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.