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  • My Mother’s Cookbook — Winter Salads: Jell-o, Salads of the Era, and Pickled Beets

    by Margaret Cullison

    Out-of-season produce didn’t appear often in grocery stores during the frigid Midwestern winters of the mid-twentieth century. Mothers who wanted to serve well-balanced meals to their families relied on bananas, oranges, apples, dried fruits, root vegetables, onions, and the ubiquitous iceberg lettuce. Canned fruits and vegetables, both homemade and commercially produced, augmented these choices. Such a limited selection can’t compare with the abundance of internationally grown produce available in chain supermarkets today, although a retro trend now focuses on buying only locally grown products.

    The winter salad creations of my childhood memory seem quaint, if not downright silly. For instance, the Candlestick Salad, dating back to the 1920s, probably elicited a few adult comments unfit for younger ears to hear. The salad consisted of a canned pineapple ring resting on a bed of lettuce, with half of a banana placed, cut side down, upright in the ring’s center. The tapered banana top received a decorative finishing touch of miracle whip and a maraschino cherry, meant to resemble the candle’s melting wax and flame.

    Another salad my mother served during the cold winter months consisted of bananas sliced lengthwise and also placed atop iceberg lettuce leaves. Sometimes I was given the job of grinding the Spanish peanuts on wax paper, with a rolling pin. We’d sprinkle generous amounts of coarsely ground nuts on the banana slices and finish with a dollop of mayonnaise. Sounds a bit heavy to me now, but the combination of flavors appealed to my child’s palate.

    Jell-o’s popularity had increased during the first half of the twentieth century and reached its zenith in the 1950s. Everyone who grew up in those years remembers fondly the favorite Jell-o creations their mothers made. Jell-o formed the base for endless variations of salads and desserts that showed up routinely at family tables, club meetings, church functions, and pot luck parties. Jell-o dishes could be prepared ahead of time, allowing the cook to enjoy a social gathering without feeling tied to the kitchen.

    Mom used Jell-o mostly for salads, except for the unflavored gelatin she needed to make puddings and pie fillings set properly. The contributor of one of the two Jell-o salads included in her cookbook was one of my grandmother’s friends when she lived in Omaha. These ladies got together regularly to share meals, rides to church, and sedate conversation. They never called each other by their given names, a politesse of an earlier generation that seemed odd to me, even in the relative formality of the 1950s. This salad would be a nice alternative to serve with holiday turkey or baked ham.

    Miss Custer’s Cranberry Salad

    1 cup cranberries

    1 orange

    1 cup sugar

    1 package lemon Jell-o

    2 cups water, including juice from the orange

    Mix the sugar, Jell-o, water, and orange juice. While letting the mixture partially set, chop finely the cranberries and orange, including rind. When the Jell-o mixture is ready, fold in the chopped fruits and pour into a 9- by 11-inch oblong pan. Refrigerate overnight. Serve portions on lettuce cups garnished with Miracle Whip, mayonnaise, or whipped cream.

     

  • Mom, Me, and Menopause

    by Ferida Wolff

    My mother was completely finished with menopause by the time she was forty-four. At least I think she was; Mom had an aversion to admitting that anything was not perfect. When my aunt found her lying prone on the living room sofa with a wet dishtowel draped over her head, Mom insisted that she wasn’t going through “the changes.” The pain behind her eyes that caused her to take to the red leather club chair and close all the shades so that the house was in semi-darkness on a bright, sunny day was discounted as ”just my headaches.” My sister and I found it hard to tell the difference between what might be hormonal mood swings and our mother’s natural prickly personality.

    I started in my mid-fifties though, in retrospect, I had an opening salvo, what would now be referred to as peri-menopause, late in my forties (Hi, Mom). I was attending a holistic conference and while I was browsing the vendors’ display tables I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t breathe. It was suddenly so hot in the room that I wanted to run outside and throw myself onto the soda-filled bucket of ice I saw by the conference cafe. Instead, I went into a yogic breathing practice that helps cool the body. I didn’t realize Mother Nature was whispering (shouting?) in my solar plexus that I was heading for a more mature stage of life. Why should I have known? Mom never prepared me and even with all my reading on the subject, somehow I was unprepared for the signals.

    But once I started in earnest, I decided I would not do it the way my mother had. I was going to be open about what I was feeling, thinking, doing. I would embrace this particular life transition with my friends and write about it and speak to women’s groups. I guess I wanted to bond with other women who were in the same space — for comfort, to learn more perhaps, to be able to laugh about it with those who really understood. I wrote a book called The Adventures of Swamp Woman: Menopause Essays on the Edge* and poured out what I was experiencing. I spared nothing and shared everything. I was Swamp Woman and boy, was I edgy.

