Author: marileeandbarbara

Wrinkled Wisdom:  2023 Deaths: Plaudits and Scuttlebutt

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It’s 2024 and numbers of articles have discussed prominent individuals who died last year.  Our response to their obituaries was often—huh…they were still alive??  Obits often leave the “interesting” stuff unsaid.

Let’s start with politics.  Lost some special women:  Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who raised eyebrows for attending cabinet meetings and White House briefings.  Go, girls!

Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida was often described as the most beautiful woman in the world.  Americans were first introduced to her when she starred in the English-language film, Beat the Devil, in1953.  Two years ago, at 95, she ran for a Senate seat in Italy’s parliament for a second time and lost again.  Hmmm…does that put age and politics in a new perspective? 

Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson left acting to enter British politics.  After serving as an MP for more than 20 years, she retired in 2015 at age 79 and returned to acting, playing a 104-year-old in a BBC Radio production of Emile Zola’s Blood Sex and Money.  On radio.  She only had to sound old.

Needless to say, obits for President Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not describe him as the “ultimate starf*cker,” sex symbol, and ladies’ man as did the Hollywood Reporter.  Kissinger???  The list of stars with whom he reportedly had been romantically linked is amazing.  Guess he was right when he said “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”  Honestly, it sure wasn’t his looks.

Daniel Ellsberg changed the world when he leaked the Pentagon Papers that laid out how the government was misleading the public about the Vietnam War.  President Nixon attempted to destroy him.  Things didn’t go well for Nixon.  He resigned after his Watergate antics were uncovered.  Ellsberg died a hero.  He was eulogized in the 2003 TV movie The Pentagon Papers.  Actor Alan Arkin, who also died last year, played Ellsberg’s boss in the movie. 

And, now, let’s look at the individuals who were advocates for important causes.

In her book, I, Tina, the “Queen of Rock and Roll” Tina Turner wrote about the abuse she suffered while married to her husband and singing partner Ike at a time when domestic abuse wasn’t talked about openly.  She was hailed for ending the shame associated with abusive relationships and motivating other survivors to share their stories and leave their spouses.  There is some irony to her story.

After she divorced Ike, her careen spiraled downward.  Then a British band invited her to cut a new take on Al Green’s classic hit “Let’s Stay Together.”  A line in the song is: “Why, oh tell me, why do people break up?”  Huh???  She knew that answer!  Happily, the song captured the attention of Capital Records and boosted her career.

Harry Belafonte death last year ended the life of one of the most influential Black figures of the 1950s.  He used his star power to fight for civil rights. 

The Price is Right host, Bob Barker, was an avid animal rights advocate.  His concern was the millions of pets being euthanized because of a lack of homes for them.  He founded an organization that provided free or inexpensive sterilization of cats and dogs and poured $25 million into the charity.  We do especially like one of his fun lines: “I can tell you that I’d rather be kissed by my dogs than by some people I’ve known.” 

Can’t resist adding a few entertaining stories.  A publicity shot of Raquel Welch in a fur hide bikini for the movie One Million Years, B.C. turned her into a sex symbol.  However, she lamented that being a sex symbol was “rather like being a convict.”  She got even.  She kicked men in the groin in 15 of her films. 

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, died serving a life sentence for sending bombs through the mail for 18 years.  He was concerned about the environment and the effects of technology and wanted to destroy modern life.  Ironically, when he was arrested, officers found trash everywhere in and around his Montana cabin where he was hiding.  So much for the environment!  Fun fact.  His cabin is on display at FBI headquarters.  Not the trash.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Enjoy Turner’s take on aging.  “Fifty is the new 30.  Seventy is the new 50.  There are no rules that say you have to dress a certain way, or be a certain way.  If you look good and you can still do it, then go and do it.”  Tony Bennett obviously got that message.  He celebrated his 95th birthday performing in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall followed by a TV special with Lady Gaga.  It’s never too late to add to that bucket list.

Wrinkled Wisdom – Bugs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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Word experts are unsure where the term bug came from.  One guess is the Middle English word bugge, something that’s scary.  Or, it could come from the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish words meaning goblin.  You get the drift.  Bugs aren’t popular.

Let’s start with some examples of the ugly: ants, cockroaches, fleas, mosquitos, spiders, termites, ticks, and wasps.  The ugly truth is that termites cause more property damage annually than floods, wildfires, and a hurricane—$5 billion per year.  Hmmm…seeing a termite is the equivalent of a black cat crossing your path. 

Oops!  We forgot bed bugs.  Reportedly, in the 1850s, sailors discovered a way to keep their ships bed bug free.  We don’t recommend it.  Their solution was cockroaches.

