I knew it

Scientists find that people who are cheerful and optimistic tend to die younger.

Researchers in the Longevity Project studied 1,500 bright children who were around 10 years old when the study began in 1921. They found, over the subjects' lifetimes, that happy-go-lucky types took more risks with their health, trusting that everything would turn out fine.

Prudent, persistent types tended to live longer and be healthier, the researchers found.

Full story here.

(Thanks to Bill Crider for the link.)

Food mortgages

Remember when a trip to the supermarket didn’t require a major investment?

Food prices have climbed so much recently that buying groceries should now come with a mountain of qualifying paperwork, like a second mortgage.

“Sorry, sir,” the cashier would say, “but it appears you don’t have the financial history to take on this much debt. You’d better put back the ice cream.”

Food prices are tied to energy prices -- shipping food to your supermarket requires diesel -- and we all know how that’s gone lately. Truckers are going broke, farmers are barely staying afloat, and the oil barons would be laughing all the way to the bank if weren’t for the strain of carrying all that money.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are standing in the supermarket aisles, trying to decide whether we can afford to invest in dessert.

Maybe this is the latest strategy for curing obesity -- make food so expensive that we Americans have to curtail our eating. Won’t work, of course, because the most fattening foods are the cheapest.

The government tells us we should eat healthy fish and lean meat and fresh fruit and vegetables, then the prices on those items go through the roof. Pretty soon, all we can afford is hyphenated food like mac-and-cheese and Rice-a-Roni and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. Every day, we get a little fatter and a little poorer.

It starts to feel like it would be cheaper to eat dollar-menu fast food all the time -- at least you wouldn’t have to heat up the kitchen -- but who can afford enough gasoline to sit in a drive-thru line? And, if you eat burgers all the time, it eventually will cause your spleen to explode.

I’d been somewhat insulated from the latest surge of food price inflation because I hadn’t been doing the grocery shopping. For years, my wife was the breadwinner, and I did the actual shopping for bread. But once she joined me in working at home, she took over the hunting and gathering.

My wife’s a more canny shopper than I am. She’ll go to three different discount grocery stores to get the best deals and come home with loads of food for less money than I might spend on, say, beer.

Bargain-shopping makes for strange combinations sometimes and some unfamiliar labels in the pantry, but she knows how to whip these items into delicious meals that might not even involve the microwave, so it turns out fine.

Recently, though, she was busy and I went to the store. I did it my usual way -- no coupons, no comparison shopping, same supermarket I always use because I know where everything is.
Holy mackerel! No, wait, mackerel’s too expensive. Let’s say: Holy ramen noodles! I couldn’t believe how much prices have soared.

I started paying attention to prices, hunting the cheapest brands, putting stuff back, and I still spent $200 on a not-quite-full cart of groceries. At the checkout stand, I swiped the “club card” that entitles me to special prices, then played Bob Barker -- “Come on down!” -- while I watched the total on the register readout diminish only slightly.

I sheepishly brought the groceries home. Our two teen-aged sons had it all eaten within, oh, three days. Then they wanted to know why we were out of ice cream.

“Because,” I told them, “I’m waiting for the paperwork to clear on the home-equity loan.”

School's out

The end of the school year can be a tough time for parents.

In the summer months, we parents no longer have a taxpayer-funded place to store our children for seven hours a day. We must find ways to keep the kids safe, fed and amused while we work. We must transport them from place to place in oven-like minivans. We pay more for summer camp than we might pay for tuition at Yale. We must plan a (gulp!) vacation trip with the kids.

But let’s not focus on the complaints. Let’s take a moment to look at the benefits of school-free summers.

No more pencils, notebooks or other school supplies are necessary in summer. Children (especially boys) tend to lose those items repeatedly during the school year, along with their jackets, gloves and random shoes. Replacement costs go way down until fall, when we must completely outfit the students all over again.

No more books other than those of the children’s choosing. I recommend that kids spend as much time as possible in a nice, air-conditioned library.

No more teachers’ dirty looks. Parents suffer just as much as the kids when misbehavior, failing grades or other bad news require teacher meetings throughout the school year. Sure, the kids might still be little vandals during the summer, but your neighbors can’t force a face-to-face meeting the way teachers can. Just don’t answer the doorbell.

No more calls from the principal. (See above paragraph.) Plus, no more of those automated calls where the principal’s disembodied voice informs parents of minimum days, STAR testing, truancies, emergency lockdowns, etc.

No school means no homework which may mean fewer arguments around the house. Instead of standing over the offspring, forcing them to do their homework, we parents can force them to do yard work.

