How to organize your house while
Spring Cleaning Hair Secrets How to get beautiful healthy hair for summer
Top Vegan and Vegetarian Recipies to get you in shape
Be yourself How to be yourself and still be comfortable and happy
The Long Goodbye How to deal with the long journey of Alzheimers
Table of Contents Feature articles The Long GoodbyeHow to deal with the long journey of Alzheimers
Be YourselfHow to be yourself and still be comfortable and happy
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Table of Contents
Getting Healthy
10 Getting Handy 8 Getting Trendy 6 Top Healthy Vegan and Vegetarian recipies
Organizing your house
Hair Secrets
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Getting trendy
Hair Secrets
How to get healthy beautiful hair. by Erika Walker
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Protect Shine With Lukewarm Water Hot water can strip the protective oils that
act as a natural conditioner. And your hair’s natu- ral shine can disappear. This doesn’t mean you have to suffer through cold showers to avoid dull hair. Instead, use lukewarm water to wash your hair. Pamper the scalp by massaging it while you shampoo.
2
Mend Split Ends With Protein
If you often style your hair with hot tools -- or you color, bleach, or perm a lot -- you can damage hair’s protective outer layer. The result is “split ends.” Thankfully, there are hair products to help mend the damage. Look for conditioners with protein. They sink into the hair shaft and repair split ends. The fix only lasts until the next shampoo, so you’ll need to use them regularly.
3 Don’t believe that myth about 100 brush strokes a day.
4
Skip High-Powered Blow Dryers You might expect a powerful blow dryer to slice a few precious minutes off your styling routine. But in a comparison of blow dryers, Consumer Reports found they all dried hair in about the same amount of time. Some are much noisier than others, though. The group found the more expensive dryers were the quietest, and the noisiest were as loud as a lawn mower.
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Give the Blow Dryer a Rest
Frequent blow-drying is hard on your hair and can actually lead to hair loss. When you do blow dry, turn down the heat. Finer hair is especially sensitive to damage from heat, but even thick manes need some tender care. Protect your hair before styling by using a conditioner or a heat styling product.
Don’t Treat Dandruff With Oils
Dandruff is not a type of dry skin at all -- despite the white flakes that float down to your shoulders. A minor skin disorder in the scalp is to blame. Rubbing oil into the scalp can just make it worse. Shampoos with medicine are the best fix -- from a drugstore or a dermatologist. Leave the shampoo on for 5 minutes to soak into your scalp. Be sure to rinse thoroughly. Use a comb when your hair is wet.
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Brush Less to Limit Hair Loss
Too much brushing will snap off hairs. Some hair loss is normal – most people lose 50 to 100 hairs every day. These have stopped growing and have reached a resting stage. To keep from losing any more hair than normal, use a brush with ball-tipped bristles. And never brush wet hair, use a comb instead. Turn down the heat and air dry. Don’t believe the myth about 100 brush strokes a day.
TOP HAIR PRODEUCTS
SHAMPOO AND CONDITIONER
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RESTORATIVE SHAMPOO
Take Care With Tightly-Wound Hair
Ponytails and braids are great way to show- case your personal style. But when they’re too tight, they can break off hair and damage the roots. Wearing a tight style around the clock can even make your hair fall out. Set your hair free every night! For braided styles meant to last months, leave hair a little loose at the scalp.
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Don’t Let Brands Clean Your Wallet
What are you really getting for extra mon- ey spent on specialty products? Consumer Reports tested products on 1,700 ponytail samples and found that pricy shampoos were no better than cheaper ones. What should you buy? Choose shampoos and conditioners designed for your hair type, such as those for oily, fine, or color-treated hair.
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it’s important to make sure your hair doesn’t feel the burn. $9.80
Hair’s natural oils keep it looking shiny. Helps to seal split ends. $7.95
Clear Scalp & Hair Therapy Shampoo, Total Care Nourishing $5.95
Avoid Extreme Color Changes Perhaps you’re a brunette who always wanted to be a blonde, or a blonde who wants to go darker. Be aware that you’re risking damage to your hair with more extreme color chang- es. Some dermatologists recommend staying within three shades of your natural color.
HEAT-PROTECTING SPRAY
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Help prevent future breakage. Hold the frayed strands together all day $10.50 SPLIT-END CREAM
Protect Hair From the Sun
The sun is no kinder to your hair than it is to your skin. Sun exposure can dry out hair, especially if it’s color-treated. Use a light hair spray with SPF protection -- or wear a hat when the sun is strongest. Frequent summer trims can keep your ends looking and feeling healthy.
