Mountain Views News          Saturday, August 20, 2016

THE GOOD LIFE

9

Mountain Views-News Saturday, August 20, 2016 

HOW TO TRACK DOWN THINGS YOU 

ROUTINELY MISPLACE

SENIOR HAPPENINGS


HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ….August Birthdays

Bill Nelson, Karlene Englert, Juanita Fernandez, Jeanette Francis, Joseph Kiss, 
John Luke, Jacquie Pergola, Maury Whitaker, Pat Miranda, Phyllis Chapman, Jerry 
Burnett, Margaret Aroyan, Phyllis Burg, Beverly Clifton, Rosemary Morabito, Susan 
Poulsen, Dorothy Quentmeyer, Genevieve Stubbs, Miep Tulleners, Joy Barry, Ellie 
Baudino, Marcia Bent, Daryls Brechwald, Joan Spears, Ruth Torres, Jane Zamanzadeh and Harry 
Enmark. * To add your name to this distinguished list, please call the paper at 626.355.2737. YEAR 
of birth not required but you must be over 60.

...................................................................

ACTIVITIES: Unless listed differently, all activities are at the 
Hart Park House (Senior Center) 222 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre

 

 

 YWCA San Gabriel Valley - Intervale Senior Cafe 

Seniors 60 years of age and up can participate in the YWCA Intervale daily lunch program held 
at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Meals are served Monday through Friday at 12:00 pm 
and participants are encouraged to arrive by 11:45 am. Meals are a suggested donation of $3.00 
for seniors 60 and over or $5.00 for non-senior guests. Daily reservations are necessary, space is 
limited. Please reserve your lunch by calling 626-355-0256.

Tech Talk: Will resume in the fall. 

Hawaiian and Polynesian Dance Class: Every Tuesday morning from 10:00 - 11:00am. Join 
instructor Barbara Dempsey as she instructs you in the art of hula. 

Bingo: Every Tuesday beginning at 1:00pm. Cards are only $0.25 each! Everyone is welcome to 
join. May be cancelled if less than 5 people. 

Free Blood Pressure Testing: 2nd Tuesday of the month from 11:00am - 12:00pm. No appt. 
necessary. 

Brain Games: Thursday, August 18, 10:30 - 11:30am. Improve your memory and strengthen your 
brain. Activities facilitated by senior volunteers. 

Free Legal Consultation: Wednesday, August 17 from 10:30am - 12:00pm. Attorney Lem 
Makupson is available for legal consultation. He specializes in family law, wills, trusts, estates, 
and injury. Appointments are required by calling 626-355-7394. 

Sing-A-Long: Music brings joy to the soul. Come join us Thursday, August 11, 10:30 - 11:30am. No 
music skills needed! This month: “Silly Folk Songs”. 

Balance Class: Monday, August 15, 11:00 - 11:45am with Paul Hagen. A variety of balance exercises 
are practiced; all ability levels are encouraged and welcomed. 

Chair Yoga: Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00 - 11:45am. A suggested donation of $5 at one of 
the classes is requested, but is not required. 

Case Management: Meets the second Thursday of the month. Case Management services are 
provided by the YWCA and provide assistance in a variety of areas. Appointments are required 
and can be scheduled by calling the HPH Office at 626-355-7394. 

Birthday Celebrations: Every second Thursday of the month at the Hart Park House. The free 
birthday cake is provided by the Sierra Madre Civic Club. 

 Game Day: Every Thursday starting at 12:00pm. (Please note the time change.) A regular group 
of seniors play poker. Other games available for use. 

 Free Strength Training Class: Every Friday from 12:45 - 1:30pm with Lisa Brandley. The class 
utilizes light weights for low impact resistance training. All materials for the class are provided. 

Senior Club: Every Saturday at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Brown bag lunch at 11:30am. 