Summer means lots less laundry. Youngsters need to wear fresh clothes to school every day (whether they like it or not), but in summer they can go around in the same swimsuit, T-shirt and flip-flops for days on end. Swimming puts more towels in the mix, but at least those are easy to fold. Since the kids are home for the summer, maybe you can even get them to do the laundry. (Hahaha. Just kidding.)

School-related fundraising comes to a halt in summer. For three months, parents won’t have to foist band candy, bake sales or raffle tickets on their co-workers, neighbors and former friends.

Summer gives children more free time to climb trees, ride bicycles and skateboards, wrestle the family dog and engage in other dangerous activities. This gives parents the opportunity to get re-acquainted with the family doctor, insurance providers and the staffs at local emergency rooms.

(A parenting tip: Remind your children that “Look, Ma, no hands!” is a boast, not a medical condition.)

Most of all, summer vacation means parents can spend more “quality time” with their kids, aside from the hours spent in emergency rooms.

Take the children on a picnic, take them fishing, go to a ballgame, play games together or spend hot afternoons in air-conditioned matinees. Family activities are where memories are made, and summer is the best time for them. The kids will thank you (someday) for devoting your summer months to their welfare and amusement.

One final benefit: The more time the family spends together, the more eager the children will be to return to school next fall.

Back talk

One of my grandfather’s favorite expressions, blurted whenever anything caused dismay, disbelief or aggravation, was: “Oh, my aching back!”

Growing up, I heard him say that approximately one million times. I always suspected the phrase was used in lieu of cursing, his way of keeping it clean around the kids.

Then I reached middle age, and found out why “Oh, my aching back!” applied so well to all forms of heartbreak. Nothing’s more aggravating than a backache. (Well, maybe a toothache. But, “Oh, my aching tooth!” doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

We ask a lot of our backs. Sitting and standing and bending over and lifting heavy objects all put a strain on them. Our backs keep us upright, provide a nice flat area for reclining, and give other people a safe place behind which they can talk trash about us.

Our backs shoulder the load without complaint, most of the time. All they ask in return is a good night’s sleep, a regular scrubbing, the occasional massage and please remember to lift with your legs.

Once in a while, though, our backs turn on us. They ache. They seize up. They spasm. They remind us that they’re the largest area of our bodies (with the possible exception of the potbelly) and when they hurt, they’re taking us down with them.

I was reminded of all this recently when I “threw my back out.” I apparently threw it a long way, so far that I had to ask for help searching for it. We finally found it out in the yard.

For a few days, I was a victim of irregular muscle spasms that made me gasp and squeal like a startled piglet. I walked as stiffly as the Tin Man in an oil-free Oz. I couldn’t turn my head, which made backing up the car more interesting than usual, and downright exciting for a few scampering pedestrians.

How did I hurt myself? I have no idea. Believe me, I spent many hours wondering about it. Nothing else to do while I sat around immobile, popping ibuprofen tablets like they were Tic-Tacs.

I hadn’t overexerted myself, because that is against my religion, and I couldn’t remember any sudden moves or tricky bending that might’ve caused my back to seize. I finally settled on a particularly vigorous sneeze, and blamed that for my plight.

However it happened, the injury settled into the muscles around my shoulder blades, which caused me to keep my neck angled to starboard or risk another breathtaking spasm. This can cause a person to walk in circles.

The strange posture also resulted in a related pain in the neck that had absolutely nothing to do with my wife saying, repeatedly, “Why don’t you go see a doctor?”

Of course, I didn’t go see a doctor. I don’t see a doctor unless major body parts are actually falling off and dragging along behind me on the ground. I took some painkillers and sat quietly for a few days until those wacky muscle spasms settled down and the pain went away on its own.

I’m fine now, and I expect my back to do its many jobs perfectly well in the foreseeable future, so long as I don’t do anything strenuous, such as sneezing. Or cursing.

My grandfather would be proud.

The Aging of Aquarius

According to the calendar, I’m getting happier every day.

The mirror tells me I’m well on my way to contentment. If you believe my white whiskers, I’m downright delirious.

I base these conclusions on a study that shows that people tend to be happier as they get older.

The University of Chicago research project, led by a sociologist named Yang Yang (really), involved periodic interviews with 28,000 people between 1972 and 2004. Overall happiness levels tended to go up and down with good and bad economic times, but older Americans always reported being the happiest age group.

“The good news is that with age comes happiness,” Yang told The Associated Press. “Life gets better in one’s perception as one ages.”

Older people typically have learned to be content with what life has given them, Yang said. In general, the study found, the odds of being happy rose 5 percent with every 10 years of age.

