Still Clickin

We Interrupt This Program . . .

There are difficult sleep disorders that can occur in people of all ages. Most people, however, go through life refreshed by a deep sleep every night. That is, until you reach a certain age.

Sooner or later, as we grow older, undisturbed sleep is no longer a given. Whether it’s neighborhood noise, bladder pressure, or a worry that won’t go away, some interruption always seems to occur in the middle of the night. And once it occurs, finding your way back to sleep often follows a tortuous path.

As one friend remarked, “I’m never in the right place. When I’m in bed, I want to be up and active. And when I’m up, I always feel that I want to be back in bed. What I wouldn’t give for a good night’s sleep.”

He’s not alone. Apparently, our bodies don’t seem to enter the realms of deep sleep as easily as the years go by. Some people turn to pills, but that can be dangerous and dissatisfying. Indeed, medications for other problems also can have an influence on sleep.

There don’t appear to be any universal answers. But if your medications aren’t the problem, try some tricks rather than more medication. Everybody has to figure out some tricks that work for them. Some personal tricks I’ve tried -

• Although I love it, I never have coffee past noontime.
• Check your surroundings and try a few changes. I added an another thin pillow that raised my head. It not only helped my sleep, but it removed the stiffness from the side of my neck. I can once again turn my head easily, which certainly helps when backing out of the driveway.
• I’ve tried mind games, even actually counting sheep. I have never found one that worked.
• If it’s three a.m. and I simply feel too wide awake, I get up, go to another room, and read for an hour. Articles and periodicals work better for me than books, because the conclusion is quicker and they tend to be more detailed and boring. This seems to remove all of the other scattered thoughts that cascade around in my brain and gives me a chance to return to restful sleep.

This article by the Institute on Aging paints the broad picture of sleep problems that seniors may encounter. There are a lot of serious issues out there that tricks won’t help. But it is a place to start. Any progress toward a good night’s sleep is worth the effort.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

There is something about a surgery that makes you stop and reflect. Lying there on the table and surrounded by people in masks, it seems a bit surreal. People move quickly. They have a definite agenda. You may be at center stage with the lights all focused upon you, but as the mask goes over your face and you start to breathe as instructed, you suddenly realize that you are not the subject of all this attention, but the object. You are the “cutee”, and the “cut to cure” process is about to begin.

Rather than blogging during the past month, I’ve had a couple of surgeries. The more painful one was the less serious. Neither one was that threatening, but both engendered their own thoughts and concerns.

One thing that surgery forces you to confront is physical pain. Pain is a very personal issue, and try as they might, no one else can directly share or lift that burden from you. It is yours alone to deal with. Of course, you can drug your way through it, but drugs bring their own kind of pain. Ultimately, we all have to face some of it. Some thoughts -

• The biggest thing you want to understand about your personal pain is its duration. How long will it last. If you can know what that time line, you can deal with it far differently than someone who faces a chronic situation.
• Pain is a great communicator of health status. Synapses shooting through to the brain send the message that you may or may not want to try to move in a certain direction. That alert could increase your cure rate considerably. The hurt may actually help, so that you may want to reconsider the amount of medication used.
• Pain also tells you how your sutures are working. Fundamentally, you are told to keep the wound higher than your heart, but that tough to do when they run across your gut. Instead, I was told to use ice packs, and they were very helpful during the first couple of days.
• Overall, pain is very personal. Each of us has their own level. The best thing to do is respect that individuality and handle it in the way that’s right for you.

Another thought that surgery sparks is about the medical profession. My sense is that lawyers and the insurance industry have unfairly placed the medical profession on the defensive. How often have you heard of a lawyer being sued for malpractice? And for insurance, all we have to consider is the AIG Bail Out. I’m not saying that doctors don’t make mistakes, but fundamentally, these are the people that are out there trying to cure you. Generally, they do a very competent job, and I think that we are all very fortunate that they are trying so hard.

Some of my sutures have been removed. Others are being adsorbed. The ridge of scar tissue that remains, I’ll just have to deal with. But I appreciate the fact that I’ll be able to deal. Fundamentally, at the end of a surgery with a good prognosis, you feel quite blessed.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior, and click on edit.

