This is the January 4, 2007 edition of Keeping in Touch from www.SeniorSSuperStoreS.com

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First, we want to wish all of our readers a very happy Holiday season; let's remember all the ways we have been blessed.

This edition of Keeping in Touch shares more humorous pieces than usual as we work to clean out our files of editorial content that our readers and visitors share with us.

This issue of Keeping in Touch deals with several matters of interest to Prime Time Surfers:

1.) 25 Signs You Are Living In The Twenty First Century
2.) A Glass of Cranberry Juice a Day May Keep Bladder Infection Away
3.) Smoke Detector Maintenance
4.) Huckster's Claims - "Pitch" and Truth
5.) A Doilie a Day
6.) "How To Lose Weight"
7.) Some More Humorous Looks at Aging
8.) Your Subscription Details

1.) 25 Signs You Are Living In The Twenty-First Century

1. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
3. You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom, "What's for dinner?"
4. Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.
5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next door neighbor yet this year.
6. You check the ingredients on a can of chicken noodle soup to see if it contains Echinacea.
7. Your grandmother asks you to send her a JPEG file of your so she can create a screen saver.
8. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
9. Every commercial on television has a web site address at the bottom of the screen.
10. You buy a computer and 6 months later it is out of date and now sells for half the price you paid.
11. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 years of your life, is cause for panic and turning around to go get it.
12. Using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase would be a hassle and take planning.
13. Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
14. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
15. You consider second-day air delivery painfully slow.
16. Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.
17. Your idea of being organized is multiple-colored Post-it notes.
18. You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.
19. You get an extra phone line so you can get phone calls.
20. You disconnect from the Internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
21. You get up in morning and go online before getting your coffee.
22. You wake up at 2am to go to the bathroom and check your email on your way back to bed.
23. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
24. You're reading this.
25. Even worse; you're going to forward it to someone else.

2.) A Glass of Cranberry Juice a Day May Keep Bladder Infection Away

Cranberry juice has long been recommended to ward off bladder infections. Now there's evidence that more of the tart drink may be better than less.

Drinking 8 ounces of the juice works better than 4 ounces on the bacteria that cause most urinary tract infections (UTI), according to preliminary research presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America on September 30, 2004.

A specific type of tannin found only in cranberries and blueberries interacts with the little projections on the Escherichia coli bacteria (the most common cause of UTI), preventing them from sticking to the walls of the bladder and causing infection.

A UTI is an infection anywhere in the urinary tract, including the kidneys, the bladder, and the urethra. Due to anatomy, women have a higher risk of UTIs than men, and people who experience three or more in 1 year are considered to have recurrent infections.

"There is no evidence that drinking or eating cranberry products can cure a UTI once the bacteria have established infection," said Kalpana Gupta, MD, principal investigator of the University of Washington study. "The next step is to evaluate our findings in a larger group of women, and then conduct a trial to help determine if the laboratory findings translate into clinical differences in the rate of UTI depending on the dosage of cranberry consumed."

Theoretically, blueberries may prevent UTIs as well, but they need to be further tested in a laboratory and clinical trials, she said.

"Cranberry is one of North America's few native fruits, and Native Americans used it for its antibacterial properties," said Amy Howell, PhD, coauthor of the study and a research scientist at the Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research at Rutgers University, Chatsworth, New Jersey. "They even mention it for urinary disorders."

In the study, urine was collected from three volunteers before and 4 to 6 hours after consumption of 27% cranberry juice cocktail. E. coli were incubated in the urine samples and combined with human bladder cells.

The amount of bacteria sticking to the bladder cells was significantly reduced after the bacteria were incubated in urine from women who drank the cranberry juice cocktail, and that effect was two-fold greater after 8 ounces of cranberry juice cocktail was consumed than after 4 ounces was consumed, the researchers reported.

"It is unlikely that regularly consuming a glass of cranberry juice has a downside, but this will be formally evaluated in future clinical trials," she said.