Most Americans reported being “very happy” or “pretty happy” at every age. But a third of those aged 88 reported feeling very happy, compared to only 24 percent of 18-year-olds, the study said.

(What’s most amazing is that researchers found any 18-year-olds who admitted they were “very happy.” I assume the respondents were drunk.)

A separate University of Chicago study found that one reason people in their golden years tend to be happier is that they’re more socially active.

That study found that 75 percent of people aged 57 to 85 engage in one or more social activities each week. Such activities include visiting with neighbors, attending religious services, volunteering or going to group meetings, the AP article said.

Those in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to do at least one of those activities, the study found.

That’s because people in their 50s (like me) are too danged busy to keep up social connections as we should. Between careers, household chores, family responsibilities and Facebook, we find we’re pretty much booked solid.

Yang’s study found that baby boomers were the least happy group. Naturally. Many of us boomers are still in that stressful mid-life period, and we’ve generally been a bunch of whiners since the get-go.

Researchers say baby boomers haven’t learned to lower our expectations as we get older. We still want it all, even in retirement, and we’re not into the whole growing-old-gracefully thing. This attitude explains many boomer foibles, including annual gym memberships, plastic surgery, “working vacations” and Viagra.

Unless we learn to let go of our achievement-oriented mindsets and accept that life will never be perfect, the researchers said, we boomers could end up as sad, lonely senior citizens. There’s a happy thought.

I plan to embrace getting older. I’ll practice being content. I’ll tamp down my ambitions and try to accept life as it comes. I’ll drive slower and go to bed earlier. I’ll stop throwing away those “invitations” to join AARP.

Most of all, I plan to develop some social connections. I’ll have to rearrange my schedule, but I think I can free up an hour on Thursday afternoons.

Look out, happiness, here I come.

Signed, sealed, delirious

Is there any greater lie in American marketing than "easy to open?"

Products today are tamper-proof, childproof, moisture-resistant, safety-wrapped and vacuum-sealed, but easy to open they’re not.

Many of the foods we eat are sealed so tightly, you could starve to death before you get them open. Every time I wrestle a bottle of medicine, I think how it's a good thing my life's not depending on an emergency dose. Opening over-the-counter remedies requires scissors, a sharp knife and manual dexterity, and that's just the box. To free one of the individually entombed "caplets," you might need a small explosive.

How many minutes out of the average day do we spend trying to open packages? How much American productivity goes down the tubes while workers search for box cutters or letter openers? How much heartburn is caused daily by the phrase "Open Other End?"

I know the manufacturers of consumer products are trying to keep us safe, so we won't sue them, and much of the security packaging is required by government regulation. But it's hard to keep all that in mind when opening a simple bottle of water requires pliers.

People over a certain age can remember when the biggest obstacle between them and an aspirin was that little cotton ball the manufacturers stuffed inside the bottle to keep them from rattling around.

The Tylenol tampering deaths in 1982 resulted in new rules for over-the-counter medications. They now come with multiple layers of tamper-resistant packaging. First, you've got to remove that plastic film that's wrapped around the childproof cap (and good luck managing that without a sharp instrument of some kind). Then you've got to line up the little arrows to pop off the childproof cap. Inside, there's usually a foil seal that must be punctured and removed. By the time you get through those layers of protection, you're either not sick anymore or you're dead.

I had a cold recently, and took over-the-counter decongestants so I could function until the bug ran its course. Which meant that four times a day, you could find me cursing and sniffling and working my fingers to the bone, trying to remove the tablets from their individual paper-foil-plastic containers. There's a reason it's called a "blister pack."

Resealable packages are all the rage at the supermarket, but what's the point of "resealable" if you can't get it open in the first place?

Here's how they're supposed to work: Tear off an outer strip of plastic, and what's left is a zipper arrangement like those on sandwich bags. Does that plastic strip ever tear off straight? Once you do rip it off, how do you get the package open? There's nothing left to grab hold of. Most kitchens aren't equipped with tweezers.

My wife recently ran into this problem with a package of cold cuts. After repeated attempts to get it open, she turned to me and said, "You bought these. How do you open them?"

"I slice the package open with scissors," I said, "then put the meat in a Ziploc bag."

"You don't even TRY to use the package it came in?"

"Who needs the aggravation? I'm crazy enough already."

There's probably a pill for such madness, but imagine how hard it would be to open.

Everybody panic (or not)

If you pay attention to health news, then you know that most everything is bad for us and we’ll all soon die.