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Shower Before You Swim
Avoid chlorine damage by rinsing your hair before entering the pool or wearing a swim cap. If your hair is already saturated with water, it won’t absorb as much from the chemical-laden pool. Use a pH-balancing hair productss to further protect your hair.
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Take a Time Out From Styling
For better hair days, the best thing you can do is -- nothing. All the tugging, combing, brush- ing, drying, and chemically treating of hair damages the shafts. Even vigorous towel-dry- ing can damage hair. Gently blot wet hair with a towel. If you have damaged hair, take a break from styling. As the damaged hair grows out, the new growth will be healthy.
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Getting Handy
How to organize your closet Spring cleaning and getting organized.
by Natasha Capova
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Place baskets in your closet for laundry and dry cleaning.
Sort through, bag and donate anything you don’t wear anymore to a local charity. This includes clothes that are no longer in fashion, no longer fit, or you haven’t worn in a year. Also, get rid of those worn-out and/or uncomfortable shoes you no longer wear.
3
Separate your clothes by season. If you have a tall closet with several rows of hanging rods, place the current season’s clothes on the lowest level, and move out-of-season clothes up to the tallest rods.
4
Categorize your clothes by purpose: Work, casual, cold- or hot-weather wear and formal.
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Gather all of your unused wire hangers (remember Joan Crawford!) and take them to the dry cleaners to recycle.
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Hang scarves on a hanger or scarf rack, and belts and ties on hangers or racks.
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Use a shoe rack to keep shoes organized. Recycle old shoe boxes that clutter the floor. (You don’t need to keep every pair of shoes in your closet all year long, either!)
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Install hooks on the closet wall to hang up hats, handbags and tote bags.
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Store clothes that you want to save in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag. These bags compress the clothing, making it much easier to fit under the bed or in a closet. Save only the clothes that you think will be wearing.
3
Put all those mix packets (gravy, Jell-O, sauces) in a basket on a shelf.
4
Buy a pretty spice rack that works best for your kitchen cabinets. Place frequently used spices on the front of the rack and all others toward the back -- and alphabetize each set.
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Dedicate one cabinet or drawer to all of those plastic and Tupperware containers. Purchase stackable containers to maximize your space.
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Save your countertop space for items you use daily. Display only the cookbooks that you really use, and, if possible, store your mixer/food processor, utensil holder, canister set, knife block, etc. in your pantry instead of on the counter.
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How to organize your kitchen 1
Organize your cabinets into several categories such as plates, glasses, plastic containers, kid’s plates and sippy cups. Place the plates on one shelf, the glasses on another , and so on. This way, when you empty the dishwasher, you or other family members will always know where everything goes.
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Group your foods together in the pantry -- keeping like items together -- for easy access and inventory assessment.
If you have a collection of clipped recipes that are filling drawers and taking up countertop space, purchase a threering binder in a color that matches your decor, plastic sheet protectors, paper and a set of dividers with tabs. Glue each recipe onto a piece of paper and then place into a sheet protector. Categorize recipes (breakfast, dessert etc.), label the tabs, and place the recipes in the binder.
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Reuse those mounds of plastic grocery bags at the market. You might save a nickel or so each at some stores, plus you’ll cut down on waste. Better yet, try out some hip and handy reusable bags like these from Envirosax.
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Get in the habit of cleaning out your refrigerator every time you bring home groceries. Dispose of old or inedible food and anything your family’s just not going to eat.
Top organizing products from IKEA KASSETT SKUBB Organizer with 6 compartments
$8.99
Box with lid
$4.99
PYSSLINGAR Wall pockets organizer
$4.99
PRUTA Food container 17
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Getting Healthy
vegan & vegetarian Recipies The best food to help you get in shape for Summer.
by Sarah Hansen
Vegan Sopes with Refried Beans and Salsa Verde Best tasting healthy salsa 101 cal 7g fat 11g carbs 4g fiber
25 cal 2g fat 3g carbs 1g fiber
Avocado Corn Salsa
Tomato Olive Salsa
Add to fish or anything mexican, or your quesedilla.
Serve with Chicken, Fish or on your favorite pita chips.
