Our Senior Citizen Dress up Party

 

It’s hard to believe this continuum care complex has been open a year and our party was a true celebration with lots of fanfare, finger food, speeches, music and dancing. I truly believe that having most of us all move in within a few weeks of one another made this place unique and I’ve said from the beginning it was like moving into a college dorm where we are on equal footing coming in with no pre-formed clicks like I think happens in other similar living facilities. That first few months we were all either still unpacking or learning how to use our brand new appliances, and wandering around trying to find the right places for the various exercise classes and lectures. 

We practically wore out our concierge and I have personally tasked her with some odd ball requests like taking photos of my ankle mole for the dermatologist. She has the most demanding but interesting job with no two days being the same. She keeps dog treats for the visiting dogs and candy for the visiting grandchildren, unlocks a lot of doors, is constantly teaching and re-teaching us how to use the most complicated dishwashers on the planet. She calls us when we get packages delivered and helps to get the fire and ambulance personal get into where they need to be. She also helps those who are not computer literate to sign up for field trips, dinner reservations and filling out maintenance requests. Word of warning: don’t let your computer skill fall behind because being one of the first to open up the daily emails the concierge sends out to keep us informed puts us in a different tier of ‘young and hip’ around places like this.

If you’ve been following my blog you know there was quite the discussion about the dress code for this party. A few of the guys wanted it to be black-tie formal but a lot of the women didn’t want to dress to the nines, as they say. And, yes, you read that right and I typed it right. It was the men who mostly wanted to dress up. They finally settle on requesting us to wear ‘business attire’ and that started yet another debate on what exactly IS business attire. I think the guys just wanted a chance to show off their suits and ties. I ended up wearing a deep burgundy velvet jacket that falls mid thigh with a knit top underneath in the same color with black dress pants and my ungodley expensive Mary Jane’s made in Israel. I don’t even know how old that jacket is---I’m guessing its from the '70s, but I got a lot of compliments on it and the custom made widow’s necklace I also wore. It’s a long thing made with silver, lavender, aqua and wine colored beads that incorporated my husband’s wedding ring. Additionally, I dug deep in my jewelry box to find my wedding rings, my diamond studs and my sterling silver charm bracelet from the ‘50s and ‘60s. The bracelet was inspired by a conversation in the cafe’ where a lot of us decided it would be a good occasion to wear them again. Funny that so few of us didn’t downsize them out of our lives over the years. Mine has twenty charms and twenty stories to go with them. Several of us were not looking forward to the dress up aspect of the party but I have to admit, now, it put us in a festive mood as did the fancy-do, formal black table clothes and beautiful, fall floral arrangements all over the place.

Fifty-six people signed up for the party plus all the management people were there from the CEO down to the cleaning, kitchen and wait staff. I’m guessing there were close to 80 people all dressed up to party hard. They had a few speeches to get the ball rolling starting with the pastor who wrote a long poem about this place instead of  her doing an opening prayer---she’s planning to join our creative writing group. The CEO went next with an over view of the obstacles this place went through in the ten year planing stage and then construction shutdowns during the height of Covid. Next came our self-appointed mayor and his first lieutenant who gave many laugh lines and I was mentioned several times as were others, of course. While we ate and afterward two very talented singers who live here sang with a three piece band. Our Scottish resident had a few people in tears with his Old Danny Boy. 

As the night wore on about a third of the people were group dancing to songs like Proud Mary and our three little Ethiopian waitresses were in the mix for 3-4 songs. I “chair danced” not to be confused with dancing on a chair. I wanted to get up and dance with the rest of them but the champagne they served for toasting made me feel a little too unsafe to try it.  There was a cash bar open all night but I just drank water after the champagne. Other people, however, were hitting the bar often enough to be feeling their liquor. And the finger food they served was to die for…beef sliders, egg rolls, chicken bobs, shrimp bobs, platters over flowing with fruit, veggies and cheeses. And the cute little cheese cakes and brownies were perfect for dessert.

At one point The Cheer Leader (who is also known for being a kindergarten teacher for most of her career life did a skit using a wall chart she made of funny stories that have happened here like me getting locked out of my apartment on a Sunday morning while still in my bathrobe and having to walk past a bunch of women waiting for a ride to church to get our concierge to open my door. For a moment I wondered if she, too, keeps a secret blog or is writing a book or if her memory is just better than mine. Either way, it was a wonderful party! ©

* photo taken at the party but it doesn't show a half the people who are sitting off to the left in the cafe' area. Later on that empty area in the center of the photo was filled with dancers.