    I am now into the post period, yet I still hear the call of nature. There are still night sweats, though not as many or as wet. There are routine hot flashes every night around nine o’clock at night (my husband says that he can set his watch by me), which send me raiding the refrigerator for something cooling to tame my heat. But these aren’t as vicious as they used to be. And yes, there is the occasional headache and mood breakdown. Will it ever stop? My friend’s mother would sometimes flash when she was well into her eighties! For the most part, though, I am less on the edge than I had been.

    My sister swears by bio-identical hormones (Suzanne Somers is her idol). So far I have not had my hormone balance checked but it does sound like a good idea. I have been putting it off because I think I would miss my alter ego — Swamp Woman does show up now and again. And looking back I wonder if my mother was just in the dark about the female aspect of life; maybe women didn’t talk about those things to each other back then. I wish I could tell her that what she was going through was perfect for the time of life she was in and that perfection is more a state of mind than anything else. I would hug her and teach her how to breathe.

    ©2011 Ferida Wolff for SeniorWomen.com

    Image from Amazon
    The Adventures of Swamp Woman: Menopause – Essays on the Edge

     

    Ferida’s latest is Image from Amazon
    Missed Perceptions, Challenge Your Thoughts Change Your Thinking


     

  • Secrets of the Silk Road

    The Beauty of Xiaohe

    With graceful eyelashes, long flaxen hair and serene expression, the “Beauty of Xiaohe” seems to have just softly fallen to sleep — yet she last closed her eyes nearly 4,000 years ago.  She was found in 2003, one of hundreds of spectacularly preserved mummies buried in the desert sands of the vast Tarim Basin, in the Far Western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. This “Beauty of Xiaohe” and more than 100 objects, 700 to 3,800 years old, have traveled for the first time  to the East Coast, where Secrets of the Silk Road is being exhibited at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia through June 5, 2011, before returning to China.

    Penn Museum’s exhibition will provide a new context for the Secrets of the Silk Road material, drawing upon the rich history of Central Asia’s Tarim Basin desert, and the mystery of the peoples who lived there or passed through so long ago. Opportunities to ‘Unravel the Secrets’ draw visitors into some of the issues, and discoveries, that engage scholars today. New interactive components in the exhibition are designed to engaged visitors of all ages with the ancient artifacts and principal themes; what can the variety of textiles made and traded in the region, an astonishing range of languages, and exceptionally preserved mummification, reveal about this region of the Silk Road? A full schedule of complementary Silk Road programming, designed for diverse ages and interests, continues throughout the exhibition.

    The new presentation was developed by the Penn Museum’s exhibition team in close collaboration with Victor Mair, Penn Museum consulting scholar and professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.  Credited with “rediscovering” the Tarim Basin mummies for the West on a trip to the region in the 1980s, Dr. Mair has engaged in intensive research on Xinjiang archaeology since then.

    “This traveling exhibition of materials from half way around the world is opening new doors— providing visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to come face to face, literally, with life in East Central Asia, both before and after the formation of the fabled Silk Routes that began more than 2,000 years ago,” said Dr. Mair.

  • This President’s Day: Are We Believing in Madam President or Not?

    by Nichola Gutgold

    The idea that we are ‘getting closer’ to a woman in the White House forces those of us who have written about women and the US presidency to consider the obstacles that may face   women as presidential candidates.   Why haven’t more seemingly qualified women candidates run for President of the United States?  It would seem that in a world without gender bias, more women would be top contenders for the presidency.   Many possible presidential contenders spring to mind and they are women who have never run:  Barbara Mikulski, Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Kassebaum, Kathleen Sebelius, Christine Gregoire, Linda Lingle, Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe, to name but a few.

    The question of whether or not young women believe that a woman will be president is a pertinent one.  Presumably it is college educated women who will seek elected office and one of them will attain the Oval Office.  For years,  scholars of women and leadership have contended that the mere presence of women leaders will create a more positive environment for future leaders.  “Seeing a group of women in leadership roles help remove a psychological barrier,” says Laura Liswood, secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders. So has the 2008 election, one that saw two women in leadership positions, made young women believe that elected the first woman president will happen in her lifetime?

