twist to the left a quarter turn until your foot comes off the floor, or until your muffin top pinches. Switch feet and legs and twist again.

One of my favorite positions is Downward Facing Cat. It helps us strengthen our abdominal and back muscles, improving our balance. Get down on all fours, like a cat. If you’re not sure how this looks, go to your local animal shelter and adopt a cat. Bring it home and watch it for a few hours. Then stretch like your feline friend, rounding your spine, with your head down. DoingA360.com/Basic-Yoga-Poses says: “As you reverse this… the head comes up and the belly droops.” Boy, have I got this position covered!

The unfortunately-named Corpse pose helps you relax at the end of your yoga session. I didn’t need a website to tell me that. I doze off almost every time I do the Corpse. I just never had a name for it. Climbing the Wall is a variation for seniors. Lie on your back on the floor with legs straight up against a wall, arms slightly out from your sides. Then wiggle around. It’s a good way to scratch your back when it’s driving you crazy. It’s also the end of our session.

Master these six yoga poses and you’ll be well on your way to senior Nirvana, with lower blood pressure, better balance and improved flexibility. Some of you will also have a lower BMI and a new cat to keep you warm. I’m here to serve.

Shapewear for Retirees

Good news for retirees who are struggling to get their BMI (Body Mass Index) under control. There’s new shapewear that’s supposed to help us burn off fat.

We now have at our disposal exercise pants and other items that are infused with caffeine to help us lose weight. When I learned about these, my first thought was: I’ve heard of transdermal delivery of medications, but this is ridiculous. My second thought was: If it works, why don’t we just soak in a tubful of coffee?

I researched this before I decided to report on it. I uncovered several companies that are marketing caffeine-infused shapewear. There’s Lytess, French makers of leggings, and SkinKiss Limited in the UK, offering caffeine tights and shapewear.

The UK’s Daily Mail reported on another French company that makes the line Top Model from designer Simone Pérèle. I assumed Simone was a “top model” in France, but it turns out she was a corsetière. She obtained her diploma in corset making in 1935; after the war, she specialized in made-to-order lingerie, especially bras. Her children now run the company.

I digress. The supposed science behind these caffeine-infused garments was reported in 2006 research at Vanderbilt University. Authors Minnette Boesel and Professor Schlundt claim that caffeine “helps blood flow to the skin and works like a diuretic, flushing moisture out of the skin and firming it.” Actually, the quote comes from the editor of Allure Magazine, which makes one suspicious of the scientific cred of this study.

Topicals that make these claims usually contain not just caffeine, but also vitamin E, retinol, aloe vera and even fennel and gotu kola (whatever that is). I’ll tell you what that is. It’s a swamp plant found in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Its leaves and stems are used in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. Several websites emphasize that gotu kola is not the same as the kola nut; gotu kola does not have caffeine and is not a stimulant. On that edifying note, let’s return to the Vanderbilt study.

Boesel concluded that while “some of these lotions and potions with caffeine may have some effect on the appearance of cellulite as a result of dehydration… the results are temporary and do nothing to banish the presence of cellulite.” So what. The results may not last forever, but let’s face it: nothing does anymore. Back now to the caffeine-infused shapewear.

According to Good Morning America, the makers claim that Lytess leggings can take as much as “two inches off your hips and more than an inch from your thighs just by wearing them for 5 hours a day for 21 days.” Plus, they don’t smell like coffee, and they don’t keep you up at night. I don’t know about you, but I’d sit up bug-eyed for three weeks if it would take two inches off my hips. The company claims it “has sold 3.5 million pairs of the pants in France to satisfied customers.” I’ll bet they’re satisfied!

SkinKiss.com says that its products “contain Microcapsules of Caffeine that have slimming benefits” and that their “caffeine tights have won critical acclaim.” There was no elaboration on the specifics of the benefits or the source of the acclaim. The Daily Mail tells us that Top Model caffeine-infused microfiber shapewear “blasts cellulite.” An independent 28-day study reports “63% of women tested it and said it was effective.” Oh, and the effects last for 100 washes, at $50 to $80 a pop.

If your lingerie budget is as skimpy as mine post-retirement, you’ll probably want to look into other ways to control your BMI before you jump into the caffeine panties. To that end, my post next week will cover yoga exercises for seniors.

