Halloween Costumes for Retirees

BlogHer.com recently featured a post on Halloween costumes based on pop culture. The same day their home page quoted blogger PJ Gach: “Jumpsuits were made by the devil with the sole purpose of not letting women pee.” The confluence of these ideas made me realize that retirees need guidelines for choosing Halloween attire. Here they are, along with some accessories ideas, just in time for you to adjust the getup you’ve planned for this year’s trick-or-treating.

The first guideline is that, unlike jumpsuits, your costume must let you pee. One way an outfit can accommodate this is to enable you to get in and out of it easily. Look for lots of Velcro, like a straight jacket. Or something loose and flowy on the bottom, like a fortune teller’s caftan. Another way is to have some highly absorbent material built in, like SpongeBob SquarePants with pants made of actual sponges.

Another important guideline is to wear comfortable, flat footwear. Running shoes or slippers are best, so choose attire that makes sense with those. You can just wear a polyester jogging suit or your ratty old bathrobe. Easy peasy.

A simple and cheap costume for a retiree is an alarm clock. It’s a great way to remind your friends who are still working that you get to sleep in. Mark the clock face “alarm” and set the time to 10 am. On your back, wear an empty cardboard box marked “battery compartment.” Leave it open, showing just the space with the plus and minus signs for two AAs. Not only can you sleep in, you don’t even need a functioning alarm clock.

If you’ll be taking your grandchildren trick-or-treating at night, you’ll want special accessories to keep you safe. Night vision goggles or extra large eyeglasses are a must, which makes a Ghost Buster costume a great choice. A high-powered lantern is also important—one with 360 degree coverage. You can affix it to a hard hat and go as a coal miner. Or mount the lantern in a red wagon, plop in your grandchild costumed as a Dalmation puppy, and dress as Cruella de Vil.

Another option for nighttime protection is the Badass Biker outfit. Start with some hideous false teeth. Then get a heavy chain belt (made from a real chain from a hardware store). Buy a beat up moto jacket (short for motorcycle—I’m so cool) at Savers. Top it off with a generous application of yellow and black police crime scene tape. This should scare off potential muggers along your trick-or-treating route.

Not going outdoors for Halloween? If house parties are more your style, you’ll have a wider range of options. Forget about anything from the movie Frozen. We’re way too old for that. We can, however, go as a modified version of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Begin with a clear plastic shower curtain liner worn as a poncho. Add a standard bucket, but fill it with acrylic cubes. The last thing you need is someone pouring ice cold water on you. Unless you’re wearing SpongeBob panties.

For a trendy but affordable costume, create an enormous version of Pharrell Williams’ hat. Use one of those huge brown paper bags—the ones you stuff leaves into. Cut openings for your eyes, nose and mouth. Also armholes. Then attach a roll of corrugated paper around the opening at knee level to make a narrow brim. You might want to visit Pharrell’s hat on Facebook to be sure you have the proportions right. Yes, his hat has it’s own FB page.

Those who are tired of the alarmist responses to the Ebola scare can make a political statement by going as Chicken Little. Take a large bag of poly fluff (the stuffing in throw pillows, aka toss pillows in New England) and glue clumps of it to an old jogging suit. Intersperse these with pieces of blue construction paper, cut into random shapes. As you wander around the Halloween party, shout: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” as you look up toward the ceiling. Enough said.

Here’s a fun idea that retirees can appreciate. Pick up an inexpensive set of doctor’s scrubs and dye them orange. Then get a bottle of dark blue ink at an art shop and pour generous amounts on the scrubs at the elbow, upper arms and thigh areas. When guests ask, tell them you’re dressed as “Orange Is the New Black and Blue.” Or maybe: “Black and Blue Is the New Orange.” Whatever.

As you can see, there are many low-cost and easy-to-create Halloween costumes that make sense for retirees this year. I hope you have fun putting them together, and even more fun wearing them. Be sure to post pictures on your Facebook page.

Nicknames for Senior Body Parts

I recently heard that Shonda Rhimes coined the word “vajayjay” as a nickname for a female body part because network censors wouldn’t let her use the anatomical label in scripts for her hit TV show, Grey’s Anatomy. Then I caught The View’s Rosie Perez using “hooha,” also a popular nickname for…  well, you know. It occurred to me that seniors and those caring for the elderly need alternative names for certain body parts, ailments and medical devices. The ones whose real names somewhat awkwardly describe… well, you know that, too.

I’ve put together a starter list for all of us. The official names are shown first, then the slang.  I’ve also provided a sentence or two using the nickname and/or elaborating on it. I hope you find these colorful terms useful in your conversations with family, friends and physicians.

Bunion — Booya

“The older I get, the more uncomfortable my booya gets. Pretty soon I’m going to need a booyectomy.” Good luck getting your insurance company to cover that procedure. Booya!

Neck Wattle — Natty

“I’m going to start wearing bowties to obscure my natty.” This term is especially appropriate because a gentleman in a bowtie is often described as nattily dressed.