    A poll, “Believing or Not Believing in Madam President”,  surveyed college women to learn whether or not they were encouraged by the presidential and vice presidential bids of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin to believe that a woman would be president in their lifetime.

    “Believing or Not Believing in Madam President” has been administered to college women, age 18-25 and after 500 surveys have been returned, there is evidence to show that more young women were encouraged by the presidential race of Hillary Clinton than by the vice-presidential bid of Sarah Palin and that the effort of both women were more encouraging than discouraging to their belief that there would be a woman president in their lifetimes. The poll asked young women to reflect about whether or not the campaigns of these national female politicians made them believe that there would be a woman president in her lifetime.

    Out of 518 surveys,  some women said “yes” that the presidential bid of Hillary Clinton encouraged her to believe that a woman would be president in her lifetime.   One hundred twenty were encouraged by the vice-presidential bid of Sarah Palin while fifty-seven respondents were not encouraged by either woman and fifty women thought that both women’s efforts turned them into believers.

    Some comments about Hillary Clinton from respondents include:  “She was one of the first women who looked like she could win” and “She made me believe that a woman will be a strong candidate.”  Another respondent said, “I knew she wouldn’t win”.  As for Palin, students wrote:  “She made women sound stupid” and “The media focused too much on her personal life and not enough on her politics.”  Another respondent said Palin made her a believer in a woman president in her lifetime because “As soon as Obama won many people were already campaigning for Palin in 2012.”  Some respondents were encouraged by both Clinton and Palin.  One wrote:  “Both Clinton and Palin are evidence that women are beginning to climb the ladder in education, work and politics.  It is still a struggle, for many reasons, but it is much better than it was.”

    Since their presidential bids media reports suggest that Sarah Palin’s credibility has suffered, while Hillary Clinton’s has risen. Nonetheless, this poll indicates that young women have noticed the efforts of Clinton and Palin and for the most part more young women are encouraged by their efforts than turned off by them. And, by a considerable margin, the bid of Hillary Clinton was even more encouraging than that of Sarah Palin’s.

    ©2011 Nichola Gutgold for SeniorWomen.com

  • Female Foreign Correspondents’ Code of Silence, Finally Broken

    Reporter Kim Barker reporting in Afghanistan. (Kuni Takahashi)

    by Kim Barker
    ProPublica

    Thousands of men blocked the road, surrounding the S.U.V. of the chief justice of Pakistan, a national hero for standing up to military rule. As a correspondent for The Chicago Tribune, I knew I couldn’t just watch from behind a car window. I had to get out there.

    So, wearing a black headscarf and a loose, long-sleeved red tunic over jeans, I waded through the crowd and started taking notes: on the men throwing rose petals, on the men shouting that they would die for the chief justice, on the men sacrificing a goat.

    And then, almost predictably, someone grabbed my buttocks. I spun around and shouted, but then it happened again, and again, until finally I caught one offender’s hand and punched him in the face. The men kept grabbing. I kept punching. At a certain point — maybe because I was creating a scene — I was invited into the chief justice’s vehicle.

    At the time, in June 2007, I saw this as just one of the realities of covering the news in Pakistan. I didn’t complain to my bosses. To do so would only make me seem weak. Instead, I made a joke out of it and turned the experience into a positive one: See, being a woman helped me gain access to the chief justice.

    And really, I was lucky. A few gropes, a misplaced hand, an unwanted advance — those are easily dismissed. I knew other female correspondents who weren’t so lucky, those who were molested in their hotel rooms, or partly stripped by mobs. But I can’t ever remember sitting down with my female peers and talking about what had happened, except to make dark jokes, because such stories would make us seem different from the male correspondents, more vulnerable. I would never tell my bosses for fear that they might keep me at home the next time something major happened.

    I was hardly alone in keeping quiet. The Committee to Protect Journalists may be able to say that 44 journalists from around the world were killed last year because of their work, but the group doesn’t keep data on sexual assault and rape. Most journalists just don’t report it.

  • Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870

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    The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is exhibiting  a major survey that examines photography’s role in invasive looking. Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870 is co-organized by SFMOMA and Tate Modern, and gathers more than 200 pictures that together form a timely inquiry into the ways in which artists and everyday people alike have probed the camera’s powerful voyeuristic capacity.tktktkt

    Works by major artists, including Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Thomas Ruff, Paul Strand, and Weegee will be presented alongside photographs made by amateurs, professional journalists, and governmental agencies, exploring the larger cultural significance of voyeurism and surveillance technology.

