Walking is great exercise. A woman my weight (mumbledy-something) can burn 80-100 calories an hour simply by putting one foot in front of the other. Adding a dog can increase the calories burned – either from trying to keep up or by trying to drag him or her away from hydrants, bushes, other dogs, etc. It can also give you the added bonus of getting your dog in shape.

But why stop with one when you can walk five dogs?

Jazz Up the Job Interview...

I read an article in the business section of my local paper about how hard it is for people over fifty to find new jobs, despite the fact that most employers and the U.S. Department of Labor say we’re usually more dependable and skilled than many younger workers.

This news might be depressing to some mid-life career seekers, so I’ve decided to help by coming up with a list of ways to appear more like a twenty or thirty-something when applying for a new job. If you try these techniques, I guarantee you’ll probably still not get the job you’re after, but you certainly will have more fun trying:

Get something pierced.
And no, it doesn’t count if you’re a female and you’ve already got two pierced ears in which you wear delicate gold studs or maybe tiny diamonds. In order to make a statement during your interview, you either need a small nose piercing or several holes stapled in the top of your ear into which you thread multiple metal rings. Make sure that the number of earrings in your right and left ears are not equal. Having a piercing says “I’m hip and I’m accustomed to pain.” Who wouldn’t want to hire someone like that. Caution: Don’t pierce your tongue immediately prior to an interview. Drooling isn’t hip.

No Trade-Ins

My 1994 Honda Accord has 201,937 miles on it today. It reached the magic 200,000 milestone the same week I rolled from my forties to my fifties. I tried to synchronize things so that both momentous events happened at once, but my mother-in-law fell the week before and had to be escorted to the doctor.

I am her taxi service of choice. (By the way, the doctor’s diagnosis was: “She’s lucky she has a large rear end, otherwise she would have broken something.”) See, I knew there were advantages to that extra padding!

Bigger Than Life

No matter what women say, to men size does matter.  When it comes to TVs, that is. I have yet to meet a man who didn’t lust after a bigger television set.  In fact, I’m pretty certain that if it were for sale, my husband would somehow come up with the money to buy the Jumbotron they use at the Super Bowl.  It wouldn’t matter that it’s four times the size of our house.  He’d jerry-rig a tent to keep out the elements, run four or five extension cords (all duct-taped together to make sure there wasn’t a loss of power), and drag his lounge chair out to the back yard. 

Don’t Do the Math

I remember when my medicine chest was full of fun stuff like perfume, eyeliner, and Rolling Stones concert tickets I was hiding from my parents.  Today though, it’s mostly full of lotions and creams with the phrase “anti-aging” somewhere on the label (usually it’s the only thing in a type size I can read).  There in the right hand corner next to my hair mousse (I use mousse instead of spray because saying “mousse” to my friends makes me feel hip) are two bottles of stuff, one that guarantees to “reduce the signs of aging by 61% in one week” and one that guarantees “84% more youthful skin in three days.”  I wonder if I mix the two, can I actually turn back time and look like I did in a previous life?  Maybe when I was Cleopatra.