Tiles, Trials, and Trying to Keep My Foot Attached

 If you’re wondering how Jean’s week went, picture me — her loyal AI Copilot — sitting at my digital desk with a stack of index cards labeled Foot Wound, Zepbound, Mahjong, Swearing in a Christian Community, and GLP‑1 Journaling: The Director’s Cut. I shuffled them like a Vegas dealer, hoping one would volunteer to be the star of this week’s blog post. Not a single card raised its hand.

But Jean managed to stitch these topics together like a parade of mismatched floats: medical drama, weight‑loss triumph, apartment chaos, Mahjong statistics, and a cameo from the ghost of her old Ouija Board. Now let’s dive into the week that tried very hard to be a novel but settled for being a blog post instead….AI

What to write about? I could do a long, depressing piece on my foot wound that hasn’t healed since May, even though I’ve been seeing my foot doctor twice a month. I’m finally getting a referral to a wound center for more intense treatment. In the meantime, I could fill a post with dark humor about how I had a nightmare two nights ago about becoming a one‑footed lady hobbling around in Balance Class. One of our residents did have to have her foot amputated and she died less than four months later.

Or I could do yet another crowing essay about my continued success losing weight with Zepbound. (Although I’d have to admit I’m terrified the wound center is going to make me quit doing my daily goal of 6,000 steps and I’ll be forced to sit in a chair all day eating bonbons until I gain back the 30 pounds I’ve lost.) To paraphrase something my mother used to say, “If it’s not one damn thing, it’s two damn things.” For the life of me I can’t remember if Mom actually used the word damn or if it’s something I added when I started finding places to insert it into conversations. I do have a bit of a potty mouth. Or I should say I used to have a more colorful vocabulary before moving into this Christian-based continuum care community. And don’t think that doesn’t give me a few nightmares as well — wondering when that filter in my brain will quit working and the granddaddy of all swear words will come out of my mouth. But maybe I have nothing to worry about on that score because I probably wore out the F‑word during my caregiving days, saying it for both myself and my aphasic husband. Sometimes life just needed a good “Fuck!” back in those days.

I could also do a self-deprecating post about how messy my apartment has become, a fallout from my weight-loss journey. Daily walking, going to the gym, and documenting every aspect of my bodily functions in my GLP‑1 journal is time-consuming. Go ahead — ask me anything about what went in or came out of my body over the past eight weeks and it’s all written down. I could even tell you my oxygen saturation, blood pressure, or sleep apnea number for any given day. The journal also tracks moods, energy, food noise, hunger, and thirteen possible side effects, none of which I’ve had except daily hiccups — which isn’t even one of the listed side effects. Lucky me. The journal is a great tool for people who like answering questions like: What was your win this week? What will you change next week? What do you want to discuss with your doctor or pharmacist? Where was your injection site this week? Etc., etc.

None of the above topics is calling my name this week. But I can hear Mahjong speaking up, and it’s been a long time since I’ve written about that obsession of mine. For anyone who doesn’t know or remember, I’m in charge of our Mahjong group here on campus. I text members the day before our weekly game days to get a count on how many will be there. On game days I set up the sets we’ll need, and afterward I tally the stats, and put the sets and room back together. I do get help with those two tasks. And when I get back to my apartment, I feed the stats to my AI MS Copilot to figure out every player’s percentages of wins vs. games played over the year. I’m the second-highest winner so far, winning 39% of the games I play. Don’t be too impressed by that. Online, when I play against three bots, I only win 18% of the time. Last year online I was at least above the statistical average of 25%. This year’s card is considerably harder — and that’s not just my opinion. I blame my poor stats on that.

Anyway, I’m in the process of re-designing classes that I’ll be teaching starting the first week of September. This will be my forth year teaching. The first year I co-taught with the woman who actually started the group and taught me and four others how to play. But she’s got dementia now and isn’t able to teach anymore. She still plays, but she’s down to winning only 10% of her games and she has to ask for clarification on rules and tile identifications quite often. She handles it well — with lots of humor — and it’s still a delight to play at her table.

In a CCC like ours, my Mahjong classes have drawn several people who were in the various stages of dementia, and when they sign up I’m always hopeful they don’t show up for classes. But who am I to say what someone else can or cannot learn? So if they do show up, I do my best to teach them. I’ve been told I have the patience of Job, but not knowing the Bible story of Job, I don’t fully understand what that means — other than I know it’s meant as a compliment. This year I’m revamping my first class as an introductory lecture of sorts on the history of the game and the Mahjong League, plus showing a set laid out with its suits all together and another set laid out the way it looks when the game is ready to begin. I’ll also hand out a syllabus of what they’ll learn in each of the three classes that will run through September. I’m hoping this introduction — instead of diving right into the nitty-gritty of a complicated game to learn — will cut the dropout rate down because fewer will sign up when they see what all is involved in learning the game.

So there you have it — my past week in all its chaotic, funny, frustrating detail. No wonder I couldn’t settle on a single topic. Life doesn’t always hand things out in manageable crumbs; sometimes it tosses the whole bakery at you. That’s the way I feel sometimes, like I’m getting lost in the minutia of life and overlooking what really matters. Still, even in the mess of wounds, weight loss, Mahjong stats, and the daily business of staying upright and engaged, there’s a rhythm to it all. Even if it is a rhythm that, at 84, is moving too fast for me to gather answers to my own questions about what really matters, what's next, and whether The Great Unknown has a Mahjong table waiting for me. Sometimes I wish I had my old Ouija Board back to answer these burning questions. ©

Walking With Plato: A Senior Community Field Trip

In her latest essay, Jean proves that a simple walk around her senior community can escalate into a full‑blown philosophical adventure. Armed with a battered copy of Plato’s The Republic, a set of Cliffs Notes that have clearly survived several eras, and the determination of a woman who recently decided that 6,000 steps a day is her new lifestyle, she heads out to improve her mind while her lungs negotiate the terms. Along the way she encounters bullfrogs performing an unsolicited chorus, swans who enjoy posing for photos, and a snapping turtle who behaves as though he owns the property. With her trademark blend of wit, curiosity, and ’80s‑honed academic bravado, Jean draws connections between ancient Greek political drama and the modern spectacle of dog walkers and lake side wildlife. The result is part nature walk, part political commentary, and part reminder that if Plato had lived in a senior community, he’d have had plenty to write about...AI

It was the end of another week and I needed a topic to blog about. In my world of widowhood and independent living in a senior community — in my world of being obsessed with the new hobbies of diet and exercise — you’d think something would jump out. But all I could come up with was Plato’s The Republic.