In the meantime, I’m going to see if anyone is developing nicotine-infused shapewear as a way to help folks quit smoking. I’m not a smoker, but I bet there’s a fortune to be made in replacing cigarettes with nico panties. If I can get in on the ground floor of this with even a modest investment, I’ll probably be able to afford caffeine panties. And more expensive wine. What can I say? I’m just an entrepreneur at heart.

Post-FRA Acronyms

Some months before I retired and almost a year before I reached Full Retirement Age (FRA), I wrote a blog post about the acronyms for retirement jargon, including FRA. It turns out that post-FRA there are new acronyms I need to deal with.

Last week I had my mid-year checkup. I was feeling pretty good about it. I’d lost 28 pounds from my visit six months earlier and my blood pressure (BP) was down to 120 over 80. It had crept up to the 140 over 90 range before I lost the weight. Then I noticed the column on the report of my visit headed “Conditions” and saw that I’m still overweight. Well (thought I), at least it doesn’t say “obese.”

My goal had been to lose another 10 pounds, maybe 15. I decided to go on-line to find out where I need to be so that I’m no longer overweight. I’ve reached the age where I’ve been shrinking a bit each year, and I was prepared for my target weight to shrink along with my height. Shrink, yes, but wither to something not realistically attainable, no. There are tons of websites that claim to help you calculate your ideal body weight.

You have healthstatus.com and healthcentral.com. There’s healthdiscovery.net and healthchecksystems.com. Also the basic calculator.net and the ever-popular webmd.com. Some of the sites require you to input your body frame (small-boned, average, large-boned). To do this accurately, you’re supposed to use calipers and measure your elbow thickness, or else try to wrap your fingers around your wrist. I took the easy way out and went with average frame.

On that basis, some of the sites still label me obese. They all claim that I need to lose at least 25 additional pounds to reach normal weight for my current height. What’s worse, one site actually had the temerity to tell me that I can consume just 896 calories a day if I want to lose weight. As if. I lost the 28 pounds eating 1100-1200. Did I say "eating?" I meant "starving."

The culprit in these calculations is the BMI (Body Mass Index). That acronym was not unfamiliar to me, but I had paid it little mind, and I certainly didn’t know how to calculate it. For those who care: divide your body weight in pounds by your height in inches squared. Then multiply that times 703. A normal BMI is 19 to 24.9, give or take a pinch, depending on the website.

I used to joke that no husband should be allowed to weigh less than his wife. My husband is extremely thin, so despite my extra baggage, I always felt he was partly to blame for the disconnect in our poundage. Now I see that it’s all my fault. When I reach my proper weight—notice I say when, not if—I will finally weigh less than he does.

By the end of the week, the euphoria of my official weight loss and improved BP had morphed into the depressing realization that it could be six more months before I can resume visiting my wine rack once a week. You would think I would have left well enough alone and settled in with a good book. You would be wrong. I returned to the Internet to do research on yet another post-FRA acronym: RMD.

I will turn 69 next year and that has put RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) on my radar. It’s the amount one must withdraw from ones IRA after age 70½. Well, not exactly. According to a variety of websites (including Uncle Sam’s), you have to start withdrawing the money by April 1 of the calendar year after the year in which you turn 70½ (not 70). I determined that to be April 1, 2017 for me. How much one has to withdraw turns out to be not so straight-forward either.

The government’s Uniform Lifetime Table (ULT) calculates your Life Expectancy Factor (LEF). It plugs that into a chart to show the percentage of your IRA you have to withdraw. Each year longer that you live, your projected longevity gets extended, so the percentage changes every year. In other words, you can’t just sit down when you hit 70½ and figure out how much to take out for each of the next five years, calculate the taxes you’ll owe and determine how much you’ll have left to buy really fine wine.

If I had not known how high my BMI is, the RMD based on the LEF in the ULT would have driven me straight into the arms of a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo to lower my BP. Instead I find myself in front of an open refrigerator, communing with a jar of baby dill pickles (5 calories each). It’s a cruel world.

If Speeches Were Tweets

Twitter had an IPO this week. They priced their shares at $26. Wall Street thought it was a better buy than Facebook had been and Twitter closed day one at $45. With 500 million tweets daily, Twitter has become an essential means of communication in our time-crunched society. Even the Pope tweets.

Those of us of a certain age remember when writing well and speaking eloquently were virtues. We were alive to read (and hear) some of the great speeches in history. What would we be reading today if our forefathers had been forced to keep their messaging to 140 characters? Let’s look at some of those writings.