Droopy Ear Lobes — Doobies

“I can’t wear dangly earrings anymore now that my doobies have gotten so long.” Be careful not to confuse this nickname with something you smoked when you were in college.

Belly Pooch — Boochy and a related term: Saggy Abdomen — Sabdo

“My boochy is bigger than a bread box.” “If I don’t do sit-ups every morning, I get a sabdo.” If you have a boochy or a sabdo, and especially if your boochy morphs into a sabdo, it’s time for Spanx. The good news is that Spanx are much more comfortable than those long-leg panty girdles of our high school days.

Hearing Aid — Audi S’port

“I love my new Audi S’port. It’s opened a superhighway of auditory experiences for me.” Indeed. And you can turn it off and tune folks out if you want to. Vroom Vroom! (And yes, I know that was a Mazda commercial, not an Audi one.)

Fallen Arches — Floppers

“As I’ve gotten older, my feet have developed major floppers.” I feel your pain. My floppers have absolutely no cushioning anymore. I feel like I’m walking on concrete all the time. If you decide to order gel inserts online, make sure you get the ones for shoes. My Google search also turned up ones for bras. So NOT what I was looking for…

Flatulence — The Flappies

“When I eat raw cauliflower, I get the flappies. It’s even worse when I eat a lot of beans.” If you suffer from the flappies, stay away from campfires! (Remember Blazing Saddles?)

Hemorrhoids/Polyps — The Pollies

“I need to eat more fiber especially when football season is here. There’s nothing worse than the pollies when you’re in those rock hard nosebleed seats at a game.” Two words: inflatable inner-tube.

Colostomy Bag — Collie Wollie

“I can’t believe how stylish collie wollies have become these days. There are almost as many colorful covers available as they have for IPhones.” Not only that, but caftans and long tunics are coming back in style, even for men. To paraphrase that Oldsmobile commercial, it’s not your father’s colostomy bag.

Adult Diapers — Addys or if you prefer: Incontinence Underwear — Inundaters

“I can’t always control my pee anymore, so I finally got some addys. I hope the leakage doesn’t get so bad that I need to move on to inundaters.” Apologies to those in the advertising business who can no longer talk about their chichi industry awards without smirking.

Dowager’s/Widow’s Hump — Doho

“I’m paying special attention to my posture so I don’t develop a doho.” This is particularly important for those who have opo (osteoporosis), because really bad opo can lead to a doho. Then every day is Hump Day. Oh, no!

And my favorite slang term:

Bristly Goat Hairs (on chin) — Stiffies

“It’s bad enough that I have fuzzy sideburns, but I also have stiffies on my chin.” And after a few glasses of wine, I have fizzies and stuffies. The more I’m fizzied or stuffied, the less I notice my stiffies and fuzzies. Yet another reason to enjoy some vino.

No doubt you can come up with a few nicknames of your own. The only guideline is this: if it sounds better than the anatomical or technical term, it’s a keeper. Happy slanging!

Fall 2014 Potpourri

This seems like a good week for my Fall potpourri, especially since recent issues of Time magazine (particularly the Oct. 13 one) were full of tidbits that left me scratching my head. I found items that cover everything from crazy animal stories to alcoholic beverages.

Let’s start with animals. A gentleman from Canada was caught sneaking turtles into the U.S.—51 of them, to be exact. According to the magazine, he had them “hidden between his legs and strapped to his body.” I assume they weren’t the snapping turtle variety. Then again, someone stupid enough to do this probably didn’t think it through very well. There was nothing in the report about the status of his family jewels.

All the major networks picked up the story about the pooch that had a thing for socks. The Portland vet who unraveled this found 43 and a half of them in the Great Dane’s stomach. This raises several questions, like: What happened to that other half sock? If 43 ½ is the capacity of a Great Dane, what’s the capacity of a Dachshund? And of course, How do you remove 43 ½ socks from a Great Dane and what do you do with them afterward? I’m thinking it could give new meaning to “Salvation Army.”

And this from Jimmy Fallon: a zoo in Japan just realized that both hyenas they’ve been trying to mate for years are male. You may think this is funny, but for the two hyenas, it’s been no laughing matter. Thanks, Jimmy.

Now let’s talk some beer and wine. Scientists in Spain invented an “electronic tongue” that can tell one variety of beer from another. It’s 82% accurate, which is way better than I would be. You have to wonder how much beer they’ll taste before they find a practical use for such a tongue. Not to be outdone, the Danes came up with a machine that uses nanosensors to measure how dry a wine is. If they need someone to do quality control checks on the machine’s results, I’m their gal.

What is it about Europeans and their wine and beer? Belgium is building a pipeline 3 kilometers long that will chunnel—I mean funnel—beer from a big brewery to its bottling plant. It will mean 500 fewer delivery truck drivers on the roads (and at a rest stops after sampling too much of their cargo). Expect thousands of residents of Bruges to be praying that the conduit springs a leak near their house. Talk about a “pipe dream!”

