Holidays high on stress meter

This may be a difficult holiday season for some of us. Daisy Goodwin writes that “Christmas comes pretty high on the stressful-event index, right after divorce and moving.”

I just re-read Yeats’ “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing,” and that, coupled with Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” seems to help.

I am tempted to offer suggestions based on past holidays but the truth is that I am still baffled by some everyday events. I am thrilled when I am able to open a carton of milk without either breaking a fingernail or ending up with a ragged hole which means that the milk pours out at an oblique angle, usually missing the glass. Surely I am not alone in this?

Another pillow, perhaps?

In the last column, I described a pillow called “My Boyfriend’s Arm,” which caused much comment – so here is another one.

Called the Hug, it was designed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. It’s the size of a firm throw pillow, shaped like a person about to give a hug with two arms reaching up from the torso. It uses sensing and wireless phone technology to connect distant family members – for example, a child and her grandmother.

To send a hug, the child would squeeze the left hand of the pillow and speak her grandmother’s name into a microphone on the top of the torso. The grandmother’s Hug would light up and play sounds and she would say hello, opening a direct link between the two of them. The girl then squeezes or pats the soft velour pillow, causing vibrations and heat in the grandmother’s pillow.

The hug is ended by pressing the right hand and saying goodbye.

Sadly, the Hug is not ready for Christmas giving.

He’s how old?

Google Inc., the search engine company, has been sued by its recently fired director of operations, who contends that the company has “cultivated a culture that discriminates against older workers.” Google fired him because he didn’t fit into a culture known for its “youth and energy.” He is 54 years old.

True caregivers

If you have not already read it, I recommend the new book by Gail and John Goeller, “Coming of Age with Aging Parents: The Bungles, Battles and Blessings.” Sixty vignettes about their experiences with their own parents as well as a 50-page appendix of resources make this a sensitive and valuable guide.

Walking equals brains

The Sept. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association describes a study which tracked the exercise habits of more than 18,000 women for 12 years and found that those who walked regularly “had the mental acuity usually associated with people several years younger.”

Women ages 70 to 81 who walked at least six hours weekly had a 20 percent lower risk of impairment than inactive women.

A closing thought

My friend Sally Pierone wrote me that “the virtue of true love is not in finding the perfect person, but in loving the imperfect person perfectly.”