Did you ever wonder how people actually decide to vote? People can make many statements before or after, but what do they actually do behind that partition? Voting can become a very personal decision, and that decision process can have a lot of variables.

For example, people can select a candidate because they feel that -

• their gut reaction tells them that candidate is cute, smart, experienced, or safe.
• a particular choice least offends their prejudicial inclination toward age, race, gender, or religion.
• one person is most committed to one particular cause.
• commitment to a particular party is paramount.
• an analysis reveals that a candidate’s positions on issues would be best either for the country or for themselves

Pundits agonize over these variables.

In trying to analyze my own decision process, I strongly suspect that my final choice will be driven by a mixture of factors. I do think that an analysis of the issues is very important, even though their simplicity and limited input can only express an orientation rather than a pragmatic plan of action.

But my gut reaction is probably going to be the most influential. In personnel decisions over the years, I have always deferred to my gut. However, in this selection, my gut is going to be strongly influenced by whom I feel would be the best consensus manager.

In business, you don’t have to be a consensus manager. You can launch a new initiative with the cooperation of just a few key people. Successful government decisions, on the other hand, require the buy-in of a large number of people. Typically, the resulting initiatives only partially reflect the initial intent because of all the compromises that have to be made. But if done in a proper and transparent manner, the final initiative can have added dimensions that improve on the original intent.

A consensus manager can orchestrate that type of initiative. Keeping diverse groups on target, listening to a variety of views, guiding the selection of the possible elements, securing the final consensus, and monitoring the execution of its implementation are all components of any consensus manager’s portfolio.

The current administration, as evidenced by their secrecy and management blunders, simply lacked this capability which is why it is so sorely needed now. The prejudicial soup of influences - age, race, gender, or religion - aren’t really important factors in this election, consensus management is. It is desperately needed, and I hope the best consensus manager wins.

It is easy to get that feeling of “deja vu all over again” when you revisit a decision you made in the past. Looking at this blog with new eyes, I suddenly realized that I should have pursued the self-hosting route from the very start. That was my initial inclination, but I waffled since a Blogger site was so much easier to launch.

Changing from Blogger to self-hosting is not trivial and should not be done casually. As I experienced the process, there were a number of steps. I list them here in the event that they may be of some help to others.

The steps include:

• evaluating the options - Changing a blog location will not endear you to the search engines. The history they have established with your address will be lost, and your readers will have be to guided to find you. Blogger is NOT happy with double postings, so you have to leave them in place, at least for awhile.
• choosing the blog software - There are about three dozen different blog software packages out there for self-hosting, but WordPress and LiveJournal are the ones you hear the most about. WordPress seems to be the clear leader, and the price (free) fit the budget.
• choosing the hosting provider - There are hundreds of these at various price points. As in most things, you seem to get what you pay for. I was already very pleased with the host I was using, so I just installed the blog on a sub-domain.
• declaring the administrator - WordPress installs quite easily. When you declare yourself the administrator, you realize that you have a bit more control than previously. To tailor your settings, log in as the administrator and enter the title, description, clock time, date, etc. as you would with a blog service.
• choosing your look and feel - One control aspect is that you can pick from hundreds of free themes/templates/skins to refine the look and feel of your blog. While selecting, stick with those that offer the features you need. The theme chosen for Still Clickin offered 3 columns, an attractive color palate, right sidebar, adsense ready, image support, widget ready, fixed width, and (SEO) search engine optimization. The copyright display was not intrusive.
• making the final adjustments - Check the overall results of your choices and perform any necessary fine tuning. Once you are pleased, click the “write” button and start creating your first post.

Once you have launched, you may want to continue the fine tuning. The reality is, that as a self-hosting blog author, you have the control and the option.

Good luck!

Recently, while with a group of younger friends, the conversation turned to the idea of downsizing. Apparently, downsizing has evolved from a life event worthy of consideration to an event that should be expected and assumed. Everyone in the group predicted that they would make that step one day, the only question was when.

Since we have jumped that hurdle twice and are now in half the square-footage that we had back East, we were pressed for an answer to that question. When is it the right time?

The question made me remember the response made by a sage old gentleman many years back. His answer was, “Be certain to make your move while you can still remember where the silverware drawer is.”

At first, that thought sounded strange. Then, one morning while I was standing in my own kitchen after weeks of extensive overseas travel, I went to reach for a spoon and had no idea where to look. The third drawer I tried held the prize, but the prior two made me realize how long I had been away.