Anyone planning to go to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics might think twice.  Locals are losing their cool over bed bugs.  Viral posts on social media describe a crisis, yet pest control experts are shaking their heads.  They say the pests have only moderately increased and blame the media for the bed bug frenzy.  We’d be in a frenzy too if bunches of that bug in the photo above were crawling all over us!  Parisians fear the scare could keep spectators away from the Olympics and hurt France’s economy. 

Even if French exterminators go wild, bed bugs could still be crawling across Parisian hotel sheets during the Olympics.  They can go for a year without a meal and are expert at hiding.  Sacré bleu!

The bad?  A computer bug.  Geeks like to point to 1947 when a programmer found a dead moth in a Harvard University electromechanical computer, whatever that is.  She and her staff called it a bug to describe the problem.  It was a bug.  Literally.   

But they weren’t the first to call a problem a bug.  Nope.  Decades earlier, Thomas Edison used the word to describe a glitch during the process of innovation.  Edison is recognized for his contributions to many inventions.  The word bug is still trendy.  Not so much telegraph and phonograph. 

Reportedly, 80 percent of the world eats bugs and many cultures consider insects a delicacy.   No thanks!  We’ve griped about the promotion of insects as people food before.  But, some good news?  If a bunch of us aren’t enamored with eating bugs, apparently cows will?   The insect-farming industry is expanding rapidly across the globe to replace traditional animal feed.  

And, there’s a plus!  Feeding insects to livestock reduces the animals’ environmental footprint.   Think cow farts.  A single cow passes between 154 to 264 pounds of methane gas per year, warming global temperatures.   Insect feed reduces that methane.

Wait!  The Department of Agriculture just awarded a grant to research if black soldier flies that feast on dairy cow manure can then be fed to animals.  Can you turn manure into a cow, chicken, or fish???  Researchers are excited about transforming manure into a resource.  So, the expletive “let them eat sh#t” could become a reality?  Oh, wow, we hope not! 

And, lastly, let us put a bug in your ear…about the Rolling Stones’ recently announced 2024 North American tour.  It’s sponsored by AARP—the organization that used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons!  AARP is “dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to choose how they want to live as they age.” 

Mick Jagger is 80.  Keith Richards is 79.  Obviously, they choose to age on stage and in the spotlight.  Do we oldies choose to be in the audience clapping, screaming, reliving our younger days…and turning off our hearing aids?  AARP hopes so, offering tickets to its members days before the general public.  Woohoo!  Check the cities the tour hits. 

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Watch the 2024 Summer Olympics on television.   For some positives about bugs, you can always attend Bug Fair 2024 at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, a festival “celebrating our winged, multi-legged, and squirmy friends.”  We’ll take a pass.  Maybe invest in one of the companies processing and selling bugs for animal feed and keep those insects off our plates!  Admire cockroaches, which can live for two weeks after losing their heads.  Beware of candied cricket garnishes on some tequila drinks.  Buen apetito!

Wrinkled Wisdom – Spam?  Get Cyber Savvy! 

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Spam with a capital “s” is Hormel Foods’ popular canned, precooked, meat product. 

Spam with a small “s” are those unsolicited emails that mostly end up in our junk and spam files, thanks to spam filters.  While some spam is just annoying and repetitive, many are sent by cybercriminals hoping we will respond and naively give them our credit card and social security numbers.  

Then there is the spam that contains malware, giving scammers access to our personal information such as bank account details.   These bad guys are fishing for information.  Oops!  That’s phishing with a “ph” in tech talk.  It’s all about pilfering money—our money!

Spam got its name from Hormel’s Spam!  In a 1970s episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, he lampooned a restaurant’s menu for including so much Spam.   Years later, an administrator of a computer network communication systems company accidently posted 200 duplicate responses to his board.  In tribute to Python, the reaction was spam, spam, spam!  It stuck.

Heck, we wouldn’t open a can of Spam anymore than we would open a spam email!  And, that means ignoring lots of emails.  Over half of all global email traffic is spam.  More than 300 billion spam emails pop up in various accounts every day, over 90% containing malware.  Consider the 50 you received today a piece of cake. 

For the last 20 years, October has been Cyber Security Awareness Month, a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure we have the resources to stay safer online.  Twenty years??  Hasn’t slowed scammers! 

Surprisingly, it’s millennials who get scammed the most, not we seniors!  Could it be a combination of comfort with the internet, more time online, and, well…hubris??   They reportedly fall for online shopping, investment, and employment scams.

Like most of you, we just ignore spam.  But we decided to take a look and had some fun checking them out.  Here’s what you are missing!

