Older and Better with Shelly

  When you’re a kid, a bed is something you don’t want to be in. Except to sleep late on weekends. As you get older your bed becomes more of a friend. Sometimes better than your real friends. Recently we got a new mattress. The salespeople talked us in to purchasing one that does everything but take out the trash. It came with an electronic base and a remote that helped raise and lower it.   Plus, lots of other features. What they didn’t tell us was the noise it would make during the middle of the night or a light that would come on underneath and wouldn’t turn off. And that was just the beginning. Its favorite trick was to turn on a vibrating massage motor that we couldn’t get off. Who in the hell wants a vibrator when you’re trying to sleep, don’t get nasty now. The other issue was the mattress itself. It sat high. Real high. I could not get in or out of it without the help of a stool. It forced me to sleep on the end so I could find my way down. I did try to m...

  When I was a kid in the dark ages, I thought Jews were the only ones that did not celebrate Christmas. My parents and my friends would say you celebrate Hanukkah and get a gift eight nights. I don’t know anybody that got a gift all eight nights. If I was lucky, I got a gift one night and it was usually like pajamas. I would always look at beautiful Christmas decorations. We of course had none, just a menorah. That didn’t come close to Christmas decorations. If I could wear a Christmas tree lit around my neck I would. I think it was because I was deprived as a child but don’t quote me. So I was a stubborn little kitten. I decided to hang a stocking over the fake fireplace we had in our apartment. Don’t ask me how I got that stocking I didn’t get an allowance. I probably stole it. So I made sure to tell my parents that I was hanging a stocking. I didn’t care if we were Jewish or not. Well, I got a lecture from my Mom but since daddy was my Dad, he did not say a word and I hun...

  Milltown Mel died! Who is Milltown Mel? He is one of a few rare ground hogs given the honor of an important once a year job.   I guess he was protesting with the rest of Americans saying the pay was too low. One day before his performance.   A bit drastic. They even had to call off Groundhog Day in Milltown, New Jersey. Apparently there was no one in back up training.   All the climate change we’ve had recently was probably just too much stress for him. Maybe he wasn’t taking his vitamins. He probably didn’t like his food and, like I said, his pay was probably very meager.   How do you honor the famous dead groundhog?   A special service? Cremation or ground burial? How about a medal of valor from the President for years of service. I wonder if he had any children that could take over. I don’t even know if he was married. I couldn’t even tell you how groundhogs mate.   I don’t get into all that animal reproductive stuff.   I’m a city g...

  So sad that it took a worldwide pandemic where hundreds of thousands had to die. And while we were hunkering down at home... We learned we could persevere. We worked and took lessons from home. People cooked more but also ate more junk food. Banana cake was the salvation. We got to know our family much better. We learned to share, laugh and cry together. It was like it used to be in the old days. Folks actually learned to live without. Even go without toilet paper. We worried about our elderly family members making sure they were ok.  It was difficult to to keep up with their health though we still checked in on them often. We discovered this strange thing called zoom. We met friends and family for holidays and even special events on zoom. We had drive-by celebrations with decorated cars. A funny thing happened though while we were in pandemic mode. Animals that hadn’t been seen in years crawled out of the woodwork and multiplied. Bugs came back in droves. Pa...

What an interesting week we’ve had. I usually find a topic somewhere in the news to write a blog about. This week there were many so I’m going to write a quick synopsis. We started off the week with the Grammys. I didn’t recognize any of the songs, or the people, so I will finish with that. Let’s talk about the Super Bowl. I’ve never watched a Super Bowl in my life but I usually like to watch the commercials or at least the halftime show. Well I wasn’t going to give up Channel 9 PBS for any football game, not on a Sunday night. So my husband taped it. The only commercial that I thought was worth my time was when Baby Peanut was born. That was an advertising home run. They promoted it for weeks that Mr. Peanut had died. Now that was tragic for all the peanut lovers. Then, through some genius stroke of an advertising executive, the baby Mr. Peanut was born. Perfect timing with all the mini, little action guys coming out in the form of movies, cartoons etc....

The news is in. Our cockatiel Winston is a girl. But we hate the name “Winnie” and, since she has not objected, we’re still calling her Winston. Winston went in for a spa day. What is a spa day for a cockatiel? Let me tell you it’s getting her wings clipped so she doesn’t crash into mirrors, windows and walls, and break her neck. There are pros and cons about clipping the wings of birds. Nasty arguments. The same about getting your cats declawed. I don’t think a bird with clipped wings will have behavior problems like they say cats will. And if they do they will deal with it. It’s better than yours truly having a nervous breakdown over it. After watching Winston fly around the house, hitting everything in sight and then disappearing one evening, my old heart had it. She was at the top of our dining room buffet about 2 inches from the ceiling watching us run around the house calling for her. She went into house arrest immediately and was kept there until she had he...

I read a lot. I am a valuable source of useless information. It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it. Well I noticed an article I just read about dead butt syndrome. That’s a new one for me. Apparently it’s a real thing and hundreds of Americans suffer from it. It comes from sitting on your butt all the time. I wish I knew about this when I was raising my kids. That may have scared them more than telling them if they don’t eat their vegetables they will get into trouble because there are kids starving in China. If I could have told my kids... If you don't get off your butt and do something your butt could be frozen! Now that could scare a kid. It even scares me. What about all these kids who incessantly play games on their phone. I’ve heard of kids going to parties and sitting next to each other all while still transfixed on their phones. We’re raising a generation of kids that do not know how to engage in conversation with each other. ...