Proof of the pudding

I like pudding. 

Chocolate. Butterscotch. Vanilla. Rice. Grapenut. Tapioca. And the near relations: mousse, flan, and whatever's in the middle of those chocolate volcano cakes. And, of course, bread pudding. (Worth a trip to New Orleans for, and it's near-ubiquitous there.)

My father had a colossal sweet tooth, so we always had desserts at our house, and when my mother didn't have time to bake, she'd whip up something quick. As often as not, that was pudding. If she enough time for making something but not enough time for baking something, she made chilled "parfait" of graham crackers and cooked chocolate pudding. If she had a bit of time but not enough for the graham cracker concoction, she made plane old cooked pudding. If she didn't have any time, she made instant. My mother was a scratch baker (and cook), but when it came to pudding, cooked or instant, it came from a little carboard box from Jell-o or Royal. 

Everyone (in their right mind) preferred cooked pudding to instant, but sometimes when it was instant-time, my mother made a combo of chocolate and vanilla, putting them in clear glass bowls - chocolate layer followed by vanilla layer, topped off with half of a maraschino cherry. (I can't say I've ever replicated this "recipe," but I do have a couple of those little clear glass bowls, which are very useful keepers of small amounts of ingredients when baking or cooking. Most recently, I used them for orange zest and freshly squeezed OJ needed for a yummy orange-shrimp-pasta recipe of mine.)

I like pudding.

I rarely make it, but when I'm out and see rice pudding, tapioca, or grapenut pudding on the menu - which I believe can only happen in restaurants/diners that specialize in non-exciting, non-innovative old time American-New England cuisine - I'll often order it. The one and only time I was in Greece, 50+ years ago, the treat of the day was finding a street vendor selling little cups of rizogalo - 

rice pudding dusted with cinammon. 

But one thing about pudding: with the possible exceptions of flan and bread pudding, pudding is eaten with a spoon.

Not so for the youth of the world, who've begun convening in parks and other central locations to eat pudding with a fork.

According to a recent article I saw in The Boston Globe, "eating pudding, in public, with forks" is "the latest social media-driven activity now sweeping the world." Or the GenZ world at least. (All I see on social media, which for me equals BlueSky, is the stuff of politics. That and cute dogs and the occasional poem.)

And the origins of forked pudding are in a country not generally associated with fun.  

The first Pudding mit Gabel [Pudding with Fork] took place in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, best known as the site of the country’s Supreme Court, in late August. Evidently, young people across Germany thought it was a tremendous idea. Within weeks, there were pudding fests in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, and other cities and towns.

These events attract crowds - a thousand or so twenty-somethings (zwanzig etwas) - and is now spreading around the world. It's recently arrived in the States. Although there was a recently small gathering at Boston's Northeastern University, and another in DC, it hasn't yet taken off. Let's give it some time.

The NU gathering was local, but I was not invited, anymore than an old geezer in the 1950's would have been asked to join in with a bunch of crazy college students seeing how many kids they could stuff in a telephone booth (ah, those were the days) or a VW Beetle. (I'm trying to come up with a similar youth fad of my college era. I guess it was streaking, but I was more into protesting the war in Vietnam.)

I'm happy that GenZ-ers are looking for ways to connect, and have fun, in real life. 

But pudding with forks? Why? Some have suggested the goal is to build community, and make new friends, a slippery grasp for togetherness, in a world that seems increasingly fractured.

But pudding with forks? Although spoons (löffeln) do a better job, I guess the answer is why not? 

The world is often a mean and ugly place, and young people are bearing a disproportionate burden of the meanness and ugliness, especiallly when it comes to what comes next. If you're living through particular and general existential crises, why not have some dopey fun and try eating pudding with a fork. 

The only downside is that it's harder to scrape the last of the goodness out of the cup using a fork. But I guess that's what tongues are for.

The proof of the pudding with forks fad will be to see whether it continues to grow, or just dies out. 

I may be sticking with the spoon method, but I'm rooting for pudding with forks to grow. With so much rancid stupdity and evil out there, we could all use a little fun. (Bonus points for the birthplace being Germany. Juhu!)

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Image Source: Silk

Tell me a StoryFile.

One of the corniest things I've ever seen in my life was the Talking Mr. Lincoln exhibit at Disneyland. This was more than 50 years ago, so I'm a little vague on the details, but I do remember thinking it was a bit ridiculous and a bit embarrassing. (Not as ridiculous and embarrassing as It's a Small World, but still, it was no Matterhorn, no Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, no Mad Tea Party.)

I believe that Abe is still out there in Anaheim talking up a storm, but the current version is more teched up and "realistic" than the weird thing I saw way back in 1972. 

I hadn't thought of Talking Mr. Lincoln in a while, but he (it?) came to mind when I saw an article in the NY Times on Story File, a company that's part of the emerging grief tech industry. (The grief tech industry? Man, if that's not a topic for another day.)

StoryFile: Authentic Interactions is "an AI-powered video platform that allows users to create and train conversational AI interactions, making AI conversations feel more human."

Well, I'd say "authentic interactions" is a bit of a stretch, but what Story File does is create an avatar that you can make eye contact with and ask questions of.

The Times article focused on the Listro family of NYC. Peter Listro is 80, and he's dying. His wife Joan and son Matt, who's 39, got Peter to agree to be videod answering questions about his life. One of the reasons Matt wanted this done is so that his future children - Peter's hypothetical grandkids - would get to know something about their grandad.

The family was taking advantage of one offering in a growing field known as Grief Tech, which ranges from chatbots trained on the communications of a person who has died to a program that uses virtual reality to create a 3-D avatar of a deceased loved one — a remarkably lifelike presence. The Listros decided on something in between: StoryFile would create an avatar of Peter that could converse through a video screen, as if his family were reaching him by Zoom. (Source: NY Times)

Matt came up with the list of questions about his father's childhood; building his business success; what advice he would offer Matt on the day he introduced his husband to his father; what he would say to those twinkle in god's eye grandkids. There was also advice for Joan to move on through her grief. Peter spoke about how he wanted to be remembered.

In addition to the questions Matt asked, they had Peter say "Hello," "Hi," "I love you, too," "Bye." They also had him record the response "I don't have an answer for that right now." That answer would be used it someone asks AI video Peter a question that he hadn't recorded an answer to. Because the Listros had opted for real - authentic as it were - responses that Peter had given. A more advanced Story File option lets the avatar go freelance. It combs through a person's social media, emails, and any other background content, so that the loved one's avatar will supply an answer to a question that the person behind the avatar hadn't actually answered in real life. 

Look, I'd give anything to have a video of my father answering questions we had for him. Would that this had been a thing when he was sick and dying. But that was in the dark ages, grief tech wise. My father died in January 1971 (a year and a half before I saw the Talking Mr. Lincoln). I believe that my sibs and I would all get a kick out of hearing what my father had to say, as would his granddaughters. 

