The Senior Scene

By Carl Dombek

After returning from a brief trip to Calgary in October and with no other international travel planned for the immediate future, I decided to submit my U.S. Passport for renewal. With a little less than a year of validity remaining, the time was right.
After trying – unsuccessfully – to renew my passport online, which the State Department now allows , I had a traditional passport photo taken, filled out and submitted the required passport renewal application (Form DS-82), wrote an old-school paper check, and sent everything in. Two days short of four weeks, I received my new passport, which is good until November 2034. My “house arrest” is over!

When we last renewed my wife’s passport in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, it took almost exactly two months. Today, the State Department says the average processing time for a passport renewal is four to six weeks, so State beat even its quickest estimate. Great news, but certainly not a record.

I obtained my first U.S. passport in May 1986. Coming up on three years as a reporter at KING-1090, a news-talk radio station in Seattle, it was my fondest hope that I would be sent somewhere – anywhere – as long as it required a passport to cover a story.
At that time, U.S. citizens could travel to Canada and Mexico without a passport, so I had farther-flung destinations in mind. My workday started at 5 a.m. and finished at 1 p.m., so one afternoon, armed with my birth certificate and Washington driver’s license, I went to the local Kinko’s, got a passport photo taken, then went to the Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle where I filled out my application for a passport.
While reviewing my application, the woman at the counter asked me where I was planning to travel. I responded (rather proudly, in fact) that, “I’m a reporter at KING-1090. I don’t have anywhere planned at this time but I want to be ready in case a big story breaks.” That satisfied her, she stamped it, and said it would be submitted for processing.
I don’t know what I expected, but what happened next definitely was not it.
When I went to our mailbox the next day, there was my passport! One. Day. A feat never to be equaled! I viewed my new passport as a ticket to whatever came along; hoping that adventure would be involved. 

When Operation Desert Shield commenced in August 1990 and military units from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base were deployed to the Middle East, many noncombatants were being staged in nearby Jordan. I applied for a visa from the Hashemite Kingdom so that I could travel to the region and provide coverage.

Jordanian officials granted my request and issued a visa good for four years and “multiple” entries. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I never traveled to the war zone and didn’t actually use the visa. What coverage I engaged in was stateside and focused on the connections to Puget Sound.

I renewed passports in 1996, 2006, and 2015, so this is my fifth passport. For the last two, I have requested the “large” passport book with extra visa pages for “frequent international travelers.” Acts of purest optimism, I know, but hope springs eternal.
FYI, the large passport book has a generous 52 pages, while the standard contains only 28 pages for visa stamps and travel endorsements. And there is no additional cost for the larger book.
The new iteration of the passport carries a proviso: “If your passport expires within six months of your date of departure, you may be denied entry into some countries.” Many countries require a passport to be valid for six months after date of entry while others require only three months’ validity.
Bottom line: If you’re within a year of your expiration date, find a window of up to two months that works for you, and get the renewal process started. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy the feeling of freedom once you have your newly renewed travel documents in hand and you’re ready to make your escape.

Carl Dombek, who lives in Seattle, is a retired journalist and a travel blogger. His website, thetravelpro.com, has news, reviews, and personal observations on upmarket travel.

(Pictured: If gardening space is limited, grow tomatoes in hanging baskets or containers.)

By Melinda Myers

Nothing beats the flavor of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. Keep them close at hand by growing one or more in containers on your patio, balcony, or front steps.

Any tomato can be grown in a pot, but determinate varieties are shorter and more compact, making them a bit easier to manage in a container. They produce fruit in a relatively short time, making them great or preserving as well as using fresh. Look for a D or determinate on the plant tag, seed packet, or in the catalog description. 

Indeterminate tomatoes, often designated with an I, are usually much taller and continue to grow, flower, and produce fruit until frost kills the plant or you pinch out the growing tip. These are usually staked or grown in wire cages to save space, reduce pest problems, and make harvesting easier. Many new containers have built-in trellises, or creative gardeners craft their own, making it easier and more attractive to grow these bigger plants in pots. 