 LUNCH AND LEARN - Wednesday, August 24, 2016 12:15 - 12:45pm 

 The Grossman Burn Center and the Grossman Burn Foundation is offering a short 
presentation on burn prevention for seniors. Older adults are at particularly high 
risk of scalds, burn injury and accidental fires. Changes in vision, comprehension 
and mobility that accompany aging put seniors at higher risk. If you are interested in 
having lunch with the Senior Café during the presentation please call 626-355-0256 to make a 
reservation. 
..................................................................

SENIOR CINEMA August 17 at 1:00pm

Big Eyes (2014)

In the late 1950s and early 60s, artist Walter Keane achieves unbelievable fame 
and success with portraits of saucer-eyed waifs. However, no one realizes that 
his wife, Margaret , is the real painter behind the brush. It isn’t until the Keanes’ 
marriage comes to an end and a lawsuit follows that the truth finally comes to 
light. (Runtime 1h 46m)

Dear Savvy Senior,

Can you recommend any products or devices to 
help seniors track down lost or misplaced items, like 
car keys, wallet, cell phone, etc. My husband has 
become forgetful in his old age, so we spend a lot of 
wasted time looking for things.

Frustrated Spouse

Dear Frustrated,

There are actually a wide variety of tracking 
devices that can help you and your husband find 
items that are commonly misplaced or lost. Here 
are some top options to consider depending on 
how tech savvy you are.

Smartphone or Tablet Users 

If you or your husband uses a smartphone or 
tablet, you can easily track down lost or misplaced 
items like keys, a purse, wallet, remote control, 
smartphone, tablet or laptop with a Bluetooth 
tracker like TrackR (thetrackr.com, $25 or $30 
per tag) or Tile (thetileapp.com, $25 per tag). Both 
of these products pair with an Apple or Android 
smartphone or tablet app, which will help you 
locate the missing item.

 All you do is attach a small TrackerR or Tile 
tag to the items you want to keep track of with an 
adhesive sticker, a key ring or you can just slip it 
inside the item. 

 Then, when a tagged item goes missing, you 
simply access the app on your smartphone or 
tablet to see how far away you are from the item 
or last known location on the map. If you’re within 
100 feet, you can make the tracking device ring so 
you can follow the sound. 

 Or, if you or your husband loses your phone 
or tablet, both TrackR and Tile work in reverse, 
allowing you to press a button on the device to 
make your phone or tablet ring (even if it’s on 
silent) as long as it’s nearby. And to help you avoid 
leaving items behind, TrackR can be set to sound 
an alarm when there’s too much distance between 
your phone and device.

Low-Tech Finders

If, however, you or your husband don’t have a 
smartphone or tablet, there are radio frequency 
devices like Click ‘N Dig (clickndig.com) that can 
help you find lost/misplaced items. This device 
comes with one finder fob/remote and four or six 
tags for $26 or $39 respectively. Attach a tag to the 
items you want to keep track of with adhesive or a 
key ring. Each tag is color-coded and corresponds 
to a colored button on the finder.

 When an item goes missing, you simply press 
the colored button on the finder fob and the tag 
will flash and beep. The signal will go through 
walls and cushions, but you’ll need to be within 
at least 60 feet of your lost item. Make sure you 
keep the finder fob in a safe spot, because if you 
misplace it, you won’t be able to find the tagged 
items. 

 Another good option, and one that doesn’t 
require a finder fob, is Find One Find All or FOFA 
(findonefindall.com). This device can manage 
up to six items. It comes in a key-fob finder and/
or a flat, credit card sized finder for your wallet, 
remote, phone, tablet, etc. 

 These finders can be attached to items you wish 
to keep track of, and because each finder is also 
a transmitter, as long as you can find one FOFA 
tagged item, you can locate the rest. 

 FOFA finders sound an alarm when signaled 
so you can follow the sound to locate the missing 
item, but the range for this device is only 30 feet. 
Cost: $25 for two finders.

 Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. 
Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.
org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today 
show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.


