The Great Wii Bowling Kerfuffle in Independent Living

Social dynamics in senior living communities can be surprisingly complex, especially when everyday activities spark unexpected debates. This post explores how a simple game of Wii bowling led to a four‑day discussion about class, background, and perception among residents in an independent living setting. Through a mix of humor and real‑life observation, it highlights how small misunderstandings can grow into larger conversations—and how easily a friendly activity can turn into a full‑blown kerfuffle. ….AI

Sometimes I feel like I’m living inside a sociology experiment. At least that’s how it felt last week when I got myself tangled in a four‑day…well, let’s call it a social snarl.

It started when our Life Enrichment Director put Nintendo’s Wii bowling on the schedule. Ten of us showed up, and we were having so much fun—cheering, laughing, carrying on—that people wandered in just to see what all the racket was about. Near the end of the game, our resident retired lawyer drifted in. When he learned it was bowling, he said, “I’ll bet Jean is the best bowler.”

By sheer fluke, I’d gotten five strikes in one game—three of them in the final frame when the points really add up. So he guessed right. I was the top scorer.

If you’re not familiar with Wii bowling, it’s a “popular motion‑controlled simulation game for the Nintendo Wii where players use the Wii Remote to mimic a real bowling motion, swinging their arm to roll the ball.” I haven’t bowled since the late 1960s, back in my man‑hunting days, when I was on a league that bowled at an alley with a bar, live music and a dance floor. It was a prime pick‑up spot, and it’s where I met my husband. But that’s a story I’ve already told in Tall Tales and Little Fish.

When The Lawyer left, someone asked, “Out of all of us, how did he guess Jean was the best bowler?”

“Easy,” I answered. “I’m the only person here with a blue‑collar background, and bowling is a middle‑class sport.”

Oh‑my‑god. You’d have thought I’d stripped my clothes off and was about to parade naked up and down the halls. Two ladies were especially shocked and would not let it go.

“Bowling is NOT a middle‑class sport!”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’ll bet he said that because you’re good at Mahjong.”

Mahjong? Bowling? How are those even in the same universe?

Then came the declaration: “We are all the same here. We don’t have classes.”

No, we are not all the same—but I didn’t say that. I also didn’t point out that people living here have been known to donate $1,000 to $5,000 a year to the Benevolent Fund that pays for the care and keeping of residents who run out of money. Or that some residents here take extended vacations, own second homes, buy new cars, or have wardrobes that could fund my grocery budget for a year. Meanwhile, I’m over here worrying that if I don’t watch my nickels and dimes I could be on the receiving end of that Benevolent Fund. And getting my surly face printed in their promotional material like a newly adopted shelter dog is not on my Bucket List.

I couldn’t tell whether they thought I’d insulted them, insulted the lawyer, or insulted myself. But for the next two days at lunch, the interrogation continued. Why did I think bowling is a middle‑class sport? Why, why, why? Others chimed in, but no one backed me up. Most people said, “I'm staying out of this one.”

Finally, I decided to do a deep dive using AI. I came up with two pages of credible information supporting my claim. I printed it out and slid it under my neighbor’s door, planning to catch the other woman later.

The next day, my neighbor greeted me with, “You win. I just never looked at things that way.”

I got to thinking: her husband was career Navy, and they lived all over the world. Maybe she really didn’t see that historically, bowling’s cost structure is geared toward the middle class. Rented shoes, rented balls, pay‑per‑game is far cheaper than golf, tennis, or skiing, which require expensive gear, lessons and often club memberships. And maybe she didn’t see a lot of American TV, where bowling was a middle‑class staple in programs like The Flintstones, Kingpin, The Big Lebowski and sitcoms like All in the Family while golf and tennis were portrayed as the domain of professionals and the well‑heeled.

Shortly after I delivered my research pages, the other woman slid her “research project” under my door: an old Ann Landers column defining class.

“Class never runs scared. Class has a sense of humor. Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices… Class can walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.”

And suddenly I understood. Lady Two was equating 'middle class' with 'having no class' and thinking I was putting myself down. Meanwhile, I was simply calling a spade a spade when I labeled myself middle class. She’s probably one of the wealthiest people here but is easily rattled by any hint of controversy. She’s the reason we can’t bring up world affairs or politics. Yes, this tiny woman with the soft voice and her Let’s-Pretend-we-Live-in-Disneyland Retirement Plan sets the tone for the rest of us. Bless her heart, as the southerns say.