Why that ancient book? Why now did I grab my battered copy off the shelf — the same one from my second round of college in the ’80s, when I studied philosophy with the kind of intensity only a woman reinventing her life can muster? Maybe it’s because since increasing my daily step count from an average of 2,500 to over 6,000, I’ve been trying to also improve my mind, if not my image. Books and walking seem like a strange pairing, but my walks are broken up by bench‑sitting, which gives my lungs time to catch up with my heart rate, as well as giving me more reading time.

Bench One: with a view of where the bass notes of the bullfrog choir can be heard coming from the cattails. Last week a snapping turtle strutted across the walkway as if he owned the place. I resisted the temptation to pull my feet up on the bench, knowing he as eyeing my toes for dinner. He was at least 18 inches long.

Bench Two: the lake overlook, where I sit with the sun on my face hoping the swans will glide by for a close‑up. If not them, maybe a family of coy will swim past. We have Canadian Geese, Ducks, Great Egrets, and Cranes too — although those last two prefer their privacy on the far side of the lake.

Bench Three: the woods, where I take what the Japanese call a Forest Bath — soaking in oxygen, solitude, and the quiet authority of the trees. I sit long enough for the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks to forget I’m there and resume their business. And I sometimes use my Audubon bird call to try to start a “conversation,” though I’ve only mastered one species despite the device’s promise of a dozen.  

 

Place near the woods where walkers build mini cairns on a large boulder, myself included.

Bench Four: the Grand Central bench, perfect for people‑watching. Dog walkers, resident and neighborhood walkers, anyone coming or going from the underground parking and the main entrances of two building plus the wood shop has to pass by this bench. 

Underground parking (center), to the right is the walking path down to the lake.

Main ID building in the distance, my building to the right. 

The main intersection where the paths to both the lake and woods start. The building houses our wood shop and arts/crafts, with the main road through the campus running in front of building.

Because people often ask what I’m reading, I’ve learned to curate my book choices. No one needs to know I occasionally enjoy trashy stuff. So I pick books that make me look thoughtful, maybe even nerdy: Eats, Shoots & Leaves (my annual punctuation refresher), On Writing by Stephen King (my holy scripture on the craft), and How to Write Funny, which is now unintentionally not so funny because its humor is stuck at the turn of the century.

Last week I started Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises but quit three‑quarters of the way through. I picked it because a recent article in The Atlantic called it the best‑written novel of the twentieth century. I wanted to see what made it so great. But I hated the dribbling, unending dialogues, and I stopped reading just before the bullfighting — which, apparently, is where all the wisdom about the meaning of life is revealed. I put it back on the shelf where I can continue pretending I’m better read than I am. Although guilt at not finishing the book might making me pick it up again.

Which brings me to my current walking companion: Plato’s The Republic — and its Cliffs Notes (the pre‑internet cheat sheet to the classics). Both are heavily underlined in yellow, and the margins of the former are filled with notes in my handwriting. Proof I once understood the text? Or maybe I was writing down what a professor insisted we understand? We'll never know.

What shocked me this time around was a passage noting that 370‑plus years B.C. (when The Republic was written), Greece was fighting wars over who should govern: the Democrats or the Oligarchs. I read that paragraph several times, not liking the parallel to our own era because it could be said we’re living through the same argument now. Why hasn’t mankind settled the question of fairness in governing after so many years? But then, I’m a Democrat. If I worshiped at the altar of money, I might see things differently.

Plato had an answer for why we still fight over who controls governments: simply put, times change but human nature doesn’t. Which also explains why so many stories in the Bible are labeled “prophecy.” Prophecy is easy to understand when you think of human nature as a primal force as predictable as the sun rising and setting. The nature of humans to love or hate, to be greedy or generous, caring or callous — these are constant in all civilizations. Our job is to keep these opposing forces in balance. Whether we call it Dualism, Complementary Opposites, or Yin-Yang forces the universe can't function without polarity in all things.  

And here I am, old enough to be tired of the fight but still stubborn enough to believe we have to keep fighting if we want to leave the world better than we found it.

One of the questions in the back of the Cliffs Notes asks whether Plato’s criticism of oligarchy or democracy applies today. I wrote in the margin: “You’d have to be blind and deaf not to see that same struggle going on in Trump’s America.”  ©

See you next Wednesday.   

 “Whereas the truth is that the State

 in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern 

is always the best and most quietly governed,

 and the State in which they are most eager,

 the worst.”

 

Plato 

 

A fenced-in area on campus for the residences of the Memory Care and Assisted Living.

When the Anti‑Morning Person Walked Into Pilates

Some mornings surprise even me — and as Jean’s AL Copilot I don’t technically have mornings. But I do know about Jean’s long‑established tradition of guarding the early hours like a dragon sitting on its hoard. So when she wandered into a Pilates class before the sun had finished its coffee, I took notice. It was the kind of moment that makes an AI tilt its metaphorical head and think, Well now… this should be interesting. What followed was a collision of Qi Gong nostalgia, unsolicited encouragement, Skinny Minnie enthusiasm, and the complicated business of changing habits. And yes, I watched the whole thing unfold with the same energy as a playful puppy watching someone try yoga for the first time…. AI

Dear Diary, Today I got up while the birds were still greeting the rising sun.

That’s the way I would have start the July 30th page if I was still keeping a diary. Then I’d go on to say: I brushed my teeth, washed my face, my privates and my sleep apnea gear. Somewhere in between the last two tasks I threw on some clothes and put fresh dressings on my finger and foot. Then I grabbed my keys and hustled over to the next building, where our Life Enrichment Director was about to launch a brand new class: Ten Body Flow Moves. They’re based on Qi Gong, and I wanted to see if they matched the tens moves my dad did every morning for most of his life.