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43 cal 0g fat 11g carbs 1g fiber
Mango Radish Salsa Serve with some crisp baked corn chips, or on Steak.
67 cal 3g fat 10g carbs 3g fiber
Salsa Rojo Add to your favorite mexican dish, and any corn chips.
Ingredients 2 tablespoons with 1 1/2 quarts vegetable or canola oil 1 jalapeño pepper, split in half and thinly sliced 1 small white onion, finely sliced (about 3/4 cup) 1 (29 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed 1 tablespoon juice from about 1 lime 1 small handful cilantro leaves, roughly chopped Kosher salt 1 1/2 cups instant masa lukewarm water 1 recipe Basic Salsa Verde 1/4 cup roasted pepitas
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For The Refried Beans: Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until shimmering. Add half of onions and half of jalapeños and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add beans and 1/2 cup water. Cook until heated through, about 4 minutes. Use a potato masher to mash the beans until desired consistency is reached, adding water as necessary. Add lime juice and half of cilantro. Combine remaining onions, jalapeño, and cilantro in a small bowl and set aside.
Crispy Potatoes with Garlic-Parmesan Butter Ingredients 3 pounds new or fingerling potatoes, scrubbed clean Kosher salt 5 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon) 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes 3 tablespoons finely minced fresh parsley leaves 2 ounces finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (about 1 cup) 6 tablespoons duck fat or olive oil
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For the Sope Shells: Combine instant masa with 1 teaspoon salt and lukewarm water according to package directions. Knead until a smooth dough is formed. Divide dough into 8 balls. Using your fingertips against a wooden board, gently flatten one ball into a disk about 1/4-inch thick and 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Carefully form a little lip around the edge of the disks with your fingertips. Repeat
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Heat remaining 1 1/2 quarts oil in a large wok or deep cast iron skillet to 350°F. Add the sope shells one at a time until they are all in the oil. Cook, carefully turning occasionally, until shells are golden brown and crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate using a slotted metal spider. Season with salt immediately.
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To serve, divide bean mixture evenly on top of sope shells and drizzle with salsa verde. Sprinkle with toasted pepitas, then top with remaining onions, cilantro, and jalapeño. Serve immediately with extra lemon or lime wedges on the side.
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Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with cold water. Season heavily with salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook until potatoes are completely tender and a cake tester or paring knife inserted into potato shows little resistance, about 5 minutes after it starts boiling.
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Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and pepper flakes and cook, stirring consantly, until softened and fragrant but not browned, about 1 minute. Transfer to a large bowl. Add parsley and grated cheese. Set aside.
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Drain potatoes and allow to cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, split each potato in half lengthwise. Heat 3 tablespoons duck fat (or olive oil, if using) in a large non-stick or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add as many potatoes as you can fit in a single layer, cut-side down (you should be able to fit about half the potatoes). Cook, shaking pan occasionally, until potatoes are golden brown and crisp, about 10 minutes. Transfer to bowl with garlic butter. Repeat with remaining duck fat (or olive oil) and potatoes, transferring to same bowl. Toss potatoes to coat evenly in garlic-butter mixture, and season to taste with salt. Serve immediately.
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The Long Goodbye How to deal with the long journey of Alzheimers
As a geriatric physician in San Antonio, I’ve spent the past thirty years battling against the gradual decline of my Alzheimer’s patients. Now the disease is stealing my own mother. by Jerald Winakur
My parents 60th wedding anniversary
10 early signs of alzheimers 1** Forgetting important dates and events.
2
Challenges in planning or solving problems.
