Sunglasses, beer, and prunes. And jumping up and down. My oldest sister gave all this as advice for healthy living as my other sisters and I get older. Most of it was from AARP mailings, aimed at preventing osteoporosis in women. I just thought the combination sounded pretty funny.

We met at lunch, me and 3 sisters, and it was very nice to have most of us together. (There is still one more sister, out west.) Two are nurses, the other’s a doctor, so I figure they’d have some good ideas. One sister is a source of various funny factoids, and she spouts them at odd times, probably because her brain is jammed full of medical stuff, so I also came away from lunch with some weird information too such as how extensive use of Axe body spray is very bad for young men, phthalates or something. Every time I meet up with her she notices something and tells me the reason for it -- like why my index fingernail is ridged. (Arthritic finger joint caused it.)

Anyway, AARP has sent out healthy advice about drinking 1 or 2 glasses of beer a week, because the silicon in the beer helps keep calcium in your bones. Other alcohol in the same amount does it too, but beer does it better. Prunes are recommended too, like 5 a day, so you have to work up to that amount if your digestion couldn’t handle it daily. But the jumping up and down was odd, because most of us are used to being told that low-impact exercise is what we should be doing. This was the opposite.

High-impact jumps, especially without shoes, was the thing that helps build bone strength. Even helps hip joints, and all the rest. As she told us this, I suddenly recalled a certain Florida lady who did daily leaps and was quite healthy because of them….

So tonight I'll be jumping around.