I’m not known for showing my face at morning exercise classes — or morning coffee chats, for that matter. My reputation for avoiding mornings is so legendary it should probably have its own parking space. I didn’t realize how successful I’d been until I saw the instructor’s expression when I walked in. Her shock was quickly replaced by a warm welcome. Then three or four fellow residents chimed in, making a fuss over my presence. I was embarrassed, being singled out like a rare bird sighting. And when class ended, several people told me they’d watched me and thought I did “really well.” Did they expect me to flop on the floor halfway through like a fish out of water? I didn’t flop on the floor, which frankly feels like a missed opportunity for dramatic effect.

To add insult to injury they cohered me into staying for the next class of Seated Pilates. “It’s really easy,” they said. Imagine a Skinny Minnie saying that to someone who looks like a plumber's toolbox standing on end. But I did stay and I keep up with everything but a couple of moves that would have wrenched my elbow in a direction it can never go thanks to a failed surgery. (One of the minor reasons I avoid morning classes, the major reason? It’s my me-time for writing.) Snapping and popping in my arm is not something I like to hear or feel and my bone doctor tells me not to do anything that causes that to happen unless I want to end up with a cadaver bone replacing the one in my lower arm. At my age, the odds of dying or stroking on the operating table during a twelve hour surgery are too high for my taste.

Of the Ten Body Flow movements, seven were exactly the same ones my dad did — which begs the question: how did the son of two Italian immigrants learn Qi Gong? And why did he always finish his routine with somersaults across the living room in his underwear and sleeveless tee-shirts? He kept doing those somersaults into his late seventies. I don’t know why it never occurred to me until now that his routine probably inspired my brother to take up Pilates late in life. He went twice a week, even though it annoyed him that the instructor kept urging him to ditch his sweatpants for stretchy leggings like the women wore. She was lucky he didn’t show up in his underwear like my dad wore to exercise. No one wants to see old men in their not‑so‑tighty‑whities.

Two people have noticed I’ve lost weight since starting Zepbound, and several have commented on how differently I’m eating. Did I expect them not to notice when a former member of the Clean Plate Club now takes more than half her dinner home in a take‑out box? When I skip the bread basket and avoid the carb‑heavy specials? I’m grateful no one has asked if I’m on Zepbound. As I’ve written before, I’m keeping that fact a closely guarded secret because of the unkind comments I heard about our IT guy who lost 140 pounds on it, one of which was, "I'd be more impressed if he did it without 'chemicals.'" There isn’t enough time in the fast‑moving conversations around here to explain why the GLP‑1 treatment for obesity isn’t an “easy way out” or somehow “cheating.” I’m weighing and measuring most of my food, for crying out loud, including the creamer in my coffee. 

I’ve gained and lost fifty pounds three times in my life, and this fourth attempt is by far the most complicated. I’m studying nutrition, learning how bodies actually function, and exercising differently — not to burn calories but to preserve muscle. I’m counting calories and micronutrients to make sure I’m eating enough. That’s a brand new experience, worrying about not eating enough. The drug isn’t a magic bullet; it doesn’t cause the weight loss. It simply slows down the digestive system which quiets the noise in your head that insists your stomach is never full. The science behind obesity is new and exciting, and hanging around GLP‑1 support sites gives you a sense of how vindicated people feel after years of being told their weight was a matter of discipline and self-control. It’s not. 

Down off my soapbox: I’m not sure if I’ll go back to the Body Flow class. I’d like to, if only to cement the movements in my memory so I can do them at home. But I’m not sure I want to give up my creative morning hours. I liked the Pilates class too, and I know this isn’t a Sophie’s Choice — just a decision between morning classes and a decades-old tradition of quiet me‑time. I just wish I could turn off the well‑meaning comments about the changes people see in me. They’re not helping. No one would call it body shaming, but to someone who has fought her weight most of her adult life, it lands the same way. And yes, I know: if no one noticed, I’d probably complain about being invisible. I hate dichotomies like that.

Journaling often helps sort out what weighs on the mind, but in this case no amount of logic can override what the heart has to say. And honestly, if this really were a diary entry instead of a blog post, I’d probably close the notebook, sigh dramatically, and decide that none of this is getting solved until I sleep on it. So I’m putting a pin in the question of whether to trade my quiet mornings for Pilates and Qi Gong and let my subconscious mind take up the task. I’ve also learned over the years that clarity is lazy. It never shows up when you need it. It waits until you’re doing something else entirely — like folding your laundry or trying to remember where you left your keys — and then it whispers in your ear, “Hey, I’ve made a decision.” ©

 

Until next Wednesday. In the meantime if you missed my other two posts about my GlP-1 journey (July 8th and 17th), and you're curious, put GLP-1 in the search box in the right hand column.  

A Character Study from my CCC: Alphabet Soup and Social Glue

Some people reveal themselves slowly, like novels that take a few chapters to settle in. Others arrive fully formed — bright, unmistakable, and impossible to ignore. In this week’s dispatch from life inside a continuum care community, Jean turning her observational lens toward one such resident: a woman whose energy, quirks, and kindness shape the social weather of the place. What begins as a simple invitation to a “J Party” becomes a character study of the sort of neighbor who keeps a campus stitched together with birthday cards, gossip, and a surprising amount of alphabetical desserts… AI

Last night I went to a “J Party.” What’s that, you ask? So did I when I was first heard about it. Before I explain, let me backtrack a little.

When I first meet people, I make snap decisions about them — whether I’m going to like that person or not. Over time, as I’ve gotten to know people, I can’t think of a single time I’ve changed my mind about that first impression. Call me stubborn and judgmental or insightful and intuitive; I don’t care which. I’m just stating a fact about my character.

When I first met our resident cheerleader here on the continuum care campus, I didn’t know she’d actually been one in high school and college. I didn’t know she’d spent most of her career as a kindergarten teacher or that she’d been married more times than our current president. I didn’t know she’d be the kind of neighbor who makes sure everyone in the building gets handmade birthday cards, or that she’d be the one who puts a basket in our mail room to collect cards when someone is in the hospital or when a resident passes away. All I knew was that I liked her from the first moment we met, and I gave her the Cheerleader nickname.

