Living the Good Life

     This morning I read one of those aol stories (doncha hate aol?) that offers ten ways to look younger than you really are.

     Get plenty of sleep . . . check.

     Avoid stress . . . check.

     Get plenty of exercise . . . hmmm, maybe.

     Engage in enough sex . . . not tellin'.

     Don't consume too much sugar . . . darn!

     But it seems that living a longer, healthier life is on the minds of more than the headline writers at aol who can be counted on to overpromise and underdeliver. It's on the minds of thoughtful, substantive Baby Boomer bloggers as well.

     Carol Cassara of Heart, Mind, Soul shows us how to succeed with the latest healthy eating and detox plan. So run over to her blog to read about How to Succeed on the Whole 30, a regimen that eliminates dairy, grains and sugar from your diet -- but apparently allows potatoes, chicken, fish, bison meat and (like every other healthy diet) all the vegetables you can eat.

     And for a checkup of your mental health, you might take a quick look at Who You Are which suggests that who we really are may not be who we imagine we are.

     Another person concerned with mental health is Laura Lee Carter, who in The Lives of Frontier Women and Me wonders about relocation in retirement. The pioneers, she points out, were often going west in order to try to find themselves, or else to try to lose themselves. Sometimes, in retirement, aren't we doing pretty much the same thing?

Living La Pura Vida

     Meanwhile, Meryl Baer and her husband are off on a trip to the land of Pura Vida, or Costa Rica. While her travels, as detailed in her post Exploring the Country of La Pura Vida, might produce enough stress to drive you to an early grave, the concept of Pura Vida, which tells us to take it easy and enjoy ourselves, definitely sounds like a recipe for a long and happy life.

     Rita Robison takes on the negative health effects of violence in the media. In case you missed it, go to Superbowl 2017: Ads Mostly Unremarkable but Violence Takes a New Turn to see her examples: a man gets slapped when he tries to grab a sandwich, people destroy a restaurant in a brawl, aging bikers get in a fight, and a T Mobile ad makes a joke of violence against women.

     I think we can all agree that violence plays no part in a long and healthy life. And so also stay tuned for Robison's upcoming analysis of the current Oscar nominated movies for violence, ageism and sexism.

     Finally, Kathy Gottberg in Happy Relationships Are Key to Positive Aging reports that she and her husband are experimenting with their diets by lowering their consumption of wheat and sugar. In the process she has discovered that one of the great gifts of a good long-term relationship is its positive impact in the areas of life satisfaction and well-being. But don't necessarily believe her, or me. She points to studies showing that happy, connected people have stronger immune systems, better heart function and longer lives, regardless of baseline fitness or other life circumstances.

     But for all of us, no matter what our diets or relationships, no matter how much or little we have in life, maybe we can realize that we are all here together, and life is short, so we can start living it "pura vida" style.

Champagne Problems

     Did you ever hear a person complain about some issue in their life, and think to yourself: Boy, I wish I had that problem?

     That's a champagne problem, a term I ran across in a recent book (although I can't remember which one . . . perhaps in a senior moment, which may in itself be a champagne problem).

     The urban dictionary defines a champagne problem as a "trivial middle-class grievance," or a problem that is insignificant compared to the issues of poverty, racism and natural disaster, yet a problem that needs to be addressed nevertheless.

     For example, maybe you sold your house, or received a windfall of some kind, and you have a lot of money. But what do you do with it? You can put it in the bank and get virtually no interest, or you can invest in the stock market at all-time highs and risk losing some of it. A champagne problem. But a problem nonetheless.

     Or, another way to put it, it's a problem where you have to make a decision, and either way the outcome is positive. The kid who gets in to both Stanford and UC Berkeley. Tough decision; but you know the kid is going to be fine either way.

     It's the opposite of a Sophie's choice, where you're between a rock and a hard place (from the William Styron book in which Sophie had to choose between her children). And it's different from a Hobson's choice, where you're forced to take it or leave it (from Thomas Hobson who ran a stable in England and offered customers the choice of taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all).

     Actually, there's a 2016 Meghan Trainor song Champagne Problems that  details some of these issues -- ones perhaps suffered more by Millennials than people our age, like the wi-fi doesn't work, the Uber is late and the iPhone dies.

     So where am I going with this? I got champagne problems.

     I went to Florida to get warm for a while. The weather was beautiful. But B couldn't come with me, so I was left on my own. A champagne problem.

     I did meet up with a friend of mine one day, and we played golf. But I played horribly and lost $2. Another champagne problem.