Semi-determinate varieties are in between these two. They are compact like determinates, often trailing, but produce fruit throughout the growing season like indeterminate varieties. 

You can find compact varieties often sold as miniature and dwarf plants that grow well in 4-inch to 8-inch pots. They are a great option for those with limited space, gardening on balconies, indoors in a sunny window or just about anywhere. Kitchen Mini tomatoes, Heartbreakers, Red Velvet, and Micro Tom Thumb are just a few.

The growing process

Grow one tomato per container for maximum productivity. Use a 5-gallon or bigger container for large varieties and at least a two to three gallon or similar size pot for smaller varieties.  Some research suggests a pot that is at least 14 inches but preferably 20 inches wide will yield greater results. Adding flowers and herbs to the container boosts the beauty and diversity of your container garden but will reduce the number of tomatoes produced.

Growing tomatoes in containers also allows you to start the season earlier. Just move the planter inside when the weather is harsh and back outside when the weather is warm and sunny. As the weather turns cold at the end of the growing season, cover the planter or move it into a frost-free location as needed. Some gardeners even move a pot or two inside to finish off the tomato season.

Plant tomatoes in a container with drainage holes and fill it with a quality potting mix. Reduce the time spent watering with a self-watering pot that has a reservoir to hold water and extend the time between watering. Further reduce the need to water by adding an organic, sustainable soil amendment like certified organic Wild Valley Farms’ wool pellets (wildvalleyfarms.com) to the potting mix. Made from wool waste, this product reduces watering by up to 25 percent.

Water thoroughly when the top few inches begin to dry. Mulch the soil with evergreen needles, shredded leaves, or other organic mulch to keep the soil consistently moist and suppress weeds.  Consistent soil moisture encourages more flowering and fruiting, while reducing the risk of blossom end rot, cracking, and misshapen fruit. 

Harvest tomatoes when fully colored or leave them on the plant a few more days for an even sweeter flavor. You’ll enjoy their use in salads, sauces, and other favorite recipes.

Melinda Myers (melindmyers.com) is the author of more than 20 gardening books, host of the “How to Grow Anything” instant video and DVD series. and a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine.

(Pictured: Salt Lake City, Utah is number 1 in a study of which U.S. cities are the best places to retire.)

By Maggie Davis

Where they live can drastically impact what life is like for retirees.

The newest DepositAccounts study, released in January, looked at lifestyle, cost of living, medical quality and cost, and assisted-care quality and availability to determine the best places to retire. Across the 50 largest U.S. cities and metropolitan areas, Salt Lake City, Utah ranks as the best. On the other end of the scale, Seattle is the 22nd-worst, and Riverside, Calif., ranks last.

Salt Lake City is on top because ithas the lowest rate of preventable hospital stays (1,591 per 100,000 Medicare enrollees) and the highest percentage of older adults who volunteer (44 percent), plus a high percentage of physically active people . It also rates high in lifestyle (behind only Minneapolis, Minn. and Denver, Colo.).

Milwaukee, Wis. and Pittsburgh, Pa. rank second and third overall respectively, thanks to high marks for high percentages of physically activity, low median monthly housing costs ($996 in Pittsburgh), and low average healthcare costs for Medicare users.

California dominates the bottom of the list, with five of the 10 worst places to retire, mainly due to high costs of living. Besides Riverside at the very bottom, the low-ranking metros include San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

For the study, researchers with DepositAccounts, a Lending Tree-affiliated online source of banking and other financial analysis, grouped data into four categories with various metrics:

• Lifestyle (access to healthy food, arts, cultural and recreational venues, and amount of older adults involved physical activity and volunteerism).
• Cost of living (median monthly housing costs, regional prices for consumer items and services).
• Healthcare quality and cost (ratesof preventable hospital stays per 100,000 Medicare enrollees, if such stays might have been prevented by receiving outpatient treatment instead, and costs per Medicare beneficiary).
• Assisted-care availability and quality (jncluding number of home health service providers, continuing-care retirement communities, assisted-living facilities, and nursing-home beds per 100,000 residents, average quality of patient care star rating for home health agencies

While Seattle fared poorly overall, all wasn’t bad: It has the third-lowest rate of preventable hospital stays, at 1,850 per 100,000 Medicare enrollees.

