Bathrobes and Property Taxes

Do you know what I dread the most about the time when I (may) have to leave my Independent Living apartment and move down to the Memory Care or Assisted Living building? Aside from the fact that I'd be losing either my mental or physical agility? That's a universal dread here in the land of continuum care living. But the fact that I'd have to get dressed in the mornings on someone else's time schedule is not and I will hate that. (Here I go again, borrowing trouble from the future.) I've never been one to start out my day by popping out of bed and getting into a shower, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as my mom used to say. She was not a morning person either. 

Not surprising I got my love of bathrobe living from my mom. It made Christmas shopping easy for my dad because he caught on to her favorite gift to get year after year. Can you believe it, my mom's all-time favorite bathrobe is still in existence? It's a long, chenille robe with a peacock on the back, circa late 1940's (photo above). It now resides on a mannequin in my youngest niece's bedroom. When I gave it to her eight years ago she promised not to fry bacon in it, but I'm pretty sure my mother did that too many times to count. Just because she liked living in robes doesn't mean she lounged around in them. I'm the same way. I like to be comfortable when I do housework. And if I need to defend myself even farther, when I was younger I used to break out into pressure hives from my clothing so I had to change out of what ever I was wearing a couple of times a day. After months of experimenting we ruled out laundry products and fabric content. Even today, I'll get out of my day clothes as early as I can in the evenings and stay in my robe as late as I can in the mornings. Neither of which is allowed in the MC or AL buildings.

Still on topic, back when I had a dog I once took him to the veterinary because he had a bright purple nose. I was really worried. The diagnosis was “it’s a fungus” and the cure, he said, “was worse than the disease.” What a quack he turned out to be! The next week our dog groomer picked all the crusty, purple stuff off the dog’s nose and showed it to me and a light bulb went off in my head. It was exactly that same color as my new, purple chenille bathrobe. Turned out the cure for the “fungus” was a good vacuuming. I just googled how to prevent chenille from shedding and I got an answer that was labeled "AI Overview." It said: "Vacuum your chenille item regularly to prevent future shedding." Artificial Intelligence really is better than my own, self-made intelligence. I was vacuuming the floors in the entire house when I could have been just vacuuming my bathrobe. 

That winter I was so sick brightly colored dust bunnies around the house that I’d taken to wearing my chenille bathrobe inside out hoping that would contain the little fuzz balls from jumping ship. I'd washed that robe a zillion times and it still created those pretty purple dust bunnies. I'd even find them on my keyboard! But I wouldn't dare wear my bathrobes inside out now that I'm old because it could be used against me in a sanity hearing, if my nieces caught me doing it. “Yes, sir, Mr. Judge. My aunt can’t even dress herself without getting her garments on wrong side out.” The older I get the more I want to write notes about why I do this or that and leave them all over house and in the pockets of the things I wear. My nieces would find pocket notes, I think, because I'm pretty sure they were aware that after my mom died we found ten and twenty dollar bills hidden in the pockets of her out-of-season clothing. 

There is no clever transition from writing about bathrobes to property taxes. So I'll just jump in here by announcing a new topic. For the last four months our tenacious Residents Council here at the continuum care complex has been trying to get to the bottom of why our property taxes went up 19% this past year and also why we even have to pay property taxes at all, given the fact that we're a non-profit and we don't even own our apartments. Some other states don't tax non-profit care facilities and some counties here in Michigan don't either. It's a topic of conversation you're likely to hear discussed around here on a weekly basis and there's even a bill stuck in the State Senate that addresses this very issue. The Residents Council has been over to our State Capital prepared to testify and they've paraded a bunch of speakers past us for meet-and grills---I mean meet-and-greets. Our tax assessor and city mayor, our state representative, a non-profit lobbyist and our CEO have all been been brave enough to stand in front of a bunch of angry, elderly people to talk about taxes.

Anyway: If you are looking into CCCs as a living option be sure to ask them about property taxes. We were all caught off guard by how much that adds to our yearly expenses. This past year it was $3,000 to $6,000 depending on the size of our apartments. Our sister campus is in another city and they pay half that amount. Our meet-and-greets have been well attended with over-flowing crowds and a common complaint is that our Benevolent Fund, that is contractually obligated to take care of us even if we run out of money, might not be able to handle us all if the tax rates keeping going up. (I'm not the only one who borrows trouble from the future.) They have nine million dollars in the Benevolent Trust Fund but supposedly they can only spend the interest. No one can beat me at the game of borrowing trouble from the future. Already, if you run out of money while living here you are subject to sharing a room but I worry that if there too many of us who runs out of money the CCC could revert back to their humble beginnings a 100 years ago and turn a few buildings into a poor farm for the elderly where we'd sleep in bunk rooms lined up a dozen to a room and we'd have to work in the community garden, kitchen or laundry if we'd want to eat. On the bright side, even that would be better than what I used to worry about before moving here and that was I'd end up living in a refrigerate box under a bridge. ©

Until Next Wednesday! 

 

This is my mom wearing the robe pictured above the Christmas my dad gave it to her. That's me with my eyes shut. I didn't take good photos even as a kid. My mom made the matching drapes and slipper covers on the couch. I just bought a clothe laptop case with the same pattern and colors. What goes around comes around.