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The Twist Podcast #276: October At Last, Pumpkin Spice Everything, and We’re Almost Done with This Election!
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we welcome October with open arms and sweaters, consider the all-purpose pumpkin spice, and start the countdown to getting past this election.
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Savvy Senior: How to Arrange Your Own Cremation Service
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
I would like to arrange a simple cremation that doesn’t cost me, or my family, a lot of money. Can you offer any tips that can help me with this?
Still Kicking
Dear Kicking,
If you’re looking for a simple and affordable way to go, cremation is an excellent choice, and one that’s become exceedingly popular in the United States. About 60 percent of Americans are now choosing cremation over a traditional burial, versus only around 20 percent in the mid-1990s.
Why the big shift? Price is a key reason. A basic cremation can cost as little as $700 to $1,200, depending on your location and provider, versus $7,500 or more for a traditional funeral and cemetery burial. Geography is another factor, as many families are spread across the country, making future gravesite visits less common.
Here are a few tips to help you arrange your cremation and ensure you get a good deal.
Shop Around
You can arrange a cremation through a funeral home or a cremation-only business, but it’s wise to shop around because prices vary widely. It’s not unusual for one funeral home to charge $1,000, while another charges $4,000 or more for the same service.
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Savvy Senior: Does Medicare Cover Cataract Surgery?
By Jim MillerDear Savvy Senior,
How does Medicare cover cataract surgery? My eye doctor recently told me I’ve developed cataracts and should consider making plans for surgery in the next year or so.
Almost 67
Dear Almost,
Like gray hair and wrinkles, cataracts are an inevitable part of the aging process. Eventually, everyone (usually in their 60s) will develop cataracts, a condition that causes cloudy or blurry vision. The only way to correct this is through cataract surgery.
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The Twist Podcast #272: New Jersey Fun Facts, Kamalot Rising, and Wisconsin Gets Its Blue Back
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we run down some fun facts for Jersey, choose our outfits for the Harris inauguration, and breathe a sigh of relief at the return of Wisconsin.
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Workshop Schedule Through November
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New Release! Dreamshaping: On Shaping Reality and Living Our Dreams (Second Edition)
If you’ve followed me, you know I’ve been working on this a long time. I’ve just published a second edition of Dreamshaping: On Shaping Reality and Living Our Dreams, and I couldn’t be happier to put it out there. I’ll also be creating a Dreamshaping Workshop for next year! I’m very excited about that, and I think it’s going to be a wonderful experience sharing the ways we create the dreams we call our lives, and how to live them with exuberance.
In this Second Edition of Dreamshaping: On Shaping Reality and Living Our Dreams, we find a collection of writings about our ability to shape the lives we live, the dreams we live. These words of advice and experience, presented in easy-to-read short chapters, are more essential than ever as we navigate the dreamscape of our everyday world. Quotes and commentary add to the suggestions made in this simple dreamer’s guide, and everything is presented in a way that makes it possible for anyone to do. As the introduction says, dreamshaping is not wishful thinking, it is wishful doing. Follow along and read about listening to our bodies, and letting go of the poisons in our lives, and embracing change without fearing it. Use this simple dreamer’s guide to steer a course toward freedom, self-acceptance, and exuberance in your life. And remember, all things are of the substance of dreams.
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Dreamshaping: Name Your Poison
By Mark McNease
Dreamshaping: Name Your Poison
From the upcoming dreamer’s guide: Dreamshaping, Second Edition“Have patience with all things. But, first of all with yourself.”