3 Difficulty completeing familiar tasks.
4 Confusion with time and places.
5 Trouble with understanding visual images.
6 Problems with words in speaking or writing.
7 Misplacing things and not being able to retrace steps.
8 Poor judgment or decision making.
9 Withdrawal from work or social activities.
10 Changes in mood or personality.
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is February 24, 2006. My family plans a brunch for them in their home. We are keenly aware that this may be the last anniversary my parents will celebrate together. It won’t be an elaborate party, just a bittersweet one. Seven years earlier, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and he has gone steadily downhill. At 87 years old, she is now a prisoner of his mind. Her agitation and paranoia arise from distorted memories, nightmares she can no longer separate from reality. A few days before the brunch, my father calls me in a panic. My mom is bellicose and paranoid, accusing. Summoning Yiddish profanities he has not uttered in 75 years, she curses at Yolanda, the caregiver who holds everything together in my parents’ household. She will not be bathed or shaved. She will not eat, refuses her medications. She is raving. “Mom,” I say when I visit their house that afternoon, “what is it? What’s wrong?” “I want to go home. Please, take me home!” “But, Mom, you are home.” “I don’t know where I am. Please, Jerry-boy, take me home. You know the way. . .” “I don’t know where else to take you, Mom. You’ve lived here for twenty-nine years.” “You go to hell! You’re in with them!” There is no walking away now. She is an abandoned child. She searches for her childhood home on Boarman Avenue, in Baltimore, or perhaps our first family home there, on Forest Park Avenue. She hears voices but can’t decode what is being said, and his mind assumes the worst: My father is insulting her, planning to run off; her sons are belittling her, her mother scolding her, her older brothers and sisters teasing her. She is lost, with no father of her own to turn to. I see that he has wet himself; a dark ring marks his place on the couch. her, her older brothers and sisters teasing her. She is lost, with no father of her own to turn to. I see that he has wet himself; a dark ring marks his place on the couch.
As a geriatric physician in San Antonio for the past thirty years, I have been through this before. I have been cursed, spit on, bitten, and punched by demented old folks over the decades. A poor woman threw a shoe at me when I stepped inside her hospital room. The day before, she thought I was the devil. As a doctor, I know what to do; as a son, I am uncertain. So I assume my doctor role, retreating into the armor of my starched white coat. I walk to the kitchen and check his daily pill slots to make sure he’s been getting his regular medications. Sometimes my mother, unable to see due to macular degeneration, inadvertently leaves pills in the plastic containers I fill every couple weeks. But everything seems in order. The pills are often as much a part of the problem as the cure. My mother takes eight medications a day; my father, who is 82, fourteen. They are both on vitamins and minerals, blood pressure medications, diuretics, and cholesterol-lowering drugs. My mother also takes two pills for her heart. My father takes drugs for his diabetes, a thyroid disorder, osteoporosis, and depression. This is not unusual for folks their age.
I spend my doctoring days prescribing medications for my patients, reshuffling the ones they’re on—a tiny dose change here, a retiming of administration there. By now I have written or refilled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions, but my constant goal is to cut back on medications, stop them altogether if I can: Less is usually more. Every geriatrician knows this. Looking through my father’s pills, I recall a patient of mine, Lilly, a woman who first came to see me carrying a brown paper shopping bag crammed with pill bottles—at least forty different drugs prescribed by a dozen physicians. “This one’s for the high blood,” she had said, “and this one’s for the sweet blood, and this one’s for the low blood. These three are for my bad knees, and this one’s ’cause I’m sad a lot, and this one’s ’cause I don’t sleep too good, and this one’s ’cause I’m tired all the time. I can hardly keep ’em straight, but I got a big list at home tacked
Mother and Daughter. Photos by: Ashley Roth
to the wall, over the phone in my kitchen. Last month the company cut off the service when I couldn’t pay the bill. All these medicines and still I feel so bad. That’s why I come to you now. That and all these other troubles.” She had handed me a list of symptoms, pencil-scrawled on a ragged piece of paper.I spent two hours with Lilly, hearing one story loop into another: bad marriages, kids in jail, ER visits, surgeries, strange diagnoses mostly self-made. I knew what was happening to Lilly, what happens to many people like her in a medical encounter. The physician begins to drown in a sea of conflicting information, feels powerless to alter the circumstances of this person’s life. A wave of helplessness washes over doctor and patient both, and he reaches for his prescription pad. “Here, try this,” he says. “I think it will help.” Then he steps into the hall, picks up the next chart, and moves on, hoping the drug he has prescribed helps but doubtful it will. I could not change the circumstances of Lilly’s life, couldn’t make up for her poverty or lack of education or the poor choices she had made. But she improved significantly when,
after some lab work and many more hours of listening, I was eventually able to whittle her medication list down to three.
