SRA E-MAIL NEWSLETTER*
Issue # 47
October 2006

Len Wines-Editor

SOME ITEMS FROM CAROLE GUSTIN, SRA PRESIDENT:

Reminders:

October 24 --- A review of our retirees’ experiences with the Medicare D prescription plan.
10:00 a.m. GERO Auditorium

December 11 --- Holiday Celebration at the Galen Center 11:30 a.m. check in Details next month

Emeriti Center (EC) Campaign --- October 31 and November 1 Members will be calling you to see how you are and to get ideas for how the EC might be more helpful.  They will also be asking for donations to supplement the EC budget.  Please contribute what you are able to allow the EC to continue and enhance the programs offered by our Retiree Community through the EC.  Some are:

* New 1-1/2 hour Transitions programs on how to decide on distribution of retirement income, Social Security & Medicare, etc. ---- 537 people attended a total of 11 sessions, 4 on HSC.  Six sessions were the 1-1/2 hour ones and 5 all day sessions.

* The Living History Project - 40 videos of interviews with USC retirees were digitized this year and 5 new interviews were held.

* The printed Emeriti Center Newsletter has been improved and increased to 4 issues per year.  WE STILL NEED INFORMATION FROM YOU ABOUT YOUR ACTIVITIES SO WE CAN INCLUDE THEM!!!!!!!!  Please send that information to me.

SRA ELECTIONS: New officers will be elected at our June, 2007 meeting.
Please start thinking about offering to serve or send names of someone(s) you would like to see serve.  All positions will be open: President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer.  If you have questions please contact me.

Carole Gustin
<cgustin@usc.edu>

BEYOND THE DA VINCI CODE, PRESENTED BY KAREN LANSKY

Ms. Lansky is a graduate of USC’s Museum Studies/Master’s Degree program in Art History and a lecturer in Art History and Literature at the USC Emeriti College.  She holds degrees in English and Dramatic Literature from UC Berkeley and studied painting and writing at the Cummington School of the Arts in Massachusetts.  Ms. Lansky has also taught English and worked in journalism.  Over the years her by-line has appeared in short films, print, and radio—notably, Architectural Digest, The Los Angeles Times, and as a writer/reporter for NPR’s All Things Considered.  After completing graduate work at USC, Ms. Lansky researched the history of the Los Angeles County Museum and published her findings in the June 2000 issue of Orientations Magazine.  She is a member of The Writers Guild and PEN.

“The Da Vinci Code: Unraveling Fact from Fiction” --- Thursday, October 5, 2006, 1:00 p.m.
The “virtual reality” Dan Brown constructs in The Da Vinci Code draws us in through a skillfully interwoven blend of plot and fact.  But convincing as Brown&146;s assertions seem to be, how do we know if what he claims is true?  Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Rm#224.

“Leonardo Da Vinci: The Summary of a Life” --- Thursday, October 12, 2006 1:30 p.m.
Leonardo’s early life and artistic development in Florence, the flowering of his genius in Milan, the agony of rejection in Rome, and his last years of redemption in France.
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Rm#224.

“The Last Supper: Dramatis Personae” --- Thursday, October 19, 2006 1:00 p.m.
A detailed analysis of Leonardo’s figures in the Last Supper: their identity, meaning, placement, movement, and how they relate to the event taking place.  We will also consider them in terms of religious symbolism, numerical symbolism, mysticism, color, and perspective.  Special attention will be paid to the figure author Dan Brown claims is Mary Magdalene.
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Rm#224.

Please join us for refreshments following each lecture.
RSVP by calling (213) 740-7122.  Lectures are free to the public.
Parking: Enter campus through Gate 6 (Vermont Ave) and park in Parking Structure A.  For further information, contact: Dr. Robert R. Scales, Director, Emeriti Center College, or Judith C. Diaz, Assistant Director, at (213) 740-8841.

FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO KEEP TRACK OF USC FOOTBALL ACHIEVEMENTS:

11 National Championships
28 Bowl Victories
141 All-Americans
7 Heisman Trophy Winners
395 NFL Players
22 Academic All-Americans

LIFE’S LITTLE TRAGEDIES

A young Network Administrator was leaving the office at 6:00 p.m. when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

“Listen,” said the CEO, “this is important, and my secretary has left.  Can you make this thing work?”

