Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/100749
Thursday, December 27, 2012 ��� Daily News 3B FEATURES Friend���s slovenly lifestyle concerns reader soap and water, it doesn���t Dear Annie: My friend matter that the dog licked ���Rachel��� is very dear to them and they are piled in me. We���ve been best the sink. And if Rachel friends since the 11th likes to feed and clean up grade. Now that we���ve after her roommates, that is entered the adult world, her choice. The coughing is however, she���s encounan issue only if it is causing tered some difficult situaRachel to become ill. (And tions. She had a drug problem, has always had family Annie���s if there is a possibility of pneumonia or TB, we hope problems, lost her license, the roommates have been owes back taxes and has been unemployed for a by Kathy Mitchell checked.) and Marcy Sugar But it seems to us that year. Rachel is at loose ends and Rachel has two male roommates who I���m pretty sure is possibly using her caregiving were recently homeless. She feeds skills as a means to avoid finding a them and cleans up after them. She job. You can express your concern has always had an extraordinarily and suggest she talk to a profesgenerous heart, and while I admire sional, but beyond that, she has to this, I can���t help feeling a little steer her own course. Dear Annie: We are very priconcerned. Not only are these men taking advantage of Rachel, but vate people and do not have, nor do they aren���t very clean, and they we want, a Facebook account. Our cough all over everything. They friend knows this, but when we have a dog who hasn���t been bathed sent her a picture of our newest in some time, but is eager to give grandchild via e-mail, she posted kisses. Rachel allows this dog to this picture with full details on her lick up leftovers from dinner, and Facebook page without our permisthe plates are left in the sink for sion. We didn���t say anything to her, days before she washes them. Am I simply being too judg- but of course, we no longer send mental about her living situation, her any photographs. Please tell or am I right to worry about her your readers that posting such health? Another friend mentioned things without permission is a viothat she confronted Rachel about lation of someone���s trust in you. her two roommates, and Rachel Do you agree? ��� Not a Facebook became defensive and angry. How Fan Dear Not: Yes ��� and no. Many can I approach her about this? I find myself not wanting to step people don���t mind and don���t care. foot in her house again. ��� Worried The fact that your friend knows you don���t have a Facebook account and Confused in California Dear Worried: As long as the doesn���t mean she has any idea that dishes are eventually washed with you object to her posting your Mailbox grandchild���s photograph. She may have thought she was doing you a favor. Please don���t be silent. Tell her you would appreciate it if she would remove the photo immediately and not post any others without permission. Dear Annie: ���Disappointed in Ohio��� complained that the husband of one of her friends kept attending their regular all-girl get-togethers. You printed a response from ���Omaha,��� who said that she and her friends have been having lunch for several years. Since one of their friends has Alzheimer���s, her husband brings her to the luncheon and stays to enjoy lunch with the ladies. ���Omaha��� said they enjoy his company, and when his wife can no longer attend, they will still invite him. I want to say hats off to those ladies for including their friend, despite the fact that she has Alzheimer���s, and for their willingness to include her husband. This speaks volumes for the kind of friends they are. And hats off to the husband for going the extra mile to make sure his wife doesn���t miss out on social gatherings. ���Omaha��� really touched my heart. ��� Minot, N.D. Annie���s Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please email your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net, or write to: Annie���s Mailbox, c/o Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. Stores look to week after Christmas for sales By MAE ANDERSON and CANDICE CHOI AP Retail Writers Bargain-hungry Americans will need to go on a post-Christmas spending binge to salvage this holiday shopping season. Despite the huge discounts and other incentives that stores offered leading up to Christmas, U.S. holiday sales so far this year have been the weakest since 2008, when the nation was in a deep recession. So stores now are depending on the days after Christmas to make up lost ground: The final week of December can account for about 15 percent of the month���s sales, and the day after Christmas is typically one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Stores, which don���t typically talk about their plans for sales and other promotions during the season, are known for offering discounts of up to 70 percent after the holiday. This year, they���re hoping to lure more bargain hunters who held off on shopping because they wanted to get the best deals of the season. Still, a powerful winter storm, which pounded the nation���s midsection on Wednesday and is heading toward the Northeast, could hurt post-Christmas shopping. The storm is bringing high winds and heavy snow that disrupted holiday travel, knocked out power to thousands of homes and were blamed in at least six deaths. The Macy���s location in Herald Square in New York was bustling with shoppers on Wednesday. There were a variety of deals throughout the store: candy dispensers for 70 percent off, various men���s clothes were ������buy one get one free,������ belts for 50 percent off, a bin of ties for $9.99. Ulises Guzman, 30, a social worker, was shopping in the store. He said he waited to shop until the final days before Christmas, knowing that the deals would get better as stores got more desperate. He said he was expecting discounts of at least 50 percent. The strategy worked. He saw a coat he wanted at Banana Republic for $200 in the days before Christmas but decided to hold off on making a purchase; on Wednesday, he got it for $80. ������I���m not looking at anything that���s original price,������ he said. Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta was also crowded by midday on Wednesday. Laschonda Pitluck, 18, a student in Atlanta, was shopping after Christmas because she wanted to get the best deals. Last year she spent over $100 on gifts but this year she���s keeping it under $50. Pitluck said she found items for 50 percent off, including a hoodie and jeans for herself at American Eagle and a shirt at Urban Outfitters. She said she would have bought the clothes if they hadn���t been 50 percent off. ������I wasn���t looking for deals before Christmas,������ said Pitluck, who also bought boxers for her boyfriend. The shopping rush after Christmas illustrates just how important holiday sales are. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, and many retailers can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the twomonth holiday shopping period at the end of the year. So far, holiday sales of electronics, clothing, jewelry and home goods in the two months before Christmas increased 0.7 percent compared with last year, according to the MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse report that was released on Tuesday. SpendingPulse, which tracks spending, said that���s the weakest holiday performance since 2008 when sales dropped sharply, although the company did not know by how much. The SpendingPulse data, which captures sales from Oct. 28 through Dec. 24 across all payment methods, is the first major snapshot of holiday retail sales. A clearer picture will emerge next week as retailers like Macy���s and Target report monthly sales. In the run-up to Christmas, analysts blamed bad weather for putting a damper on shopping. In late October, Superstorm Sandy battered the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, which account for 24 percent of U.S. retail sales. That coupled with the presidential election, hurt sales during the first half of November. Shopping picked up in the second half of November, but then the threat of the country falling off a ������fiscal cliff������ gained strength, throwing consumers off track once again. Lawmakers have yet to reach a deal that would prevent tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect at the beginning of 2013. If the cuts and tax hikes kick in and stay in place for months, the Congressional Budget Office says the nation could fall back into recession. Still, The National Retail Federation, the nation���s largest retail trade group, said Wednesday that it���s sticking to its forecast for total sales for November and December to be up 4.1 percent to $586.1 billion this year. That���s more than a percentage point lower than the growth in each of the past two years, and the smallest increase since 2009 when sales were up just 0.3 percent. Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the group, noted that the trade group���s definition of holiday sales not only includes clothes and electronics, but also food and building supplies. ������Stores have a big week ahead, and it���s still too early to know how the holiday season fared, at this point,������ she said. ��������� Anderson reported from Atlanta and Choi reported from New York. Ann D���Innocenzio in New York and Daniel Wagner in Washington contributed to this report. CT. Christmas fire survivor wonders why she lived STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) ��� Since the Christmas Day fire at her Connecticut home last year that took the lives of her three daughters and her parents, Madonna Badger wonders why she survived. Badger, a New York advertising executive until the 2011 fire in Stamford, made it through the funerals for her children and parents. Then she fell apart, she tells the Hearst Connecticut Media Group (http://bit.ly/UsPBvi). Her hair turned gray and fell out in clumps. She waved a fistful of pills in the air and threatened to swallow them. Badger traveled to Little Rock, Ark., in February to live with a friend from their college days. She says the only condition was that she promised to not commit suicide. ������I don���t know why I survived,������ she says. ������I told everyone I was going to kill myself.������ The fire killed 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah Badger, 9-year-old Lily Badger and their maternal grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson. The city investigated and determined the cause was accidental. Firefighters arrived and dragged Badger off the burning building. A friend also survived the fire. Badger remembers lying in a bed at Stamford Hospital for hours, screaming for her children. A doctor took her hand and told her that her daughters and parents had died. ������I remember coiling up into a little ball and I looked at the nurse,������ she said. ������I just wanted to crawl out of my body. I don���t remember anything after that. People in the hospital said I was just screaming and wailing.