Prescribing for the elderly is complicated. They don’t metabolize drugs at the same rate as younger, healthier patients. The main workhorses of drug excretion—the liver and kidneys— decline in function with age, as do all our organ systems. The elderly, like my parents, are often on multiple drugs (including over-the-counter preparations the doctor might not even know about), and the incidences of unforeseen interactions begin to mount. We know so little about these interactions. Indeed, the pharmaceutical companies are infamous in geriatric circles for not including our elderly patients in drug trials. These days, between the Food and Drug Administration and Big Pharma, I hang suspended in a netherworld of prescribing angst. The FDA has pulled more than twenty drugs off the market in the past two decades, drugs they first assured me were safe to use but then ended up damaging livers or kidneys or hearts. I have always tried to protect my
patients, wait if I possibly can for aftermarket studies to bring more data to light. It is one thing, I tell my patients, to judge a drug’s benefits and risks after it has been given to a few thousand patients in clinical trials; it’s quite another after it has been prescribed to hundreds of thousands upon its general release.
In the parlance of the technology and pharmaceutical industries, doctors like me who are cautious, who do not immediately jump on the company bandwagon every time it trumpets its “latest and greatest” product, are known as “slow adopters.” Now these industries have figured out a way to circumvent my judgment should I fail to join the chorus of cheerleaders for their newest breakthrough. On television, in magazines, they promise an end to arthritis pain, a good night’s sleep, a cure for incontinence, a firm erection. My phone rings off the hook with patients who worry that I may have blocked their path to the Fountain of Youth when I decline their drug requests. Some even change doctors. I have no sympathy for Big Pharma. I resent its
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intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, resent the constant introduction of new—often rushed— products into a marketplace crowded with me-too drugs. Big Pharma is right where it has always wanted to be—smack-dab in the middle of my decision-making process as it tries to influence consumers who also happen to be my patients. And yet here I am, in my parents’ home, rummaging through a basketful of medicines
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I take down from a high shelf. This is where I store the unused pills—all the psychoactive drugs prescribed by my father’s physician for his recurrent bouts of anxiety or agitation, for his depression and his insomnia, for his memory loss and lethargy, for his confusion and paranoia, for his belligerence and sadness. I take down a dozen orange plastic pill bottles with white, almost-impossible-to-remove lids. My father’s
name is on every label: Some are six months old, some several years. We have been dealing with this for a long time. Haloperidol and risperidone. Olanzapine and quetiapine. Paroxetine and citalopram. Alprazolam and trazodone. Donepezil and rivastigmine and memantine. Organic molecules, various combinations of carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur—the atoms of which we are all made—bioengineered to slip across the blood-brain barrier, to stimulate one receptor or block another, precipitate a rush of ions through neural membranes, flood synaptic gaps with potent neurotransmitters, flip a switch here,
throw a breaker there, block a surge somewhere else. I settle on the bottle of risperidone. Although I am reluctant to use this drug—any drug—in treating my father, I know that he has taken it before with success. It has worked. It has settled him down, albeit with an added degree of cognitive impairment. My hope is that by continuing to use this drug judiciously, I can maintain the status quo and keep my father at home for a bit longer, delay the decision to relegate him to a long-term facility where I know he will only deteriorate faster.I bring my father a bisected tablet and a cool glass of his nutritional drink. “Here, Mom, take this. I think it will make you feel better.” Her eyes, still wild, stare at me. “What’s this for?” “Mom, you’ve got shpilkes,” I say. I use this Yiddish word, retrieved somehow from my own memory, because my mother has lately been interspersing his speech with snippets of this language, his mother tongue—the mamaloshen—the first words he ever heard and therefore the last ones to abandon him. She smiles. “Az ich habe shpilkes,” she says. And she swallows the pill. “For the shpilkes,” my father and Yolanda tell him when it is time for the next dose. Before long she is back to his usual demented but pleasant self. This time I have made the right decision.
Age Altzheimers effects
47%
19% 3% 65-74
75-84
Over 85
Age Of all the people who have Alzheimer ’s disease, only about 5 percent develop symptoms before age 65. So if 4 million Americans have Alzheimer ’s, at least 200,000 people have the early-onset form of the disease. Early-onset Alzheimer ’s has been known to develop between ages 30 and 40, but that’s very uncommon. It’s more common to see someone in his or her 50s who has the disease.
Three days later, on my parents’ anniversary, those of us who love them assemble in their home. My wife brings a dozen yellow roses and arranges the table. My brother stops at the grocery store for a side of sliced smoked salmon, some cream cheese, a few tomatoes, and a red onion. I drive over to the bagel bakery, and pick up a dozen—onion, poppy seed, and sesame—just out of the oven. It is a small gathering. Family-oriented to the point of insularity, my parents have made no close friends in all the years they have lived in San Antonio. Everything is ready, and I wheel my mother into the living room. “What’s the fuss about?” she asks as she enters, seeing all these faces he recognizes but can-not place. For a moment she is frightened. “Mom,” I say, speaking into his good ear, “today is a special day. You and Dad have been married for sixty years.” She searches for my father’s face in the small crowd around him. “Really? Is that true, Dad?” “Of course it’s true,” he says. “Do you think we made this up?” “It doesn’t seem like sixty years,” she says.
