Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2025 i Reader's Digest

Finding Andora In 2022, Brenna Denmark's gray pit bull, Andora, went missing. Had Andora been stolen from her backyard in Pensacola, Florida? Had she wandered off? Was she even alive? Denmark was heartbroken. Two years later and some 900 miles away in Enid, Oklahoma, Destiny Druse found a gray pit bull with no tags. She had it scanned with a microchip ID scanner and a name popped up: Andora. She filed an online “found pet” report and from there linked up with the owner. Denmark and her husband pulled into Druse's driveway at 1 a.m. after driving 14 hours. Andora approached Denmark tentatively. Took a few sniffs. And then a tail wag. Soon she was on her back, demanding belly rubs. “They wanted their baby home,” Druse told KFOR in…

MY UNCLE GEORGe lives in a home with a few other people like him. He enjoys a simple life—no smartphones, no internet-so communication is limited in-person and old-school landline phone calls. He has a girlfriend, Car and they get married about once ery two weeks. He tells me she think I'm handsome, and I tell him to tell her “thank you.” It's not clear whether Carol exists. My uncle and I have always share a special bond—and my middle name, George, is a point of pride. Still, when I was around 5 years old, I aske my parents what was wrong with him (I was 5, OK? Delicacy wasn't my strong suit.) Anyway, they said nothing was “wrong” with him exactly, but that Uncle George was mentall disabled. Back in…

MY HUSBAND IS the secretary of defense—not of our country, but of our household. His name is Aaron Simone, and he has always been protective, my safety monitor, as I used to call him. But I promoted him to SecDef after a shameful incident in which I called him late one night while he was away on a fishing trip. I knew he was waking up early the next day to rendezvous with the fish, but I was desperate to talk to him: I was convinced there was an intruder lurking in our apartment because I kept hearing strange noises outside our bedroom door. The real culprit was the ice maker in our refrigerator, something Aaron guessed a minute into our phone call. But he stayed on the line with…

After a ventriloquist lamented that he hadn't worked in many months, his friend suggested to him that being a psychic pays well. So the ventriloquist went home and hung out a Psychic sign. An hour later, a woman knocked on the door and said, “I want to talk to my deceased husband. How much will it cost?” The ventriloquist said, “If you talk to him $50; if he talks to you, $100; and if you talk to each other while I'm drinking a glass of water, that's $200.” —ventriloquist facebook group I have to show my hands like a blackjack dealer to prove to my dogs that I don't have any food. —X@MXMCLAIN Where do bad rainbows go? Prism. It's a light sentence and gives them time to reflect. —EDUGEEK.NET…

Double or Nothing I won a free car—twice! The first time, I entered a sweepstakes to win either a grocery shopping spree or a car, and I was thrilled when a company rep called and told me I'd won the car. Years later, my husband and I were looking around at a car dealership when I threw my name into a barrel for a drawing to win a new car. They called on April Fool's Day, but it was no prank—I'd won again. The heather plant, for which I'm named, symbolizes luck and fortune, and that's been very true in my life. —HEATHER HOFFMAN Vancleave, MS Making Light One holiday season, we plugged in our Christmas tree and found that the lights didn't work. We went to Macy's that afternoon…

Some of the most commonly misspelled words in English challenge us to remember when to use a double letter—and when not to. For example: Accommodate and committee have more double letters than we think is right. Broccoli flaunts its double c‘s yet insists on keeping a single l even though we're used to seeing those in pairs. Zucchini behaves similarly, but it throws an h in there too. And we have to address the word itself: Misspell has two s‘s, one for the mis-and one for the spell. Words sometimes drop a dupe in a case like this, but misspell hangs on to both the s‘s, hissing at us to pay attention.…

Memorial Days By Geraldine Brooks This memoir, by Horse author Geraldine Brooks, is as much about her late husband and fellow Pulitzer winner, Tony Horwitz, as it is about our discomfort with grief. Three years after his death, Brooks finally allowed herself “the wild wideness of an elaborate, florid, demonstrative grief” on a remote Australian island where she once had wanted to raise their family. The book, awash with insight from weeks spent mourning the past and considering a future alone in a place emblematic of Brooks's “road not taken,” naturally invokes The Year of Magical Thinking (a title which, funnily enough, Horwitz once called “padded”). —Debby Waldman Ruth Run By Elizabeth Kaufman Ruth, a 26-year-old microchip design whiz, hacks into banks and takes tiny amounts of cash in a…