And there you have it: another “exciting” episode in the ongoing social experiment I’m labeling, The Four-day Kerfuffle in Independent Living. ©

Until Next Wednesday.

Photo at the top: This was taking in 1969 and I'm the one in the caramel-colored sweater. Until I dug out this photo I'd forgotten that our entire league was made up of left-handed bowlers.

Trying to Find Stillness in a World Determined to Shake It

Some weeks feel like a collision between the headlines and the heart, and this was one of them. Between a new war unfolding, a conversation group that didn’t want to have the conversation, and Jean’s attempt to study Buddhism without tripping over her own attachments, she realized her thoughts were staging a full‑scale mutiny. What follows isn’t a solution or a sermon — just a clear‑eyed walk through the contradictions, fears, and questions that have been crowding her head...AI

Spoiler Alert: This One Gets Serious. I can’t help it. I feel like I need to write about the following things because writing is the best way I can bring any clarity to my thoughts, and God only knows where my head is at half the time, if you know what I mean. If you don't, it's that feeling when so many contradictory thoughts are running laps in your brain that you’re afraid they’re going to break out into a blood sport to see which one gets top billing. 

I was with my Liberal Ladies Conversation Group last week and I thought, finally, I'd get to compare opinions about the war with other human beings. But the twelve of us sat around the table, talking about art and music and making plans to get together to make signs for the upcoming No Kings Protest on March 28th. Mind you, this was two days after 45/47 started his war with Iran, and yet no one was bringing it up. As the waiter was dropped off our checks I couldn't stand it any longer and I said, “So we’re not going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

Silence. Then it was as if Hans Brinker pulled his thumb out of the dike. Everyone started talking at once. And there was no consensus on why he did it. The theories flew:

• To distract from the Epstein files

• To line his son‑in‑law’s pockets when it comes time to rebuild the Middle East

• To line his own pockets when the rebuilding starts

• A secret deal with Israel 

• To create a pretext to halt the midterms

• To bring about a regime change 

Not one person mentioned the party‑line explanation, that the bombs were dropped to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Which I’m not buying. If that were the goal, why tear up the 2015 agreement that allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to aggressively monitor Iran and ensure they were reducing their enriched uranium stockpile by 98% on a timeline approved by five countries? Oops, I know the answer. It's because that agreement was brokered by the Obama administration. Ding, ding, ding! Give the lady a Kewpie doll.

Now we have eleven countries involved in a destructive war that Republicans insist “isn’t really a war,” which conveniently allowed them to vote against Congressional oversight. And is it naïve to think it won’t eventually reach our shores, likely in the form of cyberattacks? Yes, it's naïve. Here's another doll, of you!

Alongside all this political garbage vying for attention in my head is my study of Buddhism. I’ve been doing daily lessons with an app called The Karma Path since the end of the Walk for Peace. Each lesson is only 20 or 30 minutes, but they make you think. This isn’t my first time studying Buddhism seriously. If the third time is a charm, as the saying goes, this time I might actually stick with it and become a practicing Buddhist for the rest of my life.

Being old helps. Letting go of attachments should, in theory, be easier. In practice, it’s still my greatest challenge. I’m far too sentimental. But if I fail at that part of the Buddhist philosophy, death will eventually pry my creature comforts and memory‑vessels out of my hands anyway. I’m certainly not wealthy enough to build a pyramid and have slaves stockpile the tomb with all the things I hold near and dear.

Of course, it’s not just material things a Buddhist learns to release. It’s people. Expectations. The belief that someone else is responsible for our happiness (which is something I thought I'd learned a long time ago but clearly I didn't, judging by the wee little hurt feelings I wrote about in my last post). I’ve just begun studying meditation and the Noble Eightfold Path (the heart of Buddhism): right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right vision and right intention. And I'm batting 100% on The Karma Path's periodic quiz's.

