Be Careful What You Wish For

File this under “BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR”: Two recent articles question the value of advancing some of medicine’s newest diagnostic tools -- unless or until we have the professional knowledge and expertise to interpret them and/or effective health care treatments to ...
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Category: HEALTH | 7 Views | 0 Comments | July 23, 2010 11:41:10 am

The Caregiving Passage

Gail Sheehy’s latest book chronicling life’s ages and stages just as we “of a certain age” reach them, is called Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence (May, 2010). In a related story in the July 5 Newsweek,she calls a “second round of ca...
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Category: AGING PARENTS | 26 Views | 0 Comments | July 08, 2010 10:17:55 am

Not just sandwiched, panini-ed!

Have you ever been panini-ed? That would be sandwiched between the wants, needs and expectations of your parents and your children -- and then pressured and grilled. When it happens, you end up scored with Life Lessons. Or scarred for life. Scarred...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 54 Views | 0 Comments | June 02, 2010 9:05:50 pm

The Gore-y Divorce

I am about to finish up Week Three of The Process of Moving My Dad From His Condo in Florida to Assisted Living in Texas, and while I have some great material to share about the Old Farts’ Table (and I mean that quite literally) at what I am calling the Haven, I was ready to mo...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 54 Views | 0 Comments | June 02, 2010 6:54:46 pm

Not just sandwiched, panini-ed!

Have you ever been panini-ed? That would be sandwiched between the wants, needs and expectations of your parents and your children -- and then pressured and grilled. When it happens, you end up scored with Life Lessons. Or scarred for life. Scarred...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 37 Views | 0 Comments | June 02, 2010 09:58:07 am

Sunset Daze

They want to change the way we look at life in a retirement community. By making it a reality show. Ouch. The much-hyped new series Sunset Daze debuted this month on we.tv, a subscription-based, on-demand network that calls itself “the premier source f...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 52 Views | 0 Comments | May 05, 2010 11:41:58 am

The Estrogen Dilemma, (cont.)

The Estrogen Dilemma in Sunday's New York Times Magazine (April 18, 2010) re-opens the decade-old debate over multiple risk-benefit analyses of certain hormone replacement therapies in a very thorough, personal, and, I thought, helpful way -- deconstructing and revisiting the resul...
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Category: HEALTH | 77 Views | 0 Comments | April 16, 2010 1:52:56 pm

I am Grandma

I adored my grandmother – her soft lap, her thick stockings and thicker eyeglasses, the old lady shoes and housedresses, her unconditional acceptance and love. She had no expectations of me (that I knew of) and it would have been impossible to disappoint her. She was Gran...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 119 Views | 0 Comments | April 09, 2010 2:36:33 pm

Mothers, Daughters, Friends

The daughter of a friend of mine – a special young woman and a very special friend – reminded me yesterday of the extraordinary power of women’s friendships and mothers’ modeling. Read for yourself: http://marburyvmadisonave It surprised me how instantly ...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 100 Views | 0 Comments | March 08, 2010 11:27:31 am

What do you say when . . . A friend loses her job?

You can probably write one mean thank you note. And you know how to write a sensitive, empathetic note of sympathy. But what does one write to a friend who has been fired or let go in this economy and at our age? What do you say? Even as I ask, I know we have ...
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Category: FINANCES | 83 Views | 0 Comments | March 04, 2010 9:17:02 pm

Pay Me Now? Or Pay Me Later? Making the Social Security Calculation

My instinct, whenever the government offers to send me a check, is to take it. Immediately. There is a suggestion, however, in the Social Security Statement sent to me that the more prudent person might wait until her full retirement age (currently 66) to begin collecting Social...
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Category: FINANCES | 160 Views | 0 Comments | February 15, 2010 4:02:07 pm

One Man's Adventure. . .

In today's New York Times octogenarians report on "wing-walking" (on top of an airplane, across the English Channel -- PULL-EASE!), mountain climbing, and other relatively extreme adventures they're exploring in the name of Active Aging. I'm not sure I want to jo...
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Category: RETIREMENT | 140 Views | 0 Comments | January 08, 2010 10:34:41 am

Gym Rats

Three days as a slug have got me thinking I need to go to . . . the gym. But this thought process itself runs counter to the latest mind-body study which suggests that exercise, nay, the right kind of exercise – the kind that makes you perspire and breathe heavily – can ma...
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Category: HEALTH | 223 Views | 0 Comments | September 22, 2009 08:24:04 am

Mothers, Daughters & More

A quick note about a couple of new books featuring grown-up mother-daughter relationships. Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret life of Bees) and her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor, just this month published Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story and are currently on the book-selling cir...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 307 Views | 0 Comments | September 14, 2009 11:16:25 am

A Conversation About Health Care

A sister blogger, Paula Behnken, has made a huge contribution to the conversation about health care reform. And I do mean conversation -- not inane, or insane chatter. I commend her thoughts -- and others on her site -- to you! Lest this seem self-serving -- Yes, I know my post is there, t...
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Category: HEALTH | 230 Views | 0 Comments | September 06, 2009 7:20:07 pm

A Boot Camp for Retirement

I found the most helpful advice I've seen to date in a Times story called "A Boot Camp for Retirement." Not surprisingly, the "camp" is run by two women -- investment counselors -- who advise their clients to get their financial and emotional houses in order before retiring. They so believe in wha...
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Category: FINANCE | 237 Views | 0 Comments | July 27, 2009 2:49:01 pm

Finding Meaning

Would you consider establishing "Finding Meaning in the 3rd Third" as a separate category? I think that this is the deepest--and least discussed--aspect of the last third of life. For many of us, the jobs/relationships/issues which gave meaning to our lives in the 2nd third are now receding. What ...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 323 Views | 0 Comments | July 10, 2009 08:59:48 am

Don't Call Me Old!

I saw a new, young doctor (aren’t they all?) this week who called my most recent infrastructure failing (a torn bicep, for the record) the result of “Life and Time.” I love that!...
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Category: HEALTH | 318 Views | 0 Comments | July 10, 2009 08:57:11 am

The Curse of Independence

Ellen Goodman writes of our need for a Declaration of Dependence if both we and our parents are going to understand what's needed from all of us to make our relationships work responsibly and lovingly through our parents' aging and decline (and, in turn, our own). Refuting my father's belief that ...
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Category: RELATIONSHIPS | 257 Views | 0 Comments | July 06, 2009 3:00:55 pm

Take a Hike

Free counsel! Free advice!! Should Jenny Sanford give her philandering husband (currently South Carolina governor) Mark Sanford a chance (another chance?) to "try to fall in love" with her again. Or should she tell him to "Take a hike!" Your thoughts and comments, please....
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