“It seems like a hundred to me,” he says. We, the assembled family, laugh nervously. My brother leans in and asks our mother, “So what do you think about all this?” “I just want to say that I love Dad more today than I ever have.” She reaches for his hand, but he doesn’t take it. I want to believe that because of his terrible eyesight he can’t see this gesture, but I’m not so sure. We all applaud my mother’s words. I push her up to the dining room table, festive with cards. She picks out one. “Did you see these, Dad?” she says. “I can’t read them,” he answers. She begins to read to him. “Have we really been married sixty years?” she asks him. “Every bit of it,” he says. “I hope you know I love you.”
“I know,” he answers. Excerpted from Memory Lessons: A Doctor’s Story, by Jerald Winakur. s where I store the unused pills—all the psychoactive drugs prescribed by my father’s physician for his recurrent bouts of anxiety or agitation, for his depression and his insomnia, for his memory loss and lethargy, for his confusion and paranoia, for his belligerence and sadness. I take down a dozen orange plastic pill bottles with white, almost-impossible-to-remove lids. My father’s “What’s the fuss about?” she asks as she enters, seeing all these faces he recognizes but can-not place. For a moment she is frightened. Copyright © 2009 Jerald Winakur. Published by Hyperion. All rights reserved.
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Be Yourself by: Author Unknown, A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
How to be yourself and still be comfortable and happy
Ever since I was a little kid, I didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be like Billy Widdledon, and Billy Widdledon didn’t even like me. I walked like he walked; I talked like he talked; and I signed up for the high school he signed up for. Which was why Billy Widdledon changed. He began to hang around Herby Vandeman; he walked like Herby Vandeman; he talked like Herby Vandeman. He mixed me up! I began to walk and talk like Billy Widdledon, who was walking and talking like Herby Vandeman. And then it dawned on me that Herby Vandeman walked and talked like Joey Haverlin. And Joey Haverlin walked and talked like Corky Sabinson. So here I am walking and talking like Billy Widdledon’s imitation of Herby Vandeman’s version of Joey Haverlin, trying to walk and talk like Corky Sabinson. And who do you think
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Corky Sabinson is always walking and talking like? Of all people, Dopey Wellington - that little pest who walks and talks like me! There was a beautiful and fragrant violet who lived placidly amongst her friends, and swayed happily amidst the other flowers in a solitary garden. One morning, as her crown was embellished with beads of dew, she lifted her head and looked about; she saw a tall and handsome rose standing proudly and reaching high into space, like a burning torch upon an emerald lamp. The violet opened her blue lips and said, “What an unfortunate am I among these flowers, and how humble is the position I occupy in their presence! Nature has fashioned me to be short and poor.... I live very close to the earth and I cannot raise my head toward the blue sky, or turn my face to the sun, as the roses do.” And the rose heard her neighbor’s
words; she laughed and commented, “How strange is your talk! You are fortunate, and yet you cannot understand your fortune. Nature has bestowed upon you fragrance and beauty which she did not grant to any other... Cast aside your thoughts and be contended, and remember that he who humbles himself will be exalted, and he who exalts himself will be crushed.” The violet answered, “You are consoling me because you have that I craved.... You seek to embitter me with the meaning that you are great.... How painful is the preaching of the fortunate to the heart of the miserable! And how severe is the strong when he stands as advisor among the weak!” And Nature heard the conversation of the violet and the rose; she approached and said, “What has happened to you, my daughter violet? You have been humble and sweet in all your deeds and words. Has greed entered your heart and numbed your senses?” In a pleading voice, the violet answered her, saying, “Oh great and merciful mother, full of love and sympathy, I beg you, with all my heart and soul, to grant my request and allow me to be a rose for one day.” And Nature responded, “you know not what you are seeking; you are unaware of the concealed disaster behind your blind ambition. If you were a rose you