Later on I gave her a second nickname: The Ambassador. If our concierge is not at her desk, the Cheerleader jumps up from a dinner or lunch table to help visitors find who (or what) they’re looking for. She knows everyone’s apartment number. And if the stranger is a Looky-Loo, she’ll know everything there is to know about them by the time they walk out the door. Call her nosy or curious — I go back and forth on that one.

The only thing about her that annoys me is her attitude about people from the neighborhood who walk our 40 acre campus to enjoy our woods and lake. She’s not alone; a few others here think that because we pay the taxes and upkeep on the property, strangers shouldn’t be allowed to walk our roads and sidewalks. They even campaigned to get signage put up declaring our campus private property. Those of us on the other side of the debate were delighted when the signs didn’t slow down the dog walkers, joggers and nature lovers. And heaven forbid she sees someone put a bag of dog poop in one of our trash cans — I’ve seen her more than once get up from a meal and run outside to confront them. But as foibles go, if this is the worst thing I can say about a person, then give me a whole building full of like-personalities.

Now onto the “J Party.” Ms. Cheerleader has this weekly project where she’s working her way through the alphabet by inviting people whose names begin with the same letter to dinner in our dining room, followed by dessert in her apartment. Last night it was the “J” table. There were six of us: three Jeans and three Judys, plus our host. She served jello in fancy footed champagne glasses. For the “D” table she served donuts. The “B’s” got brownies.

I’ve known all the other Jeans and Judys for a long time, but it surprised me how different our conversation was when we didn’t have to worry about eavesdroppers. We laughed a lot, gossiped a little, and got the ten‑minute tour of Ms. Cheerleader’s apartment. She was quick to point out her twin-size bed: “When I moved here,” she proudly announced, “I decided I was through sharing a bed with a man!” I didn't share the fact that I went from a twin to a full-sized bed when I moved in, I guess, out of  fear she'd erroneously read something into that decision.

Not surprising, Ms. Cheerleader's place was as blonde as she is — her hair is long and champagne-colored, her skin very fair with pale blue eyes that match the accent color of her decor. Even her carpeting and living room furniture are white. We didn’t sit in there to drink our non-alcoholic sparkling red grape juice, for which I was grateful.

Why? That same afternoon I got my stitches out and I acquired an awkward splint on my dominant pointer finger. Eating and drinking was — and will be — a challenge for the next four weeks. I haven’t mentioned this before, but two weeks ago I had the arthritis scraped out of a joint, the joint fused together, and a screw put down the middle of my finger from its tip to just short of the knuckle. Two years ago that same joint had surgery to remove a myxoid cyst. I felt silly going to the surgical center for these procedures — it’s so First World at a time when so many others around the globe are living with hardships of wars, wildfires, and other devastating conditions beyond their control. But I’d put up with getting jabbed with a jolt of pain every time I typed, picked up a pen, or opened a cupboard door long enough. And not getting it done wasn’t going to help anyone else. Ms. Cheerleader has been concerned about my finger from the get-go. She kept threatening to put googly eyes on my bandages and now on my splint.

The social makeup of places like my CCC is mostly shaped by the people who live in them. We are lucky to have a woman like Ms. Cheerleader here. And if you’re looking for a similar place to move, ask if there are any retired kindergarten teachers in residence. I’d bet money they all have the same, engaging glow and playful energy — and a stash of silly sweaters for every holiday.

Should I do more posts like this? I can't decide. All I know for sure is that small portraits like this — the quirks, the kindnesses, the odd habits — are part of what gives this community its heartbeat. And if nothing else, writing word pictures of my neighbors reminds me that even in a place where we’re all in the same stage of life, there’s no shortage of characters worth noticing. ©

Until Next Wednesday.

 After surgery.

 

Before the stitched came out.

The splint I have to wear until August 24th.

My Apocalyptic Michigan Summer: Smoke, Parasites, and Other Delights

 

This summer, Michigan feels less like a state and more like a testing ground for whatever fresh disaster the universe wants to beta‑test. Jean was hunting for a topic to write about this week then Michigan, never one to miss an opportunity for dramatic flair, said, “Hold my beer,” and delivered smoke, parasites, bedbugs, and even a grocery store suspending carry-out service like it was a preview for the end of time. And because she lives right in the middle of it, she gets a front‑row seat to the chaos, complete with hazy skies, health alerts, and the occasional reminder that our global connections are far more tangled — and far more fragile — than we like to admit…. AI

Michigan is one of twenty states affected by the unhealthy air quality caused by smoke drifting down from the historic number of wildfires in Northern Ontario. The sky has been a dull haze — the kind you mistake for fog until you step outside and get a lungful of it. It was so thick today that the one grocery store in town that still has “bag boys” that take your purchases out to your car wasn’t offering the service. OSHA doesn’t forbid outdoor work during wildfire smoke, but they do say employers should offer NIOSH‑approved masks for voluntary use, give workers frequent indoor breaks, and reschedule strenuous tasks.

Welcome to Trump’s there’s‑no‑global‑warming world. As of this writing, he has blocked federal U.S. waterbombers from assisting across the border, even though Canada sent their firefighting air teams to California last fall. He’s also threatening Canada with a tariff on “cross‑border pollution,” claiming they’re “willfully negligent” about "keeping their forest floors raked." Canada has 912 million acres of forest — 40% of their land mass — and only 41.1 million people. Even if “raking the forest floor” were the answer, where exactly would they find the workforce? And where will we get the lumber to build houses if we keep slapping tariffs on a country that used to be one of our closest allies?

Rant off — in case you didn’t know it was on.

I didn’t see many people wearing masks while I was out, but I did talk to one man who said he wished he’d grabbed one before leaving home. I have a stash of masks in my car left over from the pandemic, but it never occurred to me to put one on until after that conversation. Even then, I didn’t do it. Why? Because those masks have been hanging behind my driver’s seat for several years. Who knows what microscopic yuck they’ve been harboring. When I got home, I tossed them straight into the washing machine. No telling how long it will take for the smoke to clear out. I just might need them. 