But I have such vivid memories of my father, that I really don't need a video. It would just be a nice to have. 

It would also be nice to have a video of my mother answering questions. To have a video of my husband.

Maybe because I had the two of them for so much longer, it's my father whose video I'd most like to see. 

Sigh...

But making eye contact and pretending it was an actual convo - as opposed to just a video recording of an interview - is to me a step too far.

Not that I blame the Listros. If this helps them work through their grief - and lets Matt introduce Peter Listro to those grandkids-to-come - I'm all for it. Whatever gets you through the night. And the days...

Having the avatar answer questions that weren't asked, however, is a bridge too far to me. Too creepy. Too weird.

As someone who - I'm sorry to admit - occasionally looks at AI generated answers, I know that AI doesn't always get it right. The information that comes back is out of date, misleading, contradictory, stupid, or just plain wrong.

Imagine asking the avatar of a late loved one about something and getting an answer that makes you feel terrible, that has you questioning that late loved one and your relationship with them. 

"I would have voted for Trump....If you'd brought a Black woman home, I would have disowned you...You sound like a moron...I always liked your brother better..." 

Be careful what you wish for when you're asking questions that the late lamented can't actually answer, and can't explain. That you can't do any follow up on.

A bit ridiculous, a bit embarrassing. And just plain god-awful.

A canned video is one thing. (Yay!) An AI'd up video that you can make eye conact with. (Not for me, but yay!) A freelance avatar. (NFW!) Seems to me that this use of grief tech can definitely cause more grief.

Rat People? Hard to blame them...

As they come of age, every generation faces some sort of crisis or another, some worse than others. For my parents, it was the Great Depression and World War II. For Baby Boomers, the less dire but still challenging shift in the economy from boring-but-steady-work-for-the-same-company to globablization that shipped an awful lot of those boring-but-steady jobs overseas. And think of European Jews in the 1930's. Some existential crises actually are existential crises. 

Today's rising generation is Gen Z. Depending on who's calling the imprecise (at best) shot, this cohort covers those born between 1996 and 2010. Or 1997 and 2012. Or something. But most of the focus is on the Gen Zers (or Zoomers) who are in their late teens and twenties - the group who are in school or starting out in their careers.

A large subgroup of Gen Z are categorized as NEETS: "not in employment, education, or training." And a subgroup, centered in China, of the NEETS are the "rat people." 

In China, at least, Gen Zers are proudly calling themselves “rat people”—they’re spending entire days procrastinating in bed, scrolling on their phones, snoozing and ordering take out.

Across Weibo, RedNote, Douyin, you can find videos of the youngest generation of adults waking up, only to go back to bed. (Source: Fortune)

They spend their non-sleeping time - what there is of it - just hanging around, scrolling through their phones, only getting off the sofa or out of the bed to use the toilet or raid the fridge. 

It's not clear from the artice where and how these young folks live. Presumably someone's paying the rent and keeping the larder stocked. (C..f., mom and dad.) The rats are rejecting the Chinese "996" worklife of six days a week, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  They're doing nothing or the minimum they need to eke out an existence. Some of the "rat people" have, predictably, monetarized their "lying flat" way of life. And the Chinese art people aren't alone.

And it’s exactly what many Gen Zers in the West are doing too: In recent years, the youngest generation of workers has introduced Bare Minimum Mondays and quiet quitting to the working world.

Some have similarly modeled the laid-back lifestyle of another slow animal: Snails.

While I personally don't think that lounging around all day in PJs doomscrolling is the path to mental or physical wellbeing, I can't say that I blame the rats, the snails, or those who are just thumbing their nose at the rat race. 

The job market is softening. And with AI taking over the front end of hiring - and maybe even the middle and backends as well - it's harder to find a good job. Ghosting has always been an issue in the hiring process, but it seems to be getting worse. People make it through multiple interview rounds and don't even get the courtesy of a rejection.

If and when you do get a job, these young folks know that the specter of AI is everywhere. If you're not using AI to do at least part of your job, you'll soon be out of that job. And if you are using AI to "improve productivity and efficiency" or whatever the current bill of goods is, whatever you're doing to fix the errors that AI continues to generate big time is teaching AI to do their job - make that your job - better.

Some are forecasting 20% unemployment in the next five years, largely due to AI replacing entry level white collar professional work. 

And yet we sit here waiting for the tech bro AI tsunami to wash over us without questioning what it is the people are going to do for work once AI punches fully in. Or asking whether we'll guarantee an income to the rat and snail folks. And even if there is a guaranteed income - unlikely, given that we don't want everybody to have healthcare, housing, or food, let alone able-bodied young people, I still don't think it's a good idea to spend your twenties in bed doomscrolling, watching cat videos, and posting nonsense on Insta. 

(A side note on the terror that is AI: as I'm writing this, in early June, there's a provision in the god-awful budget bill that would outlaw state-level regulation of AI. Maybe that provision will get knocked out during reconciliation, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

So, there's AI.

Then there's the cost of housing in so many parts of the country (c.f., Boston) that makes moving out on your own prohibitively expensive. The gives young folks the depressing prospect of having a good job that pays what should be enough to live on. Yet doesn't. Fifty years ago, I had a cute little studio apartment that cost $150 a month - the equivalent of $900 in today's terms. I just googled, and these days, a similar studio in Boston rents for $2K+. That's a lot to pay if you're making $80K/taking home $60K. Especially if, as so many Gen Z (and others) are saddled with school loans that are seemingly impossible to get out from under.

Then there's the existential environmental threat, made worse for Americans as the US seems hell bent on making environmental matters worse. (Breathe in that coal dust, I tell ya!) 

And again for Americans, there's the looming threat of autocracy, the dismantling of the scientific apparatus that made the US economy so innovative and vibrant, the general embarrassment that our government has become. 

No wonder young folks are staying in bed with the covers pulled up over their heads. 

It's hard to blame them. 

But I still hope that the the Gen Zers in hiding do get up and out. For rats, snails, NEETs et a, there's this advice:

“For any Gen Zs stuck in this rut, my advice is to start small, but to start,” Leona Burton, career coach and founder of the professional community, Mums in Business International advises.

“You don’t need to have it all figured out overnight, so reach out to someone you trust, make one positive decision a day, and stop measuring success by someone else’s timeline,” she tells Fortune. “Whether it’s a part-time role, starting a side hustle or simply getting dressed and going for a walk, without your phone, every small step counts.”

“Above all, remember this: you are not behind, you are not broken, and you are not alone, but you do need to do the work and make that change.”

Sure glad I'm not young anymore... 

 

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Image source: South China Post

Oh, what have they done to the smiley face?

One of my home town of Worcester's many contributions to the greater good is the smiley face. 

