SFist has the opening at Adobe Books featured on its homepage today – and we are mighty proud to see one of our own be recognized for her talents.

The paintings will be on display through March 23 in San Francisco.

Calling themselves “wild old women,” the group of 12 protesters ranged in age from 69 to 82. On Jan. 5, they traveled to the bank with their walkers and wheelchairs from their San Francisco assisted living facility up the street, KCBS reported.

”We’re upset about what the banks are doing, particularly in our neighborhood and neighboring areas, in evicting people and foreclosing on their homes,” Tita Caldwell, 80, told the CBS affiliate.

On the heels of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the San Francisco seniors citizens were taking a stand against the bank, whose high fees and foreclosures deeply impact seniors on a fixed income, including those in assisted living facilities.

Bravo, wild old women, for not letting your age get in the way of exercising your right to free speech. And thank you, Bernalwood, for bringing this story to our attention!

Among the featured topics included in this series is “Caring For Aging Parents Who Cared For You”. This conversation focuses on the challenge of caring for a loved one as they age, a role many will unexpectedly be forced to play. The guests on this topic are author Jane Gross who wrote “A Bittersweet Season- Caring for our Aging Parents and Ourselves” (a novel about caring for her ailing mother), Beatriz Terrazas (author of “My Mother’s Brain”- a blog on a Latino Family’s story about Alzheimer’s), and John Farley who edits and co-writes the Speakeasy column in The Wall Street Journal.

Another great topic covered by the series is on the realities of retirement, titled “Advice For the Golden Years: ‘Don’t Ever Retire Mentally’. A memorable quote that stood out to us was from 83 year old, Krishna Roy, who said “Don’t ever retire mentally. Keep your mind alive.” This is sound advice since a recent poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Yale School of Public health shows that 39% of retirees say their health is worse after retirement compared with 13% of non-retirees expectations for life after work. It is clear that this series is not only going to talk about death but also an active and engaged retirement among several related topics.

Here is an interesting website also put together through NPR; End of Life explores death in America and provides several useful links. The site provides transcripts on various topics surrounding death, resources for people with life-threatening diseases and their families and caregivers, as well as links to selected mediums on death and dying, hospice, death and caregiving, retirement, and much more. Enjoy!

Photos: Brandon Colbert Photography

Ninety-five years is 34,698 days. Which is another way of saying that 95 years is an achievement. An achievement worthy of a billboard.

On Highway 101 South, a billboard celebrates this very milestone, announcing Lou Poletti’s 95th birthday. Poletti started Poletti Realty, a South San Francisco family business founded in 1956. The full-sized billboard at the Airport Boulevard exit features a photograph of Poletti in a fedora and sunglasses and says in large white letters: “Happy Birthday Lou Poletti: We love you with all our hearts.”

Patch.com reported that Poletti’s kids arranged for the billboard birthday card, which ironically Poletti already owns (he purchased it 45 years ago). When his children recognized there would be a gap in advertising, they figured it would be the perfect attempt to celebrate their father.

Poletti's 95th birthday

But the billboard wasn’t the only birthday gesture; Poletti also celebrated his 95th birthday with a big party surrounded by friends and family. Quite the king!

Engage As You Age commends Poletti for maintaining an involved, engaged life even as a nonagenarian. Unfortunately, few seniors in the Bay Area get up into their 90s surrounded by friends and relatives. That’s why Engage As You Age exists: To bring the world to those who can no longer get out and explore it on their own. Our social visits infuse energy and vitality into the lives of seniors.

Maybe we should get a billboard, too.

Participants of this 6-week class will all receive a free copy the book Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions. A relaxation cd will also be given to participants to keep and it is called Time for Healing.

The class will take place each Monday beginning on July 11th and will be from 1:30 till 4 pm for each of the 6 sessions. The workshops will be at:

*

Stanford Healthy Library, South Palo Alto Branch

Oshman Family Jewish Community Center

3921 Fabian Way, Room G106, Palo Alto, CA 94303

*

You can sign up for the class by calling 650-498-7826. It will be facilitated by Peggy Simon who works for Stanford University Hospital, Avenidas and also provides coaching services for family caregivers who are taking care of an aging parent as a primary caregiver or who are using caregiving services.

Navigating the maze of senior care can be overwhelming and confusing. But there are solutions – and a May 19 community discussion will offer up dozens.

Engage As You Age, a company that provides social visits for isolated seniors, has organized Senior Care 101: A panel discussion with a range of experts at the Burlingame Recreation Social Hall.

Seniors and their loved ones (spouses, children and caregivers) are invited and encouraged to attend the free event. Participants include a geriatric psychologist, a fiduciary and financial planner, a social worker, ombudsman, therapist and concierge.