KATIE Tse..........This and That

JUNK --A CAUTIONARY TALE

“A place for everything, and everything in its 
place.” This is a familiar platitude along with 
other classics such as, “Cleanliness is next to 
godliness” and “Have nothing in your home that 
you do not know to be useful or believe to be 
beautiful.” And then there’s my personal favorite, 
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be 
beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the 
character, there will be harmony in the house.” I 
wonder if the dusty pile of sneakers and flip flops 
in my closet implicates a questionable character, a 
disharmonious dwelling, or both? But it gets worse, 
“If there is harmony in the house, there will be 
order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, 
there will be peace in the 
world.” Shoot! Now I’ve 
got the responsibility 
for world peace on my 
guilty conscience!

 Although keeping 
ahead of my own junk 
is a challenge, I can 
only begin to imagine 
the physical and mental 
exhaustion of going 
through someone 
else’s stuff! This is 
the daunting feat my 
parents are dealing with 
at the moment. Before 
they retired, neither of 
them had the time or 
energy to sort through 
the things they had 
accumulated over the 
years. And when my grandparents passed, my 
parents inherited even more stuff. Some people 
prefer to keep their things out of sight and out of 
mind in storage, but that’s expensive! Therefore, 
my parents’ things occupied the living room for a 
while, and then spilled over into the back room. 
They finally condensed it all into a tightly packed 
area in the garage while the house was being 
remodeled. 

 When I say that they used the garage for storage, 
I don’t just mean that they stacked things up. Oh 
no! Every last cubic inch of available space was jam 
packed to the gills. This meant that some furniture 
was taken apart so that it would better fit into the 
limited space. When my husband and I moved 
into our house in February, my parents said we 
could have their old dining room table (to replace 
the TV trays we’re accustomed to eating off of). I 
suppose there’s something inherently disorderly 
and tacky about TV trays --that’s probably why 
we haven’t achieved world peace yet. Anyway, our 
table was trapped in “the core” of stuff for a long 
time. Every so often I’d catch a glimpse of a leg 
sticking out at an odd angle like an appendage in a 
Picasso painting. 

 At last their building project is done, and now 
they’re faced with deconstructing the core in the 
garage. Mind you the garage dates back to the 
50’s. It vacillates between freezing in the winter 
and sweltering in the 
summer. So you can 
imagine my parents’ 
discomfort toting boxes 
around and dodging 
avalanches of “the sands 
of time” --literally! But 
any physical exertion 
pales in comparison to 
the difficulty of their 
decisions as to which 
of the things they 
should keep and which 
they should get rid of. 
One small box often 
holds a multitude of 
miscellaneous items 
from generations 
ago, all with a certain 
amount of sentimental 
value. 

 It doesn’t seem to help much whether or not 
there’s a logical reason to keep the stuff in question. 
The other day my mom asked me if I wanted my old 
bassinet or any of its blankets or other things. “Did 
you make any of them?” I asked. “Yes, a couple of 
blankets,” she said. “Okay, I’ll keep them.” “What 
are you going to do with them?” she asked. “I don’t 
know. I can’t get rid of them. You made them!” 

 Well, after many weeks and much deliberation, 
the clutter in the garage is starting to thin out. My 
dad’s work bench is almost visible, so hopefully 
he’ll be able to return to his ship model building 
before 2015. And my husband and I just recently 
brought home our very first proper dining table 
and chairs. Maybe world peace is within our grasp!


Senior Excursion: Queen Mary (Long Beach)

 

Date: Thursday, August 25, 2016

Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm

Meeting location: Hart Park House

Cost: $55 (includes lunch)

Level of walking: High

 

Limted space available! You’ve heard the stories, the myths and legends, now get the straight scoop 
on the Queen Mary. The Glory Days Tour is full of interesting anecdotes, fun facts and compelling 
true stories. Participants will enjoy lunch at the Promenade Café. Entrée choices are: Queen Burger, 
grilled chicken ciabatta sandwich, Queen Mary Club Sandwich, and Caesar salad with chicken. 
Dessert and beverage are also included. Please call the Hart Park House to make you meal selection.

 

Participants should bring money for souvenirs. For more information call the Hart Park House at 
626-355-7394.


We’d like to hear from you! 

What’s on YOUR Mind?

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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com