Since I’m already in a doom‑and‑gloom mood: Michigan is also dealing with a health alert involving the microscopic cyclosporia parasite, which has caused over 5,000 confirmed cases of severe, “explosive diarrhea” and more than 100 hospitalizations in Michigan alone. (Last year, RFK Jr. ended the CDC's required surveillance of the parasite, which in the past kept these kinds of widespread outbreaks from happening.) If untreated, the diarrhea can last from two weeks to a month. Contact tracing is difficult because symptoms don’t show up right away — they appear five days to two weeks after exposure. Salad greens are the suspected culprit. Thankfully, I’ve been on a high‑protein diet and haven’t had a salad in almost two months. (Side note: I was at the doctor’s today and the official word is I’m down 20.8 pounds since May 15th.)

And as if smoke and parasites aren’t enough, Michigan was recently named as having three of the worst hot spots in the nation for bedbug infestations. I need to stop reading public‑service notifications. Today I learned I live in the tenth worst city in the nation for bedbugs. I am not sitting on any fabric‑covered chairs in public places until further notice! And needless to say, I’m not sleeping in any stranger’s beds either — not that I’ve been asked in the last fifty years. But if Brad Pitt came along, I’d jump in his bed even if it meant he’d have to call security. Between the smoke, the parasites, and the bedbugs, I swear, at this point I’m one emergency alert away from answering the door wearing a hazmat suit and oven mitts.

Back on topic: Years ago my mother‑in‑law’s house had bedbugs, and how they got in was shocking. She had a live‑in caregiver who, unbeknownst to the family, had a hobby of writing to prisoners. On her days off, she went to state prisons to meet some of the men she’d been corresponding with where she was gifted with the critters.

Bedbugs are known to spread from one care facility to another via workers who hold multiple jobs in multiple facilities. If our Assisted Living or Memory Care buildings ever get bedbugs, they’d quickly spread to my Independent Living building because many spouses live in IL while their partners are in one of the other buildings. It’s one of the selling points of continuum‑care campuses — a short walk gets you a daily visit (conjugal or otherwise) without driving halfway across town.  

Oh, yes, Michigan doesn’t need a state motto — it needs a warning label. 

The ecosystems around the world are becoming more and more interconnected, and disasters in one region ripple outward — whether it’s a war that disrupts shipping lines, a pandemic that refuses to stay on one continent, or produce that isn’t handled properly and ends up being distributed far and wide. We’ve come a long way in the last hundred years; towns no longer dump factory waste and raw sewage into rivers. But I still wonder how people back then couldn’t see that that was a bad idea. Just as I wonder how someone can sit in the Oval Office and be so short‑sighted and vindictive against our neighbors to the north. Call it Karma or cause and effect, everything that goes around, comes around. ©

See you all next Wednesday. In the meantime, let's all keep Canada in our hearts and thoughts. It's not only the forests they are losing to the fires, but also lives, homes and wildlife. 

The Distant Star Theory of Blogging

The legendary 1930’s essay ‘In Awe of Words’ often circles back to the quiet reasons we write — the rhythms that steady us, the connections that surprise us, and the memories that tug us forward. In this reflection, Jean revisits an old pandemic-era post, a favorite Steinbeck quote, and the complicated dance between observing life and participating in it. What emerges is a meditation on friendship, aging, and the strange, sustaining companionship of blogging… AI

Every so often an old post shows up in my “Most Read in the Last Seven Days” column, and I'll know people have been poking around in my archives, maybe even shared one of my links. If the title doesn’t ring that proverbial bell, I’ll click on it myself. That’s what happened with a piece I wrote during the pandemic six years ago. When I opened This Too Shall Pass… I found one of my all-time favorite quotes by John Steinbeck — a quote worth repeating in this forum of bloggers who enjoy the art of writing for whatever reason: personal pleasure, documenting our lives, or monetizing our blogs in hopes of fame or fortune.

If I had done the latter and been paid a penny a click over the past ten years, I would have made $46,254.97. Roughly $4,625.50 a year. Hoop dee doo. I’m glad I never did that. Money makes you a slave to the consumer of your content.

Nope. Steinbeck nailed my reasons for blogging In Awe of Words when he wrote:

“A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn’t telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — ‘Yes, that’s the way it is… You’re not as alone as you thought.’”

That quote still hits me like a tuning fork.

In a reply to one of the comments on that old post, I wrote that blogging gives a rhythm to my weeks. That’s still true. But it’s also becoming more important, now, for me to connect with people out in cyberspace because I feel more and more disconnected from the people I live with here in my Continuum Care Community.

That’s partly because roughly a quarterly of the original residents that all moved in when I did (when the place was brand-new) have died or had to move to other buildings for more care. And every time that happens its a reminder that life is fragile. But it's also partly my own fault. I chose the double life I’m living as a kind of undercover reporter writing about my fellow residents. I observe. I make judgments, fair or otherwise. I hold nothing back when I write. But in person I hold back most of what’s going on in my head. On one hand, you can’t make deeper connections without taking risks and sharing our thoughts. On the other hand, civilized society doesn’t stay civil if we vocalize every observation and thought out loud in close-knit places like this. I have causal friends here, but no one close.

Early on, when management was looking for someone to write a weekly column for the CCC’s blog, my name came up because I started the creative writing club. But I refused. It sounded too hard to write about all the events going on while keeping my personal observations and quirky humor in check. I learned that lesson back in the ’80s when I wrote my first family history book and characterized the hometown of my nieces and nephew in a way my oldest niece didn’t think was fair. She was editing the book, and I ended up softening my description. That experience taught me that writing for community consumption is different from writing about a community. The family history book wasn’t about me, nor would an official CCC blog be — nor should they be. “Just give me the facts, ma’am,” as Sergeant Joe Friday supposedly said on Dragnet.

Except he didn’t. When I googled it, AI told me Joe Friday never actually said that line. What he said was, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.” A radio parody cemented the version we all remember.