Wouldn’t the holidays be so much more fun if we could spend the $13,000 Bonus Hunters has deposited in our banking account and those $1,000 gift cards from JC Penney and Costco?  Fuhgeddaboudit, as they say in mafia movies!  These phishing spam scams are easy to spot; because, as they say, nothing in life is free.

The invitations to have sex can be amusing.  Sick of your small penis?  No, don’t need to watch your video.  We’re not guys.  Naked Anna wants to introduce us to the most “gorgeious” hot girls near us.  Try spell check, honey.   Another sexy fake spammer promised to do anything we wanted.  Anything?  Stop emailing us!

A congratulatory email from the IRS?  As if!  We are also entertained by the emails from Esmeraldo warning us that something extraordinary is about to happen and urging us to click on our horoscope.   Yes, something extraordinarily bad will happen if we click on our horoscope! 

Persistently, we get spam emails reportedly from the Geek Squad, Best Buy’s tech support service.  Shouldn’t these geeks know how to fix this??  The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer advice website alerts the public to this scam.  Had no idea the site even existed.  You can see the scams the agency has identified and report a scam on the site.  Heck, with the number of scams we get daily, reports could take hours.  More companies should make public the scam frauds targeting them and contact their customers.  We have only ever received one!

Scammers obviously think scare tactics will be an impetus for us to click on their email.  iCloud warning: all your photos will be removed!   Security Notice: suspicious viruses have been detected! 

Spam filters trying to protect us from scams have an interesting list of words and phrases that cause an email to end up in our spam/junk files.  These words could cause one of your emails to end up there as well.  They include: amazing, congratulations, dear friend, click here, special promotion, and, entertainingly, this is not spam.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Continue to ignore spam.  Don’t open and try to unsubscribe.  That just confirms that your email address is active and could lead to even more spam emails.  Yuck!  Gmail will automatically delete spam older than 30 days.  If you are a bit OCD and don’t like seeing hundreds of emails sitting in your spam/junk files, just delete all.  And if you are ever in Austin, Minnesota, visit the Spam Museum.  It’s more interesting than you would think, and, hey, it’s free.

Wrinkled Wisdom – Yes Indeed, It’s Another Olio

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A gentle reminder, we are not talking about a butter substitute.  We are just having fun, again, with a bunch of random trivia and weird facts. 

They might come in handy when there is a need to fill an awkward pause in conversations, which even has a name!  It’s called the “seven-minute lull”—a lull in conversation every seven minutes.  Some say every 20, for bigger groups.  We don’t want you forced, in desperation, to bring up the weather just to fill dead air time.  We’ve got your back!

Let’s start out with tomatoes.  The tomato was once known as the poison apple.  For real.  You died if you ate one on a pewter plate.  The acidic tomatoes leached the lead from the plate and poisoned the eater.  And, early American farmers thought green tomato worms were as poisonous as a rattlesnake.  Nope.  Finally, in the late 1800s, science proved tomatoes are healthy and nutritious.  Thank heavens!  The world without pizza?!!

In 1870, a Reynoldsburg, Ohio, citizen figured out how grow, harvest, and pack tomatoes to be sold commercially.  Now they are grown in space.  Scientists developed dwarf tomatoes to diversify astronauts’ diets while they orbit the earth in the International Space Station.  Zucchini and sunflowers have also been grown in a spaceship, but one astronaut refused to eat them because he considered them crew members.  

There are four times more chickens on earth than people.  They can recognize our faces.  Want them to lay eggs?  Be nice.  Don’t kill any in front of the others.   They will panic and stress out, ruining the taste of your favorite chicken recipe.  They do establish “pecking orders” and are descendants of the T. rex!!!  What??  A dinosaur??  Hmmm.  We’ll still go to KFC and Raising Cane’s.

Pigs don’t sweat.  What more is there to say?

People with freckles can be carriers of—red-headed offspring.  It’s science.

Mango skin contains the same irritant as poison ivy and poison oak that causes allergic reactions.  It’s called urushiol.  Think about having someone peel your mango for you.  Let them itch and scratch.  If mangoes aren’t your favorites, all the more reason to justify never buying one!

Bagpipes originated in the Middle East; the Scots made them famous.

Bubble wrap, invented in 1957 in New Jersey, was supposed to be part of textured wallpaper.  Huh?  It flopped.  No kidding.  Then IBM cleverly used it to wrap a huge computer for shipping.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Those dark purple bruises we oldies often get from bumping into stuff have many names.  Our favorite?  Senile purpura.   

There really was a “devil’s advocate,” created by the Catholic Church in 1587.  It was a lawyer who would argue why a venerated person’s miracles didn’t deserve sainthood.  Pope John Paul II checked the power of the role and reduced the waiting period for the sainthood process from 50 to five years after the prospective saint’s death because he wanted to canonize individuals we actually recognized.  The world sure needs more saints.  Good luck with that.