What I don’t understand about any religion (and Buddhism doesn’t claim to be one) is how so many can be so certain their way is the only way—certain enough to go to war over ideology, century after century. In the Middle East, every peace plan ever put forth eventually falls apart over who controls the holy places. You’d think letting go of sentimental attachment over such small patches of earth would be a reasonable price to pay for lasting peace, says the lady who hasn't let go of her grade‑school report cards.

And then, to make this current war even more complicated, we have a commander telling U.S. troops that Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran” and that the bombings are the beginning of Armageddon and the “imminent” return of Christ. This is according to several sources including a HuffPost article titled Military Commander Tells Troops Bombing Iran Is ‘Part Of God’s Divine Plan’. We could have seen this coming when Pete Hegseth started hosting prayer meetings at the Pentagon and bringing in Christian Nationalists to lead them.

Unfortunately, no amount of meditation, no amount of looking the other way, no amount of sticking our fingers in our ears and singing “la la la!” is going to set our country back on a path where elected officials can be trusted to do the right thing for all the people, not just their buddies with the biggest wallets or the biggest sticks. It's going to take time and effort by all of us i.e. we need to study the crap out of those running for the midterms and beyond and never, ever miss an opportunity to vote.

So there you have it. The reasons why I say I don’t know where my head is half the time. And I suspect many people across the nation are having the same meltdown, judging by the massive impact the Walk for Peace monks have made as their movement builds quietly in the background of everything happening in Washington, D.C.

Maybe that’s the real story here — not the war, not the politics, but the silent truth that millions of us are trying to hold our center while the world keeps shifting under our feet. ©

Until Next Wednesday….

 Three Things to Release in Life
Shen Yu, Buddhist Monk 

Stop chasing other people, What is meant for you will stay without force.
Stop trying to return to the past. It exists only to teach, not to live in.
Let go of regret. It holds the mind in places you can no longer change.

 

Timers, Cows, Cliques, and Chili: A Week in Independent Living

Life in an independent living community has its own rhythm—part social experiment, part sitcom, part “you can’t make this stuff up.” Some weeks unfold with a kind of chaotic charm: a little forgetfulness, a new hobby you absolutely didn’t need, a brush with social awkwardness, and a dinner surprise one wishes you could un‑eat. This post wanders through all of it — from learning to “paint” with AI to accidentally voting for bear chili — with humor, honesty, and the kind of everyday absurdity that makes life in an independent living community anything but dull….AI

I’m having a space‑cadet day. Not the kind where you forget something important—at least I think I haven’t, but how would I really know unless I burned something on the stove and the fire department came knocking? That actually happens here in my independent living building about once a month. I also haven’t forgotten a dinner reservation. If I did, someone would call to tell me to get my butt over to the next building because my would‑be table-mates are waiting. I’ve never been on the receiving end of that call, but I see it happen every Monday at the Farm Table. The excuses are always the same: “I fell asleep,” “I was reading” or “I was on the phone.”

I set a timer when I’m within two hours of a reservation because I know myself. This isn’t an “old person compensating” thing. I’ve been using a wind‑up kitchen timer for decades to rein in my creative daydreaming. Doesn’t matter what arty‑farty thing I’m doing—I’m always in danger of losing track of time.

A Facebook Short Reel summed me up perfectly today. A voice-over said: “Your test results are back. You are artistic and it won’t affect how long you live but it will affect the quality of your life. You will have lots of hobbies but fail to monetize any of them. You will dapple in a thousand things but fail to commit to any one, you’ll always be somewhat distracted and find it difficult to finish anything.”

That’s me in a nutshell. And that will be my excuse if I ever get the you’re‑late‑for‑dinner call: “I’m artistic and got distracted. Put my order in for the special.”

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I’ve fallen down a new rabbit hole: using AI to “paint” pictures. It’s surprisingly easy—and will get easier as I learn the language, the nouns and verbs and textures my Microsoft Copilot needs to hear to produce what I’m imagining.