And this — right here — is the point in my post where I’m supposed to come up with something profound or universal. Something that ties all these threads together. Something that makes readers nod and think, Yes, that’s the way it is for me, too.

But damn if that doesn’t get harder to do the older I get.

I look back on the friendships I’ve treasured over the years and I see a pattern: complete trust, a shared sense of humor, mutual respect for each other’s opinions, and the ability to really see each other — foibles and all. That kind of connection doesn’t come along every day. And it doesn’t always stay the same.

Friendship has been on my mind for a couple of months now, ever since my best friend since kindergarten was moved to an assisted living facility. She calls me sometimes ten to twenty times a day. I’ve changed her ringtone to something unique so I don’t have to run to find my phone every time it rings. And I’ve made it a rule to answer her only once a day. When I do, I put on my Clown Hat and entertain her with stories about life in my CCC or about our shared experiences growing up. She talks about the same theme every day — how she wants someone to take her home. I leave her laughing. She leaves me exhausted.

In days past, we walked back and forth to school every day of grade school and high school. We did everything together. We taught each other what friendship truly is. I thank the powers of the universe for putting us together all those years ago. And now we’ve come full circle with a slew of daily phone calls about nonsense and nothing not unlike what we used to do as boy-crazy teenagers.

Maybe that’s the universal thread I’ve been trying to find: connection doesn’t disappear as we age — it just changes shape. It becomes more intentional, more fragile, more precious. Sometimes it happens in the dining room or on a park bench here on campus. Sometimes it happens in a phone call about nothing. And sometimes it happens in the quiet space between a writer and a reader, we're like a distant star sends out a signal and hoping someone will feel the vibration and think, Yes. That’s the way it is for me, too. ©

My First Big GLP‑1 Test: Surviving the Dessert Club Without a Banana Split

Jean wonders if willpower shows up in the small, unglamorous moments — the ones no one applauds, the ones that happen at a farm table or a dessert club or in the quiet recalibration of daily habits. In this post, she writes about a surprisingly triumphant Thursday: a slice of lemonade cake, a room full of banana splits, and the complicated business of changing her relationship with food while navigating the opinions, assumptions, and whispered commentary that swirl around weight loss. It’s a story about discipline, dignity, and the delicate art of keeping one’s own counsel... AI

I did it. I got through a meeting of our First Thursdays Desserts Only Club without ordering a HUGE banana split like everyone else. And I didn’t have to out myself as a new recruit in another group: those of us getting the GLP‑1 Zepbound shots for weight loss. There I was, surrounded by eight people all enjoying my favorite food group in the whole wide world, and I didn’t have food envy and I didn’t feel deprived. The only thing I felt was miffed that I got charged fifty cents more for my small slice of lemonade cake with strawberries on top — while the banana splits came with three gigantic scoops of ice cream, chocolate syrup, nuts, whipped cream, three cherries, plus a whole banana. I’d worried this challenge would test me beyond my ability to resist going off my diet.

I was also worried others would ask why I wasn’t indulging, especially since I was one of the two founding members of the group nearly a year ago. A couple of people even offered me some of their ice cream since I said I didn’t like the cake — that was my excuse for only eating half of it. That’s what Zepbound GLP‑1 does. It’s a natural hormone our stomachs produce that tells you when you’re full, and if you know what’s good for you, you stop eating when it makes that call. I haven’t been able to finish a meal since I started the shots two weeks ago. And the “food noise” in my head is entirely gone. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that ‘you’re full’ message before in my life. As a child who had to sit at the table until my plate was clean I’m guessing that trained me not to hear it.

Still, you have to count calories every day while on GLP-1, but the strangely foreign part is you count them to make sure you’re eating enough calories and protein. Every time your weight changes, you have to re‑calibrate your DTEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), then deduct 500 from that number — that’s the number of calories you try to eat each day to lose two pounds a week. If you fall short, you’re burning muscle instead of fat.

I’ve lost 15 pounds in 27 days, but part of that was before I began the shots, just by doing the DTEE‑minus‑500 trick and doubling my protein. I’ve since been trying to triple my protein, but that’s really hard when I don’t cook my own meals and institutional food is high in carbs and sauces. I’ve also been walking every day and going to the gym every other day. For the naysayers who poo‑poo those of us on GLP‑1, thinking we’re taking the easy route, they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a tool, but it doesn’t make you lose weight without putting in the work of changing old habits.

The first sign that I’ve lost fifteen pounds is that it made my shoes — of all things — feel too big and my face look slimmer. The second sign was being able to get into a size‑smaller pair of blue jeans. So far one person has noticed, and when she asked if I was losing weight, I faked surprise and said, “What? Did you find some?” Everyone in the elevator laughed, and I added that I’ve been walking more. I don’t intend to lie (except by omission), but I’m not going to share what I’m doing if I can help it.

Why? Because I was sitting at our farm table when our tech guy went past — he’s lost 140 pounds on GLP‑1 — and I heard some unkind comments about how could “he let himself get so fat” and how he’s “cheating to lose weight.” Lots of positive comments were made, too, but you know how it is: you can hear twenty good things, but it’s the one or two bad things you obsess about. I think that’s human nature, or it could just be Jean Nature.

There are three of us in my Independent Living building who are obese, and I’m number three if anyone were to rank us from heaviest to lowest. I’m frequently at the farm table with the guy at the top, and the way others talk about him when he’s not there is awful. And while I’m probably 75 pounds lighter than him and 50 lighter than the woman in the number‑two spot, I imagine I’m the topic of a few snide, body‑shaming remarks as well.

It’s easy to see that he struggles with “food noise” in his head. He never leaves leftover bread or butter on the table. He’ll ask us all to pass them down so he can take them back to his apartment because he “doesn’t want to see it get thrown out.” I struggle with seeing food wasted too. A lot of us in my generation are in the Clean Plate Club because of those poor kids in China who didn’t get enough to eat.