It was "invented" by one Harvey Ball, a graphic artist who designed it as a morale-booster for the State Mutual Life Assurance Company in 1963. Ball, who never trademarked his creation, was paid $45 for his freelance work, which took him about 10 minutes to come up with. (I just saw on Wikipedia that Harvey Ball was a graduate of South High School, where my father - who was a few years older than Ball - also went to school. Yay, South High!)

Anyway, I started high school - not at South - in 1963, and somewhere during my high school years, the smiley face started becoming a thing. A classmate who likely had a parent who worked at State Mutual got a hold of a bunch of the little tin smiley face pins and gave me one. Which I often wore tacked onto my hunter-green uniform jumper. 

An aside on State Mutual: A decade later, home from my long European travel adventure and not yet moved back into Boston, I had a Kelly Girl job there. My task was to sit at a rotary typewriter and type the letter B on a multi-carbon form. All day, everyday. I worked with a handful of other "girls" in a little pod that was separated out with file cabinets from the huge open-concept office floor, one of a number of similar pods, chocked full of "girls," that here and there broke up the giant floor. The only men on the floor worked in offices off to the side.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve, our boss announced that we were in for a treat. Mr. Big - the company president - and a few of his minions, were going to be stopping by.

When she spotted them nearing, she hissed "Sit up straight, girls." 

Mr. Big stuck his head into our little pod and, without making eye contact, waved his hand vaguely our way and said "Merry Christmas, girls."

After he left our boss sighed and said, "Wasn't that wonderful? He doesn't have to do that for us."

In case you were wondering why morale at State Mutual Life Assurance needed any boosting. 

We were not, however, issued smiley face buttons. He may have left us some of those nasty red and green sprinkled sugar cookies. 

Over the years, the smiley face has become ubiquitous.

I was neither a lover nor a hater. It did make me smile, so more of a love, I guess. And I was tickled that it came from Worcester. And really tickled when, a few years ago, the city's new AAA Red Sox team, the Woo Sox, adopted Smiley as a mascot. (Of course I have a smiley-face Woo Sox cap.)

And, of course, once the smiley face (in all of its manifestations) became an emoji thing to add emphasis and color to your texts, I became a pretty regular user, frequently punctuating my texts with some smiley face variant. 

Turns out the OG image doesn't necessarily spread tidings of comfort and joy. Not to everyone out there, anyway. When it comes to the young folks, Gen Z:

Instead of conveying happiness, the grinning yellow face is now seen as dismissive, passive-aggressive, or straight-up sarcastic.

And if you’re sending it to younger colleagues or friends, it could be rubbing them the wrong way.

Hafeezat Bishi, a 21-year-old intern, recently told the Wall Street Journal that she was taken aback when her older co-workers used the smiley emoji in emails and texts.

“I had to remember they are older, because I use it sarcastically,” Bishi said, explaining that she often views the emoji as conveying a “side-eye smile” rather than genuine enthusiasm. (Source: NY Post)

Who knew? Not I. 

When it comes to communications, every generation does its own thing. And Gen Z is certainly welcome to theirs. (Oh, you kids!) But I kinda sorta feel a bit sad that they're changing the meaning of Worcester's own smiley face. 

Personally, I will continue to use it to convey happiness. Let others interpret it as they may.

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Image source: Wikipedia.

I'm taking my Benin Bronzes back, so there!

You've heard the old saw before. There are variants, but it's something along the lines of the first generation works in the factory, so the second generation can be doctors, so the third generation can be artists. Or something like that. 

So I give you Robert "Robin" Lehman, Junior.

Admittedly, when I'm talking about Robin Lehman, I'm off by a generation. It was his great-grandfather who founded Lehman Brothers, the late (and maybe lamented by some folks) investment banking firm that gulped its last in 2008. And Robin was the first gen not to run Lehman Bros, which had been head by his grandfather and father. Those gents, while running the family biz, had also been avid art collectors. So Robin clearly inherited the art jones, as well as the fortune that enabled him to collect art, make art (e.g., glass paperweights in the likenesses of great composers), and make documentary films. It's the art collecting, and the art donating, and the art un-donating that Robin Lehman's been in the recent news for. 

While the generation rise (fall?) from money makers to art makers - or art collectors - may be a bit off from the original proverb, it still holds that the further down in the family tree, and the more money shaking off that tree, the more likely you are going to get to do whatever you damned want without having to worry about paying the rent. (Note: Robin Lehman's four children are either artists themselves, or art-adjacent: as far as I can tell, two are artists, one runs an art gallery, and one runs Robin Lehman's glass gallery, where I guess he sells those famous composer paperweights. Of course I'm a tad bit jelly? Who wouldnt be?)

Anyway, Robin Lehman was in the news in late April because of a kertuffle over some art work - the Benin Bronzes, artifacts from what is now Nigeria - which he pledged to Boston's Museum of Fine Art (MFA) a decade ago. 

...and they have been displayed ever since in a dedicated gallery just off the museum’s central rotunda. But the provenance of the work has always been a problem: It’s well known that many of the sculptures were plundered during a raid of the West African Kingdom of Benin by British troops in 1897. (Source: The Boston Globe) 

Oops.

None of this is to say that Robin Lehman had anything to do with the plundering. He acquired the bronzes legitimately, presumably back in the day when the provenance of a work of art didn't worry about whether the art had been legitimately acquired to begin with. Museums and private collections are chocked full of antiquities that were spoils that went to the victors. And in recent decades, there have been moves - some successful, others dragging on - to return the works to their ur sources. Perhaps the most famous looted art pieces are the Elgin Marbles, stripped from the Parthenon in Athens in the early 19th century, and on display in the British Museum now for over 200 years. Who rightly owns them? Greece or England?

More recent controversies are over art stolen from European Jews in the 1930's and 1940's. (Last year, an Egon Schiele portrait which had been legitimately purchased - at the time, and so he thought - by Robin Lehman's father, was awarded to the heirs of the German Jewish family it had been stolen from.)

Anyway, the MFA has been upfront from the jump where the bronzes (some 30 artifacts) came from:

To exhibit the works the museum created a gallery that included information about the looting and invited the kingdom’s royal leader, the oba, to the opening. (Source: NY Times)

Well, obas come and obas go, and the new oba in town wanted the bronzes to be repatriated. So the MFA, which considers itself a leader when it comes to figuring out the right thing to do with its looted treasures (of which the MFA has plenty), entered into discussion with Lehman and representatives of the new oba. 

Those discussions ended this week with an announcement by the museum that almost all of the items would be going back to Lehman.

The gallery is now closed. The five bronzes where ownership had been transfered to the MFA are on exhibit in the museum's regular collection, and they're still working to finding "a resolution regarding the ownership and display." The warrior on horseback, shown above, was one that's been reclaimed by Lehman. 

Again, Lehman purchased the bronzes legitimately. And god knows there may be tax implications with respect to this donation. But it's all plenty messy.