Scientists tell us our air, food, water, clothes and homes are full of germs, viruses, bacteria, pollen, pollution, radiation, industrial toxins, hazardous chemicals, deadly diseases, dust mites, insect parts, cholesterol and cooties.

Selfless medical researchers work around the clock to provide us with fresh scares. Every day, it seems, there’s a new study about some health risk we’d never even considered before. Every week brings word of some newly imported tropical disease. It’s a great time to be a hypochondriac.

Most of us read health news, process the information, then go on about our lives exactly as before. Why? Because we know there’ll be another study along soon that will cancel out the one in the news.

It works like this: One group of researchers will find, say, that coffee causes human spleens to explode. Another group (funded by coffee companies) will quickly release a study that shows that not only does coffee NOT cause exploding spleens, but it builds strong bones, makes you taller and was the original fluid at the Fountain of Youth. Later, a third study will find that neither of the above was correct. These impartial scientists will say coffee is OK, as long as you practice moderation, exercise and keep an eye on your overall spleen health. Then another lab will find a link between coffee and some other ailment, and we’re off and running again.

There’s no way to follow that cycle and maintain your sanity. You’d end up changing all your health and eating habits every few weeks. Better to wait it out, keep a watchful eye, wait for the pendulum to swing the other way.

(I, personally, am waiting for the day they announce that tofu causes cancer. I’m one carnivore with a mean streak.)

If you wait long enough, the tide turns against most everything, even medicines.

Remember the stories about Ambien and Lunesta? Those two prescription sleep aids, the most
heavily advertised drugs in America, were found to cause bizarre behavior in some people. The Food and Drug Administration announced that users walked in their sleep, prepared and ate food in their sleep, even went “sleep-driving.” None had any memory of the activities the next morning.

The entire country has been consumed by obesity and its dire effects on the national health. What if it turned out that we’re getting fat because we’re up every night, sleep-eating?

Another recent study found that obese men are 42 percent less likely to commit suicide than thin men. Scientists analyzed statistics from 45,000 men, and found that suicide rates fell as body-mass indexes rose. The researchers theorized that heavier men might have higher levels of mood-regulating brain chemicals.

So, the findings would seem to indicate, obesity will kill you slowly, but it might keep you from killing yourself. Next week, no doubt, scientists will find that obesity causes exploding spleens.

In the meantime, I’m one fat boy who will revel in some good news for a change, while also protecting myself against suicide. I’m going to lay out a big spread of yummy, fattening food, take an Ambien or a Lunesta, and engage in some serious sleep-eating. Maybe go for a nice drive afterward, burping and snoozing my way across the countryside.

What could go wrong? I’m sure some health researchers are doing a government-funded study to find out.

Keeping up with the upkeep

Having recently “celebrated” the passing of another birthday, I’ve given much thought lately to aging.

I’ve decided it’s not impending mortality that makes getting older so hard to take. It’s not the decline in vitality and possibility. The worst part of aging is all the damn maintenance.

Talk about a paradox. We have less life ahead of us with every passing day, but more and more of our dwindling time is spent on caring for our faces and our bodies and our overall health. By the time we take our final breaths, we’re ready to die, just so we can stop fussing with our hair.

It’s so much easier for the young. I watch my sons get ready for school in the morning and marvel at how little effort is required. They roll out of bed, throw on some clothes from the array on the floor, shovel in some breakfast, and they’re ready to go. They barely give the mirror a glance. They’re teens, they’re male, they assume they look fine.

If pressed, I can still do the quick shower and dress and out-the-door in fifteen minutes. (What we call around here “sliding down the Batpole.”) But most mornings require that more attention be paid to the mirror.

We aging men have skin spots to study, wrinkles to sigh over, gray whiskers to shave. The hair on our heads may get thinner, but stray hair pops up in strange places -- our eyebrows, our ears, our shoulders. Fallen hair apparently migrates while we sleep until it finds new and more interesting places to attach. These migratory hairs must be addressed. Throw in a beard, like I wear, and you can easily snip, snip away the entire morning.

(An aside to those men who sport bushy, spidery eyebrows: Dudes, buy some scissors. Really. It’s not funny anymore.)

When I was young, I gave no thought to working out. I got enough exercise shooting hoops and chasing women. I couldn’t gain weight if I tried. Now, I work out every day, and I’ve never been plumper. You’d think the fat would smooth out the wrinkles, but no . . .

Age weakens our eyes, loosens our teeth, flattens our arches, broadens our backsides. Remedial action is required at every turn, and it‘s all so time-consuming.