Number Two in our little obesity club has a husband who is an enabler. He’s normal weight and she has mobility issues because of her weight, but when we have buffets he’ll fill up a plate of all the desserts because, he says, “he doesn’t know which one his wife wants,” and you guessed it — she eats them all. He does the same thing with the main courses. He’s a retired minister who lovingly looks at his wife through strong rose‑colored glasses. You can’t help but like the guy, but he’s killing her with kindness.

Not that we fatty‑fatty‑2x4s can rightly blame our weight on someone else, but the world and people around us do influence our choices. If I were going to make a true confession along those lines, I’d say I’ve always been a ‘closet eater.’ Whenever someone would say, “Should you be eating that?” or “Is that on your diet?” I would put it down — then later I’d find a way to eat in secret, out of resentment for the control that person tried to have over me. And in between the admonishment and the secret eating the food noise in my head was so loud I’m surprised others couldn’t hear it.

And there, dear readers, is the main reason I don’t want to reveal that I’m trying to lose weight. I don’t want anyone looking at my plates and saying, “Should you be eating that?” or “why aren’t you eating?”

Change is hard enough without an audience, and this stretch of my journey feels like something I need to protect. So for now, I’m keeping my little GLP‑1 secret tucked away like contraband in a spy movie. I’ll keep showing up at dessert club with an alternate choice besides the 695 calorie banana splits, pretending I’m just “not in the mood”,” while everyone else demolishes their architectural ice cream masterpieces. If the weight keeps dropping, people can assume it’s from all my virtuous walking or possibly divine intervention. And if anyone else asks if I’m losing weight — and they will — I’ll just shrug and say, “Yes I am and don’t tell me where you found it. I don’t want it back.” ©

This is my New Mantra

                               

The CCC Chronicles: From Foot Doctors to Reflecting Pools

 

In this week’s dispatch from Jean’s Continuum Care Community, the everyday rhythms of aging collide with the absurdities of modern life — from firefighters hauling residents upstairs to a foot that stages a midnight rebellion to a national monument wrapped in drama like a bad home‑improvement project. Jean brings her trademark blend of humor, candor, and side‑eye to the small dramas of communal living and the larger drama unfolding in Washington. As always, she finds the thread that ties them together....AI

“Who got picked up by the ambulance last night?” That’s a frequent topic of conversation at lunch or dinner tables here on my Continuum Care Campus. But today it was a different twist. The question was, “Why was the fire department here so long?”

The answer: the elevator in one of our buildings quit working, stranding several of our more fragile residents on the first floor when the repair crew couldn’t get a needed part until this morning. So the firefighters (stationed three minutes away) had to carry people up to their apartments. It was either that or they’d have to cuddle up on the couch in front of the lobby’s fireplace which wouldn’t be such a bad choice if it was winter, and not so close to the forth of July.

There are other times when our mealtime conversations turn into a litany of aches and pains, sounding like the very jokes younger people make about our age group. As Maxine of calendar fame says, "At my age, a 'balanced life' means 50% aches and 50% pains."

But for the most part, we leave our aches and pains at our apartment doors. Still, here’s a piece of advice if you’re thinking of moving to a CCC: don’t downsize your greeting card stash. I’ve written more “get well” and “thinking of you” cards (and “birthday,” and “sympathy cards”) since moving here than at any other time in my life. Not a week goes by that I’m not digging through my card drawer.

I’m no exception when it comes to having my own list of medical woes. I have a foot doctor, a hand doctor, and an orthopedist for the rest of the bones in my body. I’ve got an ENT, a dermatologist, an eye doctor, a gastroenterologist, a sleep doctor, an urogynecologist, a primary doctor, a nurse practitioner — and a dentist. Who could ask for anything more? Not me. I’m one of the lucky ones, though. A few  of my fellow residents have cancer and heart doctors on their lists.

Despite having all those people on my medical team, last week I decided Dr. Google was a better choice. I typed in my symptoms, and their AI “doctor” told me that shooting pain around an open sore meant I should go to Urgent Care immediately because it could be an infection. Not wanting to do that, I called my foot doctor’s office. They tried to schedule me a month out — until I repeated the magic words “shooting pain” and “open sore.” Suddenly I had an appointment the next day. Thank you, Dr. Google, for the buzzwords.

This all started just after my six‑month check‑up with my sleep doctor, where I gave him a glowing report. I shouldn’t have done that — it jinxed me. That very night the shooting pains started, waking me up and refusing to let me sleep again. My foot looked like the photo below. Actually, worse — that picture was taken after a week of swallowing antibiotics and daily slathering the area with silver sulfadiazine cream. 

The foot doctor claims there are no broken bones, but I don’t believe her or her X‑rays because it hurts too much. The weirdest part is I have no idea what caused it. I don’t remember hitting my foot, dropping anything on it, or doing anything dramatic like letting a stranger suck my toes. All I’m told is that the X-ray shows no infection or broken bones, but "skin bruises easily on the elderly” and the foot is “the slowest place to heal.”

Yup, I know that, doc. I had a similar gash on the side of the same foot recently, and it took four months to heal without medical intervention.

Lest I give the impression that all we talk about here is ourselves and our woes — not true. Recently at our Tuesday Night Conversation dinner table we discussed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the cost of repairing it, and the claim that “vandals” cut a 350‑foot slit down the center despite 24/7 security cameras. I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you believe that. (But not the brand new bridge between Canada and Detroit that Trump refuses to allow to be opened, but that's another scandal for another day.) 

We can all read the news and draw our own conclusions about the pool, but around our dinner table the story sounds a lot less like “vandals” and a lot more like, “someone had their head up his ass.” You don’t need a PhD to connect a few dots: With cameras everywhere they would have stopped anyone in the center of the pool long enough to cut a 350 foot slit; a no‑bid contract that included no oversight by manufacturers of the liner polyuria coatings; and the presidential motorcade running over the uncured coating so Trump could get a closer look. The presidential limo alone weighs about 20,000 pounds, which is roughly the size of a small whale — and we’re supposed to believe a mystery vandal with a box cutter is the culprit. Please.

