Many years ago, we took a family vacation with my husband’s parents, his two siblings, their children, and our son. It was a wonderful trip – one which we each enjoyed for many reasons.
One of the days, the four adult women went shopping at local mall. Typical for the region, it was a warm spring day and we all wore loose clothing, sunscreen, and sunglasses. We walked around the mall, laughing and shopping and at one point, encountered a jewelry-cleaning kiosk. The nice young woman cleaned my rings and then cleaned my mother and sister-in-law’s rings. Since they sparkled so nicely, I bought a jar of the wonderful pink cleaning fluid. (Let me digress to say that nearly 20 years later, a half jar of the product is still in my cupboard. Somewhere.)
We purchased a pretzel or some other treat and made our way back to the sunny parking lot. I was sitting in the back seat with my mother-in-law and we were all chatting away as we rode back to the condominium. Suddenly, mom sat up straight and said with concern, “That lady turned my ring pink!”
She held out her hand with her diamond wedding rings and waved it frantically. Now nearly teary-eyed, she kept saying, “That awful liquid is making my ring turn pink.”
Truthfully, I didn’t notice any pink tinge or color to her ring. They looked fine to me, though a little dull, considering they’d just been cleaned.
My sister-in-law was about to turn the car around and head back to the mall, when the last adult in the car started to laugh. She said, “Mom. Take off your sunglasses.”
Mom did remove her sunglasses, as did I. Then it was evident that the ring was absolutely fine. And clean!
Flash forward twenty years, and it seems I may have turned into my mother-in-law. On one of the amazing, warm and sunny days we have had in February, my husband and I were driving home on a country road. We were passing beautiful farms with fields, rolled hay, cows, and ponds. One pond after another were on this particular road.
I noticed the first pond was exceedingly blue. It was cobalt blue colored and stunning. I commented to my husband on this and he said, “It’s likely a reflection of the sky.”
When we passed the second pond, I said, “No, the sky is blue, but not this blue. It’s so bright!”
The third and fourth ponds were just the same. I finally decided that they must be adding some chemical to the water to make it so blue. But why would anyone do that? I asked my husband.
He glanced over to check out the fifth pond that was on my side of the road and began to chuckle. “Take off your sunglasses,” he said.
I dutifully removed them to see that the pond was clear and blue – reflecting the sky – but just a normal blue.
So I’ve become my mother-in-law. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t find that jewelry-cleaning solution and clean my rings.

There’s a good chance that television is making us dumber. That’s just my opinion, of course. It’s possible, I supposed, that we just are dumb, and television writers are just playing to their audience. I’m just not sure. Whatever the cause, the presentation is stupid to the point of offensive at times.
For example, this morning I was watching a news show when the weather portion began. Now, it’s January in the Midwest. Anyone who has lived in this area even a year knows that January (and February) are the months when we typically see cold weather. Snow, sleet, ice, frigid temperatures. Yep, that’s typical. The news would be the occasional times we get 50 degrees and sunny in those months (which has also happened).
This week, we are getting pretty standard winter weather for us. It’s cold. The wind chill is even colder. We need to stay inside, dress warmly, and prepare for power outages. That’s typical. Get a coat.
Watching this weatherman (sorry, meteorologist), you would have thought we’d never seen this before! He pronounced the cold weather like he was announcing the birth of his first child. And he ended with “this misery is just going to continue.” Misery? Misery? That seemed a bit extreme. It’s just winter weather, for heaven’s sake.
Maybe he goes to Texas or Florida in the summer to tell them, in a shocked and incredulous tone, that it’s going to be hot and humid there.
Then, right after the scary weather report, an advertisement appeared for life insurance. The patter actually said, “If you’re watching this, there’s a good chance your alive. If you’re not, you probably don’t care about this.” I guessed the writers of that commercial thought that was clever. It was not. It was insipid.
Don’t even get me started on the commercials for insurance. Repeating the same word over and over (and over) with some weird animal doesn’t exactly make me want to trust that the insurance people know their heads from a hole in the ground.
The Medicare commercials are even worse. Those of us who have actually called a Medicare help line know the truth. We aren’t fooled by your actors telling us how “easy” it is. Medicare is possibly the most confusing, confounding process I’ve experienced. These helpful places seem to have a knack for hiring people who are barely able to read from a script, have disdain for older folks, and possess no compassionate qualities for their customers. We are simply tasks to be checked off a to-do list. “Easy,” my foot.
It’s always been annoying to me that pundits on television have to “re-cap” what was said at a press conference, debate, election, or speech. I am apparently so dumb that when I listen to a politician talk, I need some television analyst to repeat it to me and explain it. “Gas prices are leveling off,” the governor said. So later, some talking head patiently informed me what that meant.
Apparently, gas prices will neither rise nor lower dramatically in the near future. Thank goodness. I thought perhaps we were getting new signage that was parallel to the ground.

New Year’s Day has arrived and it’s time to make some resolutions for the coming year.  Goals.  Objectives.  Plans or projects.  A list of ideas.  Whatever you want to call it, something to cling to and review next new year’s Eve.

                Before I set about this task, I decided to review the status of current goals.  My first thought is that it was too bad I didn’t do that earlier.  Like…February.  I had three goals and I, unfortunately, met none of them.  I called them objectives, but that didn’t seem to matter.