The media has recounted a considerable number of dumb actions by a variety of humans. Like the postman in Brooklyn who had a hoarding problem. He kept over 40,000 personal letters that he chose not to deliver, who knows why. No word on whether he even read any of them. And then there’s the UPS worker who stole a diamond worth $160,000 and then traded it for some marijuana—$20 worth. Hello? I just can’t make this stuff up.

Some human activity was not just dumb, it was downright bizarre. The U.S. Coast Guard had to rescue a man who was “running” from Florida to Bermuda in a human hamster wheel (aka an inflatable paddle bubble). He was promoting world peace when he got caught up in the Gulf Stream. To his credit, he did ask the Coast Guard for directions to Bermuda earlier in his journey. (“Turn left at that big swell…”) Eventually exhausted (surprise, surprise), Mr. Hamster sent a message for help.

The hamster wheel also inspired the development of a new desk, created by two artists in San Francisco. You stand and pedal while you work. My husband wants one of these; he thinks it will help strengthen his knees. I have no idea if it will work, but if I can watch him going nowhere, I’ll buy one for him. If you’re thinking  “dumb and dumber,” I don’t blame you.

Finally, a tidbit from my mother’s homeland, again via Time. In a move to lower costs, Italy’s Parliament reduced from $172,000 to $125,000 the amount that its in-house hairdressers can get paid. Assumedly those are annual figures. Really? At those rates (even the reduced ones), they should call them estheticians. And along with your haircut and styling, you should get a mani-pedi and a coupon for cappuccino at George Clooney’s villa on Lake Como.

That will do it for this Fall’s potpourri post. Time to start collecting tidbits for Spring.

Five Levels of Condo Quirks

We’ve been in our new condominium for a month. I say “new,” but it was built about ten years ago, so it’s only new to us. Ten years is enough time to develop quirks that require varying degrees of adapting. Quirks can be categorized based on how much they disturb your psyche.

The first level is what I call a Minor Inconvenience. Rare is the household that doesn’t have at least a few of these. You get used to them once you find out how to deal with them.

The first Minor Inconvenience I came upon in our condo was a heavy-duty scrunchy (a covered elastic band) hanging from the knob on the pullout trash bin. At first I thought the previous owner had a ponytail, kept it handy to hold her hair out of the way while cooking and had forgotten it. Then I started poking around and discovered that when the bin is full, it doesn’t stay closed unless you loop the other end around the knob on the drawer above it. I can live with that.

The first Major Annoyance (level two) came with our garage door openers. None of them worked, not even the code for the keypad. I replaced the battery in the clicker. No luck. I tried the other two clickers (that I had received empty). Still nothing. The only thing that worked was the button by the kitchen door.

For several days, we opened and closed the garage door from inside, and exited and entered the house through the front door. Then I bought a new battery for the keypad, too. Success! Apparently, the clickers route through the keypad. You may be thinking: “This was a major annoyance?” Yes, it was. How can someone sell a house with all the garage devices having dead batteries? How did they get in and out? And how about a heads up at least!

Moving on to the third level of quirks: Impetus to a Psychotic Meltdown. These are the ones that drive you straight to the wine rack, hoping to find a screw top. What did me in were the crazy lights in our condo.

Some of them have basic flip switches that turn them on and off. Some have levers that slide up and down, with a subset of levers that have buttons on them, which turn the fixture on or off. The levers function like rheostats, but not in the turning motion that I’m familiar with.

Apparently, that wasn’t complex enough for the builder. Lights that are part of an overhead fan are controlled via a series of buttons, with a primary on-off for the power to the fixture, and a secondary on-off for the light. Have I lost you yet?

Finally, the lights in the master bath and the walk-in closet have hinky bulbs that have delayed illumination. Perhaps it’s to avoid shocking you on a middle-of-the-night potty run or during early-morning wardrobe selection, when you’re bleary-eyed. News flash! I’m retired. I don’t do bleary-eyed any more.

The first week we were here, I thought I’d have to replace the bulbs in these fixtures with higher wattage. Old folks need more light, after all. No sooner would this cross my mind, than I would notice things seemed brighter. I assumed my eyes had adjusted to the lower light. Around week two I realized that these were special bulbs that lit to their full wattage gradually. They’re still driving me to drink.

The fourth quirk level is what I like to think of as Justifiable Homicide—things that, if the seller didn’t warn you about them, give you the right to hunt them down in their new home and kill them. That would be the built in audio system in our condo. Every room is hooked up and has its own volume control. There’s also a master volume control. It doesn’t work. And there’s an On-Off button. It also doesn’t work.

I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the system. The cable installation guy couldn’t disconnect it without losing the cable source. The go-to handyman for our community couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. I tuned the unit to our radio station of choice, NPR, and turned the volume down everywhere. I could still hear voices coming from the wall behind the main unit. Eventually, I dragged the machine out of its cubbyhole and pulled the power plug. Blessed silence.

Which brings me to the fifth and final level of quirkiness, which I reached this week. When something weird happens now, I shrug my shoulders and say: “Who Cares?” Lucky thing for the people we bought from that I’m there. Otherwise I’d kill them for certain if I ever met them.