Reflecting on efforts by the three parties — the Kingdom of Benin, the Museum of Fine Arts and Lehman — to find a mutual resolution regarding the bronzes, [MFA Director Matthew] Teitelbaum said in an interview, “We were constantly trying to align the various interests to achieve an outcome that honored history as well as the museum’s ability to display the works.”

“This was not the outcome anyone wanted,” he said.

Sadly, while I'm sure he has his reasons - financial and other - for rescinding the original donation (and I'm not saying that donation wasn't generous and civic-minded) - the story sure makes it look that Robin Lehman (a rich man with a boy's name) didn't just poutily pick up his marbles...errr, bronzes...and go home. 

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Today is my beloved sister Trish's birthday. Happy Birthday, Po. If I had a Benin Bronze, I'd give it to you - as long as it was okay with the oba.

Nothing neat about NEETs. (Pretty sad, really.)

The unemployment rate among American's 16-24 years old is running at about 9% - more than double the overall US average. While this is considered normal for this age group, it sounds like a very high number to me. It's roughly what the general unemployment rate was when I got out of business school in 1981, smack dab in a recession. And, take it from one who was looking for work at the time, 9% seems very high. 

I don't know what the unemployment rate was when I was in the 16-24 cohort. I was in school (high school, college, grad school) during most of that period, and whenever I wanted a job - summers, vacations, part time while in school - I found one. When I was 22-23, I worked as a waitress to fund travel. A few months waitressing at Durgin Park funded a couple of months driving and camping cross-country. Another few months waitressing at Durgin Park funded 5 months hitchhiking and camping/hosteling through Europe. At 24, I was doing crappy temp work which eventually led to a more or less real job and the decision to go to business school, which entailed taking courses in math, accounting, and economics so I'd look business-interested enough to get into a good B-school. (It worked.) 

Fast forward, and I'm a) old and b) mostly retired. I hang on to one legacy client and write their blog for them every two weeks. 

But basically, there's never been a time in my life from 16-74 (and counting) and beyond when I haven't been working (and these days, working is mostly volunteering) and/or in school.

Not so with the NEETs - those not in employment, education, or training - who make up a bit over 11 percent in the US (don't know how this squares with the 9 percent unemployment rate)  and about 20 percent of youth worldwide. 

I can't say that Iblame them. 

Young folks in the US have watched the middle class - especially the blue collar, factory-working middle class - crash down around their parents' ears. They're looking at a housing market (rental and purchase) that's pricing out even those with good jobs. AI is looming over even those with good jobs. Many are saddled with college loans that they'll be paying off the rest of their lives without ever making a dent in the principal. They're facing the existenial threat of climate change, and a volatile political environment. They're hooked on social media which, for all its many benefits, can be one big pool of anxiety, inertia, and just plain cess. 

Is it any wonder that so many aren't jumping for joy at the thought of working? That so many are grappling with mental health issues?

Gen Z are nearly twice as stressed out as millennials were at their age; More than a third of 18-24-year-olds are suffering from a “common mental disorder” (CMD) like stress, anxiety, or depression; And Gen Zers who are working are taking significantly more sick leave than Gen Xers 20 years their senior. (Source: MSN)

Anyway, it's pretty sad to think of these millions of young folks hanging around doing nothing - when they should be doing something productive, like working or learning or even (and I can't believe I'm saying this) earning money as influencers. Instead, I'm guessing they're sitting there with their phones, tablets, and gaming consoles, whiling away the hours on the biggest time-waster in the history of the universe: the Internet. 

Young men, especially, are increasingly disengaged, according to Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter.

“The NEET trend is mostly a male phenomenon,” she said.

Pollak explained that’s in part due to declining opportunities in traditionally male occupations, such as construction and manufacturing, while “women’s enrollment in schooling, education outcomes, and employment outcomes have mostly trended upwards.” (Source: CNBC)

"Young men," you say?

That's comforting. It's not like they'll be happy to hang around Neverneverland with their fellow lost boys. It's not like they're going to become neo-Nazis or the like while scrolling through anti-[your favorite goes here] vids and memes, cooking up ideas on how to get back at [your favorite goes here] - and figuring out how they can get their hands on a high-powered weapon so they can play out their fantasies in the real world. Which may be the only time they enter that world. 

Again, I don't blame them for opting out of an over-rated real world. I admire those who are deciding to live a less aimless consumption, McMansion-crazed life. Who aren't buying into the corporate cutthroat or the corporate hamster wheel. 

But you do have to do something with your life. And doing nothing in your twenties isn't going to set you up with much of a platform for the remainder of your life. 

This is the time to figure it out. If figuring it out means trying different types of work, or going to school: great! If figuring it out means trying to go the creative route, even if you can't (yet) make a living at it: great! If figuring it out means traveling or volunteering: great!

Hanging around doing nothing all day: not so great!

I have no solution for this, other than get off your arse and do something. 

Good luck, NEETs. I think you're going to need it.

All that rizz, Daddyo!

The Oxford English Dictionary - and who or what would know better? - recently declared rizz the Word of the Year for 2023. 

Rizz is not a word I've ever used, but I can imagine doing so at some point. Likely once it's found it's way to into the public domain after Gen Z has dumped it and left it to us Boomers. 

If you're not familiar with rizz, which may or may not be rooted in charisma, the word means:

....style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner," according to the Oxford University Press. (Source: NPR)

There's also some thinking that rizz can (also) mean game, as in you got game. (For this Boomer, the word brings to mind Ratso Rizzo, the creepy, pathetic character played by Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.)

Either way, as words go, rizz may not slay*, but it's fine. I might have gone with one of the nominated, runner up words: Swiftie (Taylor Swift fan). Because, seriously, all hail Taylor Swift. 

Other words in contention were situationship ("an undefined romantic relationship") and de-influencing (the opposite of influencing; instead of urging people to buy something, a de-influencer urges people not to buy it). I'd never heard either of these words. (I will say I like the idea of de-influcencing. All hail, de-influencers of the world.)

Anyway, having a slang word (that would be rizz) as the word of the year - vs. a not-so-slangy coinage like de-influencing - got me thinking about the slang of my youth, the 1960's and 1970's, when the Boomers were the Gen Z of our era. 

Fink. Neat. Neato. Cool. Groovy. Far out. Bummer. Bummed out. What's the skinny? Right on. Threads. Bread. Grass. Dig it. 

Fink was very popular when I was in high school, and I definitely used it. It sometimes meant ratting someone out, but mostly it was used for a suck-up, goody-two-shoes, brownnoser. Or as an all-purpose word for a jerk, used where people today might say a-hole. 

Neat and cool were also in my vocab, but I don't think I ever uttered the word neato, unless I used it with air quotes. (If we had air quotes back then. Maybe we just rolled our eyes.)

