Holiday greetings in the age of technology

I appreciate people, rarer every year, who still send holiday cards through snail mail. I enjoy seeing the cards and decorating the dining table with them. 

I hope the senders don’t mind that they hear from me by email. I can’t remember why — perhaps it was my frugality — but quite a few years ago I switched to emailing holiday notes. I ignored the etiquette mavens at the time who said that e-cards are tacky and assured myself that a personalized message shows effort, whichever way it is delivered. 

Birthday without firm plans unfolds beautifully

Birthdays, to my mind, are special. We’re recognized without doing anything impressive. No one close to me was also born on November 26, so the day belongs to me. Some years it falls on Thanksgiving, guaranteeing family members will celebrate with me.

Looking at the calendar a few days before this year’s birthday, I was concerned. None of the celebratory meals to which friends had invited me fell on the actual day. Could my birthday feel special if I spent it alone?

Maybe, if I made it a self-care day. 

In their own words: trying to understand Trump voters

Like many, I’m trying to escape political news since the election. But I can’t shut down my thoughts about Trump voters. 

How could they?

I want to understand so that I don’t hate them. 

I’d like to know what they think overrules Trump’s racism, misogyny, and overall hatefulness — if those are not why they like him.

Comparing Medicare Advantage plans

This post applies to the 54 percent of the Medicare population in Medicare Advantage. I’m not knowledgeable about the Medigap and drug plans that people on traditional Medicare buy.

The email arrived now because it’s Medicare Open Enrollment, an annual period when Medicare Advantage enrollees can change our coverage. Its subject line was “Have you explored the 65 Medicare Advantage plans available in your area?”

Medicare encourages us to review plans during Open Enrollment even if we’re satisfied with our current one. New or revamped plans may offer a better deal. 

Whoever wins, we’ll still be polarized. What can an average person do about it?

Ever since Donald Trump launched his first campaign for president, his appeal has mystified me, and I’ve seldom passed up articles attempting to explain it. A particularly chilly theory was offered by The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols. Trump’s supporters want him to be “terrifying and stomach-turning,” Nichols said, to “horrify people both they and Trump hate.” No despicable behavior on Trump’s part, and nothing Kamala Harris says or does, will change their feelings.

I was tempted to compose a post saying that the feeling is mutual. 

Then, attending church nine days before the election, I heard a sermon about charity toward those on the other side of the political divide. 

Is travel necessary?

I’ve heard many people say that their number 1 priority for retirement is to travel. Foreign visitors on Chicago Greeter tours have told me that they go abroad at least once a year. Conversations are often about the vacation people just returned from or will soon depart for. 

I, however, am not taking every opportunity to see the world. Maybe it’s that everything would be crossed off if I had a bucket list. I have traveled a good amount in the United States and Canada and have gone to Europe three times. Or maybe it’s that I live in a big city with attractions people come here for.

 

"You look tired" is a faux pas

“You look tired,” I said to a neighbor without thinking. A friend who heard the comment considered it rude. If my neighbor actually wasn’t tired, I’d told her she looked bad.

How fraught remarks about appearance are! Even “You look great” might be interpreted as “You look a lot better than usual.”

Did phoning for Harris do any good?

When I told people that I was going to phone call for Kamala Harris, most said, “Who would pick up the phone?”

I too expected the experience to be a washout, but my conscience nudged me to do something to oppose Donald Trump. How many Wisconsinites answered the phone was surprising. After reaching lots of Harris supporters and only a handful of Trumpers, I felt pleased.

How much is a Tribune subscription? Good question.

As a responsible citizen and former newspaper reporter, I want newspapers to survive. You might think, therefore, that I could consider my Chicago Tribune subscription a contribution, like my contributions to public TV and radio. 

It doesn’t feel like a contribution, however — and not just because it isn’t voluntary and I’m not choosing the amount. The pricing policy seems shady. For example:

Visiting ancestors’ homeland is a trip to remember

Forty-one years ago I traveled to the birthplaces of my grandparents and the capital city in Slovakia, which was still part of both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet bloc. Reducing the risk of a journey behind the Iron Curtain, my maternal grandmother arranged for me to stay with my grandfather’s relatives in Bratislava, the capital, and with her relatives in the Liptov region.

No one in Liptovský spoke English, and I knew no Slovak, but that didn’t stop us from talking and laughing. We used translation books, although Grandma’s nephew’s wife spoke at length to me as if I understood every word. At times I somehow understood her.