    Conceived by SFMOMA Senior Curator of Photography Sandra S. Phillips and co-curated with Tate Curator of Photography Simon Baker, Exposed traces how voyeuristic observation with cameras in the 19th century influenced street photography in the 20th century. Moving beyond typical notions of voyeurism and surveillance as strictly erotic or predatory, the presentation addresses these concepts in their broadest sense — in both historical and contemporary contexts — investigating how new technologies, urban planning, global intelligence, celebrity culture, and an evolving media environment have fueled a growing interest in the subject.  With the proliferation of cell-phone cameras, YouTube videos, security cameras, reality television, satellite views, and infrared technology, our potential to spy on others seems increasingly boundless.

    The presentation draws from renowned private and museum collections worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives, and features a concentration of important works from SFMOMA’s collection. Exposed is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with original essays that examine the surreptitious use of the camera in all walks of life.tktktk

    “As the importance of photography has grown over time, and the art museum itself has become a place for investigating larger cultural issues, this seems an appropriate moment to look at these kinds of pictures to learn from them and to better know ourselves,” says Phillips. She first conceived the project as a follow-up to her groundbreaking 1997 SFMOMA exhibition Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence, the first museum presentation to examine mug shots and other police photographs as cultural artifacts. Phillips continues, “The camera is now more adept at concealment, and we often feel protected because we are watched — a telling and relatively recent development. The spy who used to be consigned to the shadows and often called shady is now tolerated in the open and can, in fact, be you or me with a cell phone, even as we are being observed through a surveillance camera.”

    Facilitated and encouraged by the camera, voyeurism and surveillance provoke uneasy questions about who is looking at whom, whether for power or for pleasure. Voyeurism has long been acknowledged as an essential aspect of photography and represents its most common use. Yet there have been surprisingly few attempts to examine the history of this invasive form of looking. Exposed aims to fill this critical void by highlighting five types of voyeuristic photographs: street photography; the sexually explicit pictures normally associated with voyeurism; celebrity stalking; photographs of death and violence; and surveillance in its many forms.

    While Exposed primarily focuses on the medium of photography, the exhibition will also showcase examples of film, video, and installation work by artists such as Thomas Demand, Bruce Nauman, and Andy Warhol, selected by Phillips in collaboration with SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling. Exposed will also feature a selection of archival cameras that were designed to be concealed in artful ways, including models used by spies during the cold war.

  • Congress’s Investigative Arm Now on Flickr

    SeniorWomen.com receives daily updates of the reports, Congressional testimony and correspondence that the GAO produces. The new GAO Flickr page features selected photos and graphics from GAO reports that are searchable, viewable, and downloadable by visitors to the site. We aren’t saying that these images are exciting, but they are informative and, at times, eye opening, as we find their written reports. Viewers of this site have seen many of these reports whether they’re about Social Security, Formaldehyde in Textiles, Investigating a Reverse Mortgage and  Guardianships: Examples of Financial Exploitation, Neglect and Abuse of Seniors.

    The US Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) latest step into the world of new and social media communication is an agency presence on the image-sharing website Flickr.

    “GAO continues to seek out new, innovative ways to convey our findings,” said Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO. “The images in our reports help tell the story of government accountability by making complex concepts and data more understandable. Our Flickr page will allow us to highlight selected images and share them more easily with Congress and the public.”

    The GAO Flickr page can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/usgao/.  Over 5 billion images are available for viewing on the site, including those posted by government entities such as the Library of Congress, NASA, and the White House.

    The Government Accountability Office, known as the investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities. GAO also works to improve the performance of the federal government and ensure its accountability to the American people. The agency examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and reliability.

    Here are some examples of the images:

  • A Review of Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

    A Review Of A Strange Stirring: 
    The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s
    by Stephanie Coontz 
    Basic Books, 2011, 222 pp

    by Jo Freeman

    When Coontz’ editor asked her to write about the impact of The Feminine Mystique she sat down to re-read a book she thought she knew well, but in fact, had never read. She had heard and read so much about it over the years, that she had absorbed its message without having read it at all.

    It was her mother who told Coontz, a child of the Sixties, about the 1963 book, and her mother’s generation that had been excited by it. When Coontz assigned it to her own students, they found it “boring and dated.” So much had changed since 1963, that the book that stirred a generation of women didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.

    Her students had no idea how much their grandmothers had to learn about their own unhappiness, let alone why they had to learn it. So Coontz set out to write about a generation of intelligent, well-educated women who had been marginalized by their own society. She wanted to understand how being confined to the home had undermined their sense of self and self-worth, until Friedan told them about “the problem that has no name.”