So many of the little things in our lives we do on automatic pilot. That built-in knowledge base helps us to be more efficient and do many things at once. A downsizing move should be made while you can still train that auto-pilot. The transition to a new, smaller nest is never easy. But if you make it in time to adapt to a new silverware drawer, you should be able to gracefully manage all the other aspects of the transition as well.

Click below to make a comment. If you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

There is a lot of “new” in our lives. We have found a new home. This home is next to a new ocean. We have struggled and fumed, but finally prevailed, to create a new computer network. This new blog has now had 22,000 hits. And all of this easily pales by comparison to the miracle I held just a couple of hours ago. . . . . . We have a new GRANDDAUGHTER!!!!

Holding my own newly born children, and now my grandchildren, I have always felt that I am holding something that has the heft and size of a football. To think that this football is a person that will delight and intimidate me for the rest of my life is a wonder that exceeds any boundaries I can imagine.

Miracle is an apt description. This little person, whose basic composition is barely understood (10% would be excessive) by that empirical science called modern medicine, smiles at the sound of my voice. Synapses spark, eyes follow sound, and I realize that this delightful young lady has already wound me tightly around her delicate pinkie.

Miracle is also the challenge, because it pushes us beyond ourselves to a confrontation with Faith. Faith, i.e. intuitive understanding, pushes us toward the recognition of the primacy of Selfless Love. Parenthood is an iceberg that launches us out onto that sea, called Selfless Love, but it takes awhile for that berg to gently melt and for us to become one with that enveloping sea.

New granddaughters help you to trust the melt. New granddaughters help you to give yourself the sea of Selfless Love. New granddaughters teach you to be one with that sea.

Thank you, my dear grandchildren, for patiently teaching me some very basic strokes for swimming in the sea of Selfless Love. I have so much left to learn. Please be patient. I am a slow learner.

The computer is an imperfect tool. More accurately, it is an unfinished and fickle one. Stability is definitely not its forte. Periods of operating stability, although they have grown longer, are still only temporary. It is merely a matter of time before the next disruption hits. The amazing scenario in today’s society is that we entrust so much to these fickle machines.

If you’ve read this blog, you know that we have recently completed our move from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We first rented, so this was a double move. Now in our final digs, I can report that it took two days to get the furniture in place, two weeks to get the majority of the boxes unpacked, and a full MONTH to get the computer working once again. Hello Internet! It’s nice to be able to see that home page pop-up once again. Today is my first day of connectivity!

Perhaps, I should have not been so rash as to change our access from DSL to cable. That sentence says it all. The dangerous word is neither DSL nor cable. The dangerous word is “change”. Computers despise that word!

Some of you might think these are the rantings of a computer newbie. Unfortunately, I have some familiarity with these infernal devices, have coded in machine language, and have both windows and linux operating on this laptop. The true misfortune is that in a misguided effort to help, Mr. Gates’ programs continually try to contradict the choices that a user makes.

Nonetheless, it is nice to be back. I’m afraid to look at my email, at which I have only been able to peek. My web sites have languished, and my blog has received only token attention. All is forgiven, my dear Nemesis Network. I am back to comment once again.

I am not sure what being “old” means. Is there a special test you have to pass? Is a certificate issued? Does the white card from Medicare entitle you to claim the status? Who decides? We all know that to teenagers 30 is ancient. On whose authority is someone declared “old”, and what credentials do they possess?

I ask, because yesterday, I felt “old”. Every muscle ached, and every joint needed lubrication. I did not want to move.

I know that “attitude is everything” and that you personally decide each morning what kind of a day you are going to have, but I just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. We are still unpacking after our move, and I had to reorganize the garage, move dozens of cartons, and relocate a number of furniture pieces. It took ten hours of work to achieve the goal, but once I finished, I knew I had overdone it.

In my fifties, I could have put in another day just like the first. Now in my seventies, the old body just doesn’t have that resilience. I hate to admit it. Like any certified geezer, I bridle at the “age” tag. I still want to feel that I am up to any challenge. But the old body is sending signals that it can not longer respond like it once did. Does that mean that I am old?

