In my younger years, I used to jog five miles a day, do 50 sit-ups each morning, and row 15 miles to work. I was a nationally recognized fitness expert and author of the best seller, Earlobes of Steel. But now that I am older, I know better. At best, all that exercise will add less than 30 years to my life.
Not long ago, I tried out a fitness class called sports yoga. I stuck with it for what seemed like forever, by which I mean nearly four sessions. There was just one small problem: yoga was really hard. Try as I may, I could never get my left foot to wrap around the back of my neck. I never got the knack for how to balance my body off the ground using just my thumbs.
I even wrote about my nightmarish yoga experience previously in a post called The World’s Least Flexible Man – the 100% true retelling of my very first yoga class. So I hung up my yoga mat. I’m simply not that young anymore. My body is no longer capable of contorting like a human pretzel. And before you know it, I’ll be celebrating my 80th birthday. (Okay, technically not for another 23 years, but in geologic terms, that’s a blink of an eye).
[This week’s column is written by veteran sitcom writer/producer Miriam Trogdon. I am privileged to turn over the reins to Miriam this week. – TEJ]
I hear so many of my baby boomer friends complain that they never hear from their children.
– As soon as my son turned eighteen, he was out the door. I thought he might return for his belongings, but instead he got two jobs and bought everything new.
– My daughter graduated from college and stayed out east. She started working, got a loan for a car and asked to be taken off our phone plan.
And the most common sad tale:
– I thought for sure my kid would at least need us for health insurance, but no. He made sure his new employer had a great plan and then he moved out for good.
Sound familiar? Then you’re certainly not alone. Most boomers would give their eye teeth to have their semi-grown children living back in their homes, but alas, no matter how hard they try, they are unsuccessful. But not I. My husband and I are proud to reveal that our 24-year-old daughter moved back into our home after college and remains there four years later! And I want to share some of the ways we make sure this ideal situation doesn’t change.
A long time ago in a university far, far away, I attended law school and passed the bar exam. Which just goes to prove that an outstanding law school education is no guarantee your life will turn out the way your parents had hoped. But I digress. My point is that if there is one thing I learned from my legal training, it’s how to create oppressively one-sided legal agreements primarily designed to obfuscate.
Therefore, as a public service to all five of my readers, I urge you, before you enter into a long-term romantic relationship like marriage or going steady with Morgan from your 11th grade biology class, to be sure you and your very special someone have signed a legally enforceable Relationship Agreement that clearly spells out what each of you agree to do – and not do.
My point is, if we’re not careful, we’re liable to get sued for the least little hit and run car accident I failed to report. (Wait, did I just think that or did I just type that?) Sometimes our fairy tale romances take a few unexpected turns and what starts out as Happily Ever After may later descend into the War of the Roses.
Introducing Placebolax® – from SCAMCO – the company that brought you the (not-quite-FDA-approved) sleep interrupter device Miracle Snore and Eye Can See, the popular battery-operated do-it-yourself laser eye surgery kit.
Try Placebolax today and you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll lose.
With Placebolax, weight loss has never been simpler. What’s our secret?Baby polar bear liver oil. That’s right! We discovered that baby polar bear liver oil burns up fat, sugar, and your intestines and converts them into pure profit, er, muscle. Made from lovingly farm-raised Siberian baby polar bear livers, harvested on our polar bear farm in a secret undisclosed location in the Arctic Circle, we mix it with powder of seal pup brains and ground-up beluga whale dorsal fins to produce our unique patented weight loss formula.
[Our attorneys told us we need to include some additional “disclosures” in the very remote chance someone might not use our product as intended, accidentally resulting in permanent blindness – not that this would ever happen (we don’t think) – and try to sue us.]
LIST OF ACTIVE INGREDIENTS: High fructose corn syrup, sugar, malt flavoring, more high fructose corn syrup, sodium ascorbic acid, something that tastes like chicken, dextrose, hydrogenated cornstarch, salt, processed flour, food coloring, red dye #2, 40, 67 and 85, soybean, caramel, riboflavin, thiamin, hydrochloride, super-duper high fructose corn syrup, Pez, dried egg whites, lithium, tortoise dung, something that used to look like yogurt, mono-something or other, cocoa extract, extract of cocoa, boiled linseed oil, vinegar, frosted flakes, 3 of KFC’s original herbs and spices (but we’re not authorized to tell you which 3), nutmeg, something that looks vaguely like rabbit pellets but we can’t locate the original container so we’re not really sure what it is, folic acid, battery acid, stomach acid, coconut juice, asbestos, fluoride (for stronger teeth), quartz, silicon, did we mention salt yet?, plutonium isotope, lead, unleavened yak intestines, eye of newt, DNA from some guy named Brad, petroleum byproducts, banana, and baby polar bear liver oil. (more…)
[Note from the staff of VFTB: This week Tim Jones waxes nostalgic with fond memories of his high school senior prom. However, in the interest of editorial integrity, the staff felt obligated to set the record straight where Tim’s memory veers slightly from how the evening’s events actually transpired. – VFTB Staff]
It’s high school prom season. I am always cheered to see so many handsome young men dressed to the nines in their formal tuxedo and cummerbund with matching Nirvana t-shirt, high top sneakers and untied laces, escorting their lovely female companions to the big dance. It brings back memories of my own high school prom, one of the most magical evenings of my life.
I attended an all-boys’ private military academy. The prom tradition at our school was preceded by a formal military parade and competition, pitting drill teams from five companies in our school’s battalion against each other to see which company could create and execute the most original precision drill team performance without accidently shooting any of the guests.
I was Captain of Company B. My company only took out one onlooker but he didn’t actually have tickets to the competition, so it was partially his own fault. [Staff: Turned out to be Tim’s grandfather. He was old anyway.] The drill competition went off without a hitch, with almost no popular students impaled by a rifle bayonet.
In our increasingly technology-bound culture, cell phone use has exploded over the past decade. A recent report indicates there are now more cell phones in the USA than people, and three times more cell phone users than Americans who can locate the United States on a map of North America.
People use their cell phones to do all sorts of things – a few have even been known to use them to place phone calls. But mostly, people use their cell phones to text thought-provoking comments like Hey.
Studies indicate that the dangers of cell phone texting extend far beyond texting while driving. Health experts have recently argued that texting should be avoided during any of the following “high-risk” activities:
In my younger years, I used to jog five miles a day, do 50 sit-ups each morning, and row 15 miles to work. I was a nationally recognized fitness expert and author of the best seller, Earlobes of Steel. But now that I am older, I know better. At best, all that exercise will add less than 30 years to my life.