If personal upkeep is a hassle for men, it’s a hundred times worse for women. Society puts more pressure on women to look their youthful best, but every wrinkle and sag is a reminder of futility. No wonder they spend so much on cosmetics and hair dye and magnifying mirrors and Botox. No wonder it takes them longer to get ready in the morning. No wonder they resent their hairy, slovenly husbands.

As the years pile on, the physical maintenance becomes too much for us to handle alone. We seek professional help -- doctors and dentists and cosmetologists and manicurists and plastic surgeons and personal trainers. We spend our golden years wandering from one waiting room to another, trying to maintain our health and our teeth and what little looks we’ve got left.

Having an aging body is like owning an old car. Lots of dents and dings and strange noises. A little leakage now and then. Too much time in the shop, and we can’t rely on the old clunker the way we once did. But as long as it keeps running, we’ll keep on driving.

We’ve still got many miles to go.

Can't touch this

Here's the latest product for the "Baby on Board" parents who think their little blessings are simply too precious for this world: A sign that asks people to wash their hands before touching the little bundle of joy.

How are the little darlings supposed to build up any immunity if they're never exposed to germs? How can adult hands be any germier than the baby's own, when babies spend all day exploring their own toes, noses and various orifices?

This kind of parental paranoia takes all the fun out of babies. What's next? A sign asking that we not grab up passing babies and toss them into the air and (perhaps) catch them as they come down?

Watching what we eat

These days, we pay way too much attention to food.

You can hardly open a newspaper or watch television without being bombarded with information about food. It's become a national obsession, and some of us are ready to choke on it.

The food wars are fought on two fronts. On one side is the steamroller of news about foods that are bad for you. On the other is the national fascination with fancy meals prepared from exotic ingredients you can't find at the store. Most of those ingredients, it should be noted, fall into the category of "foods that are bad for you."

All this conflicting information results in people wandering supermarket aisles, overwhelmed by uncertainty and misguided ambition. We'd like some eggs, but they're bad for us and must be avoided. We'd like to create an colorful quiche like we saw on TV, but the recipe requires eggs.
Such clashing desires result in a zombie-like paralysis. Night of the Living Hungry.

Complicating matters is the fact that health news changes every few minutes. Scientists say steer clear of red wine and olive oil if you want to live past 50. The next week, they say red wine and olive oil prevent heart attacks and must be consumed immediately. Then a competing herd of scientists warns that red wine and olive oil should only be used for bathing . . .

Is it any wonder we're confused? We’d just like to sit down and eat something without concern over whether it'll kill us. According to the latest obesity statistics, the majority of us are doing just that. In fact, we're apparently eating everything but the family cat.

Americans absorb all the admonitions to watch what we eat, then we watch it go right in our mouths. Even foods with zero nutritional value, snacks so fattening they should be glued directly to our hips, get wolfed down with only the barest inkling of guilt. After all, we tell ourselves, scientists will inform us any minute that Twinkies prevent cancer.

The flip side to all this dithering is food as entertainment. Have there ever been more cooking shows on TV? Celebrity chefs with hilarious names like Emeril and Nigella whip up sizzling dishes composed entirely of ingredients that are -- not to get too technical here -- exceedingly nasty, and we watch with such rapt interest, you'd think it was the Super Bowl.

(That there's such a job description as "celebrity chef" says something's gone very wrong in this country. Chefs shouldn't be seen or heard. They should be hidden away in the kitchen, working their magic with eggs and red wine. It's bad enough that every talkative waiter seemingly wants to be our friend, regaling us with intricate descriptions of food origins. Now we have to be pals with the chef, too?)

There's even a food slang. Cooking shows are known as "food porn." People who stand in line at fancy restaurants or obsess over complicated recipes are called "foodies," just as people who obsess over heroin are dubbed "junkies."

Some foodies spend thousands of dollars on rare truffles. Others eat disgusting fare such as quail eggs or sashimi or oysters (also known as "slime on the half-shell") in an attempt to tickle their ever-more sophisticated palates.

Exotic food has become the latest way of displaying one's wealth and superiority. Tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex all have been declared health hazards. Food's the only bad habit we have left.

Most of us refuse to take sides in the food wars. We ignore equally the health alerts and the exhortations of the foodies. We waddle into the supermarket and buy the same items every week. We manage to exist from day to day without truffles or quail eggs.

For all the attention paid to food, the bottom line remains that most of us eat what tastes good. Yes, it's too fattening. Yes, it's slowly killing us. And, yes, it shows we're not foodies with refined palates. But we've got to eat something and it might as well be something we enjoy.

So eat up, America. I recommend the free-range Twinkies.