    She began by reading the numerous letters Friedan received after publication of her book, and some that Friedan wrote herself. She also went through oral histories and did interviews of women who had read and been moved by the book. The bulk of her book is based on this research, as she relates the stories of women whose lives were changed by reading Friedan’s book. Some of them thought that Friedan had literally saved their lives.

    The women who paid the “price of privilege” were mostly white and middle-class, but Coontz devotes a chapter to African-American and working class women. She criticizes Friedan for ignoring the African-American experience, but acknowledges that it was a different experience. She points out that overall, black women faced different problems and had different priorities; only a few found that Friedan’s book had something to say to them.

    Working class women were also left out of the book; Coontz reviews the many studies done on such women to explain why. Essentially, less education led to lower expectations and lower expectations led to greater satisfaction with what they had. The college-educated women that Friedan wrote for — and about — expected more out of life; society’s insistence that such expectations were unhealthy created its own social pathology.

    Betty Friedan’s book was successful because it explained something than needed explaining, and did so in compelling language. “The book was a journalistic tour de force,” Coontz, concludes, “combining scholarship, investigative reporting, and a compelling personal voice.” It was also well promoted by its publisher.

    The book’s success generated many myths, some fostered by right-wingers and some by Friedan herself. Among these, that Fridan was herself “just another unhappy housewife” when in fact she was a successful free-lance writer, who got her start working for labor and left-wing publications. Coontz argues that Friedan hid her past in order to avoid being discredited by professional anti-communists looking for red influence behind every dissident idea.

    While The Feminine Mystique certainly didn’t jump-start the women’s movement, it was able to ride the wave of female discontent that jelled into organizational protest in the mid-1960s. The book’s success and Friedan’s celebrity made it easier for the nascent movement to attract press attention and thus attract members. The movement would have happened without Betty Friedan’s book, but it happened faster with it. For that Coontz and every other feminist is grateful.

    ©2011 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

  • Pew Reports A Split Verdict on Changes in Family Structure

    by Rich Morin, Senior Editor, Pew Research Center

    Overview
    The American public is sharply divided in its judgments about the sweeping changes in the structure of the American family that have unfolded over the past half century. About a third generally accepts the changes, a third is tolerant but skeptical and a third considers them bad for society. 

    This finding emerges from an analysis that the Pew Research Center conducted of responses to a survey in which a nationally representative sample of 2,691 adults were asked whether they considered the following seven trends to be good, bad or of no consequence to society: more unmarried couples raising children; more gay and lesbian couples raising children; more single women having children without a male partner to help raise them; more people living together without getting married; more mothers of young children working outside the home; more people of different races marrying each other; and more women not ever having children.

    About a third (31%) of survey respondents are Accepters. Anywhere from half to two-thirds of this group say these trends make no difference to society. But of the remainder who express an opinion, more say that most of the trends are good than say they are bad. Women, Hispanics, East Coast residents and adults who seldom or never attend religious services are more likely than others to be represented in this group.

    A similar share of the public (32%) rejects virtually every trend that the Accepters tolerate or endorse. A majority say five of the seven changes are bad for society; the only trends they generally accept are interracial marriage and fewer women having children. They are the only group in which a majority (61%) says it is harmful for mothers of small children to work outside the home. Whites, older adults, Republicans, the religiously observant and married adults are overrepresented in this group. They are the Rejecters.

    The third and somewhat larger group (37%) are the Skeptics.1 While they generally share most of the tolerant views of the Accepters, they also express concern about the impact of these trends on society. On one of the trends — single motherhood — they and the Accepters have stark differences. Virtually all Skeptics say mothers having children without male partners to help raise them is bad for society. Among Accepters, just 2% say this. When asked about the six other trends examined in the survey, a majority of Skeptics say each makes no difference or is good for society. Young people, Democrats and political independents, and minorities are disproportionately more likely to be in this group.

    The remainder of this report explores these three groups in more detail. The next section examines how the three groups differ from each other on the seven demographic trends included in the survey. The section that follows looks at the demographics of each group, and a final section examines the views of the three groups on other issues.

    But first, a note about the limitations of this analysis. Not everyone in each cluster evaluates each of the trends in exactly the same way. Overall, however, members of each group are more similar to one another in terms of their responses to the questions than they are to those in the other two groups. Also, while the three clusters described in this report do a good job of summarizing the pattern of responses to these seven questions, our analysis might have produced different results had we used different questions or measured people’s judgments in different ways.

