Observations of an Aging Baby Boomer

Aging Baby Boomer Observing

1.   Archaeologists have discovered an "Elixir of Immortality" in an ancient Chinese family tomb. This is possibly the first example of a scientific experiment gone wrong because everybody in the grave is dead.

2.     The length of time it takes a package to reach your house is in reverse ratio to the importance of the package.

3.     Never trust anyone over 70.  We’re old enough to know all the tricks if we can remember them.

4.     Never judge anyone until you have walked a mile in his shoes.  If the shoes don’t fit, you’re screwed.  Being screwed gives you the right to get mad, which provides you with the right to search out the owner of the shoes and clobber him.

5.     Early to bed and early to rise can make a person really grouchy, especially if everyone else is having fun while you’re in bed.

6.     Yes, your dog or cat loves you, so stop wondering about it.

7.     Scientists are finally figuring out that procrastination can be good for you.  I could have told them that myself, but I kept putting it off.

8.     Historical facial reconstructions are showing us, more and more, how ugly some of the famous people were.

9.     Old age is a lot of fun – for the manufacturers of canes, walkers, orthopedic shoes, and support stockings.

10.  Never sneeze at senior discounts.  Those $2 will buy you half a coffee at Starbucks.

I Want Christmas, Continued Again

The Art of Opening Gifts

Like all arts, gift wrapping requires concentration, dedication and talent.  Most of us don’t have that much talent for making something immortal out of fancy colored paper, ribbon and Scotch tape.  Concentration and dedication are not even considered, because we just want to get the whole thing over so we can get on with something more fun, such as watching Christmas movies on Lifetime or eating a lot of cookies.

The other popular Christmas art is opening gifts.  Different people have different techniques for peeling off the layers of paper and ribbon and revealing whatever treasure or dreck is inside.

(A)                There is one adult female in every family who sits and looks at a wrapped present and says, “It’s so pretty, I hate to open it.”  Her lack of perspective concerning what is important (the present inside the wrapping) and what is not important (the wrapping) and her hesitance to get on with it make everyone else want to pick her up and shake her like a rattle.

When she is finally persuaded to disturb the wrapping, and find out what she is getting, she VERY slowly and VERY carefully, with great reverence, frees the gift of, first, the ribbon, then the paper.  This gives her time to form a plan of how she is going to react if the present inside is something she must hide in a closet or re-gift to someone she hates.

(B)                I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have never seen a man act like (A) above.  Men usually prefer to rip the damned paper open as fast as possible to see if, this year, they lucked out and are getting something good for a change.  There is still a certain art involved.  A man can either rip open a gift with great <i>élan</i> or with great disinterest, knowing he is probably getting cologne, aftershave or a tie for the fourteenth year in a row.

(C)                Women who are more impatient than (A) above – in other words, the rest of us – usually take reasonable precautions not to tear the wrapping too much while trying to get at whatever is inside.  We were brainwashed by our mothers to save used Christmas wrap from one year to another, and we still have Mom’s voice deep in our psyches.  That is the Voice of Christmas Past, and it never goes away.

(D)               Some gifts, such as a new Harley, are too big to be wrapped.  In that case, nobody has to open anything.  They just have to figure out how to get the thing out of the living room.  This takes half the fun out of getting a present, but it saves paper.

(E)                Many families have a joker who loves to put a small sized gift into a large box with a lot of stuffing to take up the extra space.  I used to be one of those jokers, until I grew up.  This provides endless fun to everyone except the recipient when the gift is opened.  If an adult pulls this trick on another adult, the present had better be something spectacular, if the gift giver knows what’s good for him.

(F)                Kids are not concerned about such mundane things as wrapping paper.  If they are left to their own devices, they will have pieces of mutilated gift wrapping all over the living room floor by the time they get through opening their presents.  Mom is usually watching, though, and making sure that enough re-usable paper survives the yearly paper holocaust, to be used again the following year.  She learned this from HER Mom, who learned it from HER Mom, who learned it from HER Mom, who survived the Great Depression.

The Original Family Gift Wrapping Saver

 Giving gifts to our loved ones and beautiful Christmas memories to our children are wonderful things.

What Are the REAL Qualities of Your Astrological Sign?

Disclaimer:  This is a work of humor.  I made it all up, except for the names of infamous people.  Please don’t take it seriously.  On the other hand, if you want to laugh, go ahead.

Astrologers love to make people feel good about themselves.  They sell books that way, not to mention all those syndicated newspaper columns.  Descriptions about the characteristics of each sign are bound to be glowing and flattering, with an occasional “but” or “however” thrown in, just to give the impression that the author is not trying to butter everyone up in order to create a best seller.

It came to my mind that it would be refreshing to give readers an alternate view of those starry signs in the sky.  I consulted an astrologer friend, Madame Brunnhilde K. Tollkopf, and together we came up with the following:

ARIES:  You are a big baby, domineering and bad-tempered.  Nobody loves you, except your mother, and even she has second thoughts.  Adolph Hitler was an Aries. 