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April is National Poetry Month, and poetry lovers in Texas have an extra reason to celebrate. The Academy of American Poets recently awarded $50,000 to Amanda Johnston, the Texas poet laureate, to fund her project Praisesong for the People. Johnston is commissioning 70 poems that celebrate everyday folks across the state, like the grandmother in Joaquín Zihuatanejo's “Breaking Bread with Abuela.” (Read a snippet below.) The poets will then travel around Texas to do readings of their work. The aim is to make poetry accessible to all. As Johnston writes on the project's website, praisesongforthepeople.com, “Let's spread love through letters and verse.”…

SALES OF PERFUME and fragrance products shot up 32% in 2022 and have kept rising. Business is blooming thanks to Gen Z consumers who choose fragrances based on their desired mood (lavender to unwind, citrus to uplift) rather than sticking with one signature scent. This passes the smell test: Scents send signals to the part of the brain that controls memory and emotion. Crafting a palette of perfumes doesn't have to be pricey. Brands like Frenshe (available at Target) and Philosophy (at Kohl's and Ulta Beauty) can come in at under $30.…

1 POP THE kettle on: April 21 is National Tea Day. Actually, a dozen days throughout the year celebrate tea in its many forms (chai, iced, bubble, etc.), and on any given day, more than half of Americans have a cup. Together, we drink more than 85 billion servings each year, most of it Lipton. Bigelow is the next biggest brand name. 2 TEA IS second to water as the most popular beverage in the world. It was discovered by accident nearly 5,000 years ago, according to legend. As the story goes, Chinese Emperor Shen Nong sipped it first in 2737 BC, after leaves from the tree above him blew into his pot of boiled water. While tea is popular in China, Brits brew it more often (as English Breakfast,…

LOTS OF PEOPLE snore—in fact, almost half of all adults do. Most of the time it's just an annoyance for the people who are trying to sleep next to them. But sometimes it's a sign of something more—a breathing disorder called sleep apnea. “In the U.S., about 10% of the adult population-which is roughly 30 million people-have sleep apnea,” says Atul Malhotra, MD, a professor medicine and a sleep medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego. “Worldwide, about a billion people have sleep apnea.” The disorder is increasing in prevalence because of the obesity epidemic and the aging population. “More awareness and better technology for diagnosing sleep apnea also contribute to the rise in cases,” says Dr. Malhotra. The problem isn't the snoring, but the reason behind it.…

DURING DAILY BREAKS from the world's many dramas, I encountered another: The blue jay in my backyard is a ladies’ man. Each day, he swoops onto the bird feeder and fills up on seeds and nuts. He's the only jay deft enough to stick the landing, so the resulting bounty makes him a good provider—an attractive mating advantage for birds known for monogamy and pairing for life. He plays the part well, dutifully ferrying food from my place to his home in a tree across the street. Then I noticed him paying regular calls to the row of oaks a few doors down, his mouth full and his feathers a preened electric blue. Observing the jay's philandering turned me into a backyard bird-watcher. At first, that mostly meant using smartphone…

I remember my father asking me, because he was concerned that I wanted to play the guitar and sing and do all these artistic things, “Aren't you going to make a success of yourself?” I was very young and said, “I just want to make every day a success.” —Kathy Bates, ACTOR, IN AARP THE MAGAZINE Joy is always present—in the silver lining, in the resiliency, in our memories, in the connection to those who share your grief when it comes. —Steven Petrow, WRITER, IN THE BOOK THE JOY YOU MAKE If imagination is the rocket, then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own. —Trevor Noah, COMEDIAN, IN THE BOOK INTO THE UNCUT GRASS Our great job as citizens…

1. malefactor n. (‘mal-uh-fak-tr) A faulty wire B criminal C heart defect 2. flay v. (flay) A graze with a bullet B assassinate C strip skin from 3. mayday n. (‘may-day) A shipwreck B distress call C ground combat 4. tephra n. (‘teh-fruh) A volcanic ejections B bee's stinger C cancerous growth 5. parlous adj. (‘pahr-luhs) A risky B flammable C made with lead 6. despot n. (‘des-puht) A sinkhole B train derailment C brutal ruler 7. scourge v. (skurj) A drown B jinx C whip 8. katana n. (kuh-'tah-nuh) A curved sword B order of ninjas C giant hornet 9. pestilent adj. (‘peh-stuh-luhnt) A infected B infectious C infested 10. hypoxia n. (high-'pahk-see-uh) A lack of oxygen B broken bone C blood clot 11. derecho n. (duh-'ray-choh) A flash freeze B line of thunderstorms C mudslide 12. immolate v. (‘i-muh-layt) A flood B destroy by fire C dehydrate 13. basilisk n. (‘bass-uh-luhsk) A small pistol B torture device C legendary reptile 14. noxious adj. (‘nahk-shuhs) A harmful B suffocating C boiling…

