NINETY-NINE AND WORKING

When should you retire?

If that question is ringing in your mind, better keep away from friends, advisers, therapists, TV doctor, or real living doctor, who might say, "At your age you should be ... at your age you shouldn't..."

Do not think at my age, I should do this or that. Don't ask "Why am I forgetting things," or "why didn't I hear that?" Those questions lead to appointments with doc, dentist, or eye guy.

The World Science Festival said, "Age 90 Is the new 50.” Pooh!  If you're in the nineties, or approaching 90, just think of Betty White, or Warren Buffet.

Be wary of age-brackets, age cliches, rationales, and age as a factor.  BANISH THE NUMBERS.

Just ask yourself, "What would I do, IF I retired?"

Read what? travel where? paint - write or tweet or like stuff on Facebook? Volunteer, be a peer for other retirees, poor folks, kids, pets?

Gee, well, I could make a braided rug from scraps of clothes I planned to give away -- if I start today, it could take a year.

Flash to Plainfield, New Jersey -- a 99-year-old woman is teaching cooking and sewing at the Sundance School.

She started at 81. Agnes Helesnik is her name.

Her pupils call her granny. They recently celebrated her 99th birthday. They said, "Granny makes it worthwhile, coming to school."

Granny, sounding very with it, said delightedly, They're just something else."

Be, do, try "something else."

The time to retire is once a day, more or less at bedtime.

Tell your loving pals, "Sometime after 109 or 119, I might think of taking a break."

Here's Granny celebrating her 97th birthday.

 

MONICA LEWINSKY

Unforgettable face, the beret, the love in her eyes...

A president almost impeached for his relationship with her.  

Phone sex, and sex in the Oval office... His semen stains on the blue dress she wore...  In front of a Grand Jury, shocking testimony  heard throughout the world... Her shocking answers to what he and she SAID, and DID, heard throughout the world.

Others got fame and glory from the scandal: Linda Tripp, a best friend this girl never should have trusted, became a name. Kenneth Starr, who was investigating other Clinton wrong-doings, became an even bigger name. Other names floated around -- a UN Ambassador the President asked find a job for the girl -- a literary agent who advised Tripp to record her conversations with the girl -- anyone, everyone who was even trivially involved, became a name.

Other womanizing Presidents -- Jefferson, Harding, FDR, Eisenhower, Johnson, JFK -- they are still heroes. Clinton's blatant lies about this girl are on a tape that makes you cringe, but Bill is certainly a hero today. And his wife Hillary, who stood tall throughout the scandal, is most definitely a heroine -- a woman beloved by other women, admired for the way she handled infidelity, as well as her political campaigns for the Senate and the presidency, and her work as Secretary of State. 

And the girl? She was a spokeswoman for Jennie Craig for a few months, but let go -- perhaps, because there were complaints that she represented wrong-doing, or maybe because she was gaining weight. She went into the pocketbook business, but her expensive purses did not sell well. Her dates with other nice-looking, ordinary men were in the gossip columns with photos. Talk of the tell-all book she was going to write was mentioned in the news. Other jobs -- jobs for which she was eminently qualified -- her notoriety got in the way and employers turned her down.

Now, today she can walk down the streets of NYC unnoticed. (Is that why she's wearing sunglasses on a gloomy dark day?) Apparently paparazzi and autograph hounds don't pay attention to her these days.  

Googling, I learned that she gave up her expensive one bedroom condo, and moved back in with her mother who has a penthouse in NYC. She's still unemployed, and still looking for a job. There have been no husband, no babies, or that home in Westchester that she, quite often, said she wanted.

Recently, the girl (she's 39 now), told a friend, who told some friend who knew someone on OnlineMail.com, U.K (my source for this post,) that she's working on her book -- that tell-all book that's been mentioned before. OnlineMail reports that there's a $12 million deal on the table.

If it's published would you buy it?
 
How you answer that question tells us what the reward is -- for Monica Lewinsky's 15 minutes of fame.

RACING IN MUD

Racing in mud is a sport now.

You learn to squirm, squiggle, paddle through mud and muck, while dodging dangers, spitting out, coughing out, shouting out to other contestants while you're racing past other stuck-in-mud "Mudders," after you've helped them get unstuck. 

Huh? Helped them? Hey, how can you win a race, if you' stop to help other guys?

On ToughMudders.com, I carefully read the vow -- when you join you pledge to help other mudders. I learned that most mudders have already survived challenges like the "Arctic Enema," (submerging your entire body in a vat of ice), and tried a "Kiss of Mud" (crawling through a thick mud patch, with barbed wire a few inches above their heads.)

I read about the new challenge -- "Electric Eel."-- live yellow wires -- they are dangling over the mud. As you travel, you have to contort yourself to avoid the 10,000 volt shock that a yellow wire can give you. The article said, "It's like trying to drive your SUV through a car wash without getting it wet."

"Tough Mudders" was hatched four years ago in a business-plan class at Harvard, and launched in 2010. The company generated $22 million in revenue in 2011; $70 million last year -- 60,000 people paid from $95 to $200 to participate in "Tough Mudder" courses. And this year there are 53 Tough Mudder events scheduled in 47 cities.

Participants buy their outfits -- mudder-branded T-shirts, shoes, and the orange headbands you buy and wear after you complete an event. (On Ebay you might be able to buy a headband for $100.)

Tough Mudder says it's a $150 million-plus industry, and preaches that it is "not a race, but a challenge." The camaraderie is almost religious -- if you're stuck, other mudders help you. At the starting line, participants kneel and recite the Tough Mudder pledge: "I do not whine -- kids whine. I help my fellow Mudders complete the course."

Is it a reaction to the economy, to what's happening in the world? Or is it a way escaping today's realities?

Tough Mudder co-founder, CEO, 32-year-old Will Dean, a former counter-terrorism analyst in the U.K, says, "I think a lot of people right now feel this sense that the world is against them. They are battling debts, trying to get a job. One thing you can control is your training for Tough Mudder. We believe very strongly that experiences are the new luxury goods."

Dean sums it up: "Wending your way through muddy filth, and electric torture is more thrilling, more valuable than a new, fancy watch. You have something to gloat about, and access to the best bragging machinery in history -- Facebook and Twitter.

The company has nearly three million Facebook "Likes," and other social media are peppered with photos of triumphant Tough Mudders wearing their orange headbands.

Hmm. Maybe if you play this new game -- practice it -- you'll be able to handle your life with more ease, and confidence. But for me ... well, I'd rather not practice tough-muddering. But, as a blogger, I can certainly try to write about higher voltage subjects, and use high voltage words.

Hey -- I've got a great-looking bright orange scarf --
maybe it'll help if I don it and kinda mutter and mudder my way into a recommendation that will inspire to try muddering.

Want to win an orange headband?  

The videos will help you decide.