The answer might be, “Yes”, but I don’t think I will listen. I think I would rather ache and keep trying than to adopt the “old” tag. Staying active and engaged, even if the intensity wanes over time, is a far better choice than “resting”.

Three cheers for Peter Pan, who wouldn’t grow up! Let’s all endeavor to be engaged and engaging.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

Today is the first day of Lent, a day on which Christians are reminded that we are “dust and unto dust we shall return”.

Ernie, who calls me Bro, needs no such reminders. Yesterday, the defibrillator planted inside his chest discharged seven times. His beloved medical profession can do no more to help him. Blessedly, he is out of the hospital, back at home, and in the devoted care of my sister, their beloved children, and the skilled hospice nurses. It is only a matter of time.

Ernie is one of my heroes, a true giant of a man. He is one of those rare individuals who light up a room by their very presence, engage each one with genuine interest, and make each person feel better about themselves in the process. A skilled Ear, Nose and Throat Physician (or as he would say, “no eyes”), Ernie has used his 81 years to heal, ennoble, and love.

As a healer, he used his skills to cure thousands of people throughout the Philadelphia area. With his engaging people skills, he became president of his hospital and broadened both its skill set and its scope. He constantly worked to raise the bar of his profession, urging his peers on to higher standards.

With his firm belief in their strengths and capabilities, he also challenged his own children to be true to the nobility of their talents. Their many achievements rewarded his belief, and he exploded with enthusiasm and delight at their successes.

As with all of us, Ernie recognizes that the greatest gift he has received is his life and the greatest thing he can do with that life is to commit acts of selfless love. He has not been shy with that love, and has given it freely to my sister, to his family, and even to me.

My Bro has gone before me in this aging process. He struggled through the indignities of Guillain-Barré syndrome to the point where he was not only able to walk again, but learned to adapt his excellent golf swing. A fighter by nature, he has faced aging boldly, staying involved and donating his medical skills to free clinics.

Now he is playing the end game, and I am still learning. I know he is as afraid of the unknown as any of us would be, but I also know that he will face it courageously, peacefully, with style and love. Despite the unknown, I do believe that his love is too intense not to persist.

Thanks for the lead and the lessons, Bro. When it’s my time, I hope I can follow with just a bit of your character, strength, and love.

NB. Click below to make a comment. To avoid the new Google requirements, simply choose the “Nickname” option.

Our parents lived in a cash society. When you decided that you wanted or needed something, you first decided if you could afford it. If you did not have the money in the bank to pay for it now, you simply did not buy it. With the exception of home mortgages, with 50% down and 15 years to pay, debt was considered irresponsible. Store accounts were used, but were paid promptly and in full.

Enter the credit card and the “buy now pay later” mindset. Back in the 60’s, I remember my Dad shaking his head when he learned I had one. Having lived through the Depression, he was wary of such easy money. I, on the other hand, felt quite proud that I had qualified for a card because they were not readily available. How quickly that changed.

Now, in retirement, one of the core rules preached by every financial advisor is to eliminate all debt. No mortgage, no auto loans, no credit cards with unpaid balances. Essentially, we are told that - (1) the future is now, (2) interest deductions no longer are worth as much, and (3) interest payments have become too dear. In other words, we have come full circle and must now return to the mindset of the cash society.

What’s a person to do?

1. Start weaning yourself from the “buy now pay later” mindset. The bargain that seems too good to pass up actually can cost two or three times the bargain price if it is carried on a credit card for a few years. The interest rate on these debts can often exceed 20%.
2. At least five years before retirement, you should start to make a concerted effort to pay off all debt, with any balances you might be carrying on credit cards the first target.
3. Leasing autos can be wise when they can be expensed against a business, but that equation changes when deductions are no longer possible. Plan how you will select and pay for your “retirement car(s).
4. If you have been in your homestead for many years, the mortgage may be paid off. If not, however, it may be wise to sell you home and buy a smaller one for cash. Obviously, it makes no sense to sell in a down market. But you can invest the sweat equity now by preparing the home. Painting and cleaning can take a surprising amount of time.

Other information is available at
Bankrate’s Credit Cards for Seniors,
AARP Debt Reduction Calculator, and
CNN Money.

NB. Click below to make a comment. To avoid the new Google requirements, simply choose the “Nickname” option.

If you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.