Being a senior citizen has a few clear advantages.

Happy day after Labor Day. I hope yours was swell.

I’ve been having some insomnia issues again. Mostly the problem is pain in my hands and feet (from peripheral neuropathy) and I just can’t get comfortable when I lie down in bed at night. So I get up and hang out in the study for a while eating TicTacs — like I’m doing right now — until the crappy spasms and electric shocks die down. I manage to catch up on my sleep during the day, thank God, and usually wind up unconscious in the family room for three or four hours watching William Powell movies. Welcome to my world.

Know what? I’ve decided that being a senior citizen has a few clear advantages aside from handicapped parking and a breakfast discount at Denny’s. For instance, yesterday afternoon during a moment of reflection I reached a new plateau of self-awareness: I’M LOW MAINTENANCE AND EASY TO PLEASE. I don’t need fancy or expensive shit to be happy. I don’t need a LOT of shit, either. I just need my favorite shit: FOOD and a COUCH. (Stop laughing.)

Before I forget, I’ve got a couple of terrific new pictures of Cooper to share with you tonight. Cooper is my niece Allison’s little boy. Look at the sweet face on this munchkin!

This might be a little unorthodox, but what the hell. I’d like to present a Howdygram Brainstorm Award to myself for dreaming up a brilliant new health care product ... a customizable digital thermometer called “iTemp” with downloadable amplified ring tones! This would especially helpful for old people like yours truly who take their temperature a lot but never hear the stupid beep. Sam is usually two rooms away yelling “YOUR THERMOMETER IS BEEPING!” when I can’t hear the damn thing less than four inches from my own ears. For starters I believe we should offer a variety of recognizable everyday noises — such as a fog horn, the chimes from Westminster Abbey, a barking golden retriever and a city bus — plus the complete Beatles catalog, some Peter, Paul & Mary, Bachman Turner Overdrive, everything by the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean singing “Dead Man’s Curve.” Please send an email if you think this is a good idea and approximately how much money you’d be willing to invest. Thank you.

And now, a favorite Herman cartoon for your possible interest. (I’ll be sharing three of them this week.)

This might be a fine time to shlep myself back to bed. It’s already after 3 a.m. and I’m not getting any younger.

The first-ever Howdygram Brainstorm Award.

As a diabetic I spend a lot of time researching nutritional information for all the food I buy, especially products I’m ordering online for the first time, to find out about the carbohydrates and fiber. Today I was pondering the nutritional data for ordinary cornstarch (I use it to thicken things) but for some dumb reason the package label tells you it’s 120 grams of carbs PER CUP. This is a real problem because who the hell uses a whole cup of cornstarch? Normal people measure it by the tablespoon unless you’re cooking for the troops at Fort Bragg. Fortunately, I just discovered NutrientFacts.com and my life is changed forever. You can look up any food on the planet — everything from marshmallows to canned sardines — and recalculate the nutritional information by whatever measurement you want, such as teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, pints, grams, handfuls, pounds, ounces, you name it, as demonstrated by the illustration below regarding the aforementioned cornstarch. You don’t even have to know any math. (Thank God.)

This is BRILLIANT, and I am therefore thrilled to announce that NutrientFacts.com wins our first-ever Howdygram Brainstorm Award. Yee-haw and holy crap!

Thank you for reading this.