     Now I've traveled up to South Carolina and met up with B. Oh boy, it was great to see her! But yesterday the temperature was in the 40s, and ... we're freezing! Another champagne problem, although it's supposed to be back up in the 70s by Tuesday.

     My other problem: I hurt my knee playing pickleball when I was in Florida. (Don't know pickleball? It's the latest game for seniors, kind of a cross between tennis and Ping Pong -- but that's a subject for another post). So I've been hobbling around for the past week, gobbling Advil during the day and icing my knee at night. A problem, for sure. But it is getting better, and I'm hoping it's good enough by Wednesday so B and I can go dancing. And compared to a lot of people my age who have heart problems or who have had to deal with cancer or diabetes or some other serious condition, my sore knee is nothing but another champagne problem.

     So the temperature here is forecast to reach into the high 60s this afternoon. Do we go to the beach, or not?

     May all the issues in your life not be a Sophie's choice or a Hobson's choice, but simply . . . a champagne problem.

Walk in the Sand

     If you're in Florida there's no better thing to do at the end of the day than take a walk on the beach. Last night I came across a pretty impressive sand castle.

     It was part of a whole royal complex . . .

     Here's the entrance to the palace . . .

     But nothing lasts forever . . .

     You can already see from the shadows that it's getting toward sunset. Here's the view out into the Gulf of Mexico . . .

     And a few minutes later . . .

     Good night to all, and to all a good night.

Changing the Conversation

     From my perspective, there was at least one good thing about the inauguration: For whatever reason it left the Washington Beltway relatively free of traffic. I breezed through DC on Friday in record time . . . meaning, I was not held up by even one backup.

     So here I am in Florida, joining the mass migration of Snowbirds leaving behind the sleet and snow of the North, in search of sun and sand in the South.

     I must admit, I can't afford a five-star hotel, so I am residing for the week in a 1970s-era bungalow, complete with popcorn ceiling, linoleum floors and pockmarked aluminum doors and windows. However, this modest little complex is right on the beach, as you can see by this view of the seaside units.

  
     However, I booked my trip relatively late, and can't afford those pricier accommodations anyway, so instead of a view of the water, this is what I see out the back door through my patio.

     Still, I can feel the salty breezes from the Gulf of Mexico, and I'm only 20 yards from the beach. So the first thing I did this morning was take a walk along the shoreline. It sure beats slipping and sliding along the frozen sidewalks of Connecticut.

     Several people have told me they don't think they'll be watching the TV news for the next four years. Honestly, I haven't watched much for the last year, since it got so ugly, from both sides. I don't think we should all opt out of public life just because we don't like what's going on. We should all stand up for what we believe in, and do the things that we think are important -- I'm still scheduled to tutor at my community college when I get back home in March -- and hopefully still act with some respect and civility toward those who don't agree with us.

     But for now, at least, I will ignore the real world, and just soak up the sun.

On the Road

     This morning I left home to go to Florida. I'm driving because I will be away for over six weeks . . . and I need a car.

     On the way today I listened on NPR to the Senate confirmation hearings for Steve Mnuchin, who is nominated for Secretary of the Treasury. I thought he gave an impressive opening statement. He obviously has a good resume -- Yale University, Goldman Sachs, his own successful investment business -- and he defended himself quite convincingly against charges that he had unfairly profited from foreclosing homes during and after the Great Recession.

     However, when it came to questions from the Senators he was not nearly so persuasive. He dodged questions, gave self-serving answers, and tried to obfuscate whenever someone presented him with uncomfortable numbers or facts. After a while you could tell when he was about to complicate his response to hide any potential wrongdoing because he'd start out by saying, "I want to be perfectly clear about this . . . ."

     I don't know how long the hearings went for. I listened to, probably, two hours. Then I'd had enough.

     Tomorrow is inauguration day. I am a Democrat, but no socialist, no super leftist from the Sanders/Warren wing of the party. But still, I find it hard to believe that, starting tomorrow, Donald Trump will be president of the United States. How did that happen, anyway?

     In the morning I will be driving through Washington, DC -- or more accurately around Washington, DC, on the Beltway, then heading south on I95. I sure hope there isn't too much traffic, clogging the roads and delaying me for hours.

     And I sure hope that, over the next six weeks while I'm away, Donald Trump and his band of merry pranksters don't get us into a heap of trouble with China, or Russia, or Europe. Or crater the economy, foment social unrest, or do anything else that will upend the plans of those of us who are retired, or the lives of our kids who have hopes for the future.