―Francis de Sales
Observing the current cultural and political climate, I’m reminded of a scene from the westerns once so popular with American moviegoers. A bartender in a grimy, dusty saloon, says to a weary customer, “Name your poison.” The customer asks for whiskey—they all drank whiskey in the movies, with names like Rot Gut and Dead Eye—and the bartender serves him from a bottle on the shelf. The customer throws back a mouthful from a greasy shot glass, grimaces as it burns its way down his throat, then smiles, slaps the glass on the counter and orders another one. That sure felt good
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Cathy’s Wealth of Health: Medicinal Mushrooms: A True Super Food
By Cathy McNease, Dipl CH, RH
Medicinal Mushrooms: A True Super Food
I first saw medicinal mushrooms being used in a family of Taoist healers with whom I was apprenticing in the early 1980’s. I had been asked to help the matriarch teach cooking classes, since she spoke very little English. Lily Chuang was a brilliant herbalist, but she preferred to prevent illnesses in her family rather than treat them. One of the tricks up her sleeve was regular use of Shitake Mushrooms (Lentinula edodes). She always had a jar of the dried mushrooms rehydrating in the refrigerator. Every meal included a small amount of these gems, cooked with eggs, in oatmeal, in soups and stir fries. She even made “burgers” out of the tough dry stems that she powdered in a coffee grinder and mixed with grated vegetables and eggs, and pan fried until brown. The soaking water from the rehydration process was used as a delicious addition to soups and grains.
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The Savvy Senior: Paying for Nursing Home Care with Medicaid
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
If my mother needs to move into a nursing home, what are the eligibility requirements to get Medicaid coverage?
Caretaking Son
Dear Caretaking,
The rules and requirements for Medicaid eligibility for nursing home care are complicated and will vary according to the state your mother lives in. With that said, here’s a general, simplified rundown of what it takes to qualify.
Medicaid Eligibility
Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that covers health care for the poor, is also the largest single payer of America’s nursing home bills for seniors who don’t have the resources to pay for their own care. (Note that some states have different names for their Medicaid program.)
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The Weekly Readlines August 1
QUOTE FOR THE WEEK
what didn’t you do to bury me
but you forgot that I was a seed
Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos (1978)
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIES
President Biden and his administration successfully negotiated an extremely complex, multi-national prisoner swap, from deep within the depths of his supposed dementia.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris challenged Trump to “Say it to my face” as voter enthusiasm continued to surge for the preferred candidate of childless cat ladies everywhere.
Catastrophic V.P. pick J.D. Vance doubled down on his ickiness, while admitting his wife is not white but he loves her anyway.
Trump rolled out the new Republican strategy, which is the same old racism, trying to get people to focus on Kamala Harri’s biracial heritage, which he pretends he doesn’t understand. Hopefully people outside MAGA-land won’t fall for it.
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The Twist Podcast #271: Killer Cat Ladies, Joe the Giant, and the Irresistible Charm of Clickbait
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we try on our Cat Ladies for Kamala T-shirts, salute President Biden and his astonishing successes, and marvel at the continued temptations of clickbait.
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AI: A Beginner’s Guide
By Mark McNease
with an assist from … you guessed it … AIFor the past few years now we’ve all heard about the dreaded AI and how it is going to replace human life on the planet, or at least put most people out of work. As someone who has never been afraid of technology, though often wary of it, I’ve mostly welcomed the possibilities. Whether it’s designing a book cover, or quickly creating images for blog posts, or using synthetic narration for this website, I’ve welcome the challenges and done my best to stay on top of what’s going on.
AI, broadly speaking, has been in our lives for a very long time. Everything from self-checkout kiosks at the grocery store, to Google maps, to auto-correct, it’s a part of our lives that isn’t going away. It can certainly be used for nefarious purposes, but it’s incumbent on all of us who are able to stay very aware of what we see, read, and hear. AI in and of itself is not evil, but there are people who can and do use it for evil ends. So let’s take a deeper dive into what it is …
What is AI and How Can It Benefit You?
A beginner’s guide to understanding artificial intelligence and its applications
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a term that refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as understanding language, recognizing images, solving problems, and learning from data. AI is not a single technology, but a broad field that encompasses many subfields and applications, such as computer vision, natural language processing, machine learning, robotics, and more.
