Password:
SeniorMoment
Based on the award-winning newspaper column, “Patricia Bunin’s Senior Moments”
Patricia Bunin
Foreword by Kent Shocknek
CBS2 News Anchor
Star Creek Entertainment
17643 Main Street
Hesperia, CA 92345
626-373-8150
www.starcreekentertainment.com
©2012 by Patricia Bunin
Published in eBook format by Star Creek Entertainment
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9853-2551-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be replaced, stored, introduced into a retrieval system, or otherwise copied in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in reviews or citations.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bunin, Patricia
Password: SeniorMoment/Patricia Bunin
p. cm.
Cover design by Luanne Hunt
For George, the sense, soul and silly of my life.
#manilove
Acknowledgements
To Catherine Gaugh, Features Editor of the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, who saw value in my Senior Moments columns and published them every week for over three years.
To Luanne and Steve Hunt of Star Creek Entertainment, whose creativity, insight and encouragement made this Senior Moments book concept a reality.
To my mother, Jean Bunin, my husband, George Roegler, and my daughter, Sara Fletcher, who have been an endless source of writing material as well as the best cheerleaders ever.
To my readers, who are never shy about letting me know that what I write matters. You, more than anything or anyone, have been my inspiration.
And finally to BG of San Dimas, who wrote:
“I clip your columns and put them on my fridge to share with friends. I’m running out of room. Please, it’s time for a book.”
Foreword
You could make a fortune if you invented something to cure people who worry about growing older. Not everybody suffers from this particular ailment: I’ve yet to meet anyone under 40 who closely watches those commercials about bathtubs you can get into by accessing a water-tight sliding door.
Mostly, worrying about aging is a growing epidemic among those of us who remember where we were when we read, heard, watched (or delivered) the news about … insert transformational historic event here.
But no matter how major, if being able to list a growing catalogue of past occasions was all that mattered, life would be pretty dull. And Patricia Bunin is not about to let life be dull. In this, her second book, Patricia shows the importance of savoring the intimate details of the present, and keeping our eyes open for the future.
Her Senior Moments columns reflect the small places we all have been, or one day — with any luck — will get to go.
Employing a heart-felt decency, Patricia uses her own life experience to open our eyes to the realization that every one of us has stories worth relishing — although usually, she tells them better.
I love Patricia’s writing style: it’s economical and real. Her ear for conversational dialogue is pitch perfect.
The great actress Helen Hays reportedly said: “The hardest years ... are those between 10 and 70.” If true, it turns out you don’t actually need to invent something to cure people who worry about growing older, because we’re already moving toward a time when life gets better.
We will have our “senior moments,” and they will be episodes to embrace ... just as they are in the pages of the book you are holding right now.
Kent Shocknek
CBS 2 News Anchor
Password:SocialNetworking
Password: SeniorMoment
“Who is your favorite male singer?” I called down the hall to my husband from my home office to his. “You know very well it’s Frank Sinatra,” he responded. Apparently not.
According to the customer service rep at the online banking service, who was waiting patiently on the phone, George had failed his own test. And without the password, we could not get access to our account.
My husband, the techno-buff, is very proud of his systematized method of online money management. It seems to work well for him until he has to remember which code word he has used on which account. He prides himself on his creative use of passwords, which, of course, is only useful if you can remember them.
Plebeian that I am, I always go with the same word, a practice which George insists leaves me vulnerable to identity theft. That will never happen to him because even he can’t steal his own identity with his current system.
The name of our kitty, now deceased four years, was on one of the accounts he opened the year we adopted her (she actually adopted us by appearing at the kitchen door and refusing to leave, but that’s a different story). “Name of family pet?,” the rep asked me.
“We don't have one right now,” I responded.
“Ever have one?” he asked, just a tad less patiently. We’ve had six cats. After eliminating Softy, Miss Suzy
and Scarlett O’Hara, I hit the jackpot.
However, we still don’t know who George’s favorite male singer is. He is thinking Neil Diamond, but the account rep says no.
So anybody out there thinking of hacking into our accounts, it’s not going to happen. They are so secure even we can’t access them.
Hash Marks, Hashtags, It’s All About Staying #youngandhip
In her unceasing efforts to keep her mother young and hip, my daughter is struggling to teach me the “Hows and whys of hash marks.” “What?,” you might be asking. Me too.
Here is a rough explanation — I am sure Sara will correct me — (oops, she just did … that would be hashtags, not hash marks).