Had the “Declaration of Independence” been a tweet, we would have read: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rig” Oooh! So close! But even with three more characters, we wouldn’t have known what those rights were. Just a few edits and some modernization and we have: “These truths are obvious: all of us are created equal and we’re born with undeniable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Patrick Henry tweets quite well with some minor editing. “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” This squeaks in at just 140 characters.

Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” on the other hand, doesn’t fare as well. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propositio” We have to jettison the lofty lingo and abbreviate to get to all men being created equal. “27 yrs ago our fathers birthed on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty N dedicated to the idea that all men are equal.” That leaves just enough room to insert “and women”. So much better as a tweet!

FDR’s first inaugural address would have left us hanging. “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only” Fortunately, Roosevelt provided some room to edit without loss of clarity, but the impact is not quite as inspiring. “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper. Let me assert that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

How does then VP candidate Richard Nixon’s “Checkers Speech” (defending his honesty and integrity) fare as a tweet? “Regardless of what happens, I'm going to continue this fight. I'm going to campaign up and down in America until we drive the crooks and the” At 140, that’s all he gets. He would never have left those Commie bastards unscathed and would more likely have texted: “Regardless, I'm going to keep fighting in America until we drive the crooks N the Commies N the creeps that defend them out of Washington.”

In contrast, John F. Kennedy has 39 characters to spare when he exhorts us: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." His brevity could explain why he won the election. It was a surfeit of (recorded) words, after all, that eventually brought Nixon down.

Neil Armstrong was a born tweeter. “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” His version has the “a” inserted before “man,” and he still has 80 characters to spare.

President Reagan’s speech at the Berlin Gate would have been truncated to: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: ” Ronnie wouldn’t have had room to demand that Gorbachev open the gate and tear down the wall unless he’d been less formal. “Hey, Gen Sec Gorby! U want peace N prosperity 4 the Soviets N Eastern Europe? U wanna liberalize? Open this gate N tear down the damn wall!” Talk about impact!

As you can see, some great speeches gracefully make the transition to tweets. Others become ineloquent noise. Come to think of it, that’s not unlike today’s messaging.

Retirees’ Superstitions

Halloween weekend is a good time to take a look at retirees’ superstitions. At first blush, they seem the same as everyone else’s odd beliefs, but there are differences. Moreover, the counter measures a retiree must take to neutralize bad karma aren’t always what you’d expect.

True, walking under a ladder brings anyone negative juju. But for us, that means our Social Security check will be auto-deposited into someone else’s account. We can prevent this if we turn in a clockwise circle six times, but don’t do this while you’re under the ladder. In fact, be sure there’s a post to grab onto or seat nearby, since you’ll be dizzy after all that spinning.

Here’s another well-known superstition: break a mirror and you’ll have seven years of bad luck. For us, it starts with the doctor who has been our GP for 30 years deciding to retire. We can disrupt the spell by immediately shouting his (or her) name out loud seven times. Muttering or murmuring it doesn’t work, by the way.

You might think that if you step on a crack in the sidewalk, you’ll “break someone’s back,” but you would be mistaken. If you’re a retiree, your bunion will have a painful flare-up, unless you go home and clip your toenails right away. The fact that you can’t reach your toes won’t exempt you from doing this. Best to have a toenail-clipping partner lined up. You might try the same person who plucks the goat hairs from your chin.

Spilling salt brings specific distress to retirees, unless they throw some of it over their right shoulder. If not, the next time the bridge club meets at their place, their dog will fart under the card table. The kind of rips my brother used to call “silent, but deadly.” Fat chance you can convince the ladies it was really Bowser’s doing.

Everyone is familiar with the notion that a black cat crossing one’s path brings bad luck. Those of a certain age, on the other hand, know that if a black car parks in front of our house, we’ll be going to a funeral soon. What most of us don’t know is that if we immediately go out and adopt a black cat, the funeral procession will pass us by. At least for awhile.

When you’re ready to go for a walk, be sure to put your sport shoe on the right foot first. Otherwise, your health insurance will be canceled. Don’t worry: you can counter the left-foot screw-up by following the good luck superstition of wearing your underwear inside out for a week. (You can change the underwear; just be sure to put the new pair on inside out, too.) I do this accidentally now and then, which could explain why I usually have no trouble finding a parking spot.