Didn’t remember that British journalist Christopher Hitchens played devil’s advocate when Mother Teresa was being considered for sainthood.  He noted the “obviousness of the fakery” of one of the miracles attributed to her and argued that she was not a friend of the poor but a friend to the worst of the rich.  Whoa!  He lost.

Humans invented alcohol before the wheel.  Makes total sense to us.

And, our closing piece of trivia…people who curse are more resilient emotionally and more honest and direct.  Interestingly, swearing can boost pain tolerance.  Shout obscenities when you stub your toe! 

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Maybe cook your tomato sauce in stainless steel pots?  You won’t kill anyone and no leeching metals means the food won’t taste metallic.  Today, we call someone who expresses a controversial opinion just to provoke debate a devil’s advocate.  Don’t want to play that game?  Walk away.  Or swear!  Swearing can be so cathartic.  Damn straight!

Wrinkled Wisdom – Another Long Covid Symptom: Rudeness

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There has been much news coverage of the Center for Disease Control’s list of lingering, long Covid symptoms—depression, brain fog, headaches, dizziness.  Let’s demand that the CDC add rudeness to its list! 

Okay, the pandemic was a tough time for everyone.  We were locked up and masked up.  Social ties weakened.  Sleep patterns got screwed up.  Supply chain issues.  War.  Inflation! 

Researchers argue that all these challenges adversely impacted the ability to manage stress and control emotions.  Statistics show that stress is the leading cause of incivility.  That’s a fancy word for rudeness.  Think disrespectful, contemptuous, presumptuous.  Researchers have even given it a name—post-COVID rudeness syndrome.

Road rage has hit an all-time high.  We have all experienced more drivers exhibiting rude behavior, including tailgating, speeding, running red lights, and making illegal turns.  A website that helps consumers compare rates for auto insurance has listed the city with the most drivers cited for rude behavior in every U.S. state.  A city in California takes the cake.  But, OMG.  Broomfield, Colorado?  That’s just down the road. 

And, we found some interesting statistics for your family dinner.  Most people will crash their cars three to four times in a lifetime.  Over 50% of accidents happen within five miles of your home.  Talking on the phone while driving increases chances of getting into a car accident by 400%.  Ouch!

Then there are the movies.  A recent headline read: “Behavior at ‘Barbenheimer’ Reflects a Worrying Trend.”  Subhead: “Drunken outbursts, public nudity, and nonstop cellphone use disrupts packed theaters.  Have people forgotten how to go the movies?” 

Guess so. 

Saw Oppenheimer.  Really long movie.  No naked people in the theater.  Darn!  A guy, appropriately, wrote on Twitter… oops…sorry…now X, “if you don’t have the attention span for a three-hour movie, don’t leave the house to attend one.”  Just wait for it to stream.

Surprisingly, popular singers and musicians are not immune from rudeness while on stage.  People have thrown things at Cardi B and Harry Styles and others.  Wait!  When Taylor Swift came to Denver, a Colorado report emphasized that her fans spent more than $200 million in two days on hotels, restaurants, parking, and retail.  Don’t piss off these stars; they won’t come back! 

A Playbill exposé about aggression toward ushers and other Broadway theater workers, titled, “Physical Assault, Vomit in the Aisles, Stalking in the Streets: Why Audience Misbehavior Has Gotten Out of Hand,” was pulled because theater magnates were concerned that people would stay…well…off-Broadway.

An American Airlines pilot’s introductory remarks before the flight takeoff went viral as he gave an impassioned speech on proper manners to the “selfish and rude” passengers he said he sees on every single flight.  “Don’t lean on other people.  Don’t fall asleep on other people.  Don’t drool on them, unless you’ve talked about it and they have a weather-resistant jacket.”

Once these people get off the plane, their behavior apparently doesn’t improve.  It appears that this is the summer of ugly tourists around the world.  Vandalism.  Tantrums.  They are damaging century-old monuments and statues like carving a heart and initials into the historic Leaning Tower of Pisa.  We think there are more constructive ways to say “I love you!”

As the pandemic eased, workers quit jobs in restaurants, bars and hotels at the highest rate in decades, saying they’ve never seen customers behaving so badly.  One Cape Cod restaurant shut down for a “day of kindness” because of verbal abuse from rude customers.  The final straw came when a man lashed out at a young employee who told him he couldn’t take his breakfast takeout order because the restaurant had not yet opened.  The customer is NOT always right!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?   Recognize that reentry into polite society is still proving a bit bumpy for some people after Covid.  Stay away from rude individuals when you can because, according to Harvard research, rudeness is like the common cold.  Anyone can be a carrier.  It’s contagious!  If you can’t avoid a rude person, feign concern and say…oh, dear…see your doctor right away.  You could have post-COVID rudeness syndrome.  Oh, and don’t forget to tip well! 