Last week my sister Nancy, her husband, Bob, and their daughters Alex and Ashley retraced my trip, with a few differences. The Iron Curtain is no more, of course. They stayed in hotels and saw relatives only in Liptovský. They were able to have conversations because two cousins in their 40s speak English. 

Illinois Democrats help Harris-Walz in neighbor states

Michelle Obama’s rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention must have revved up countless Democrats to answer her appeal “to do something.” Her call to action was repeated by speaker after speaker. Don’t let the passion of the convention fool you into overconfidence, they said. Harris vs. Trump will be close. 

Illinois Democrats live in a reliably blue state. Where can we make a difference? 

Operation Swing State, a local grassroots coalition, is mobilizing volunteers to canvass, make phone calls, and write postcards to help the Harris-Walz ticket in Wisconsin and Michigan, two of the swing states that are expected to determine the presidential election. 

Don’t let sleep stats trouble your sleep

Wearing a fitness tracker such as a Fitbit or an Apple Watch can tell you all sorts of things about your health. I used my Fitbit only to count steps, however, until I felt groggy for a couple of days and checked the sleep stats.

Slipcovers are stylish and a salvation for this cat owner

If you have a cat, you’ll want something for it to scratch on other than your upholstered furniture. My Fanny uses her two scratching post a lot. But the furniture still needs protection because Fanny will assault whatever is closest when she wants to scratch.

Is it ageist to be concerned about Biden’s age?

Amid all the discussion about whether Joe Biden would or should drop out of the presidential race after an unsettling debate performance, I was surprised to not have heard “time to go, Joe” Democrats attacked as ageist. 

Well, Biden’s decline is an acknowledged, visible fact, not necessarily a biased view. Yet I wondered whether there are any voices on Biden’s side who are alleging ageism, even if they don’t use the term. 

The birthday of our nondemocracy

It’s the 4th of July, the day we celebrate our democracy. I don’t feel very celebratory, and neither do most people I know.

In four months we will elect a president amid widespread disenchantment with our choices. I’m not as down on Joe Biden as some are. I think he’s been a good president. But I worry that he’s not electable. He was already trailing Donald Trump in the polls before his weak performance in last week’s debate exacerbated concerns that he is too old and senile.

To know Chicago, visit its neighborhoods

In the May 30 South Loop newsletter The Dearborn Express, editor Al Hippensteel suggests an idea for this summer: “[V]isit three neighborhoods you’ve never been to.” I’ve actually been acting on a visit-the-neighborhoods resolution since the spring, so far going to Old Town, Lincoln Square, Humboldt Park, Pilsen, Little Village, Andersonville, Asian Argyle Street, and Indian Devon Avenue. 

But none of those are neighborhoods I’d never been to. I suspect that Hippensteel is setting his sights beyond the neighborhoods you’ll find in tourist guides, maybe even exploring without a list of what to see.

Are depressing stories turning you off to the news?

I remember reading an article some years ago by a highly educated man who said that he didn’t follow the daily news. He’d hear about anything major regardless, he reasoned, and there were more intellectually challenging things to occupy his mind.

I was shocked.

Author’s love affair with a cat

After finishing Caleb Carr’s book My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me, I looked at my Fanny and said, “I feel like I haven’t loved you enough.”

A wine-tasting weekend in southwest Michigan

Seven women in my family were planning a girls weekend to celebrate my sister Nancy’s 60th birthday. We rented an Airbnb for three nights in St. Joseph, Michigan, the heart of southwest Michigan’s wine country. Togetherness was the point of the weekend, but as long as we’d be going to wine tastings, I figured I should learn something about wine.

Feminism hasn’t lessened the importance of looks

So many women are getting manicures that it almost feels ill-groomed to have unpolished nails. Facial treatments abound — chemical peels, dermabrasion, Botox injections, laser resurfacing, cryofacials, microneedling, the list goes on. Younger women pay for bikini waxes, and African American women for lash extensions.

You would expect the beauty practices that women perform and men don’t would be a feminist issue. Women have fought against inequality on numerous fronts. Feminism brought more women into public office. Females now outnumber males on college campuses. Yet women are spending more time, money, and effort on beauty care than ever.

End of an era for “Prison City”

My hometown could have had a reputation for its limestone, from which buildings around the country were constructed; or the nation’s first junior college; or big names like George Mikan and Mercedes McCambridge. But Joliet became best known for the Joliet and Stateville Correctional Centers long before John Belushi’s fictional “Joliet Jake” was released from the former.