Same goes for groovy and far out. Those were words I only used sarcastically, likely when making fun of real hippies, or the fake hippies that appeared regularly as characters on Mod Squad and Dragnet. (I did use groovy when I was feelin' groovy singing along with Simon and Garfunke's 59th Street Bridge Song.)

I'm pretty sure I used bummer, and bummed out. (Still do.) My mother - no slanger, that's for sure - also used the word bummer when desribing someone (a male someone) as being at least somewhat dissolute. Wondering about this usage, I did a quick search and found that - in my mother's usage - the word came from bummler, German for loafer. Another of her drag-overs from her mamaloshen was lausbub, which is German for brat. (We thought she was saying "louse-poop", by the way.)

I don't remember using what's the skinny back in the day, but I do use it on occasion.

Although I was pretty political back in the day, I don't recall using the term right on, but I may have gotten caught up in things and shouted it out to show my approval for a speaker at some demonstration or other.

Did I use threads for clothing? I don't think so. Did I call money bread? Maybe once in a while. Did I call marijuana grass? Absolutely. Dig it? 

Dig it? Never used this term. (Other than singing along with Friends of Distinction's Grazin' in the Grass - baby, can you dig it.)

Given my spotty record of fully adopting the slang of my generation, would I have used the word rizz? Well, Daddyo, I guess the answer's yes, no, maybe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Look at me, using young folks slang! Sometimes I just slay.

Rent a mom??? O tempora, o mores...

I didn't have kids, and, although I once was one, that was a very, very, very long time ago. And, as I learned in Latin III, which I took a very, very, very long time ago - when I was, in fact, a kid - O tempora! O mores! Which is Cicero for the times and the customs, they are always a-changing. 

We observe them a-changing is many different ways, including the emergence of new businesses that didn't exist when I was young. Influencer, anyone?

One of them new businesses is actually not that new.

In fact, Tammy Kumin founded her rent-a-mom company, Concierge Services for Students, in 1993. Which is snack dab in the middle of the era when, if I had had kids, I would have had kids. Of course, if I had had kids, I like to think that they wouldn't have needed a rent-a-mom: they would have had me. And I like to think that my kids, by the time they were old enough to be away at school, would have been skilled enough to make their own damned haircut appointments and done their own damned grocery shopping. 

But, since she's been in business now for 30 years, Tammy Kumin obviously identified a need and has been successfully fulfilling it for a good long time. 

When Kumin's business got off the ground, it was focused primarily on international students, where having someone in loco parentis for their kiddo - especially if they're away for pre-college, does make sense. (In loco parentis? Between this and a bit of Cicero, that high school Latin is sure coming in handy!) 

And, of course, if you're not handy, it might be worth it to have someone available to jump "on a plane in the wee hours to bail" your kiddo "out of a Miami jail," or hold your kid's hand in the ER. Even at the cost of $10K a year. 

But most of what Kumin and her staff of four rent-a-moms do is a bit more pedestrian than posting bail or helping a kid with an ER visit. 

For their money, parents can depend on their away-from-home offspring receiving regular food deliveries, academic assistance, beauty and spa appointments bookings, aid in making dinner reservations and signing up for gym memberships, apartment hunting, furniture building, party planning, doctor referrals, summer storage, as well as banking and bill payment support — just to name a few. (Source: NY Post)

Food deliveries? Spa appointments? Dinner rezzies? Party planning? 

FFS. I don't care whether these kids are high school or college age, shouldn't they be able to make their own dinner reservations?

“There are all kinds of things that come up for kids who are studying away from home,” said Kumin. “We’re there for them and they know it. They’re totally comfortable to let us know what they need — all five of us — we all know exactly what’s going on with each kid, how they live, their families, everything.”

However, her job isn’t to replace a young adult’s mom. Instead, she says she’s merely an extension of their mother’s love.

My mother loved me. I loved my mother. But, once I left home for college, there was no way in hell that I would have expected her to run my errands for me. In fact, when I was a kid, it was the kids who ran errands for their parents. Which is how we learned how to do things. 

When I was in first grade, I remember being sent down the block to buy light bulbs at the electric repair shop. Two years later, when I was eight and old enough to cross Main Street, I was frequently dispatched to the grocery store to pick up an onion or whatever else my mother found herself in need of. At 10, I was going door-to-door on a snowy February afternoon, collecting money for the Heart Fund - which was something my mother had signed up for. And so on and so forth. 

Given my family circumstances - my father suffered from kidney disease throughout my high school and college years, and died during my senior year in college - I probably had more responsibility than a lot of other kids my age. But everyone I knew growing up learned how to do plenty of things on their own.

Childhood to adolescence includes - or should include - a progression of learning how to take care of tasks that, once you've mastered them, put you well on the way to responsible adulthood. 

I am literally chortling out loud at the thought of being away at college and asking my real mother, let alone a rent-a-mom, to run out to the grocery store for a can of soup because I hated what they'd served for dinner in the cafeteria.

I understand that Kumin's service provides more, and that she does provide comfort and joy - even home-cooked meals at Kumin's house - to kids away from home, especially international students.

But then there's the 18 year old kid from New York whose family paid for her services:

“If I was homesick or needed a haircut or a point of comfort, and my parents were four hours away in New York, Tammy was there in 15 minutes,” said the high school senior. 

"Needed a haircut." Res ipsa loquitur.

I guess the good news is that this kid has aged out of the services and is now able to take care of things like haircuts on his very own own.

I paid a visit to Kumin's website, and here's what they have to say for themselves:

Sending your child off to school in a different country or state is emotional along with stressful. CSS is here to take the burden of your worries off your shoulders by offering a comprehensive concierge service for students. From pre-prep to post graduates our experienced staff will handle all aspects of getting your student settled into their home-away from home. Our team will available to your student 24 hours a day 7 days a week in case of emergencies from medical appointments to trouble on campus. 

I get the "in case of emergencies," especially if parents are far away. But then there's the list of the services her company provides:

PERSONAL SERVICES
Laundry/Dry Cleaning
Grocery Shopping
Food Deliveries
Dinner Reservations
Beauty/Spa Appointments
Gym Memberships
Car Services
Doctor Referrals
Hospital Assistance
Party Planning
Package Services
Travel Arrangements
Summer Storage
Banking, Bill Payment, and Insurance
Legal
Transportation

I'll give them that Doctor Referrals, Hospital Assistance, Summer Storage, and Legal. Even Banking, Bill Payment, and Insurance. These are things that parents might want the rent-a-moms to assist with, especially for high school and "pre-prep" kids, even college and older if the families are overseas, although in the digital age, most of these transactions can be handled remotely. 

But I really draw the line at items like Party Planning and Grocery Shopping. 

These aren't rent-a-mom tasks. I can't think of one mother I know who'd be doing this for their college-aged kids. (Okay, if your child is sick, you might hop on line and order groceries for them. Wait. I take that back. If your kid's too sick to place an online grocery order, they probably should be in the infirmary or at home.)