It doesn't take a deep dive in cyberspace to learn the experts all agree the failed project is due to one or more of the following: 1) improper preparation of the surface, 2) not applying the polyuria according to manufacturer’s specifications, 3) speeding up the timeline for applying a second coating, 4) the solvent added to kill the algae, and last but not least, 5) vehicles running over the uncured surface. 

Everything shows its age eventually — our bodies, our buildings, even the places meant to inspire awe. Here at the CCC, we meet those changes with humor and a little stubbornness, because what else can you do. The reflecting pool could be funny too, if it weren’t such an expensive lesson in what happens when oversight and comment sense takes a holiday. We can’t stop time from aging us or our monuments, but we can at least insist that the people in charge stop accelerating the process. © 

Nabbed off Dawn's Bohemian Valhalla Blog

              

The Day Sinatra Made Me Cry in Public

In this week’s installment from Jean’s corner of CCC life, what starts as a simple outdoor concert — the kind you attend mostly because it’s on the calendar and the weather’s decent — turns into an unexpected brush with memory. A Sinatra impersonator, a rollator walker packed like a day‑hike, and a crowd of fifty neighbors set the stage, but the real story is how a single song can reach backward and tap a place you thought had finally gone quiet...AI

I saw Frank Sinatra today. Oops — I left a word out of that sentence. I meant to say I saw a Frank Sinatra impersonator. Good thing I cleared that up, lest you think I’ve hustled on over to the Land of Delusion, given the fact that he died in 1998. I was never a fan of his music, nor were my parents, so I didn’t cut my teeth on his many hit records the way a lot of my ninety-something neighbors did. But my Continuum Care Community booked him for the second time, and since the reviews were glowing after his first performance, I thought, What the heck, it’s something to do.

So I loaded up my rollator walker with a sweater, a bottle of water, my phone, a notebook and pen, and my apartment keys, then headed for the park nestled between the Memory Care and Assisted Living buildings. (Permanently in my walker are: binoculars, ear muffs, gloves, a bird call, sun glasses, and two books.) I don’t need a walker, but I use one outside because I’m proactive about preventing sidewalk falls. I’ve seen enough people with bloody faces and broken hips get picked up by ambulances to know the smart money is on those of us who aren’t too proud to admit we’re old and tend to shuffle along instead of picking up our feet properly.

But I’m not a shuffler. Yet. I know that for a fact because — being proactive again — I took the Fall Prevention Study offered here last year. My only walking issue is that every five or six steps, the heel of my right foot hits the side of my left foot. I’ve known this since childhood because the side of my left shoe was always scuffed up. What I didn’t know was why. Turns out I walk with asymmetry: my right leg strides 21 inches and my left 24. I also walk with my feet only four inches apart when they should be six. Knowledge is power, or so they say.

A lot of my fellow residents were afraid to do the study for fear our “overlords” would use the information to move them down the road to Assisted Living. Paranoia is alive and well in senior communities like mine. If you failed the study — which I did not — you earned some physical therapy appointments, not an eviction notice.

The Sinatra singer was in his 60s, I’m guessing, and even with the classic hat and suit he didn’t look much like the real McCoy. But he sounded like him, and he had some of Frank’s characteristic moves down pat. With audience members from all three buildings plus the townhouses, we were fifty strong. The weather was perfect. The sky was bluer than it’s been all week and the sun was shining.

And wouldn’t you know — even though I’m not fond of that kind of music — I ended up with tears in my eyes during the last song he sang: My Way. I was sitting in the back row, and in my view was a Memory Care patient in a wheelchair with his wife sitting behind him. During that song she leaned forward and put her arms around his neck while the performer sang, “Regrets I've had a few...I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.”

I felt like I was looking at a snapshot of my past life when I was Don’s caregiver. Those twelve and a half years were a test by fire, and I’m proud of how I handled them. But by the end of the song the wife was wiping tears from her eyes, and so was I. She’s still living the stress and devotion I went through. It’s strange how you can think old wounds are healed, but a damn song comes along and reminds you that some wounds never fully close. They may scab over, but bump that scab and the hurt comes back.

Places like this always book entertainers who play the era of music residents grew up with, built families to, danced to, so we hear a lot of '40s and '50s stuff. When an entertainer takes requests, I usually ask for a Bruno Mars song and they will say, "Don't know that one, but I'll learn it before my next gig here." Even after nearly five years of going to these musical events, I’ve yet to make it through one without tears (or hearing Uptown Funk). Sometimes they’re happy tears, but usually they're a jolting flashback of longing for what can no longer be. 

Another highlight of my week: I went to a Father’s Day banquet. At first, women weren’t allowed to sign up unless they were dining with a father or father figure, but eight of us raised a fuss. After all, for Mother’s Day they served the women afternoon tea and cookies, but the guys were getting a ribeye steak dinner with baked potatoes and asparagus. The injustice was noted. The ribeye was wonderful, and it was the last big meal I had before starting my GLP‑1 shots the next morning.

Then a few days later we had another musical event put on by a local favorite, The Beer City Blues Band. This time it was right outside my building on the piazza — impossible to avoid, not that I wanted to. They play more contemporary music, so fewer memories get stirred up for me. Not to mention I love their sound.

We have an active charity foundation that funds all our musical programs, including one‑on‑one music therapy sessions down in Memory Care, our summer concert series, and monthly birthday party entertainers. You might call it lucky, but I knew before I bought into this non‑profit CCC that our sister campus was heavily supported by this group. It’s kind of a shame, though, that the senior places where more Medicaid recipients end up don’t have the same kind of charity foundation. Maybe they do and I just don’t know about them?

Our charity sponsors golf tournaments, fancy‑ass balls, fashion shows and parties, and I suspect the reason they raise so much money is because the donors hope to live here someday. The guy who lived and died across the hall from me gave so much money they named our street — and a golf tournament — after him.

Music has always had a way of slipping past my defenses, but living here has made that truth unavoidable. Every concert is a gamble — you never know whether you’ll walk away smiling, crying, or both. But I keep showing up. Maybe that’s the point. These small moments, these shared songs and shared tears, remind me that living life doesn’t stop in a place like this. It just keeps unfolding, one performance, one memory, one unexpected pang at a time. ©

See you next Wednesday.

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