1. Sea Horses. The “Mr. Moms” of the marine world, male sea horses carry the eggs until they hatch. Babies then stay with dad until they’re ready to be on their own.

2. Darwin’s Rheas. Also known as South American ostriches, these dads are so protective of their children that they’ve been known to rush cowboys on horseback and attack small airplanes if they get too close.
3. Marmosets. Doing everything but Lamaze class, these little monkeys assist during labor and bite off the umbilical cord. They also take care of the kids when Mom’s not nursing them.

4. Sandgrouse. Living in areas where water is sparse, fathers fly as many as 50 miles to get water for their offspring. After they soak up the water in their breast feathers, they fly home and let their chicks suckle the moisture from their bodies.

5. Red Jungle Fowl. Progenitors of the domestic chicken, fathers protect eggs from predators and teach chicks the ways of the world after they’re born.

Fathers of the animal kingdom are not that different from our own beloved dads.
This Father’s Day, honor all dads by practicing kindness and compassion toward animals. For more information, visit the PETA Web site at www.PETA.org.

There’s no doubt where seniors want to live as they age. The majority of seniors polled in recent industry surveys say they want to stay at home. But is “home” an accident waiting to happen?
“Adult children worry about their aging parents’ ability to live on their own and, it’s a legitimate fear,” says Debbie Teofilo, owner of Home Instead Senior Care in Long Beach, whose professional caregivers provide non-medical, in-home care and companionship to seniors in Greater Long Beach and Seal Beach areas. “Many seniors and their families don’t think about the fact that homes must adapt to the changing needs of seniors as they age until there’s an accident.”
“There is a number of potential pitfalls in a home,” she says. “They run the gamut from accessibility to lighting to trip-and-fall hazards. We see many problems during the home-safety reviews we conduct for clients,” said Teofilo. “We check 50 different items throughout a home including the entrance, living areas, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and stairways.”
For as many problems as there might be, there are just as many solutions and most are simple and inexpensive, experts say. Convincing seniors, on the other hand, is another story.
Dr. Danise Levine, assistant director of the IDEA Center at the SUNY (State University of New York) Buffalo School of Architecture, said that denial often comes into play with seniors.
“We see a lot of seniors who don’t want to admit they’re getting older so they don’t want to make changes in their homes,” Levine said. “Secondly, consumer education is an issue. If older adults do need help, they often don’t know where to go or how much things cost.”
Those issues can result in seniors adapting behavior to their environment, creating potentially dangerous situations, said Levine, whose IDEA Center is dedicated to improving the design of environments and products by making them more usable.
Unfortunately, many home-makeover changes are responsive rather than proactive, noted Peter Bell, president of the National Aging in Place Council, a Washington-based advocacy group dedicated to helping seniors remain at home.
“Too often changes aren’t made until someone has had a stroke or other type of condition that begins to impair their mobility,” Bell said. “It’s a shame, too, because that’s a difficult time to be making a renovation.”
Bell said that it’s important for a senior-care professional to conduct a home review to identify various safety pitfalls, from poor lighting to the need for adaptive devices in a home.
While many fixes are simple and inexpensive, others might involve a remodeling project to help a senior remain at home.
“That first, important step is to make an objective evaluation of what needs to be done to keep them at home,” Debbie Teofilo said. “It’s one of the most important services that we provide.”