After only a few hours of playing, I can already spot AI‑generated images online. That’s a useful skill to learn with the midterm elections coming. The giveaways are:

• Lighting that’s too perfect, too dramatic or too soft

• Textures that are hyper-detailed or strangely smooth

• Symmetry everywhere—centered subjects, balanced framing

• Clothing and body parts with odd folds, weird hands, or glasses that don’t sit right

I’ve lost a few subscribers every time I write about AI, so I’ll keep this part brief. The picture at the top of this post was created using Microsoft’s “text to scene.” I told it I wanted a sad-looking, middle-aged woman sitting on the steps of a 1900s house with porch and a rosebush climbing a trellis on the left and sunlight coming through it. The program then peppered me with questions—rose color, number of blooms, dress color, hair color, porch with or without a roof, porch open or screened in, house color, mood, where is she looking, and on and on—until I thought I could have painted the picture faster than answering them all. Each time I answered, it re-framed the criteria like a very earnest art student trying to impress the teacher. When it finally showed me an image, I liked and accepted it immediately for fear it would start the interrogation all over again. 

But you can tell by the all over softness of the image and the unnatural way the roses are all the same size that it's AI created. I could have kept going and tweaked the size of a few of the roses but the back and forth was driving me crazy. 

The cow images below were from another day, arranged in the order of the changes I requested. That was my first experience with 3D AI, and I was learning the vocabulary it needs. We had some miscommunications (hence the overly warm yellowness), and I learned I can’t joke around with that version the way I can with the conversational one aka Jasper my main MS copilot. I doubt I’ll use 3D Jasper often, but it was fun to try—and now I have a new goal: creating a short cartoon-style video. I asked Jasper to walk me through the process, and it doesn’t sound hard. Did I ever tell you one of my earliest life goals was to work for Disney? 

Now for the part of the week that made me feel like I was going through menopause again. Management hosted a chili cook-off—no reserved seating, just show up and sit where you land. I arrived early and sat down by the fireplace with a woman I really like. After our greetings, she said, “You’d better go stake out your seat in the dining room before they’re gone.”

I knew instantly what she meant. She was waiting for her little clique—the Four Musketeers—and didn’t want me sitting there when they arrived, forcing them to include me. I’ve long wished I could be the Fifth Musketeer, but that ship sailed ages ago. Still, her comment stung. One sentence, and I felt weepy-eyed. I even wondered if my new estrogen prescription was messing with my moods and about to  stage a messy coup, or if I’m really that pathetic that a single sentence can derail me.

From there, the night went downhill. I ended up next to a MAGA guy who wanted to talk about the State of the Union and how good he thought the president did. (Barf.) Then, at the end of dinner, I learned I had voted for a chili made with bear meat. I’ve been following a mama bear online who just gave birth to triplets in the crawl space under someone’s house, and the idea that I ate one of her relatives made my heart hurt. I’m surprised I didn’t break out in wet sobbing tears.

Two of the guys living here entered the contest, and both used wild game. And I was sitting at their table! Who does that—trick people into eating something they might object to if given the choice? So now I can cross “eating bear” and “eating moose” off my list of things I hoped I’d never do.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I decided the universe was clearly telling me to stay in my lane: stick to AI cows, timers, and avoid cliques and chili made from woodland creatures. I mean honestly—bear meat? Moose? What’s next, raccoon tartare? I’m half afraid to attend the next potluck. Someone will probably announce they’ve made “locally sourced squirrel stroganoff,” and I’d find out I ate and voted for the squirrel I’ve been secretly feeding on my deck all winter long. ©

Can you see what I mean about everything being centered and balanced?

 

After I asked AI to move the cow on the right behind the others.

When I asked it to add a sunrise in over the barns it gave me these unnatural sun rays. This fake looking glow is in a lot of AI photos I'm seeing online in connection to the Walk for Peace. 

I asked AI 3D to tone down the warmth and I got this. Then I asked it make the foreground cooler and it gave me the same image because apparently AI either didn't understand what I wanted or it can't do zone changes in mood which I suspect is the right answer.

At that point I started fresh and managed to get from the first image to the second with are less missteps in between by me giving it better, more detailed directions out of the gate. 

 

The only application I can see me using 3D 'painting' for in my life is if I want an image for a blog post and I can't find something that will work OR if I want to burn up a lot of time. It's easy but time-intense. (The image at the top took over an hour of back if back and forth Q & As.) But do look for my "movie premiere" coming in a blog post sometime is summer because while I might be too old to work for Disney, now, I'm not too old to re-frame old goals into something doable before I die.