               The first goal was to write a poem every day.  I will be able to tell you how many I actually wrote, once I finally find the “Poem-a-Day” book in which I was writing.  It’s somewhere in the house and when I ever find it, I will write more.  Maybe. But let’s say I wrote 30.  That seems like a fair guess and so I met 1/12^th of that objective.

               The second objective was to increase my daily average step count to 7500 a day.  According to my phone, I met that objective in February, March, May, and June.  So one-quarter of the year.  But my phone is old and not always reliable, so I’m going to say it was more like half.  Or three-quarters. And it likely would have been more if I hadn’t had a sinus infection for the entire month of September and then got stomach flu (norovirus – nasty stuff) after Christmas.

               The good news on that objective is that I lost 7 pounds.  Which wasn’t officially the objective, of course, and a terrible way to lose it (illness), but still.  Really, why walk more if not to keep healthy? So there’s that.

               The final objective I set for myself was to re-engage in my daily practice of yoga or tai chi. 

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               I’m sorry for the break.  I had to stop typing to laugh myself out of the chair. That just didn’t happen.  And it was a sensible, practical, helpful goal to have. It. Just. Didn’t. Happen.

               Now I’m staring at my computer thinking “What in the world will I try to accomplish in 2024?”

Naturally, I began my research on this on the internet (not usually a smart or dependable source of information).  However I found some suggestions for worthy objectives for the upcoming year.  They were as follows (from joincake.com):

• I will love myself as much as Lizzo loves herself.  I would try this if I knew who Lizzo is.
• I will pick fewer internet fights.  Yay!  I’ve already mastered that.  At least, I try not to pick any.
• I vow to communicate exclusively in memes. Again, as I don’t know who to communicate in memes…or what, exactly a meme is….
• I will be unashamed about the fact that I wear pajamas in public.  I never wear pajamas in public.
• I will run a half marathon backward.  I will never run a half marathon, or even 60 feet, in any direction.
• I will attempt to finally learn how to stand on my head.  And break a hip?  Not happening.
• I will dance like no one is looking when I’m in a public place.  I’ve done that already.  Wasn’t pretty.

So that was no help.  I’m stuck with a blank page, so my only resolution is to take a week to think about it and come up with some by January 10^th.  Or 12^th.  Any suggestions?

Many of us are obsessed with our weight and health.  We diet, exercise, pretend to diet, try to exercise, make resolutions, try to diet, and – in extreme cases – pretend to exercise.  We try Paleo, Noom, Keto, Atkins, GOLO, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, gyms, fitness centers, walking groups, the YMCA, Silver Sneakers, and many other programs to lose weight, gain muscle, and/or stay healthy.

               Yesterday, completely by accident, I realized the secret to staying at a healthy weight is really quite simple: stop eating so much.

               Honestly, this is harder than it sounds.  Let me explain.  Yesterday we prepared lunch (a Keto protein serving of meat and cheese) with chips and cheese dip.  I carefully poured half the bag of chips into the bowl and set it on the table.  We were so proud to finish our servings, knowing that if we’d put the whole bag on the table, the bag would be empty!  Instead, we just ate the apportioned amount of chips and were patting ourselves on our respective backs for our willpower and intelligence.

               While putting the clip on the bag, I noticed – accidentally – the number of servings the bag contained.  Usually, my eyes go directly to carb and/or sugar content, but this number seemed to jump out at me:  “servings per bag: about 13.”  13?  THIRTEEN?

               If this was true, we had just consumed about 3.5 servings each!  Of potato chips!!!  Ack!  It turns out, half a bowl is not a serving.  14 chips equal one serving.  “About.”

               This made me frantically root around in our pantry and fridge to make the horrible discovery that we’ve been exceeding a lot of serving recommendations!

               Turns out chips aren’t the only snack that has a limited serving.  For example, pre-popped popcorn.  As it turns out, one serving is about 42 pieces.  This is enough to fill – level to the top, not over – a normal soup bowl of popcorn.  Okay, that’s about a fifth of my normal popcorn intake.  I mean, isn’t the bag a serving??

               Canned vegetables are sneaky, too.  We’ve been routinely splitting cans of veggies in one sitting between us.  But baked beans and corn – in small cans, mind you – are supposed to be 3.5 servings per can.  What?  I’m supposed to not eat 1.5 servings from a can (or about 1/3)?  At least not in one sitting, apparently.

               Another shocker was macaroni and cheese in a box.  This is supposed to make 3 – 4 servings.  Per box!  Yikes, I’ve been known to down the whole box myself!

               Frozen food didn’t encourage me either.  Fish sticks – you know, the ones that are about the width of my pinkie and as long – are 6 “sticks” per serving.  We usually have 7 – 9.  I mean, seriously, these are not “sticks” in any universe.  They are twigs at best.

               And chicken nuggets aren’t much better.  McDonald’s calls 5 chicken nuggets a kids’ meal.  But that’s the recommended adult serving.  FIVE.  That’s barely an appetizer!

               Apparently, I am simply eating too much.  So, I guess I’ll try following the recommended serving sizes of my foods.  The upside is I will likely lose more weight and be healthier.  The downside is I’m going to be hungry.  And not in a very good mood.  Thirteen chips, indeed.