Women who feel symptoms (including a frequent need to urinate, and pain or burning after urination) should see their healthcare providers, and if diagnosed with a bladder infection, should receive antibiotics, Gupta recommended. Untreated, a bladder infection can become a more serious kidney infection.

Combinations of cranberry and other fruit juices (such as apple, grape, and raspberry) contain a smaller percentage of cranberry juice and may be less effective for UTI prevention, but have not been adequately studied, Dr. Gupta noted.

Cranberry tablets also may vary in the percentage of the effective, and therefore may or may not help prevent UTIs. Tablets that include spray-dried cranberry juice include the tannin, while those that are derived from various extracts may not, said Howell. Initial studies suggest that single-serving sizes of dried cranberries and cranberry sauce contain as much of the tannin as a serving of cranberry juice cocktail, and may be just as effective as the juice.

This article is courtesy of http://www.coastalurology.com and http://www.newsrx.com.

3.) Smoke Detector Maintenance

As the weather turns cooler and we have to rely on our heating systems, and with the holiday season of candles burning and more cooking in the kitchen, this is a good time for an important reminder..

Routine maintenance of your smoke detector(s) (dusting or vacuuming removes dust and insures proper air movement) and battery replacement may be the most important jobs you do during the year.

Here are some ideas related to smoke detectors:

-Choose new long-life batteries (always check the expiration date).

-Change the batteries once a year on the same day every year; for example, change the batteries at the same time you set back your clocks in the spring or forward in the fall.

-Test your units at least once a month. Mark the testing day on calendar and check it off after you have tested the detectors.

-The batteries in kitchen detectors are often removed due to the "burnt toast syndrome." Remember to replace the batteries or better yet, install a new detector with a "hush button" that will silence the alarm but not render the unit ineffective like removing the batteries.

-If you have a "nuisance alarm," that is, one that goes off frequently for no apparent reason, either replace the batteries or install a new unit.

-If remodeling is in your future, then it's a good time to add AC-DC units that are interconnected -- most building codes require them in new construction.

-Make sure that you have an adequate number of smoke detectors installed. A smoke detector should be installed on every level of your home, including the basement, and outside all bedrooms.

-Smoke detectors don't last forever. Replace yours every few years.

4.) Huckster's Claims - "Pitch" and Truth <.P>

The Better Business Bureau encourages consumers to be savvy shoppers and discerning donors, particularly during our country's war effort.

Here are 10 common pitches you'll see or hear - along with their true meaning:

The "Pitch": "This product is available nowhere else." [ truth: that's because this product has never been proven effective, nor authorized for sale by the Food & Drug Administration or any other government agency.]

The "Pitch": "This product is being used by our troops right now, see the government agency acronym that's printed on it." [The truth: use of government agency affiliation is a common ploy of scam artists; anyone can use an acronym.]

The "Pitch": "The U.S. government is keeping this product top-secret." [The truth: if there had been an actual medical breakthrough on the bioterrorism front, the news would not be announced first in an advertisement!]

The "Pitch": "This pill will protect you against poisons that are fast-acting and difficult to detect in the body." [The truth: the pill might well be poisonous, and no one has a clue what ingredients are in it and what protections, if any, they offer.]

The "Pitch": "Only the smart ones will survive." [The truth: only the dumb ones will succumb to misleading pitches prey on fear or paranoia.]

The "Pitch": "The pharmaceutical companies won't sell it to you, but I will." [The truth: That's because the product has not been medically tested approved for sale in the U.S.]

The "Pitch": "Money-back guarantee, proven to be 100% effective." [The truth: Proven effective how and when? Who's guaranteeing consumer will get a refund?]

The "Pitch": "Give me your account number and invest in this - you're sure to make millions!" [The truth: The scam artist will be the only one who makes money because he /she will collect it straight from your bank account.]

The "Pitch": "We are the only company brave enough to market this product." [The truth: We are the first scam artist to dream up this product and no reputable business would ever be associated with such a scheme.]

5.) A Doilie a Day

Once there was a man and woman who had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything.