    Continue reading the full report, including an interactive survey to see where you fit, at pewsocialtrends.org.

    1. Labeling this group “Skeptics” does not mean its members disapprove of these trends. In fact, majorities or large pluralities say six of the seven trends have made no difference. But they are less likely than Accepters to express this tolerant view and more likely to judge these trends as bad rather than good. They also overwhelmingly say that single motherhood has hurt society.

  • I’m Going to Get Organized One of These Days

    by Rose Madeline Mula

    My friend Katie is normally very docile. No one would ever guess she has a destructive streak. Yet, over the past month she has killed two paper shredders. Well, maybe “killed” is too strong a word. She didn’t throw them out a window in a fit of temper. She simply burned out their motors by overfeeding them bank statements and receipts she has been saving for over thirty years. Why the decision to get rid of these papers now? Well, I guess she finally realized, for example, that she no longer needs proof of purchase to support a warranty that expired in 1972 for an appliance that died in 1975.

    Sadly, even after sending the afore-mentioned shredders to landfill hell, Katie has barely made a dent in her stack of obsolete documents. She may finish the job in another year or two, if she sticks with it at least three hours a day. However, then she’ll face the even more formidable task of cleaning out her cellar and attic — places I have been banned from ever entering, so I have no first-hand knowledge of what’s there.

    However, I’ve heard rumors that above and below the impeccable living areas of Katie’s lovely home lurk mountains of detritus that have accumulated over the years — including, for one thing, a huge, ancient gas range that is broken beyond repair. But its condition is irrelevant because Katie’s kitchen is electric and has no gas connection. So why is she keeping it? Because it belonged to her great-grandmother who died when Katie was two. Sentimental to a fault, Katie is emotionally incapable of throwing out anything ever owned or given to her by a loved one. In some ways, I have the opposite problem. Because I live in a condo — with no cellar, attic or other storage space — I’m sometimes too quick to discard things. (I sure wish I had kept that receipt for my Ipod which met its demise prematurely. And why did I give away that perfectly good desk lamp? I could use it now that I have a desk.)

    My closets, on the other hand, are overstuffed with stuff — sleeveless shirts and dresses I can’t wear any more because my arms are no longer fit for public view … shorts and bathing suits I’ll never wear again (guess why?) … a dozen pairs of high-heeled shoes which my hip replacement surgeon put on my list of permanent no-nos … and more. Much more. I know I should get rid of them all. But somehow I can’t. It would be like finally saying goodbye to my youth. And, despite what my mirrors tell me, I’m just not ready to do that yet.

    At least I’m not like those hoarders I read about or see on TV. I can walk through all my rooms without having to maneuver around toppling heaps of old newspapers, magazines and assorted bric-a-brac. I can sit on all my chairs and sofas; and my table and counter tops are pristinely clear. But please don’t open that file cabinet or my dresser drawers! I really am going to clean them out. Some day. After I conduct a search and destroy raid on my refrigerator and pantry and I trash all the expired items hiding there. (It can’t possibly be six months since I bought those eggs, can it?)

    Fortunately, thanks to my computer, last month I was able to toss out my five thousand photo slides, the dozens of trays I had stored them in, and the broken projector that I’ve been meaning to get fixed for the last ten years. Yep, it was a humongous job, but I finally scanned all those slides and saved them on my hard drive (and on CDs, in case my computer crashes). But now what do I do about my nineteen huge albums of prints, dating back to the ’40s — the 1840s, that is. No! Not pictures of me back then, but faded sepias of unidentified ancestors. Why, oh why am I saving them?

    Both Katie and I should learn a lesson from our friend Jane, who could teach PhD classes in minimalism. You can actually walk into Jane’s closets — and they’re not walk-in closets. One day last week, she asked if I had an extra postage stamp. I tried to give her two. “No, she said, “I need only one right now.” I suggested she might have something else to mail in a couple of days. “Then I’ll go to the post office,” said she. “I don’t want the clutter.” A postage stamp!! Clutter???

    I sure hope Jane never visits Katie’s cellar.

    Rose Mula’s most recent book, Image from Amazon
    The Beautiful People and Other Aggravations, by Rose Madeline Mula    , is now available at your favorite bookstore, through Amazon.com and other online bookstores, and through Pelican Publishing (800-843-1724), as is her previous book, If These Are Laugh Lines, I’m Having Way Too Much Fun.

    ©2011 Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com