No, most of these don't require a mom's involvement - rent-a-mom or real mom. They're tasks that someone who's rich and spoiled would have someone else take care of for them.

There are no Latin words that come to me now. Just oy!

A career you can age in

Retirement, apparently, is not for everyone.

As is the case of four men - no strangers to the criminal justice system, wise guys with ties to organized crime - who were charged a couple of weeks ago with the armed robbery of two Manhattan jewelers. 

While dressed as construction workers - presumably the kind who had no-show jobs on The Sopranos, not the sort who actually swing hammers - Vincent Cerchio (69), Michael Sellick (67), Frank DiPietro (65), and Vincent Sapgnuolo (65) allegedly clipped $2M in jewelry. 

A fifth fellow - just a kid - was also charged. Samuel Sorce (25) was supposedly the wheelman for one of the robberies. Guess the old geezers wanted someone with quicker reflexes, better eyesight, and a heavier foot as their getaway driver. 

Mr. DiPietro’s lawyer, Mathew J. Mari, said his client was not guilty. Mr. DiPietro did work in construction, Mr. Mari said, had led an “exemplary life” in recent years and believed that he and the others had been arrested because of their résumés.

“He said, ‘They’re just trying to pin it on us because we’re career criminals,’” Mr. Mari said. (Source: NY Times)

Props to Attorney Mari for use of the royal - or is it criminal? - "we"? 

Anyway, those résumés are a mixed bag - impressive, but not magnificently so - as far as criming goes. 

Spagnuolo has done time for manslaughter and has a couple of robbery convictions. 

DiPietro is bigger time on the unsavory index:

In 1999, he pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a grand jury witness who had testified about a Lucchese-related drug conspiracy, court records show. The victim was found in a car in a remote area of Staten Island after being shot four times in the head. Mr. DiPietro was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison and released in 2016.

Leave the gun, take the cannoli?

As an aside: how do you get a sentence of only 19 years for shooting a grand jury witness four times in the head. 

Cerchio, an associate of both the Lucchese and DeCavalcane crime families, has been in and out of the stir on robbery and racketeering counts, including a "scheme to rob trucks of counterfeit cigarettes."

So, is it less of a crime if you steal counterfeit cigarettes from less than honest characters who traffic in counterfeit cigarettes?

Sellick's c.v. includes a few stints in federal prison for armed bank robbery. He's also a jailbreaker who got caught.

While these men all seem old to me to be committing crimes, which generally is a young man's game, "organized crime has long been the province of older men."

Elie Honig, a former top federal organized-crime prosecutor in Manhattan, cited several reasons for what he called the “perpetual graying” of the Mafia. For one thing, it takes years to climb the ranks; rarely is a member inducted, or “made,” before he is in his 50s. For another, Mr. Honig said: “There’s no such thing as retirement from the mob. They don’t have a pension plan.”

I guess Uncle Junior on The Sopranos feigning (or not) senility, and real-life mafiosi Vincent "The Chin" Gigante roaming around NYC's Little Italy in his bathrobe, aren't that far off the mark. 

The old geezers of organized crime stay engaged when they should be getting the hell out of the way and letting Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z hoods get a bite of the apple. 

Defense of the aging jewelry-theft gangsters is so far revolving around mistaken identity. But defense of advanced age organized crime figures typically involves bathrobes, "walkers, wheelchairs and oxygen machines."

See youse guys in court. 

Never really thought of organized crime as a profession you could age in, but here we are. At least if they're convicted they won't have to worry about their lack of pensions. On the other hand, if cold blooded murder only "earns" 19 years in prison, stealing jewelry may only get these fellows a couple of months reprieve of their pension-less existence. 

All hail, Martha Stewart!

I can't recall exactly when Martha Stewart came on the scene. Forty-ish years ago, I'm guessing.

I remember seeing her on TV, and pretty much every time she opened her mouth I thought 'how ridiculous.'

There was the hand-made wrapping paper, made using potato prints. The factory-perfect Christmas cookies that would have taken a mere mortal a kabillion hours to make, and which wouldn't have come out anywhere near as fabulous as Martha's. (Is that a reindeer or an elf???)

Then there was the revelation that she changed the duvet covers, curtains, and pictures on the wall in all the rooms of her home every season. 

What?

Even if I wanted to do something more theme-y for Christmas than throw the red and green plaid table cloth on the dining room table, and plunking the picture taken the moment before I stopped believing in Santa on the mantel, where would I store everything? And wouldn't it cost a lot? An awful lot?

For everyone who found Martha inspirational, there's got to be another who finds the thought of trying to keep anywhere near to up with her completely depressing. Probably the same person.

Secretly, of course, as much as I liked to make fun of Martha Stewart, I actually liked a lot of her design. Middle brow. Middle age. Whatever. 

I like her stuff, and have a bit of it around. 

The platter and bowl with the lemons and the blue sponge print trim? Just the thing for hosting Easter dinner. 

It may not be a full house beautiful overhaul for the holiday, but it's something. Something functional, something pretty, something affordable (great sale at Macy's). 

Then Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading.

She indeed done wrong. But her wrongdoing was pretty Mickey Mouse by swindler standards. I pretty much felt that if she hadn't been Martha Stewart, she wouldn't have spent a day in the hoosegow, let alone five months.

Anyway, I believe in second chances, so I was happy to see that she rebuilt her reputation and empire once she did her time.

And now she's a cover girl, gracing one version of the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. 

At the age of 81. 

I can't quite figure out what that swimsuit is. But I love the orange schmatta that's so artfully draped. 

Sure, the picture may have been airbrushed and filtered. But those 81 year old boobs are doing what 81 year old boobs tend to do. They're sagging. 

“I am so thrilled to be on the cover,” Stewart wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself clad in a white, deeply plunging one-piece suit.

She added: “My motto has always been: ‘when you’re through changing, you’re through,’ so I thought, why not be up for this opportunity of a lifetime? I hope this cover inspires you to challenge yourself to try new things, no matter what stage of life you are in.” (Source: WaPo)

The swimsuit cover is getting mixed reactions. 

I'm on team "You go, girl old lady!" And I'm in good company. Jennifer Garner commented "You are amazing."

But there's plenty of oppo commentary out there.

Martha isn't showing us honest aging. She's privileged, pampered, and has obviously had "work" done. (For the record, Stewart says that she hasn't had plastic surgery, but does admit to having work done by a dermatologist: plumping, botoxing...) The naysayers cry that the cover-girling of Martha is ageist and classist, that she's always been blonde and beautiful, and that putting her on the cover just plays to ageist, classist, racist, sexist, ableist definitions of beauty.

Yawn...Maybe standards of beauty are arbitrary, but I'm fine with having beautiful people do the modeling. 