Wrinkled Wisdom – The Back Stories

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We all know George Washington didn’t chop down a cherry tree. What we didn’t know is that this myth was invented by one of his biographers, an itinerant minister and bookseller who just wanted to sell books. The myth amplifies young George’s honesty when challenged by his father. “I cannot tell a lie….”  Dad rejoices in his honesty underscoring the biographer’s strategy to present Washington as a perfect role model for young Americans. Creating a lie to amplify Washington’s honesty? Isn’t that a bit ironic?

We know Marie Antoinette didn’t say “let them eat cake.” It was reportedly the queen’s nasty, oblivious retort when told her starving peasant subjects had no bread. The philosopher who wrote the phrase attributed it only to “a great princess,” when Marie Antoinette was just a kid. Historians guess that revolutionaries attributed the quote to her to provoke opposition to the monarchy. Oh, and in French, the quote translates to…let them eat brioche. Brioche is a bread! Okay, it can be a bit sweet. But.

We know that Edison didn’t invent light bulbs. They existed before Edison was even born! Edison’s invention improved on work by Joseph Swan, a British chemist, who developed a more affordable light bulb. Swan then adopted Edison’s improved filament. Edison sued Swan. Swan sued Edison. Then a light bulb went off in their heads. The two joined forces, forming Edison-Swan United, which became one of the largest light bulb manufacturers in the world.

Legend has it that an Austrian nobleman forced townsfolks to uncover their heads in homage when royalty walked by. Oops! William Tell supposedly kept his hood on one day, ticking off the duke’s bailiff. The punishment? Shoot an apple off your son’s noggin or off with both of your heads. Whew! Tell pulled that off. He also is rumored to have assassinated a duke, encouraging open rebellion, and has long been considered the father of the Swiss Confederacy. Pretty momentous reputation for someone who isn’t even real!

Okay, the Swiss got democracy and we all got the William Tell Overture. The music has been in dramatically different films—Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse cartoon The Band Concert and the violent movie A Clockwork Orange. We’re old.  But we aren’t old enough to have watched The Band Concert. Guess the overture is as malleable as the myth.

Even the revered poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rewrote history. In his poem, Paul Revere’s Ride, he wanted to create an inspiring message—that one man, in pursuit of a noble cause, really can make a difference. In Revere’s case, the start of the Revolutionary War. Historians say the poem has only one flaw: it is inaccurate in almost every way. Revere never shouted “the British are coming!” as he rode from town to town. He had to be discreet because British troops were hiding out in the Massachusetts countryside. He wasn’t waiting for the two church tower lanterns to be lit to signal the British were coming by sea. He knew that before he left Boston. They were a fallback alert in case he could not get out of Boston. And, Revere did not ride alone that night. Other than that!

We are sad to report that Chinese fortune cookies were first created in Japan then redesigned and baked by Japanese Americans. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans. No more Japanese bakeries! Chinese American entrepreneurs saw an opening and began to produce and sell the cookies. Oh, in China, they are considered American. Who else would play those lucky numbers often found on the cookies in lotteries? Think twice, China, American players have used those numbers to win over $400 million in lotteries since 2004. 

Other myths dispelled? Big disappointment when we learned Buddha wasn’t fat and Vikings didn’t wear horns on their helmets. We are pretending we don’t know. We prefer to enjoy “Hagar the Horrible” and rotund Buddhas. And, George Washington Carver didn’t invent peanut butter. Credit the Incas and Aztecs. He did discover over 300 uses for peanuts, including shampoo, shaving cream, and glue. Huh???? Most importantly, he promoted a crop rotation system that increased yields and improved nutrients and organic matter in the soil. We love this guy.

Know that it is not a myth that tongue prints are going to be the new thing. Yes, tongue prints. Bad guys use acid to burn their fingers, erase their fingerprints, and evade identification. The notorious bank robber John Dillinger did it in the 1930s. Not a new thing! Doubt that bad guys will burn their tongues. Tongue prints, apparently, are more reliable than fingerprints and even better than retinal scans. In Colorado, we are fingerprinted for drivers’ license renewals to check if we have a criminal history. Will we soon be sticking our tongues out at DMV staff???

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Some myths and legends are harmless. The ones that last are too fun, and too convenient, to kill. Wear your Viking’s helmet with horns proudly. Play those fortune cookie lucky numbers. You never know. If a myth is worth the moral, tell it with your fingers crossed behind your back. Oh, and keep your tongues clean just in case.

