Little Fish and Dogs in Tutus

I visited my future today.The park attached to the memory care building here at the continuum care complex was having a costume parade for dogs, and we residents from independent living were invited. The park is actually created by two C -shaped buildings with a view of the lake at one end and a view of our tree lined road on the opposite end. It’s a peaceful place with tables and chairs and a covered patio at the very center that is used to serve drinks and snacks, and if you don’t see the high iron fence keeping residents in you’d think it was a lovely place to while away an afternoon. It was my second trip to an event at my future step-down residence on campus, should my memory get to the point where I need 24/7 supervision so I don’t go wandering off in the night wearing just a pair of snow boots and my watermelon colored lipstick. 

On my first trip to my future I joked that I was afraid to go for fear they’d let me in the coded gate and not let me back out. On this second trip it actually happened that I had to hunt down the gatekeeper so I could return to the path by the lake that took me back to my own independent living building. But in between coming and going I spent my time people watching. There was one old guy in particular who looked like a Tim Conway character from the old Carol Burnett  Show. White hair standing out in all directions like Albert Einstein, a shawl-collared sweater with only the top button buttoned and his old man belly and belt on full display as he shuffled along. Then there was a woman who at first glanced looked like she was carrying a new born baby but it turned out to be one of those expensive, custom-made dolls. And I’d hated to be the aid who had to take it from her arms to help the woman get dressed or undressed. But the most delightful, laugh-out-loud thing I was saw was an 80 pound dog dressed in a large pair of purple wings and wearing a tutu and she was squatting to pee with her back to everyone. I’m sure she thought if she couldn’t see us, we couldn’t see her. It would have been a prize winning photo if I’d had a camera with me. The tutu fanned out in a perfect, pink tulle circle.

Aside from the twenty some residents sitting in the park I saw something else. Something somehow sweet and comforting. The staff who was attending the residents were respectful and kind and cheerful but not patronizing the way I’ve seen in some nursing homes I’ve visited in my past. Another visitor was there with a dog and both her mother and a father lived in Memory Care and one of the staff thanked her for always supporting their Life Enrichment events. She had found some luggage tags that you could paint on and she offered to make name tags out of them for other residents with walkers because, those buggers all look that same. She had a ten-ish year old boy with her and what a wonderful mother she was---modeling kindness the way she did. And what a wonderful daughter, caring enough to want to make the staff’s lives easier by making walker name tags for everyone. 

As I sat there taking it all in I thought about a comment one of the guys from my part of the campus said when we went down to the park to try to dunk the CEO and other staff members into a dunking tank. He said, “If I ever get moved down here, just shoot me” and this time I thought about how if you were judging by looks alone, he’d fit right in. He might have more sparkle in his eyes and he might be a fuss-budget about changing his shirt if he gets a stain on it---stains are the mark of an old person who is loosing it, according to him---but really he’s fooling himself if he thinks he’d be out of place. The line between them and us seemed very thin to me. Granted, there were probably others inside the buildings who couldn’t come outside, who couldn’t enjoy a cup of lemon-aide and some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. But we’re all only a TIA away from our brains saying we’ve had enough of taking care of business. Rather than be put off by one of these co-mingle events I’m at peace knowing I’ll be in a safe and pretty place to stay when I can no longer find my way back from the bathroom when I get up in the middle of the night. 

Walking home it dawned on me why the two times I’ve visited my future they served those fish-shaped crackers out of the biggest bags I’ve never seen in the stores.They practically melt in your mouth and are safe for little kids who can’t possibility chock on them…and neither could senior citizens with swallowing issues. 

But there's so much to do before I have to worry about memory care including I'm excited about the creative writing group I'm spearheading on campus. Our first meeting is coming up soon. The mission statement is written, the agenda is set and my first assignment is ready to go. ©

Not a good photo but is shows the fence around the park from the road

 

The coded gate with the park beyond the fence, also take from the road

Dreams, the Holidays and Photo Albums

Since my shoulder surgery two weeks ago I’m sleeping better. I’m only waking up once or twice during the nights instead of seven or eight times like before the procedure. That’s a good thing for my all-over health but I don’t remember my dreams as easily as I did when I wasn’t reaching a deep sleep in between waking up so many times. This morning, though, I woke up with a dream hanging on and its one I wish I couldn’t remember.

In the dream Don was breaking up with me. He was going off to have fun with his new friends---a less than angelica looking bunch of ragtags, I must add. I guess you could say he broke up with me when he died but I didn’t need to hear the words to start out my day or to feel his tender last kiss still lingering on my lips. I don’t get guy logic! Why kiss someone like that if you’re going to say goodbye in the next breathe---or was it my own logic since it was my dream? “Adios, aloha, ciao, arrivedece, goodbye Jean, it’s been nice knowing you.” Nice knowing me? Nice! Get out your dictionary, buddy, and find a better word. (Did you know that Stephen King says if you have to use a thesaurus to replace a word, you shouldn’t be using that replacement word in the first place? Easy for him to say. He has a bigger vocabulary than I do.)