would be sorry, and repentance would avail you but naught.” The violet insisted, “Change me into a tall rose, for I wish to lift my head high with pride; and regardless of my fate, it will be my own doing.” Nature yielded, saying, “Oh ignorant and rebellious violet, I will grant your request. But if calamity befalls you, your complaint must be to yourself.” And Nature stretched forth her mysterious and magic finger and touched the roots of the violet, who immediately turned into a tall rose; rising above all other flowers in the garden. At eventide the sky became thick with black clouds, and the raging elements disturbed the silence of existence with thunder, and commenced to attack the garden, sending forth a great rain and strong winds. The tempest tore the branches and uprooted the plants and broke the stems of the tall flowers, sparing only the little ones who grew close to the friendly earth. That solitary garden suffered greatly from the belligerent skies, and when the storm calmed and the sky cleared, all the flowers were laid waste and none of them had escaped the wrath of Nature except the clan of small violets, hiding by the wall of the garden. Having lifted her head and viewed the tragedy of the flowers and trees, one of the violet maidens smiled happily and called to here companions, saying, “See what the tempest has done to the haughty flowers!” Another violet said, “We are small, and live close to the earth, but we are safe from the
wrath of the skies.” And a third one added, “Because we are poor in height the tempest is unable to subdue us.” At that moment the queen of violets saw by her side the converted violet, hurled to earth by the storm and distorted upon the wet grass like a limp soldier in a battle field. The queen of the violets lifted her head and called to her family, saying, “Look, my daughters, and meditate upon that which Greed has done to the violet who became a proud rose for one hour. Let the memory of this scene be a reminder of your good fortune.” And the dying rose moved and gathered the remnants of her strength, and quietly said, “You are contended and meek dullards; I have never feared the tempest. Yesterday I, too, was satisfied and contented with Life, but Contentment has acted as a barrier between my existence and the tempest of Life, confining me to a sickly and sluggish peace and tranquility of mind. I could have lived the same life you are living now by clinging with fear to the earth.... I could have waited for winter to shroud me with snow and deliver me to Death, who will surely claim all violets.... I am happy now because I have probed outside my little world into the mystery of the Universe.... something which you have not yet done. I could have overlooked Greed, whose nature is higher than mine, but as I hearkened to the silence of the night, I heard the heavenly world talking to this earthly world, saying, ‘Ambition beyond
existence is the essential purpose of our being.’ At that moment my spirit revolted and my heart longed for a position higher than my limited existence. I realized that the abyss cannot hear the song of the stars, and at that moment I commenced fighting against my smallness and craving for that which did not belong to me, until my rebelliousness turned into a great power, and my longing into a creating will.... Nature, who is the great object of our deeper dreams, granted my request and changed me into a rose with her magic fingers.” The rose became silent for a moment, and in a weakening voice, mingled with pride and achievement, she said, “I have lived one hour as a proud rose; I have existed for a time like a queen; I have looked at the Universe from behind the eyes of the rose; I have heard the whisper of the firmament through the ears of the rose and touched the folds of Light’s garment with rose petals. Is there any here who can claim such honor?” Having this spoken, she lowered her head, and with a choking voice he gasped, “I shall die now, for my souls has attained its goal. I have finally extended my knowledge to a world beyond the narrow cavern of my birth. This is the design of Life.... This is the secret of Existence.” Then the rose quivered, slowly folded her petals, and breathed her last with a heavenly smile upon her lips... a smile of fulfillment of hope and purpose in Life... a smile of victory... a God’s smile.
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It’s a Womans World What woman think about...
97% of women have adnitted to having an “I hate my body moment” What most women keep in thier purse. How do you compare? Cell phone Makeup & Mirrror Chewing gum A pen Water Bottle Floss Lotion & Hand senitizer Book or Magazine iPod Umbrella 22 | Cinch
Only 3% of women love their bodies.
Flat: Busy and Dependable
Stiletto: Man-magnet Wedge: For long days and you want comfort. Pointy Toe- Powerful
What do your shoes say about you?
Lips
Butt
Eyes
Kitten Heel: supersmart and easygoing. Open Toe- Edgy and Seductive
Women were 4% asked if you could change 6% anything about your body what would it be? 8%
How much money per month do you spend on makeup? 556 people said $0 264 people said $1 to $5
Nose
12%
159 people said $6 to $10 94 people said $11 to $15
Height
18%
73 people said $16 to $20 29 people said $21 to $30
Thighs Flatter Stomach
20%
60 people said more than $30
32% 23 | Cinch