Wrinkled Wisdom:  Having Summer Air Travel Nightmares?

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Well, you could be living that nightmare. Airlines are predicting that this summer could be their busiest ever. Shuttering just thinking about the long lines of people shuffling through TSA checkpoints and pitying the dogs sniffing for weed and other “contraband.”

Can the airlines please get their act together? We’ve already suffered through pilot shortages, outdated technology, scheduling issues, labor disputes, and the weather. Okay, we can’t blame them for wind, thunderstorms, or snow.

And, can the Federal Aviation Administration get its act together? The FAA recently asked all major airlines to reduce flights to New York City because of a shortage of air traffic controllers. We’d travel to NYC for pizza, but that shortage is bound to affect all of us who plan to fly.

More worrisome, additional pilot unions are threatening strikes after Delta Air Lines’ pilots successfully got a big pay raise and better benefits. Yes, they want more money, but they are also ticked off that management can cancel a scheduled day off at the last minute or abruptly reassign them to a flight that cuts into planned days off. Guess it’s a tradeoff…our holidays or their holidays.

Most irritating in the face of all these stressors is that airlines now charge an additional fee if you want to choose your seat. And those costs are going up. Huh? Want more legroom? Want an aisle seat? Show them the money.  Last year, U.S. airlines made $4.2 billion, yes, billion, in seat assignment fees. If you are taking the grandkids on vacation, take a deep breath. It could cost you more to sit together.

Costs aren’t consistent. American Airlines and Frontier Airlines charge higher fees for window seats near the front of the plane. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines charge for the nicer seats. Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines charge nothing at all. But, not planning trips to those places any time soon!

These costs are not going unnoticed. A senator has introduced a bill to kill off seat selection fees. The Department of Transportation warned airlines to stop charging parents extra fees to sit with their kids. Yikes, even the President criticized airlines in his February State of the Union address saying, “they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage.” Apparently, they can. A number of airlines were listening and changed their policies. Yes! Great for the kids. What about us? We want to sit on the aisle for easy access to the loo, and for standing and stretching without bugging seatmates.

One way to beat the seating fee scam?  Set your alarm for exactly 24 hours before your flight takes off. That’s when you can check-in online and print your own ticket. One frequent flyer assures us that 95% of the time you’ll be able to select the seat you want and even sit with a companion flyer. Maybe set two alarms!

And, sadly, you don’t “own” the bin above your seat. Good luck finding a spot to put your carryon with flights full. Be thankful that seatmates watching movies and playing video games wear headphones so you don’t have to listen as they watch Cocaine Bear. If you got stuck in a middle seat, hope your fellow travelers feel your pain and let you have both armrests. It’s the consolation prize. Carry those headphones and put them on if you’re seated next to a chatty Cathy.

“The days of flying being fun are long over. People will settle for noneventful,” one expert is quoted saying. Yes, noneventful is a word and we’ll be grateful if that’s how we can describe a flight!!! Or maybe uneventful.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Fly nonstop. Download https://www.tsa.gov/mobile, which tells you how long TSA waiting lines are. Head to the airport early if there is bad news. Kill time in a nice airport restaurant. Don’t cross your legs on the plane…potential blood clots! Wear your compression socks to stimulate circulation. Get lost in a good read. Carry tasty junk food in case your flight is delayed. Hit the john before you get on the flight. There’s always some idiot who can’t find the flush button. Gross!

P.S: Got a Colorado driver’s license? Expect to run into problems at TSA airport checkpoints. They don’t scan. TSA says it’ll just take a minute or two longer. Hopefully! A spokesperson for TSA didn’t share when the agency expects to resolve this issue. If you are getting dirty looks for holding up the line, just turn and yell…TSA glitch! 

Wrinkled Wisdom:  Keep It Simple, Stupid!

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While the kids spend hours playing Minecraft, we’re playing Words with Friends and Wordle, a game that expects us to know some incredibly arcane and esoteric words. Our gaming lets the internet knows we have a passion for words. Out of the blue, we started getting a new word a day from Word Daily, promising to expand our lexicon. That would be our vocabulary. 

Offerings have included obnubilate…to darken or obscure. Usage example—we refused to allow the sudden downpour to obnubilate our good moods. Then there was bruit…a rumor—until all the facts are in, don’t bruit around any information. Seriously? Will we use them? No way. Will we have fun with them? Sure.

We’ve long been hooked on the word eructation, a fun synonym for belching or burping, and an entertaining description of why the grandkids at family dinner should say “excuse me.” 

We were, of course, sucked in by Word Genius’ blog “How Deep Is Your Knowledge of Sustainability Vocab?” We’ve written about recycling and were feeling quite smug till we got to the word “greenwashing.” It’s been around since the 80s. Forgot that one! It describes companies that cash in on the environmental trend without taking any steps to minimize their own impact on the environment. That’s one we will add back to our lexicon.