Senior Home Safety Review and Checklist

√ Examine dark pathways, corners and other areas where seniors regularly walk or read. Make sure all areas of the home have adequate lighting. Timed and motion-sensor lights outdoors can illuminate potentially dangerous pathways. Inside, consider task lighting for reading, crafts and other detail work – as well as ensuring that hallways and stairs are properly lit.
√ Avoid monochromatic color schemes. Contrast can help seniors with failing eyesight better navigate their homes. Large red and blue buttons over hot and cold water faucet controls will help prevent dangerous mistakes. A dark green or brown toilet seat and vinyl tape around the shower will make those fixtures more easily distinguished. Kitchen countertops should contrast with floors as well.
√ Look for ways to reorganize. Mom always put the black stew pot under the stove to keep the kids from breaking it. Perhaps now it belongs on a shelf beside the stove. And who says the eggs must go in the egg tray of the refrigerator? Perhaps it’s easier for dad to handle them if they’re stored in the meat tray. If that hallway table, which has always been a permanent fixture, is becoming a dangerous obstacle, relocate it.
√ Look behind closed doors. Many seniors will close off parts of a house they no longer use. Be sure to check those areas regularly for mold or water damage.
√ Look for ways to simplify your senior’s life. Talk to your parents about why and how they do things, and then look for ways to simplify their lives. If your Mom’s immaculate floors are now regularly dirty, think about how she’s been doing that job all these years and offer options.
√ Rather than a heavy mop and bucket, investigate light-weight, all-in-one mops. If your senior is replacing appliances, look for smooth-top stoves and refrigerators with water and ice on the outside. Change door knobs to levers or purchase grips that can go on conventional knobs. Convert single-bulb light fixtures to multiple bulbs so seniors still have light when one bulb burns out.
√ Consider security. Think about the potential dangers that lurk within your loved one’s home. Lock-in switches on thermostats and stoves will keep seniors with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from harming themselves. Help them manage in their environment by installing a cordless intercom.
√ Keep an eye out for damage. Watch for signs that a senior is adapting his or her behavior to the environment. Look for towel bars or window sills that are pulling away or shower curtains that have torn from seniors grabbing onto them.
√ Look for ways to make entries safe. Make sure that railings into a home are in good repair and that steps and sidewalks are not damaged. Or eliminate steps altogether. Make sure that doors into a home can be set to stay open for carrying groceries and other items in and out. Install remote control locks.
√ Is clutter taking over? Messy conditions and broken items are important warning signs. Remove area rugs and stacks of newspapers and magazines or other potential obstacles.
√ Consider outside help. Call on a professional in-home senior care service that can provide thorough safety assessments and serve as a second set of eyes for older adults.

Cheap Fixes: What can be done for your senior mom for $500 or less

• Raised toilet seats with arms that lock onto an existing toilet provide height and support to stand. * $90
• Hand-held shower nozzles slip directly over a tub faucet. * $24
• Super Pole Super Bar provides assistance to those requiring extra stability when standing or transferring their weight. The Super Bar mounts on the Super Pole, offering horizontal and vertical support. The device can be used throughout the house. * $250
• Lever doorknob turner adapters attach securely to a variety of round door knobs to provide leverage for easy opening. * $22
• Lever handles can be purchased that extend recliner chair handles. * $22
• Various kitchen items are available including automatic openers that remove lids and open cans, jars and bottles. * $50
• Rubber ramps that are ADA compliant are often easy to install to most surfaces using an adhesive such as Liquid Nails. The ramp stays in place by its sheer weight and can be moved from one opening to another. * $36
For more information about the company’s 50-item home checklist, contact Home Instead’s Linda Kelly at (562) 596-4884 or visit www.homeinstead.com/275.