“Kiss off, Don!” I replied in my dream, “I don’t need you to tell me what I already know. You’re going away and you’re not coming back.” I was as mad as a soapy, wet cat in a bathtub and I stayed that way for an hour after I woke up…almost two if I need to be honest with myself.

No matter how well we widows have dealt with the death of our spouses, no matter how much we have moved forward in our new lives the holidays still bring with them a certain level of melancholy and apprehension, don’t they. The fact that Don died early in January doesn’t help. That timing just extends a long season of being alone while the rest of the world seems to be celebrating, and memories of past holidays interrupt my journey forward. I have no plans for Thanksgiving, did I mention that? Although I did turn down two offers. I didn’t feel like pretending I fit in with the first family that invited me. They are a large, close-knit family and I don’t know many of them well enough to call them by name. With the second offer I got, it would be too hard with my arm in a sling to help with clean up and the would-be hostess is in no condition to be cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner which she would have done if I had accepted her kind invitation. She loves to cook, but she shouldn’t be on her feet that much. She’s ten years my senior and has been known to pass out when she overdoes.

Someone suggested I could get the Salvation Army to deliver a Thanksgiving meal to me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. 1) I give money to the Salvation Army to buy holiday meals for the poor. 2) I can very well afford to order a fully cooked holiday dinner from an upscale deli that you just warm up the next day. And 3), Thanksgiving---or any of the holidays---isn’t just about the food. It’s about the people you share it with. I’d say “bah humbug” here but I think that word is strictly reserved for December. I’d look it up to be sure but I feel the presence of Stephen King looking over my shoulder and he is one scary guy. Why do they print books of common phrases and dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms if we’re not supposed to use them? Answer me that, Stephen! Ohmygod, is this what senility feels like, you start talking to people who are dancing around in your head?

My niece and her husband came to town this week to take me out to dinner and to bring me some photos to scan for a book I’m working on. It’s a photo essay covering the life spans of my parents and I will give a copy to my brother, my nephew and my two nieces for Christmas. But mostly I wanted my all-time favorite photos of my folks all in one book that can travel with me to the assisted living place I hope I never have to move to, but I’m a realist so I’m covering my bases. I have eight boxes of photos, sixteen large photo albums and a huge box of slides and no one is going to let me keep them all if I’m forced to move one day. My Plan B is to spend the winter making 8” x 8“ topic essay books like the one I did for my brother’s birthday last year. After I finish the book of my parents, I’ll do one of Don and me, one of my nephew and nieces, one of the family cottage and all its reincarnations and one book of my favorite things. Then I will make it well known that if anyone tries to send me off to assisted-living without my six, compact photo essay books, I’ll disinherit them assuming I’ll be able to dial a phone and can remember who my lawyer is. Who says getting old isn’t a blood sport. You have to be strong to become as weak and helpless as a kitten if you age badly. In the meantime, I’m going to start eating spinach for breakfast. It worked for Popeye, why not me?  ©

The Widow and The Culinary School

 

A month or two ago I signed up for a tour organized by the senior center. It took place yesterday and what a tour it was. We went to a culinary institute connected to a near-by university where we toured some of their class rooms and listened to a “foodie lecture” in a tiered room that looked like it could have been a set for a TV show on the Food Network---cameras and viewing screens every where! And we ate at one of their two restaurants. The food was to die-for. I had "crispy sautéed supreme salmon served on a warm bouquetière of apples, fennel, asparagus and carrots all drizzled with caramelized Founders Brewery oatmeal stout ale vinaigrette." Along with that, they served bread baked at the school with yummy blended butter mixes and a choice of five decadent deserts. It was very elegant and all prepared and served by the culinary students.

As I sat in the restaurant taking in the beautiful ambiance and watching the nervous students all dressed up in starched uniforms it occurred to me that even though I am alone in life I don’t have to give up having fun experiences like that….well, as long as I have the money to sign up for senior hall events and classes, that is. I don’t think I could raise much money if I stood on a corner holding up a sign saying: Will work for cash so I can eat at the culinary institute’s five star restaurant!

It also occurred to me while sitting over lunch that some of the other women in our group could feel as lonely as I do at times. But as I listened to the chit-chat around me, I concluded that they weren’t sitting at my table. Two of my table mates were former co-workers and they still meet every morning for coffee with a group that’s been doing it for twenty years. Two other ladies were widowed 12-13 years ago and they seem to be quite at easy and content with traveling the world by themselves. The fifth person at our table for six still has a husband. Woo is me. I still can’t find a friend that I can call up and say, “I feel like I just climbed Mount Everest! I finally figured out why my new iPod Nano wasn’t syncing PSY!”

I have an in-law whose kids are talking about putting her in an assisted living facility. She lives close by and since Don died I’ve been in the habit of stopping by her house 2-3 times a month. I am SO going to miss that connection to Don’s family if she’s banished from the neighborhood. There’s not much difference in our ages and it’s also hard to watch others---strangers in the medical community---pass judgment of whether or not a person is safe living alone. My brother and I shared-care of my dad for five years when he was in the early stages of dementia so I’m not blind to the problems families in this situation face, but as a bias senior citizen I want to see families go the extra mile, like we did, to support their parents in their own homes for as long as possible. Woo is me again. At my age, it’s depressing to think about how that last chapter or two of life will be written if we don’t play our cards right.