“Certainly,” said the Net Admin.  He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

“Excellent, excellent!” said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine.  “I just need one copy.”

The telephone rings at the husband’s place of business.

“Hello?” he answers.

“Honey, do you have time for a chat?”

“Sorry, darling, but I am about to step into a board meeting.”

“This won’t take long,” she says.  “I have some good news and some bad news for you.”

“I really do not have the time, so just give me the good news for now.”

“All right, then. You will be happy to know that the airbag on your new Bentley works very well.”

DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN. . .

You have to try on a pair of sunglasses with that stupid little plastic thing in the middle of them.

The person behind you in the supermarket runs his cart into the back of your ankle.

The elevator stops on every floor and nobody gets on.

There’s always a car riding your tail when you¹re slowing down to find an address.

You open a can of soup and the lid falls in.

It’s bad enough that you step in dog poop, but you don’t realize it till you walk across your living room rug.

The tiny red string on the Band-Aid wrapper never works for you.

There’s a dog in the neighborhood that barks at EVERYTHING.

You can never put anything back in a box the way it came.

Three hours and three meetings after lunch you look in the mirror and discover a piece of parsley stuck to your front tooth.

You drink from a soda can into which someone has extinguished a cigarette.

You slice your tongue licking an envelope.

Your tire gauge lets out half the air while you’re trying to get a reading.

A station comes in brilliantly when you’re standing near the radio but buzzes, drifts, and spits every time you move away.

There are always one or two ice cubes that won’t pop out of the tray.

You wash a garment with a tissue in the pocket and your entire laundry comes out covered with lint.

The car behind you blasts its horn because you let a pedestrian finish crossing.

A piece of foil candy wrapper makes electrical contact with your filling.

You set the alarm on your digital clock for 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:00 a.m.

The radio station doesn’t tell you who sang that song.

You rub on hand cream and can’t turn the bathroom doorknob to get out.

People behind you on a supermarket line dash ahead of you to a counter just opening up.

Your glasses slide off your ears when you perspire.

You can’t look up the correct spelling of a word in the dictionary because you don’t know how to spell it.

You have to inform five different sales people in the same store that you’re just browsing.

You had that pen in your hand only a second ago and now you can’t find it.

You reach under the table to pick something off the floor and smash your head on the way up.

SITES ARE BOTH USEFUL AND USER FRIENDLY SAYS BOTTOM LINE/SECRETS

Accessories: Hats in the Belfry <www.hatsinthebelfry.com>.  Every hat you can imagine is here, from dignified headwear to a purple Mad Hatter's top hat.

Entertainment: Audible.com <www.audible.com> offers a huge selection of audio books.

Epicurean: Pop’s Wine & Spirits <www.popswine.com> has a great selection.  Petrossian Paris <www.petrossian.com> sells caviar, pâté and other gourmet delicacies.

Gadgets/electronics: B&H <www.bhphotovideo.com> bills itself as the world’s leading retailer of imaging equipment at discount prices.

Health/beauty: Sephora <www.sephora.com> puts thousands of high-quality beauty products at your fingertips.

Home/garden: Cooking.com <www.cooking.com>.  Everything on this site is so well laid out that even a novice cook will have no trouble navigating it.

Pets: Doctors Foster & Smith <www.drsfostersmith.com>.  All your pet needs plus the expert advice of veterinarians.

Stationery/gifts: Star Treatment <www.startreatment.com> has wonderful gift baskets.

Travel: Magellan’s <www.magellans.com>.  This site has appliances and accessories for every travel need.

PLEASE NOTE: If you know someone who would like to receive this newsletter, have him or her send an e-mail to Len Wines at <len@winesland.net> asking to be added to the list.  After you are on the list, you will remain on it until you unsubscribe.  To do that, simply send an e-mail to Len at <len@winesland.net> with the word UNSUBSCRIBE SRA in the Subject.

*The content of this Email Newsletter is for the information of the members of the USC SRA.  It is not a University of Southern California official publication.  There is no intent to promote any particular product or point of view.  Personal decisions regarding health, finance, exercise, or other matters should be made after consulting with the reader’s own professional advisors.