������ Badger wears three bracelets on her wrist, one for each of her daughters. Grace gave her the beaded bracelet on Christmas Eve and Madonna was wearing it when she escaped the fire. Two leather bracelets symbolize Lily and Sarah. ������Now that they���re not here with me physically, but here with me spiritually and every other way, I still want to be a great mom,������ Badger said. Badger is keeping her house in Little Rock for now and has rented a loft in Brooklyn and plans to start working again in January. She traveled to Thailand on Christmas with several suitcases of her daughters��� toys, collected from her garage after the fire. She planned to donate them to at-risk girls at an orphanage. ������Santa Claus and retail signs and gift wrap and Christmas lights just doesn���t do it for me right now,������ she said. ������I don���t know if it ever will.������ Depression after stroke can be treated at first to my DEAR DOCpatient, until his TOR K: My father depression was had a stroke and successfully treathas become ed. Depression depressed during after a stroke is his long recovery. associated with Will antideprespoorer outcomes a sants help? I���m year after the asking because of Dr. K stroke has the damage the by Anthony L. occurred. It���s also stroke has done to Komaroff, M.D. associated with a his brain. higher death rate DEAR READER: I remember a patient in subsequent years. Fortunately, antidelike your father. Before his stroke, he was outgo- pressants seem to be fairly ing, active in his church effective. In 2008, scienand community, and tists published a review of always cracking jokes. the research in this area. Then he was hit with a They concluded that the stroke that paralyzed his medications had a ���small but significant��� effect on left arm and leg. Fortunately, his speech post-stroke depression. What���s more, the beneand thinking were not affected, but his personali- fits of antidepressants may ty changed completely. He not be limited to relieving sat in bed saying very lit- depression; they may postle to anyone who came in itively affect areas and the room, including his networks in the brain that family, friends and doctor. improve other impaired When physical therapists functions as well. Studies published in tried to get him to do exercises to build back the the last couple of years strength on his left side, have found that certain he was mostly uncoopera- antidepressants (in combitive. I was worried that the nation with physical therastroke had caused demen- py) can help with recovery stroke-induced tia, but it became clear he from paralysis, muscle weakwas as smart as ever. He was depressed. ness and overall disability. If you haven���t already About one in four people who���ve had a stroke devel- done so, talk to your op major depression. father���s doctor about his You���re right that the injury depression. Ask the doctor to the brain from the to recommend a psychiastroke can itself cause trist who has experience changes in brain chem- working with stroke istry that lead to depres- patients, or find out if sion. However, depression there is a mental health affiliated also can be a reaction to professional the impairments caused with your father���s rehab by the stroke. In other program. Treatment of stroke has words, depression following a stroke can be like improved greatly in this depression following country. People who another major illness that would have died or been affects a person���s life but severely disabled now do does not injure the brain quite well. That���s due, in ��� such as a heart attack part, to powerful drugs that can quickly open or cancer. You might think that in blocked blood vessels in someone who has diffi- the brain. Perhaps the next culty talking or under- major gains in stroke care standing speech, or diffi- will come during the culty moving his arms and recovery period. legs, depression is the Dr. Komaroff is a least of his problems. But physician and professor the mental anguish of Harvard Medical depression isn���t a minor at To send concern. Left untreated, School. go to depression can undermine questions, or efforts at rehabilitation AskDoctorK.com, and worsen cognitive dis- write: Ask Doctor K, 10 Shattuck St., Second abilities. That���s what happened Floor, Boston, MA 02115. Settlement reached in Toyota acceleration cases LOS ANGELES (AP) ��� Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving hundreds of lawsuits over acceleration problems in its vehicles. The company said in a statement that the deal will resolve cases involving motorists who said the value of their vehicles was adversely affected by previous recalls stemming from sudden acceleration problems. Lawyer Steve Berman, a plaintiffs��� attorney, said the settlement is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects. ������We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation,������ Berman told The Associated Press. The proposed deal was filed Wednesday and must receive the approval of a federal judge. As part of the settlement, Toyota said it will offer cash payments to eligible customers who sold or turned in their leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010. The Japanese automaker also will launch a program to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit additional non-hybrid vehicle models that are subject to a floor mat recall with a free brake override system. The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies. ������In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles,������ said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel. Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid. Toyota has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals for the unintended acceleration.