Today I got a call from a number that showed up as ‘unknown’ on my caller ID. The man on the line had a thick accent and he wanted me to go to my computer because, he claimed, an unauthorized download was happening as we spoke. He said he was from Windows tech support and he was going to help me stop the download from infecting my computer. “Hey, aren’t you the same guy who tried to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge last week?” The call reminded me of a “directive” my lawyer gave me last summer when I set up a new will. She told me to always look at caller ID and never answer the phone if I didn’t recognize the caller. She made me feel so old to be perceived as being too naïve or out-of-touch to recognize a scam when I hear one. I should have thanked my caller today for reminding me that I still have a few good brain cells left in my head. There’s no need for anyone to follow ME around with commitment papers to ship me off to no-man’s land for the crime of being over 70 when you burn something in the microwave. Hey, as a preventative measure, maybe I should sign up for the course in culinary math down at the institute for culinary education! I bet those students never accidentally program three minutes in when they meant to punch 30 seconds. ©

Widows Moving Out and Moving On

I am Exhibit A in why widows shouldn’t make any big decisions in their first year of widowhood…like selling a house and moving. Even before Don’s funeral a little over a year ago I was telling everyone I would put the house up for sale this coming spring and buy a condo on the other end of town. Spring is coming and I no longer feel the need to flee. Quite the opposite, I feel the pull to stay close to the dog park, the nature trails, my favorite grocery store, the post office, my antique booth, and a little tourist town I’ve grown to love. The other end of town also doesn’t have an active senior center. I’ve been following their newsletter online and from what I’m seeing they might as well close the doors. I lived on the other end of town all but thirteen years of my life. I could do it again---pretend I’m not a “flaming liberal” and blend in with the ultra-conservatives down there---but do the pros outweigh the cons of doing so? The biggest draw to moving to that end of town is it would cut a half hour off the hour and a half drive it takes to see my family. They all live in the country, near tiny towns that I love, but I’m a big city kid so moving to one of those towns isn’t an option. Yet.

What I’ve almost decided is that if I get to the point where I actually need my family for ‘old person support’ then I’d probably be at the point where I ought to be living in an assisted living facility. At that point, it would be more practical to move to one of the places within minutes of my nieces. But what to do in the meantime---hopefully a decade---that is the million dollar question. I’d like to downsize. The house is too big for one person but it’s a universal design house which makes aging in place the best fit you can get. Houses like this are few and far between and the only condos I’ve found built universal design are in a baby boomer community---you guessed it---on the other end of town. I’ve been following their newsletter, too, and they don’t do much in the way of organizing social outings, lectures, classes, day trips and clubs like the senior hall a mile away from where I’m living now does. I couldn't keep going to this one, if I move out of the township.

I love watching the HGTV program House Hunters International. I am fascinated at how easily people make up their minds to pull up roots here in the states and move half way around the world. They often move to places where they don’t know the language or have any human ties living in the country of their choice. How do they do that? I know the world is getting smaller with all the communication devices available today, but try hugging your iPad when you want to cry on someone’s shoulder in the middle of a life-crisis. Do some people make friends so easily that they don’t see it as a problem not to have a circle of support closer than a trans-Atlantic ride on an airplane? Do I place too much importance on having a circle that in reality I’ve rarely ever needed? I suspect the answer to both those questions is “yes.”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is an age related thing that I don’t want to live more than one or two area codes away from family. But I don’t think so. Unlike the people on House Hunters International, the most exotic place I’ve ever fantasized living is on an Amish farm under the Federal Witness Protection Program where back up would only be a cell call away. Or on Nantucket Island, sharing a cottage with an agent assigned to my case who, coincidentally, thinks my novice paintings are masterpieces.

Nope, my lack of adventure isn’t age related, besides I can go anywhere in my head and be back home in time for dinner. I’m just a person whose has always lived with a backup plan. The only trouble is there is no plan B for dying. We’re all going to do it someday and I’d much prefer that I don’t do it on the streets of Calcutta where someone would steal the ID and money off my corpse and I’d get cremated in mass with other anonymous and penniless people. Is that any way for a woman eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution to die? Hell, no! I’m going to stay at home and hope someone finds my body before the dog gets too hungry. My, am I in a morbid mood today or what!

Bottom line: I feel a widow’s pressure to move to a small house and/or redecorate something. Build a new nest. But the pressure is coming from within, I can afford to age in place if that is the path I decide to walk---I wasn’t sure of that a year ago. But if I stay will I be able to push past these feelings of being unsettled and restless? Whatever I decide about moving out and moving on I’m so glad I was paying attention in Widowhood 101 class the day they covered to topic of not making major decisions in the first year. ©

P.S. To the history buffs out there who might be wondering what my connection with the American Revolution is, it's Mercy Warren Otis.