They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the elderly wife got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.

When he opened it, he found two crocheted doilies and a stack of money totaling $25,000. He asked her about the contents. "When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doily."

The little old man was so moved, he had to fight back tears. Only two precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

"Honey," he said, "that explains the doilies, but what about all this money? Where did it come from?"

"Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the doilies."

6.) How To Lose Weight

A young lady is terribly overweight, so her doctor puts her on a diet.

"I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 5 pounds."

When she returned, she shocked the doctor by losing nearly 20 pounds. "Why, that's amazing!" the doctor said, "Did you follow my instructions?"

She nodded, "I'll tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead that 3rd day."

"From hunger, you mean?", asked the doctor."

"No, from all that skipping."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

7.) Some More Humorous Looks at Aging

Two elderly women were eating breakfast in a restaurant one morning. Ethel noticed something funny about Mabel's ear and she said, '"Mabel, did you know you've got a suppository in your left ear?" Mabel answered, "I have a suppository?" She pulled it out and stared at it. Then she said, "Ethel, I'm glad you saw this thing. Now I think I know where my hearing aid is."

When the husband finally died his wife put the usual death notice in the paper, but added that he died of gonorrhea. No sooner were the papers delivered when a friend of the family phoned and complained bitterly, "You know very well that he died of diarrhea, not gonorrhea." Replied the widow,
"I nursed him night and day so of course I know he died of diarrhea, but I thought it would be better for posterity to remember him as a great lover rather than the big s___ he always was."

An elderly couple were on a cruise and it was really stormy. They were standing on the back of the boat watching the moon, when a wave came up and washed the old woman overboard. They searched for days and couldn't find her, so the captain sent the old man back to shore with the promise that he would notify him as soon as they found something. Three weeks went by and finally the old man got a fax from the boat. It read: "Sir, sorry to inform you, we found your wife dead at the bottom of the ocean. We hauled her up to the deck and attached to her butt was an oyster and in it was a pearl worth $50,000. Please advise." The old man faxed back:
"Send me the pearl and re-bait the trap."

A funeral service is being held for a woman who has just passed away. At the end of the service, the pall bearers are carrying the casket out when they accidentally bump into a wall, jarring the casket. They hear a faint moan. They open the casket and find that the woman is actually alive! She lives for ten more years, and then dies. Once again, a ceremony is held, and at the end of it, the pall bearers are again carrying out the casket. As they carry the casket towards the door, the husband cries out:
"Watch that wall!"

When I went to lunch today, I noticed an old lady sitting on a park bench sobbing her eyes out. I stopped and asked her what was wrong. She said, "I have a 22 year old husband at home. He makes love to me every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshly ground coffee." I said, "Well, then why are you crying?" She said, "He makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favorite brownies and then makes love to me for half the afternoon. "I said, "Well, why are you crying?" She said, "For dinner he makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favorite dessert and then makes love to me until 2:00 a.m." I said, "Well, why in the world would you be crying?"
She said, "I can't remember where I live!"

Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards. One day they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, "Now don't get mad at me....I know we've been friends for a long time.....but I just can't think of your name! I've thought and thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is." Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said
"How soon do you need to know?"

THE SENILITY PRAYER Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Now, I think you're supposed to send this to 5 or 6, maybe 10 . oh, send it to a bunch of your friends if you can remember who they are! Then something is supposed to happen . . . I think.

8.) Your Subscription Details

You are receiving this free newsletter because you subscribed to it or because someone thought you would enjoy it.

If you like the content of Keeping in Touch, please feel free to forward each copy on to as many folks as you wish. And, encourage your friends and family to visit with us at SeniorSSuperStoreS and sign up for their own subscriptions. Or, they may sign up for their own subscriptions by emailing us at "seniors-request@seniorssuperstores.com" and include the word "join" in the body of the email message.

So, until next time, here's goodbye. Remember, if you want us to add any resources or items of interest, just drop us an email from the SeniorSSuperStoreS Contact Us page. Watch your email box for future newsletters!

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