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AARP Says Drink More Coffee
(AARP, January-February 2007 issue, p. 40)
The steaming cup that wakes you up can also keep you healthy. Research shows that coffee protects against a variety of ailments from cavities to colon cancer. And some studies suggest that the more you drink, the better. The beverage lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes and can protect your liver from damage, too. Caffeine gets the credit for some of coffee s magic powers, including protection against Parkinson s disease and gallstones. But coffee s main benefit comes from its wealth of antioxidants. In fact, the coffee bean, which is technically a berry, has one of the highest antioxidant contents of all berries, says Tomas de Paulis, Ph.D., formerly of the Vanderbilt University Institute for Coffee Studies. That s why, drop for drop, coffee has more of these nutrients than even red wine. If you have osteoporosis, be sure to follow your doctor s advice for calcium supplementation, because in some studies, coffee drinking has raised the risk of bone fractures.
Wednesday January 3, 2007 – 03:49pm (PST) Edit | Delete | Comments: 1
Do You Have a Code? Sister Alma Rose Q & A
Q. Dear Sister Alma Rose–I am self-employed and work at home. Because I am a night owl, my workday begins at about 10 p.m., and I usually turn in between 8 and 10 a.m. The problem is, I don’t know what to wear. I mean, should I work in pajamas and then change into daytime clothes for… well, you know, for daytime? Or should I just wear sweats all the time, day and night? Here’s another thing: I don’t know when to eat breakfast. I mean, it’s not like anyone else would know, but it just feels funny having baked salmon and creamed spinach while the Today show is on. –Signed, Pale and Wan in Oregon
A. Dear PWO–Sister Alma Rose thinks you should get out more. It doesn’t matter what your dress code is, as long as you have one. Otherwise you’ll find yourself wearing the same set of sweats day after day, night after night… losing track of the hours, the weeks, the months… letting the mail and the newspapers pile up… neglecting your friends and family… slithering around in caves and lagoons looking for your ”Pretty”….
If you had any kind of social life, you wouldn’t need to ask Sister Alma Rose what to wear, or when to have baked salmon versus Malt-O-Meal. She suspects that once you have restored some balance to your life, these little matters will resolve themselves and you can apply your energy to things that matter, such as world hunger.
Sister Alma Rose does not recommend wearing Levi’s to bed, especially if you sleep on your stomach. You’ll end up with a permanent Levi’s-button indentation in your stomach. Nor should you don professional office attire, such as a natty little black suit and pumps with three-inch heels, when you’re working at home at 4 a.m. Your clients are unlikely to pop by and besides, Sister Alma Rose believes that pantyhose should never, ever be worn, including at gunpoint.
Friday November 24, 2006 – 11:42am (PST) Edit | Delete | Comments: 0
Sister Alma Rose Q & A: Gotta Dance!
Q. Dear Sister Alma Rose I take tap-dancing lessons once a week. I have now missed three lessons in a row. Even when I plan my entire week around this one lesson, I just don’t get there. Not only do I feel that this is rude and disrespectful to my instructor, and that I am missing out on something I really enjoy, I also know that my instructor feels that I am a very promising dancer. She has told me that my dancing puts her in mind of Savion Glover had he been born “stiff, uncoordinated, and a different species, e.g., tortoise or bison.” I hope you can help! Sincerely, Uncoordinated in Utah
A. Dear UIU Did she really say “e.g.”?
Q. Of course not! Nobody has said “e.g.” since Tiberius! “E.g.” is Latin!
A. Sister Alma Rose is sorry to hear that you are having difficulty meeting your goals. She assumes that you have ruled out the more obvious explanations for your lethargy, e.g.
- Anemia due to blood loss as a result of having been run through with a bayonet
- Coma as a result of, in spite of the WARNING on the bottles, mixing chlorine bleach, ammonia, and other cleaning products “just to see what happens”
If you have eliminated these possibilities and you get plenty of sleep; eat seven servings of terrible-tasting vegetables per day such as brussels sprouts; ingest no lactose, fructose, glucose, sucrose, or anything else ending in “-ose” (e.g., mangose); go for a brisk 45-minute walk twice a day; are “regular” in your “hygiene”; meditate often and practice yoga, imaging, receptiveness, gratitude, and breathing; and are experiencing absolutely no stress Sister Alma Rose would say you are just lazy.
Please do not think Sister Alma Rose is unsympathetic. She understands that one’s self-esteem is inversely proportional to the gap between one’s intentions and one’s success at fulfilling them, although in her case this “gap” is purely hypothetical. This is especially true if these “intentions” involve commitments to others.
Sister Alma Rose’s advice, for the moment, is that you reexamine your general health, double-checking for, e.g., bayonets and coma under the supervision of a board-certified physician. Meanwhile, avoid making commitments. If you are invited to a party or asked to take on a task, reply by saying, “Perhaps,” or, “We’ll just have to see.” You could smile in a dreamy, mysterious way, as if it is not you but the Demigods of the Sky and the River that will determine where you will be at any given point in time. (Practice doing this in a mirror until you can do it with assurance or you might alarm your children, who will teach you a new definition of the word commitment.)
Friday November 10, 2006 – 12:23pm (PST) Edit | Delete | Comments: 0
Birthday Berry Protocol
Sister Alma Rose Q & A
Q. Dear Sister Alma Rose–I know you have answered this question many times before. I apologize for bothering you with it again, especially since it is the type of thing that is never likely to happen to me or anyone I know… but just in case, and purely hypothetically:
If someone who is lovely, delightful, and charming–your daughter, for example–comes to visit you on your birthday along with, oh, say, her husband and four children, your brother, and a close friend… and she brings you a large, luscious birthday cake laden with cream cheese and raspberries… and she serves you a massive piece of this cake and leaves three huge pieces in your refrigerator… and everyone sings “Happy Birthday,” and you blow out imaginary candles because the relevant number of real candles would require six cakes of comparable size plus the entire surface of a grand piano… and after a lovely birthday celebration everyone leaves and you promptly eat the three “extra” pieces of cake, which, inasmuch as you have never experienced anything as tasty and delectable as this cake, merely serve as an appetizer…
If, in the unlikely event something like this should happen to you, wouldn’t you disown your daughter and cut her out of your will and spread malicious gossip about her and go to her house at midnight and run the garden hose into the basement window and turn it on full blast (for starters), and put up a sign by the window announcing “Spider Jubilee Tonight”– in retribution for her not having left you the entire cake and possibly a second backup cake, inasmuch as it was, after all, your birthday, even if she had given you as a birthday present two tickets to “An Evening with David Sedaris,” which you went to, even though you were very put out with your (hypothetical) daughter, because “An Evening with David Sedaris” is at least ten thousand times more enjoyable than “An Evening of Flying to Paris on Your Own Personal Jet with Richard Gere and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and a Ten-Thousand-Dollar Gift Certificate Redeemable at Any Parisian Retail Establishment”?
A. Yes
Sister Alma Rose Has the Last Word 