However airbrushed and photoshopped, filtered and plumped, Martha Stewart may have been for her cover, she credits good genes for her looking so good. And she prepared for that shot:

Stewart told the “Today” show...that she had eliminated bread and pasta from her diet and went to Pilates classes every other day in preparation for her January photo shoot. It took place in the Dominican Republic, where she tried on nine different bathing suits and was snapped by photographer Ruven Afanador.

“To be on the cover at my age was a challenge, and I think I met the challenge,” she said on “Today,” adding: “It was kind of fun.”

“To me, it is a testament to good living, and I think that all of us should think about good living. … The whole aging thing is so boring.”

Well, yeah, "the whole aging thing" is kind of boring. But it's inevitable - at least if you'd prefer living to dying. 

But, what the hell. 

She's a woman of a certain age+, who grew up middle-class in New Jersey and, at a time when few women did so, built an incredible career for herself. And if the capstone of that career ends up being a cover on the SI swimsuit edition, well, good for her.  

All hail, Martha Stewart. 

Is it too late to learn Dutch?

There are plenty of good things about this country, but the way we treat those in need - the poor, the disabled, the homeless, the sick, the aged - is not among them. When you look at how we stack up against nations that are comparable in terms of development level and wealth, we don't.

Admittedly, the grass is always greener, etc., but when I look at the social welfare programs elsewhere, I mostly feel like the poor little match girl, shivering the cold, nose pressed up against the window, peering in and wistfully watching how the other half lives.

One place where the grass - or the tulips, or the windmills, or the wooden shoes - really does seem greener is the Netherlands, especially when it comes to looking for places where the olds are treated well.

On one list I found, they ranked third - behind Finland and Denmark - as the best place to grow old. (Criteria included longevity, health, security, and happiness.) The US came in 28th, nestled in there between Slovakia and Slovenia. (Or was it the other way around?).

Oh, even the Netherlands isn't perfect for the aged.

In a survey a few years back, more than half of those over 75 said that they were lonely.

This really isn't surprising. When you're older, you're not all that likely to be out working. Your kids are grown. Your grandkids may not be around. You may have physical problems that make it harder to get out and socialize - even to get out to wakes and funerals. Because, oh yeah, your peers are starting to die off and wakes and funerals are playing a larger part in your social life. Until they aren't.

So, yes, it wouldn't surprise me that the old folks - even in a good-for-the-old country like the Netherlands - experience a lot of loneliness.

But, because the Netherlands is a good-for-the-old country, they're trying to do something about it. Case in point:

A Dutch supermarket chain introduced slow checkouts for people who enjoy chatting, helping many people, especially the elderly, deal with loneliness. The move has proven so successful that they installed the slow checkouts in 200 stores. (Source: Dutch News)

The chain is Jumbo; the slow checkout is called a "Keltskassa", or chat checkout.

‘Many people, the elderly in particular, can feel lonely. As a family business and supermarket chain we have a central role in society. Our shops are a meeting place and that means we can do something to combat loneliness. The Kletskassa is just one of the things we can do,’ Jumbo CCO Colette Cloosterman-Van Eerd said...

‘We are proud our staff want to work the chat checkout, ‘Cloosterman-Van Eerd said. ‘They really want to help people and make contact with them. It’s a small gesture but it’s a valuable one, particularly in a world that is becoming more digital and faster.’  

This is a great idea.

Admittedly, when I'm at the grocery store, I just want to get in and out. Oh, I'll chat a bit - maybe - about the weather or whatever while I'm packing my groceries into my backpack and tote bags. And I've been known to make a tiny bit of small-talk convo with the folks at the local (indie) hardware store or the local (indie) drugstore or the local (indie) book store. 

Once in a while, I find myself making a remark to folks - complete strangers - I encounter on my walks. 

Especially on days when I haven't heard the sound of my own voice.

I live alone, and I'm fine with it. I've always liked my own company. I've always liked downtime, white space, me time. And I've always required a lot of it. 

And my days aren't communications-free. 

I text. I email. Sometimes I even get on the phone. 

And I do do things with actual real-live people. I volunteer. I go out to lunch or take walks or just hang out with friends and family. 

But I can see how people get lonely.

So I like the idea that there would be special lines in the supermarket - the anti-express checkout - where no one in the line behind you will be eye-rolling, snorting, foot tapping, or generally making impatient sounds and moves. 

Apart from the till, a number of Jumbo supermarkets also introduced a ‘chat corner’ where locals come to have a coffee and a natter.

What, me natter?

As a matter of fact...

And how's this for a natter? I think Kletskassa is a wonderful idea. Just lovely.

It's really not too late to learn Dutch. 

So, bravo en bedankt, nederland.

We could take a page or two from your book.

Go, Old Ladies!

As a bona fide, certified elder (Social Security, Medicare, half-price T-pass), I know full well that us old gals still got it - or, if not it, at least something - going. 

Sure, at least a measurable percentage of each old-to-old convo is devoted to health issues, from the most minor (crepey skin) to the pretty substantial (fractured sacrum). Or worse: someone's dying, someone's died. But, for most of the old ladies I know, life is good. 

We travel, and most of us are coming out of the covid cocoon and are going places.

We lunch, sometimes trying - catch this - new restaurants. Sometimes we even have a glass of wine at lunch

We take long walks and only take rest stops when we want to sit there and contemplate the water. Or the zinnias. Or the trees.

We go shopping. And not just for groceries. We still buy stuff. We still buy stuff whether we need it or not.

We hang with family and friends, and often manage to connect with old old friends. 

We laugh a lot. Sure, some of the time we're laughing about the young folks. But sometimes we're laughing at ourselves. 

We take courses for the hell of it. We book club. We share recommendations on our cable/streaming series binges. (Old Man is confusing, but seeing that old men Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow still have it going makes it worth it.)

We talk about the good things about being old. And that's not just Medicare and the half-price T-pass. Okay, hair-on-the-head thinning isn't a joy fest, but it's nice not to have to shave under our arms.

We dance at weddings without caring what anyone thinks about our technique. 

And we're do-gooders, volunteering our time, talent, and treasure to do what we can to make the world a better place before we part company with it.

Among the old lady do-gooders are a girl gang on the Cape who have dubbed themselves Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage. OLAUG for short.

OLAUG, who run the age gamut from 65 to 82, are cleaning the ponds on the Cape - there are nearly 1,000 of them - diving and retrieving the trash that has accumulated along the edges and along the bottom. According to their website, they scour about 6 ponds a year. So they won't be making much of a dent in their lifetime. Nevertheless, they persist.

Their top finds are: golf balls, fishing lures, beer cans, nips, fishing line, and sand toys.

But they also find hats, jackets, shoes, and "waterlogged dog toys" which Fido refused to water fetch. They've found cell phones and boxes of used fireworks, car tires and, once, a load of bricks. So far, nothing as dramatic as a body or a car, but that's not surprising, as the ponds on the Cape are smallish, and if a

body, a car, or a body in a car splashed into one of them, surely someone would know.