The Joliet Correctional Center — better known as the Old Joliet Prison — closed in 2002. Now the state has proposed demolishing maximum-security Stateville, which is actually in next-door Crest Hill, with a facility focusing on rehabilitation and reentry, and moving downstate Logan’s women’s prison alongside it.

Coming late to new technology

Technology has made everyday tasks easier and simpler. But some of the old ways of doing things were fine too. 

Right now I’m thinking about toothbrushes. I was late coming to electric toothbrushes, as with most technology. I wasn’t purposely holding out, but I found manual toothbrushes fine and had a large collection of them from the dentist. Hygienists never told me I was doing a bad job of brushing.

I decided to give an electric toothbrush a try after asking the dentist for suggestions for spending an insurance benefit. 

Novelized or abridged, Old Testament is still a challenge

Former Slate editor David Plotz blogged about reading the Old Testament from beginning to end. He said that although he was still an agnostic when he finished, “I’ve become a full-on Bible thumper. Everyone should read it — all of it!”

In The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, coauthor E. D. Hirsch Jr. said that no one can be considered culturally literate without a basic knowledge of the Bible.

So even if you’re not a believer, maybe you’ll bear with me as I tell about my dip into the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Bible, First Testament). 

How do you feel about aging?

I was surprised about feeling wiped out from a mere cold. At least that’s what I thought a runny nose, a cough, and a slight fever amounted to. Sleeping nine to ten hours a night wasn’t enough; in the afternoons I’d doze off on the couch while watching TV.

This is another indication of age-related decline, I grumbled. Our immune systems weaken. We get sicker than in our younger days.

Why visit ethnic museums?

My dad told us his maternal grandparents were German. They said so themselves when US Census takers came around.

John and Barbara Fritz were actually Luxembourger. 

Identifying as German was typical of 19th-century immigrants from their homeland. I read why at the Luxembourg American Cultural Society’s Roots and Leaves Museum in Belgium, Wisconsin, about 40 minutes north of Milwaukee.

How about salt in your tea?

“Tempest in a teapot” . . . “In hot water” . . . “Stirred the pot” . . . “Getting salty over tea” 

Headline writers had a field day with the British response to Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, published January 24. Author Michelle Francl, a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College, wrote that a pinch of salt improves the taste of tea. Francl looked into that tip from an eighth-century Chinese manuscript and found that salt blocks tongue receptors for bitterness. 

To my secret well-wisher

Dear person who sent me an unsigned Valentine’s Day card,

Did you expect I’d be feeling a bit down on Valentine’s Day? I was in one of those low moods that I can’t put a finger on when I found your card in the mailbox. I don’t remember the last time I got a Valentine’s Day card in the US mail. My late mother used to send them, but that was years ago, before her mental decline.

In a do-over life, I’d study music

Do you have to understand classical music and opera to enjoy them? My friends without musical training say no. They judge a performance by how it makes them feel, not whether they can analyze it. I’m not sure that works for me.

I once described myself to a music aficionado as “a musical illiterate.” I never had music lessons and didn’t grow up in a household that listened to music. 

I can’t say that I dislike classical music, but I don’t really hear it so don’t get much from it. In contrast, I usually find folk, rock, and country music accessible, maybe because of simple melodies and meaningful lyrics.

Choose a reading chair that’s good for your back

With today’s attention to ergonomic work stations, most of us know the importance of a proper desk chair. But when furnishing our living rooms, we’re more likely to focus on cushiness and style than on how a chair affects our bodies.

I’m going to stop suggesting “should reads” to my book group

Should book groups read sure bets or challenging books they may not love?

The seven members of my fiction-reading group are open to challenging novels, but I still hope that everyone likes the books I suggest. Fortunately, we have a process that makes the whole group ultimately responsible for the choice. The person whose turn it is proposes a few, usually three, titles from which the rest of us pick. 

The word “like” doesn’t fit our last choice suggested by me, N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn. We all thought the 1969 Pulitzer Prizer winner, about a Native American who feels alienated on both the reservation and in urban society, was an arduous read, with its dense, poetic language, nonlinear plot, and inscrutable main character. 

Reminders that COVID is still around

I thought COVID was behind me for this season when I finished five days of isolation and five more days of masking after testing positive in late November. It wasn’t.

No, I didn’t test positive again, but my niece Alex did on Christmas Eve when I was at her family’s home. It was back to checking Center for Disease Control and Prevention protocols.