We all encounter stories on a daily basis. There are fictional stories, factual stories, gossip stories, funny stories and, if you’re unlucky, long-winded stories about the boil your Uncle Milt recently had on his nose. In my family, however, stories weren’t merely a way of life, they were a passion.
Growing up, my parents always made sure to have a fairy tale, Dr. Seuss or Stan and Jan Berenstain book on hand for my brother and me. Library visits were weekly occurrences. On Saturday nights, we’d head out to the bookstore to see what had just come out. Even today, that new book smell continues to excite me.
I blame (and thank) my grandfather for all this. Not only did he love stories and surround himself with books, he also had to be a wonderful storyteller and a prolific writer too. When he passed down this love to my mom, he was also passing it down to his grandchildren. But even that wasn’t enough to convince him that our family would keep the tradition alive throughout the generations. He simply refused to stop telling us stories, even after he had passed away.
A couple of months after he died, we were helping my grandmother clean up when we found another batch of his stories waiting for us under piles of old tax returns and mountains of dust. There were over a thousand pages detailing the time my grandfather served as a medic in the Korean War. Every day for two years, he had written my grandmother long letters, and he was true to his promise when he warned her that he was going to write “minutely, accurately, truthfully.”
Discovering these letters was like accidentally unearthing a treasure you had never known about, only to discover how much you were at a loss without it. I was able to get to know the person my grandfather had been at age 27, just a year older than I am now, by reading his letters. Two years of his thoughts, anxieties and hopes, and they were all mine to greedily gobble up. Even though he couldn’t be around to personally tell me his stories, I feel closer to him now than ever.
Inspired by my discovery, I felt encouraged to do some more digging into other aspects of my family’s past. Oddly enough, my family had neglected to share their own history, despite being avid story aficionados. My grandfather’s letters reminded me how little I knew about our ancestors.
My only contact with them had been through the black-and-white photographs my grandmother would occasionally take out. Those photos had always enchanted me. They exposed me to relatives from faraway lands like Poland and Hungary. But to me, the people in the pictures weren’t just my relatives. They were people who wore beautiful clothes, owned shiny black Model-T cars and enjoyed posing like movie stars. They were people who had wavy hair and noses just like mine. Above all, they were magical creatures, who I jealously regarded for existing in a time period that I could never be a part of.
So, I decided to start looking for these pictures. Along the way, I found more letters, old telegrams, paintings, immigration papers, old passports, postcards and the pictures I had coveted. They have taken years to find and assemble, but it’s all been worth it because, along the way, I found my history and my family.
My journey into the past made me realize that even families with the best of intentions do not always share their ancestral roots. It does not always occur to us to preserve our history, but the loss it creates is immediately evident. When we share our stories, we share a bit of ourselves, our experiences and our wisdom. We create a connection to the past that carries us through to the future.
Our lives are an endless stream of stories, strewn together by our thoughts, intentions and actions. Family trees shouldn’t just be school projects, and memoirs shouldn’t just be for celebrities. Our stories start the minute we are born. If I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that written memoirs are the best way to preserve our history for us and generations to come. So, no matter how old you are or how boring you think your life is, you have a story; please write it down! Your family will thank you, even if they have to go through piles of old tax returns and mountains of dust to get to it.
Rachael Rifkin is a memoirist with a background in journalism. She can be reached at lifestories2day@aol.com or at (310) 612-4183.

New year’s resolutions are an annual tradition. Lose weight, quit smoking, spend more time with family, drink less, rest more, rest less—- the list of self promises and public proclamations are as diverse as are the people who make them. According to the Kansas City (MO) Public Library’s Web site, health-related objectives are at the top of the list year after year. Coming in at second place are financial goals such as saving money, getting a better-paying job and spending less on unnecessary luxuries. Third in line of modern-day categories are resolutions surrounding personal relationships. Finding a new mate, dumping an old one or establishing closer ties with loved ones or friends is another important list of goals for some.
Statistics are available giving resolutions the life expectancy of a sick gnat to that of a healthy gnat. In other words, the odds aren’t good.
To assure that you will stick to any given resolution, do as writer Marie Tomas suggested at the Web site Helium.com—folks should make their goals attainable—even guaranteed. Tomas proposed such resolutions as vow to burn toast, lose keys, gain weight, lie about your age, forget anniversaries and birthdays, develop new wrinkles and/or eat junk food.
Why set oneself up for failure? Set goals that are reachable, easy and pleasant to accomplish. Feel good about yourself. If you tend to see the glass as half empty rather than half full, don’t belittle yourself. Don’t be self chastising. Either fill the glass with ice to reach the top—or get a heck of a lot smaller glass. Keep that glass full, or someone else is bound to try to fill it and spill the darn thing all over the place. Stay in charge of your own glass—and don’t forget to use a coaster!

About the ASPCA
Founded in 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was the first humane organization established in the Americas, and today has one million supporters. The ASPCA’s mission is to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.
For information about services provided by the ASPCA, visit www.aspca.org.