Good care is crucial, noted Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst and author of “Ask Questions, Save Money, Make More: How to Take Control of Your Financial Life.”

“If you don’t have your health, everything gets exponentially more challenging, no matter how old you are,” Schulz said. “The more you’re able to preserve your health and steer clear of the need for hospital stays, the better. And that’s not just about your physical health. It’s about your finances, too. There’s little that’s more expensive than bad health.”

The study was limited to the 50 largest 50 metro areas. Sources of information for the total analysis include the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and individual county health rankings around the country.

The full report is available at depositaccounts.com.

Source: LendingTree, an online loan marketplace and financial researcher.

(Pictured: People with severe or moderate dementia should never get behind the wheel. For early stages, it’s about driving performance.)

SAVVY SENIOR

By Jim Miller

Dear Savvy Senior,

When should someone with dementia stop driving? My 83-year-old father has some dementia issues but still drives himself around town pretty well.

Concerned Daughter

Dear Concerned,

Most doctors agree that people with moderate to severe dementia should never get behind the wheel, but in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, driving performance should be the determining factor of when to stop driving, not the disease itself.

With that said, it’s also important to realize that as your dad’s driving skills deteriorate over time from the disease, he might not recognize he has a problem. So, it’s very important that you work closely with his doctor to monitor his driving and help him stop when it is no longer safe for him to drive. Here are some additional tips that can help you.

Watch for Warning Signs

The best way to keep tabs on your dad’s driving abilities is to take frequent rides with him and watch out for warning signs. For example: Does he have trouble remembering routes to familiar places? Does he drive at inappropriate speeds, tailgate, drift between lanes or fail to observe traffic signs? Does he react slowly or make poor driving decisions? Also, has your dad had any fender benders or tickets lately, or have you noticed any dents or scrapes on his vehicle? All of these are red flags.

If you need some assessment help, hire a driver rehabilitation specialist who’s trained to evaluate older drivers. See Myaota.aota.org/driver_search or Aded.net to locate one in your area.

Transition Tips

Through your assessments, if you believe it’s still safe for your dad to drive, you should start recommending some simple adjustments to ensure his safety, like driving only in daylight and on familiar routes, and avoiding busy roads and bad weather. Also, get him to sign a dementia “driving contract” that designates someone to tell him when it’s no longer safe to drive. Go to Alz.org/driving and click on the “Download” button to print one.

You may also want to consider getting a GPS car tracking device (like Bouncie.com or MotoSafety.com) to help you monitor him. These devices will let you track where he’s driving and allow you to set up zones and speed limits that will send you alerts to your smartphone when he exits an area, or if he’s driving too fast or braking harshly.

Time to Quit

When your dad’s driving gets to the point that he can no longer drive safely, you’ll need to talk to him. It’s best to start having these conversations in the early stages of the disease, before he needs to quit driving so he can prepare himself.

You also need to have a plan for alternative transportation (including a list of family, friends and local transportation options) that will help him get around after he stops driving.

For tips on how to talk to your dad, the Hartford Center for Mature Market Excellence offers a helpful guide called “At the Crossroads: Family Conversations About Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia and Driving” that you can download at TheHartford.com/Publications-on-Aging.

Refuses to Quit

If your dad refuses to quit, you have several options. First, suggest a visit to his doctor who can give him a medical evaluation, and prescribe that he stops driving. Older people will often listen to their doctor before they will listen to their own family.

If he still refuses, contact your local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to see if they can help. Some states will automatically revoke a license when a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia, while many others require retaking a driving test.

If these fail, consider hiding his keys or you may need to take them away. You could also disable his vehicle by disconnecting the battery, park it in another location so he can’t see it or have access to it, or sell it.

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.