R.I.P. And Pass The Buffalo Wings

Hard to know what to think about this one.

An interesting story in the Press-Enterprise, a newspaper that is based...somewhere (its website is amazingly vague about that), is promoted with this irresistible headline:

"Funerals are becoming a personal celebration."

This is how it begins:

"Louise Felicetta threw her husband, Dominic, a big bash on Feb. 24, the day after his 72nd birthday. At the Gourmet restaurant in San Bernardino, 200 friends and family members nibbled on wings and meatballs, danced to a live band, watched the couple's life unfold on videos and sifted through photos and memorabilia.

"But the guest of honor wasn't there. Dominic Felicetta, of Rialto, was dead. After a short bout with pancreatic cancer, he had been cremated. His ashes eventually will be co-mingled with his wife's and buried in the family plot.

" 'He didn't want a funeral or memorial," says Felicetta, 79. "It was a special day. I came home a little sad, but uplifted." '

Yep, that's how I'm hoping Mrs. BoomVista will feel on that somewhat special day. A little sad, but oh-so-uplifted.

Setting that aside for the moment, along with the fact that the piece attributes all of this to self-absorbed Baby Boomers, even though Mr. Felicetta and his slightly melancholy but uplifted widow are Boomer Emeriti, the article does reflect a growing reality.

Many of us are unlikely to do the fill-in-the-blanks funeral routine. As the piece says, without any apparent awareness of the pun, "Blame it on baby boomers for thinking outside the box."

Mrs. BoomVista, for instance, knows that I want to be buried with a portable XM Satellite Radio and a six-pack of batteries. Yes, XM's 60s music is that good. I'm serious (not to be confused with Sirius).

What about you? Given it any thought? Oh, c'mon, you know you have.

The rest of the article is here. (Upon close examination, the Press-Enterprise might cover the Riverside-San Bernadino area of southern California. But it's apparently not the sort of thing they want to say definitively on their web page.)

A Balancing Post (rimshot)

OK, so most of us remember the days before Black/CrackBerries, before cell phones and, more to the point I'll eventually get to, before pocket calculators. We remember pencils and paper. We remember those damn multiplication tables.

Boy, do we remember those multiplication tables. And, speaking for myself, I want to keep remembering them.

So I balance my checkbook the old-fashioned way. I insist on receiving hard-copy monthly statements in the mail (you have to be careful - banks are developing all sorts of tricks to get you to click the 'electronic delivery' box). And when the statements arrive, I pull out a pen and the checkbook, and I add and substract and curse and whine and so on and so forth.

Now, I'm no Luddite. I have computers, 6.0 DSL service, a wireless home network, satellite TV and XM Satellite Radio (I still have to get to that post), and I know I can go online and pretty much have the bank do it for me or program the computer to do it.

But I don't. And I usually don't use a calculator either, for the same reason I sometime walk stairs when I can ride an elevator. Exercise.

I want to keep this brain - or reasonable facsimile thereof - as sharp as I can. And I'm thinking (rimshot redux) the best way to do that is to keep exercising it.

Whaddya think? Anyone have a similar hard-headed policy about bank statements and checkbooks? Other examples of the same sort of thing?

We Bet They Do

First, the kicker quote from an AP story about nudist colonies seeking to recruit younger members as an offset to the wrinkling maturing crop of Baby Boomer customers:

"Unlike any other place in life, people actually look at you when they talk to you."

Yes, we bet...

Anyway, the rest of the article is here. It, uhm, raises the question: How comfortable would you be on the receiving end of widespread visual attention?

Beep-Beep

Submitted for your consideration:

This paragraph from today's Wall Street Journal story about the Blackberry/Crackberry service outage, an article that is reproduced here with a little emphasis but no additional comment.

"Tuesday night, the West Coast was wrapping up its workday when the outage began. Lori Sale, a senior agent at the Los Angeles-based talent agency International Creative Management, was at her 14-year-old son's baseball game when her BlackBerry stopped working. She first realized something was wrong at about 5:15 p.m. PDT, when she noticed she had received no emails on her BlackBerry since 5:03 p.m. Ms. Sale, who estimates she receives more than 500 emails a day, became alarmed when her boss then called and asked why she hadn't responded to his email sent four minutes earlier about a sudden problem."

Turning (gulp) 60

Here it comes. Just a few months away.

Mrs. BoomVista has been insisting that I choose an appropriate way to celebrate The Big 60, so I finally did. We take a quick getaway to a nearby resort with the daughter and son-in-law. Minimum travel, maximum relaxation.

Was just informed that it was vetoed. The four of us are going to Vegas, I was told. As soon as I make the plans for everyone.

That sort of thing aside, I've been trying to get my head around turning 60.

Never had a problem with any prior birthdays.

Thirty. Forty. No prob. Slid right through them. Fifty? Slight hesitation, interesting number, but not all that significant. Let's move on. What's next?

Well, 60. That's what's next. And this one is causing some pausing.

Not too hard to figure out why. Let's face it, when we were kids and our grandparents were 60, they were old. Really, truly old. Get-some-pocket-change-right-now-from-them-because-they-may-not-be-here-tomorrow old.

So 60 equaled old. No two ways about it.

Now, times have changed. With luck, we're healthier, wealthier and...younger...than they were at 60. And that's good.

But...stilll...60.

Hmmmmmm....

Thoughts? Click the comments button. (And...hurry)

Do You REALLY Want To Do The Math?

So, David The Blogging Head Coach (yes, BoomVista has its own coaching staff, including a few people whose assistance was actually sought) brought to my attention a "formula" that's sort of...scary...for Boomers to consider, in a purely theoretical way, of course.

It goes a little something like this:

If you were a man considering the acquisition of a mistress or a woman considering the acquisition of a ... hmm, there seems to be no mirror-image word for "mistress" -- lover, this formula supposedly produces the perfect age for your "friend."

Variously attributed to several groups, including our personal favorite, the French, the guideline suggests that you divide your age in half and add seven years. That would be the perfect age for your...friend.

So, now hang on to your keyboard here, if you are turning 60 this year, your mistress or whatever should be 37 years old.

Also, and here's where the Zoloft could come in handy, if someone were seeking you out as the chronologically ideal...friend, that person would have to be about 105 years old.

(And a good time was had by...no one.)

Anyway, if you need a little help doing the calculation, you can find a handy-dandy "Half Your Age Plus 7 Calculator" right here. There's also a somewhat over-the-top commentary attached to that site.

We promise to work diligently to avoid depressing items like this in the future and to think carefully before we take any more calls from David the Head Blogging Coach.

(Also please join me in hoping that Mrs. BoomVista has a busy day at work today and doesn't have time to check out the blog.)