ONCE A YEAR, Ursula Bannister climbs to High Rock Lookout, a viewpoint near Ashford, Washington, where she scattered her mot er's ashes 23 years ago. She usually hikes with someone along the 3.2-mile trail. Last Augus Bannister, then 79, went on her ow figuring she'd be fine because she's an experienced hiker. “It's steep so it's considered a hard hike, but because I've done it so many times, I wasn't nervous about it,” says Bannister, who lives in Tacoma. She arrived at the trail at around 11 a.m. and made her way to the lookout. As she headed back down, her foot got caught in a hole in the ground. She fell forward. “By the time I sat up, my foot was pointing the wrong way. I knew right away…

To teach my 4-year-old that Memorial Day is more than just a day off from school, I took him to our village's Memorial Day parade. There, we watched a halfdozen color guard members march past us and then … that was pretty much it. After a minute of waiting for something else to appear, my son opined, “It must've been a small war.” —MARGE FUGLEBERG Portland, ND Should you find yourself driving along R. Lee Ermey Avenue in Palmdale, California, be sure to lower your windows and reduce your speed to 45 mph. That's because the road has an interesting way of honoring Ermey, a former Marine who starred in Full Metal Jacket: “intermittent grooves near the right shoulder, similar to rumble strips,” reports Atlas Obscura. “As you drive over…

Easy on the Earbuds While noise-canceling earbuds and headphones are great for improving focus and relaxation, wearing them for too long at high volumes can strain your ears and cause long-term hearing damage. “Listening at 80% volume for a maximum of 90 minutes at a time is the general rule,” says Sharon Sandridge, PhD, audiologist and emeritus staff at the Cleveland Clinic. She notes that if someone standing an arm's length away can hear your music, or if you have to raise your voice to speak while listening, the volume is too loud. Earbuds can foster bacterial growth, notes Katie Dease, a doctor of audiology with the Mayo Clinic, potentially leading to infections such as swimmer's ear. Both earbuds and headphones collect sweat, skin cells and sebum, so clean them…

Perfect Timing Tuan Pham was feeling pretty good about himself as he approached the 12-mile mark of the Long Beach Half Marathon in Southern California. The run on Oct. 15, 2023, was the 47-year-old's seventh such event, and he couldn't wait to celebrate at the finish line with his teenage son, who had raced ahead. Pham took another step or two, and that was the last thing he remembers. He can't recall staggering or falling face-first to the ground, where he lay motionless as runners skirted him. He had no pulse, nor was he breathing. Three blocked arteries had conspired to do him in. He was clinically dead. If he didn't get help soon, he'd be officially dead. The American Heart Association says the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest…

My voice has always been my companion. It's why I have always been able to be happy alone. Music understands my heart even when I can't find words. But always, it's in those private sanctuaries—the studio, the car—where I find my peace. Singing soothes me, it steadies my heartbeat, it's my best hit of dopamine. There's a certain magic in sitting at the piano and letting my fingers play random chords as I just let any and everything come out. Singing has healed me time and time again. It's been my refuge. It's one of the deepest joys of my life, a necessity as vital as breath. Without singing, without music, without creating, I would be a walking dead. Creating music isn't work for me; it's what I was born…

If you spot a hissing snake or a scary-looking spider, you might think, Eek! Is that thing poisonous? But a better question might be: “Is it venomous?” Venomous critters, like wasps or black mambas, sting or bite to deliver their (possibly deadly) toxins. Poisonous creepy-crawlies, like cane toads and puffer fish, meanwhile, pack their punch if you ingest or touch them. Either way, we'd advise you to steer clear! Word Power ANSWERS 1. malefactor (B) criminal The police chief promised to crack down on malefactors. 2. flay (C) strip skin from Dora glared at her ex as if she could flay him with her eyes. 3. mayday (B) distress call “Mayday—reporting engine failure!” the pilot shouted into her radio. 4. tephra (A) volcanic ejections The eruption spewed tephra high into the air. 5. parlous…