Engage As You Age’s founder, Ben Lewis, has led more than a dozen of these panels in Marin and San Francisco. The interactive sessions can be tremendous learning opportunities, he said.

“Whether people chime in during the town-hall style meeting or come up afterward and ask panelists in private for help—everyone gets their questions answered one way or the other,” Lewis said.

The panel will offer those in the audience advice and connect them with community resources, including those that are free. The goal is to provide community people with actionable information to help them address their immediate eldercare, life-planning issues and also learn how to proactively tackle common challenges that people face as they age. Homecare, caregiving and many other topics will be addressed.

DETAILS—

What: Senior Care 101

When: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday, May 19

Where: Burlingame Recreation Social Hall, 850 Burlingame Avenue, Burlingame.

The stats that jump out at you are that Americans spend roughly $7300 annually on medicine while Canadians spend $2700 per head and Britons come in at $2000. Bortz, a physician for over 50 years (and a prime example of someone engaging as they age!), argues that the financial interests of drug and biotech companies have “distorted the healthcare system” and put us in this predicament.

In Next Medicine, Bortz calls for a new medical system based upon rigorous science and not corporate interests. He argues that the corporate interests that are distorting our healthcare system have created an medical environment in which treatment is financially rewarded instead of prevention. Dollars go into fixing problems instead of trying to prevent them (causing us to spend such large and ineffectual sums of money on healthcare).

At Engage As You Age we regularly see firsthand the benefits of proactive approaches to preventing health issues and also sadly see the significant costs associated with reactive treatments. If you know someone that is lonely, isolated and/or depressed it is imperative that you proactively find ways to socially connect and engage them. There are numerous studies that point towards the health benefits associated with being socially engaged.

Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about the benefits of social engagement. Come to Avenidas this Tuesday if you’d like to hear Dr. Bortz discuss his most recent book highlighting the benefits of prevention (compared to simply reacting and treating).

Dr. Bortz’s talk will take place at 2 pm at 450 Bryant Street in Palo Alto, CA.

Have no fear: Three nonprofit groups in the San Francisco Bay Area are collaborating to offer a Senior Travel Training Program, which is designed to teach older adults — those age 55 and older — how to use public transit, such as AC Transit, BART and city-specific shuttles such as Emeryville’s Emery-go-Round.

The goal of the program is to teach trip-planning, map-reading, paying fares, how to enter and exit vehicles and safety skills. If you are a senior in the East Bay this might be a great event for you.

This is a terrific resource for Bay Area seniors who have the gumption and fortitude to get out and interact with the world. While Engage As You Age things this is a fantastic resource, it still doesn’t address the growing numbers of seniors who aren’t physically or cognitively capable of riding public transportation on their own, and would need someone to be with them to ride the train or bus. And for those elders who have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, this class isn’t the right fit. They need something, like Engage As You Age, that comes to their doorstep.

Still, the course is a great resource, and we recommend those with the physical and mental abilities to sign up! The class will include information on transit agencies serving northern and central Alameda County, from Albany all the way to Hayward and the unincorporated areas. The class is being organized by United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County, in collaboration with the Center for Independent Living and the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program.

Seniors interested in the class have a number of options: one-day mini-courses, three-day courses, group trips and one-on-one meetings.

The next central county training will be a three-day course starting March 9 at the Marina Community Center in San Leandro. For details, call the agency at 510-729-0852 or the community center at 510-577-3462.

Learn about skype and seniors, the pros and cons of seniors using Ipads and also about many other devices such as Presto that allow families to keep in touch and stay within everyone’s comfort zone.

If you know a senior that has had computer lessons or someone who is asking about computer lessons for seniors you’ll find out about great resources (in addition to Engage As You Age) that can help a senior surf the internet in no time.

Tonight, January 28th, 2011,  Honeyboy will be performing as part of the Blues At The Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concerts. The 6-week tour kicks off tonight at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco. In addition to Honeyboy, Hubert Sumlin and several other great bluesman will be performing with Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Honeyboy has won multiple Grammy Awards. Most recently he won a lifetime achievement award in 2010. In 2008 he shared a Grammy for “Best Traditional Blues Album.”

While it is up for debate, Honeyboy insists that he was with Robert Johnson the night that Johnson drank the poisoned whiskey that took his life.  Click here for more information about Honeyboy and go to the Regency Ballroom tonight to hear him live. You don’t have to love blues music to enjoy yourself. Take this opportunity to hear some great live blues music in San Francisco. If you’ve got a caregiver or home health aide bring them along with you!

Below is a Chicago Public Radio interview of Honeyboy: