Health Tips Line

Punch the Monkey is back in the news, and if you’ve been worried about how the little guy is faring, you’re going to love this update. For the uninitiated, Punch the Monkey is a Japanese macaque, or snow monkey, who was abandoned by his mother and became an internet sensation earlier this year. Zookeepers at the Ichikawa City Zoo and Botanical Gardens, where Punch was born, hand-reared him from birth, famously giving him a plush orangutan from Ikea that he sweetly cuddled with and toted around his enclosure. It’s been a series of highs and lows ever since. At first, he was rejected and seemingly bullied by the other “mean” monkeys. It was heartbreaking. Then, he was slowly but surely accepted into the fold. (Hooray!) Now, the zoo is sharing a video that is once again making the internet go wild for Punch the Monkey and his dedicated caregivers. Read on to see the latest footage of the adorable little monkey, and get ready to say, “Awwww.” Get...

Few things compare to the thrill of finding a hidden gem at a thrift store. One minute, you’re browsing a jumble of junk, and the next, you’ve struck gold with a stunning vintage piece—at a fraction of what you’d pay for something new. Maybe it’s an Art Deco dresser with the coolest inlaid-wood waterfall design. Maybe it’s a curved Mid-century Modern sofa that looks like it belongs on a movie set. Or maybe it’s something a lot more modern that you just really, really love. Score! It can honestly be hard to believe that some of these items were given away. What were these people thinking? Well, we’re glad they were thinking they’d donate these items instead of tossing them in the trash! Thrifting has skyrocketed in popularity lately, as shoppers look to save money and prioritize sustainable choices. And with more Baby Boomers downsizing, there’s a surge of well-made, older furniture finding its way into secondhand shops. In fac...

Picture it: You’re making holiday cookies, up to your elbows in flour and sugar and little red and green sprinkles, when your recipe throws you for a loop. In the old days, you might have just muddled through and hoped for the best, or searched the back of your cookbook for tips and tricks to solve whatever problem you’d encountered. But now, you’re more likely to reach for your iPhone, which is probably what you’re using to follow the recipe anyway. iPhones have changed the way we cook and bake, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reached for mine to Google something mid-recipe. But what if you didn’t have to search the internet at all? Good news: You don’t, at least for one particularly common cooking problem—because the answer is right on your phone. Ahead, I’ll tell you about a super handy iPhone feature that I had no idea existed until recently but is guaranteed to make my holiday cooking and yours so much easier. Re...

The only gift my grandmother ever gave me was a pair of used underwear she picked up at a garage sale. I was 12. I’d love to tell you I’m exaggerating for comic effect, but that’s just the kind of lady she was: frugal, practical and oblivious to other people’s feelings. Sadly, my gift-related trauma doesn’t stop there. There was also the $20 spa gift card someone gave me as a “special treat.” As far as I could tell, nothing on that spa’s menu cost $20 (unless you count the cucumber water, and I’m betting that was extra), and I was too broke to cover the difference. So the card lived in my wallet like a tiny, laminated taunt until the spa went out of business, at which point I cried real tears over the $20 I had essentially set on fire. But the Incident, with a capital I , is the one that still makes my jaw clench. When my husband and I got married, we received a gift in a box that said it was an electric teakettle. We didn’t ne...

One weird part of getting older is that at some point, it starts to take a little more effort to get going in the morning —and not just because we could probably use stand to hit the snooze button one more time. Our morning movements might become a little slower, a little more deliberate and even a little louder. Yep, that’s your ankles, knuckles, knees and necks crackling like a campfire. Now, before you think I just called you ancient , some people just naturally have joints that crack as they move. My editor, for example, swears she was simply born that way and could never sneak up on her parents as a child, especially when walking down the stairs first thing in the morning.  So is this crackling OK, or is it a cause for concern? And why does it generally become more pronounced as we age? I spoke with Pamela Mehta, MD, a California-based orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician, to find out. Read on to learn the cause of those snaps, crackles and pops, as wel...