The teams have someone in a kayak who collects the junk, and a vanguard swimmer who swims ahead on the lookout for snapping turtles. (Ouch!)

In 90 minutes, a team typically removes hundreds of pieces of trash. 

Susan Baur, a retired psychologist, founded the group a few years back. She's 82, and the oldest member. 

To qualify as a member of the group, Baur says, prospective members must prove a few things. First, they’re strong enough to swim for hours, making repeated eight- to nine-foot dives. And second, they’re actually an old lady.

“There was a guy who absolutely wanted to join. I said, ‘No,’” Baur says. “Often they’re men, very often they're not old at all, and they're quite miffed when they say, ‘But I could help. I’m stronger than you guys. I could do this.’ I said, ‘Yeah, there's nothing three women can't do.’” (Source: Boston Globe)

Although I would qualify as an old lady, I can walk for hours, but not swim for hours. And I've never liked to put my head underwater. So I couldn't dive. Plus I don't live on the Cape.

But what a great crew. (I wonder whether they've cleaned any of the ponds I know: the kettle ponds of Wellfleet, the pond my cousin lives on in Dennis. I'll have to ask MB whether she's seen OLAUG in action.)

“I think middle age is often seen as the age of competence. It's when you do things… And then we're supposed to sort of stop,” Baur reflects. “But we are heroically adventurous. And I'm not leaving the age of competence, thank you very much. Not for a while.”

I'm with Susan Baur. I may not be OLAUG material, but I don't intend to leave 'the age of competence' anytime soon, either. 

Brava, OLAUG!

 

Only the lonely

I'm a BIG fan of assistive technology that will assistive us old geezers into being able to stay happily and contentedly in our very own homes. Some sort of kitchen doodad that can open a jar of Talenti pistachio ice cream? Bring it! A drone robot that can fly up to the top of the staircase ceiling and change a lightbulb? Absolutely. Telemedicine? I'm so there, holding my arm up to the camera: Doctor, does this bull's eye booboo look like something that will give me Lyme disease?

But a robotic pet - or just a robotic gizmo that looks like a nightlight - to keep me company and fulfill my emotional needs? Hmmmm. Gotta think about this for a sec. Thought about it. And it's a hard 'no.' At least for now.

Ask me again in another decade or so.

Maybe I'll be lonely then. 

Knock on quartzite countertops, but I'm good for now.

That's me. 

If you get comfort from a robotic cat or dog, it beats sitting around being lonely.

And the robotic cat does sound pretty cat-like, without having to put up with the smell of cat food and raking out the kitty litter box. For 92-year-old Virginia Kellner, who was given a "pet" by the department of aging in her rural upstate New York county, Jennie gives her a big lift.

Virginia likes the pet’s green eyes. She likes that it’s there in the morning, when she wakes up. Sometimes, on days when she feels sad, she sits in her soft armchair and rests the cat on her soft stomach and just lets it do its thing. Nuzzle. Stretch. Vibrate. Virginia knows that the cat is programmed to move this way; there is a motor somewhere, controlling things. Still, she can almost forget. “It makes you feel like it’s real,” Virginia told me, the first time we spoke. “I mean, mentally, I know it’s not. But—oh, it meowed again”(Source: The New Yorker )

Virginia has all her marbles, and she has family nearby who are attentive and caring. Still, she lives by herself, and it's nice having Jennie around. (Virginia had sweetly named her pet after a woman from the county department of aging. Another woman mentioned in the article named her cat "Sylvia Plath." I hope someone is keeping an eye on her - the woman, not the feline robot. I guess it'll be okay if all she does is stick the robot cat's head in the oven...)

Back to Virginia:

... “I can’t believe that this has meant as much as it has to me.” 

Good that having a fake pet around helps with isolation and loneliness.

Both are thought to prompt a heightened inflammatory response, which can increase a person’s risk for a vast range of pathologies, including dementia, depression, high blood pressure, and stroke.

A research study found that medical problems stemming from "social isolation adds nearly seven billion dollars a year to the total cost of Medicare, in part because isolated people show up to the hospital sicker and stay longer." 

Note to self: don't let yourself get isolated and/or lonely.

But if I do. there'll be plenty of assistive stuff available.

Eldertech. The isolation economy. Emancipatory technology. 

There's a lot going on out there with respect to elder care. Good thing, since the Boomer cohort is geezering up before our very (dimming) eyes.

On the companion end of things, the cats like Jennie and Sylvia Plath from Joy for All (which makes robot doggos, too) compete with devices that look more like a nightlight. 

Why, here's Gramps hanging out with one from ElliQ.

Unlike the cats and dogs, ElliQ isn't cuddly. It looks like a nightlight, or a good-for-nothing table lamp that's doesn't emit enough light for you to read by. 

Although owners have been know to draw faces on to ElliQ, 

The robot’s designers had decided not to give it humanoid facial features, so that it would “stay on the right side of the uncanny valley.”

Uncanny valley, you ask? That's the relationship between a robot who looks sort of human (or feline, or canine) and the emotional response someone has to it.

Anyway, it looks to me as if Gramps - a.k.a., A Study in Brown - has crossed that uncanny valley. He sure seems to be smiling benevolently on ElliQ when he could just as easily have been smiling on the old baseball mitt - brown, naturally - resting on his late wife's (brown) Lane hope chest.

Unlike the robot cats and dogs, which fake purr and fake bark, ElliQ is a talker. It greets its owner, and (like Alexis) can answer questions. And thanks to machine learning, ElliQ gets to know the human being it's moved in with.

The robot determines how “adventurous” a person is, then adjusts how often it suggests new activities. It learns whether its user is more inclined to exercise in the morning or the afternoon; whether she is more motivated by encouragement, or by a joke, or by a list of the benefits of vigorous movement...With new developments the company is working on, ElliQ will one day be able to remind users about a broader array of health-care tasks: taking meds, reporting side effects, describing symptoms.

I guess getting attached to your ElliQ beats getting attached to a Roomba vac, which one study found was happening.

Still, there's something a bit troubling about swapping out authentic human interaction with inauthentic interaction with a robot. 

The article mentioned several times that a lot of old folks try to hang on to extend telephone conversations with support people they don't even know. They invite the person who's dropping off their Meals on Wheels chow to sit down and visit for a while. 

Robots  to the loneliness rescue are well and good, but maybe the should be augmented with real human contact. It seems more than fair. After all, robotics/AI/machine learning are going to do away with millions of jobs over the next few decades. Maybe we need a new job category: visitor, conversationalist, human being. 

I'll all for it, and I bet the cat ladies and A Study in Brown would be, too. 

Nothing wrong with relying on the comfort of robots to save us from loneliness. We just might need to add in a bit more human-based TLC. Even if it is the comfort of strangers, there's no real substitute for the human touch.