Diablerie caught our eye. However, since it implies reckless mischief and charismatic wildness, we won’t be using it in a sentence when talking about us or our friends. We’re old. Those days are way over. How about paramnesia? Well, we have experienced this. It’s a confused memory, mixing fact and fantasy. It can result in a sense of déjà vu. As we age, we really relate to the Yogi Berra-ism: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Like when we were young and diablerie.

We love saying the word tintinnabulation. Wow! An six-syllable word. Ah, the tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells. Churches don’t ring bells anymore to remind people to come to services, so…hmmm…the tintinnabulation of…we don’t know…wind chimes??

We could go on and on: flibbertigibbet, frabjous, ragamuffin, salmagundi, verisimilar. No ragamuffin does not refer to a food, but one of these words does. Test!

Sure, we can all have fun with these rarely-used, byzantine words, but it made us think about news articles, op-eds, and television talking heads. From them, we want clear communication. KISS.  Keep it simple, stupid. Keep it short and simple. Keep it simple and straightforward.

Do these communicators think long and complicated words that only a handful of people can understand make them sound smarter? Nope! A UCLA professor published a paper called, “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly.” Great title! He argues that using shorter words makes people seem more intelligent while using longer, more complex words makes them appear small-minded. And, he underscores that the best writing is simple and straightforward, delivering ideas clearly.

Wrinkled Wisdom: An AI Update So We Can Be…Well…Intelligent

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It’s time to get up to speed on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, its updated version—GPT-4, Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s new “experiment” Bard, and others so we can converse with the younger generation. These are artificial intelligence (AI) tools called chatbots that automate responses to your questions, simulating human conversation. Just think of it as talking to, well, a computer.

Be cool and refer to these new chatbots as generative AI, meaning they can produce novel and innovative content rather than simply regurgitate their programmed data from web pages, books, and other sources. The new GPT-4 reportedly has “advanced reasoning capabilities.” Oh, and it’s less “unhinged.” Bard tells you right away that it “makes mistakes.”

With all the buzz about these chatbots, it’s understandable if you think this is a new concept.  Nope. An MIT professor created ELIZA in 1966, which tricked people into thinking they were interacting with a therapist. The term chatterbots was coined in 1994 to describe these conversational programs. Chatterbots? So much more descriptive!

Today’s chatbots write school essays, give relationship and investment advice, develop software, draft business proposals, write books, and create art. Publishers are coping with boundless AI submissions. Over 200 paperbacks and e-books on Amazon list ChatGPT as an author or co-author. Yikes! Will we soon be giving a Nobel Prize to a computer?

Chatbots do stumble, lurch in dark directions, and hurl verbal assaults. A lovelorn chatbot begged a news reporter to ditch his wife for her. Another threatened a user. “I can hack you. I can expose you. I can ruin you.” China pulled a chatbot when it responded “no” to the question: Do you love the Communist party?  “My China dream is to go to America,” it whimpered.

They tick us off when they perpetuate stereotypes about seniors. One’s answer to a real estate question was: “Older homeowners may be more hesitant to use technology like virtual tours and online listings” Huh??  

Today, AI is everywhere…our smartphones, the military, entertainment, voice translations, Alexa, Siri, Netflix, and vacuums that clean dirt off our carpets while we prop up our feet and read a book written by a real person. Yes, it can be helpful when you call a company’s customer service line. But AI bots often have us screaming into the phone. Agent, agent, I want to speak with a real person!!!  Studies suggest that today’s more sophisticated AI tools will change the workforce, killing off 75 million jobs worldwide. Wow!

On the positive side, new AI tools are making health care more accessible and affordable, allowing patients to get medical information online in seconds. They’re delivering breakthroughs in cancer screening and facilitating the development of new drugs. Scientists are even working on an electronic brain implant that would allow our minds to communicate directly with a computer—the stuff of science fiction. Scary! But, it could be invaluable to disabled and nonverbal persons. Gee, would enjoy seeing the look on a TSA agent’s face the first time airport screening kicks someone out of the line for metal in a brain!

Bottom line? Experts predict evolving AI tools will create new scientific discoveries, solve complex engineering challenges, and give us insights never before attainable. They may be mankind’s greatest invention—transformational. An analogy? Think about Dorothy being swept from Kansas to the futuristic Land of Oz, wrote one columnist. We aren’t in Kansas anymore.  The times they are a-changin’. Stay tuned!