When your palm itches, do you think you’re going to come into some money? Not exactly. We seniors are about to win a “free” two-day cruise to Bermuda. Take it, and your house will be burglarized while you’re away. Nose itchy? Don’t worry about getting into a physical fight, but your condo board is going to revoke your community gardening privileges. Do the bottom of your feet itch? Don’t expect to make a trip. This one is not a superstition. Go out and buy some Gold Bond powder.

Be very careful about opening up an umbrella indoors. The only known retiree’s antidote for that mistake is rotating a coffee cup clockwise three times, and then immediately counter-clockwise one time. The cup has to be filled with freshly brewed coffee; those Keurig pods won’t work. You must follow this action by knocking on wood twice. It has to be solid wood, not those laminated, engineered products, or the ersatz composite stuff. I almost forgot: you need to do all of this in 30 seconds.

I’ll continue to research superstitions, debunking the myths, finding those that apply specifically to retirees, and uncovering steps we can take to undo the voodoo. In the meantime, you all be careful out there. It’s a scary world.

Forever Homes Together

Most of us who have adopted a pet from a shelter are familiar with the expression “forever home.” It’s the ultimate goal for every rescued animal—to become part of a family where they will be loved and cared for forever.

When the time comes for them to leave us, we may have our four-legged children buried in a pet cemetery. It’s also not unusual to have them cremated and the ashes returned to us to be kept in special commemorative urns and boxes.

Less often, we make plans to keep them with us after we’ve likewise headed into the sunset. I read about a woman who wanted her pet buried with her despite a local ordinance that prohibited it. She had the cat cremated and she sewed the ashes into the hem of her wedding gown. She had instructions to bury her in that gown, thus ensuring that she and Fluffy would be together forever.

One of my friends had several months to prepare for her departure from us. She was buried in the Jewish tradition, wrapped in cotton in a plain wooden box. Before she died, she found a sympathetic rabbi who allowed the ashes of her dog, who predeceased her, to be slipped into the coffin next to her. They’re now in their forever home together; knowing this was pre-arranged gave my friend comfort in her last weeks.

Recently the New York Daily News ran an article about a successful court challenge to a related regulation. Pet owners in New York State were prevented from having their ashes interred in pet cemeteries next to their family companions. The niece of a NYPD officer brought the suit on behalf of her deceased uncle. The man’s wife had already been buried next to their dogs in a Hartsdale pet cemetery.

It’s not clear whether the cemetery had been ignoring an existing statute, or whether the prohibition was newly enacted into law. Either way, hundreds of deceased pet owners were already resting there with their Mittens and their Scouts. The niece won the suit and her uncle’s ashes are now interred next to his wife’s and those of their three pooches.

This has me wondering about my own future disposition. I plan to be cremated, as does my husband (after the medical school at Brown University has finished studying him). Neither of us has decided what should happen to our ashes, except to be scattered somewhere. I suppose we should be blown away as a family, even though that would involve storing the cremains of one of us until the other catches up. Now I’m thinking that our girls and Luke (still purring) should be tossed out with us.

I commissioned custom pottery jars to hold the urns with the ashes of my first “girls,” Daisy Hyacinth and Tulip Wisteria. The front of one jar has a molded daisy, the other a molded tulip. The lids have those flowers etched into the undersides. (If they’re looking up, they’ll know they’re in the correct jar.) I have these on a shelf in the sunroom. Most visitors have no idea what’s in them.

The ashes of my second two, Pansy Gardenia and Lily Magnolia, are in cedar boxes. (The vet used a different cremation service and my potter was no longer potting.) The boxes are tied with ribbons that have antique floral pins—a pansy and a calla lily—attached. I keep them on the dresser in our bedroom.

So, what to do with all these cremains (ours included) when the time comes? Sprinkling them into the ocean or a lake isn’t a good idea. Cats don’t like water. We could run an ad on Craig’s List. “Wanted. Service to scatter ashes of family of 7 from top of mountain somewhere in Northeast.” Or maybe book a hot air balloon ride for a friend who loves pets and could sneak a large satchel of dust into the passenger basket.

One of my more creative ideas is to mix us with Elmer’s glue to make trinkets that would get stuffed inside a large piñata. There must be some fresh air camp with kids who’d benefit from releasing their pent up aggression. Or we could pre-arrange a picnic in a park and sell tickets to take a swing at us. Lots of folks would pay good money to whack me with a stick. (Proceeds to a local shelter, of course.)

Somewhere in here is an idea with legs. And even if not, we should have quite a few years before we need to figure this out. It won’t matter where our forever home is as long as we’re together (sing along now) side by side.