TAURUS:  You are stubborn and you always think you are right.  When you get angry you destroy everything around you, starting with the person who made you mad in the first place and working from there.  You are probably overweight.  You share your sign with Saddam Hussein.

GEMINI:  You never know from one minute to another what you’re going to say or do, and neither does anyone else.  Some people find this exciting.  Most people find it obnoxious.  The best that can be said about you is that Gemini produces fewer criminals than any other sign, although Jeffrey Dahmer was a Gemini.  Try to figure that one out!

CANCER:  You are moody, grumpy and too sensitive.  You probably have the first dollar you ever received.  Of all people in the world, you are the most likely to end up on the wrong side of the law.  Lizzie Borden was a Cancer.

LEO:  You have the world’s biggest ego.  You always want to be the center of attention and the boss.  If you are not the center of attention and the boss, you either sulk or get mad.  You would make a good dictator, just like Benito Mussolini.

A Leo Getting Attention

VIRGO:  You are the poster person for OCD.  You are picky, picky, picky.  You never have a hair or a thread out of place, which annoys the hell out of everyone else and makes them wonder if you are from another planet.  Ivan the Terrible was one of you.

LIBRA:  You love to argue, and you are very good at it.  You hate loud noises and cell phones.  You are so indecisive, it is a miracle if you get anything done, and when you do get something done it is usually the wrong thing.  Lee Harvey Oswald was a Libra.

SCORPIO:  Everyone is afraid of you, including people who like you.  You are able to think of some very creative ways to be evil and vindictive.  You are so oversexed that you would attack an SUV.  If you are old enough to remember Senator Joseph McCarthy, you will be unhappy enough to know that he was one of you.

SAGITTARIUS:  You have a big mouth and you have probably, at one time, offended everyone you know.  You are lucky to be still alive.  Please call your mother, because she hasn’t heard from you in a year.  You share your sign with Francisco Franco.

CAPRICORN:  You are a social climbing nerd and a crashing bore, unless you decide to become an evil dictator, like Idi Amin. 

AQUARIUS:  You are friendly, but weird.  You are so weird that even weirdos think you are weird.  You are liable to do anything.  The painted ladies in New York’s Times Square are probably all Aquarians.  Kim Jong Il is definitely one.

PISCES:  You are creative, compassionate and intuitive.  You care deeply for the poor and downtrodden.  You are artistic.  You instinctively know that there are more important things in life than money and power.  Michelangelo, Enrico Caruso and Elizabeth Taylor were Pisceans.

Excuse me? …  Yes, I’m a Pisces.  Why do you ask? … 

Oh, ALRIGHT!

PISCES:  You will never have a dollar to your name because you are too busy trying to be an actor or a novelist.  You are sneaky and you daydream too much.  People think you are sweet, but you are just lazy.  If you aren’t lazy, you’re a serial killer, like John Wayne Gacy.

Piscean Writer.  Note the stoned look.

Was that okay?

Thoughts of the Day

1.  Never order spaghetti and meatballs in a Chinese restaurant.  You don't know how far it had to travel to get there.

This went halfway around the world.

2.  We reproduce ourselves by having sex.  Dirty dishes multiply like rabbits in the sink if they are not taken care of.  Therefore, dirty dishes have sex when nobody is looking.

His mother was a salad plate.

8 Things I Will Not Do Today

1    I will not poke fun of Donald Trump.  It’s too easy to poke fun of a vain, vulgar, stupid, racist narcissist whose mental and emotional development probably ended in the fifth grade and who has all the physical attractiveness of a slug.  When it’s too easy, it isn’t fun.  Besides, he isn’t funny.  He’s America’s worst nightmare.

Worse than this one!  (I think that's him on the right.)

2.     I will not complain about having Writer’s Block.  I’m sitting down right now and I’m writing.  Words are coming out of my head and onto my computer.  Therefore, I will shut up and write something and stop whining.

3.     I will not sell my apartment and move to the farthest reaches of Outer Mongolia.  Donald Trump has not yet been elected President.  (Sorry.  I couldn’t pass that one up.)

4.     I will not go ice skating.  It isn’t that I don’t think it would be fun.  I think it would be great fun.  I just can’t ice skate.  That’s pretty important if you plan to go ice skating.

5.      I won’t win a Pulitzer Prize for my fiction.  I’ll wait a couple of years for that one.  I have to write a novel first.[*]

6.     I will not walk to Boston.  I will walk to the supermarket and back.  That’s all.  The only reason I will walk to the supermarket is that I live in New York City, where almost everybody walks because operating a car in this city is like trying to steer an ice cube through a glacier.

7.     I will not do my laundry.  I haven’t done it for a couple of weeks.  Why should today be different?

8.     I will not make Donald Trump jokes … OOPS!  I already said that.  Sorry.

Kathy Minicozzi is the author of Opera for People Who Don't Like It, available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

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[*] And it has to be a good one.  That might be a problem.