I can tell you haven't kept up with Annette Funicello. She has very serious multiple sclerosis (or MD)..and is in a wheelchair and very incapacitated. She did have a doll or teddy bear or some sort of business for home shopping I think. She is still very beautiful and in fact inspirational. We used to play Mousekateers and fight over who got to be Annette. I never won.

My main thing about aging is turning seriously toward voluntary simplicity. It definitely did not start out voluntary..I was forced into it kicking and screaming..but I have downsized everything...I don't own anything I can't leave behind..my clothes fit into a couple of laundry baskets..I own two permanent books and a few diet books (two permanent are Up from Slavery and Kiplings Poems). I will stay at my very modest job (in pay, complex in responsibilities) for as long as it lasts. I'll take the bus maybe forever. Someday soon I would like to just sit on a rocking chair on a porch and people could bring me their babies to rock..not change, not chase after, just rock..and I would feed them too.

mg