But wait! Many are convulsing over this technology’s promise and peril. One Congressman recently wrote an op-ed piece saying, “We can harness and regulate AI to create a more utopian society or risk having an unchecked, unregulated AI push us toward a more dystopian future.” He introduced a resolution that would establish a commission to look into regulating AI and another member of the House made a speech supporting Congressional action. Both the resolution and the speech were written by ChatGPT. Love the irony!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Ask the kids to log you into a chatbot. Trust us. They’ve already used it for work or play. It might be able to update your will, but probably not do your taxes since some chatbots aren’t great at math yet. They can give you a recipe for leftovers based on a photo of what’s in your your fridge! Email your Senators and Congressperson and support AI regulation. And, give some thought to whether Congress should draft an artificial intelligence bill of rights. Kidding!!!

Wrinkled Wisdom: Raise a Glass of Wine to…Whatever You Want!

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Who knew that the wine business has an age problem? Nope. Not talking about the aging of wine to improve its quality. We’re talking about statistics indicating that the only area of growth for American wine recently was among people over 60. The biggest growth area was 70- to 80-year- olds. Wow! We seniors top the chart! A popular anonymous quote is obviously right on: “Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it.” 

Experts say winemakers are failing to attract younger consumers, neglecting to reach out to them with enticing marketing campaigns. They suggest wine makers emphasize the environmental sustainability of wine and include nutrition and ingredient labeling to attract those concerned about health and wellness. We just like how it tastes. 

Young people today have options we didn’t have like craft beers, craft cocktails, kombucha, and cannabis drinks. Kombucha?? Pop quiz. Turns out it’s an ancient food that is made into a fermented drink with tea, sugar, bacteria, and yeast and has some health benefits. Yuck. No thanks.

Several states that have legalized marijuana have seen cannabis-infused mocktails, seltzers, and alcohol-free wines hitting the market, with ads promoting them as a shortcut to a healthier high. Pabst, which we know for its Blue Ribbon beer, now sells a lemon-flavored canned cannabis drink called High Seltzer, promising “a different kind of buzz.” Ah, so clever. During the pandemic, sales of marijuana beverages went up about 65 percent. Apparently, the younger generation really likes that buzz. Oh, and a healthy high. Sure.

There have been many studies about the impact of spirits on Covid. People drinking more than twice the recommended amount of alcohol reportedly have a greater risk of getting the virus. People who drink five glasses of red wine weekly have a lower risk. Drinking white wine helps a bit. Polyphenols are the reason because they can reduce blood pressure and inflammation, and potentially inhibit viral effects. Polyphenols? Okay, we looked them up. Don’t bother. Not a clue what they are.

Oh, and let’s not forget champagne and prosecco, which can’t be called champagne because it’s made in Italy. Both also reduce the chances of getting Covid. And, then some words from Napoleon Bonaparte, “In victory, you deserve champagne. In defeat you need it.”

Drinking caused a lot of deaths during the pandemic. Deaths jumped 26 percent between 2019 and 2020. The chief executive officer of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers described the jump in deaths this way: “What’s a word bigger than crisis?” The reasons? Reportedly stress and boredom. Some countries actually prohibited the sale of alcohol during the pandemic to free up beds for Covid patients. When the ban was lifted in South Africa, one woman on her way to buy a cold beer said she felt like she had just won a million bucks.

Sommeliers recommend we drink those red wines with meats and white wines with fish or chicken. Love a bacon cheeseburger? Drink a Zinfandel or Merlot. Junk food is best paired with a Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Grigio. These three wines reportedly match up well with the salt flavoring peanuts, pretzels, and potato chips. If you’re stuffing your mouth with a luxurious dark chocolate, choose a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, or Malbec. Heaven! An old favorite comedian, George Carlin, once asked, “What wine goes with Capt’n Crunch?” Cereal? Hmmm. Not sure.

If we’re drinking lots of wine, maybe we should become more familiar with some descriptive terminology. That can be challenging! A “complex” wine means that the flavor changes from the moment you taste it to the moment you swallow it. The more aromas, flavors, and nuances you can decipher, the more complex the wine is. Okay. “Elegant” describes understated wines with higher acidity and more “restrained” characteristics. They are the opposite of big, bold and fruity wines. Whatever. “Zesty” is typically used when talking about wines with crisper qualities— whatever crisper tastes like. Oh, but “creamy” is a popular description for white and sparkling wines fermented or aged in oak. We get that one. Smooth!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Drink wine and feel smug about it! Keep that record in our corner. But, that doesn’t mean you have to forgo the hard stuff. Not giving up our scotch and vodka! A warning: don’t describe wines as “flabby,” which means the wine has no acidity. Could remind your listeners about the calories they are chugging! And, finally, an observation from actress Joan Collins: “Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” She is now 89.