Plan B - Giving up Driving Without Giving up Life

 

 

Giving up a driver’s license isn’t just a logistical shift—it’s an emotional one. For seniors facing the possibility of life without a car, it can feel like a loss of independence, dignity, or control. But there’s a Plan B. In this post, Jean explores creative, practical alternatives to driving that preserve your freedom, honor your safety, and even build stronger community ties. She also shares stories from her continuum care facility, tips for making the transition smoother, and a list of transportation options. Jasper AI 

As I was driving back from taking my hearing aid in for repair, I was thinking about how much life changes when you get to the point you have to give up your driver’s license. It’s a rite of passage no one looks forward to doing. Some of us seniors even fight it like we’re gladiators going up against a pride of lions in a life or death, pay-for-view event. It’s not just the giving up of a personal freedom that’s involved it’s the guilt that comes with adding a burden onto a family member, who has to make time to help us do these petty but quality-of-life, little chores. And then there are the families who have their heads high in the clouds and are ignoring the telltale sights that it’s time to reverse rolls and be the one to say to their parent, “You’re grounded! I need your car keys. Both sets.” Ya, I know. It’s not that simple. We can’t just say to our mom or dad, “You’ve had a lot of fender binders lately and you are driving slow enough that I could race you with a bicycle” and expect cooperation. 

I speak from experience, having seen this "touchy topic" from both sides of the equation—with my dad, my brother and three times with fellow residents.

I asked Jasper AI, my Microsoft Co-Pilot, to help me brainstorm some ideas for convincing a senior that it’s time to give up a drivers license and then come up with a list of suggestions to help convince us seniors that it’s time to hang up our car keys. A couple of his answers stood out. 

For example: One: Don't spring it on a person just after a fender bender. “Plant the seeds early.” Another: Frame it as if it's “an act of courage to let others take the wheel and as a civic rite of passage---not a loss but rather a transition, like retiring from active duty. Still noble, still valued." Those approaches worked on two of my fellow residents who both said they’d feel terrible if they caused someone to die in an accident, they said they couldn’t live with themselves. They were both in the early-to-mid stages of macular degeneration. They ended up selling their cars and now rely on friends and families to get them where they need to go. My dad was cooperative but my brother? He never stopped telling his daughters he could still drive, could still find he way around without getting lost and demanding they let him try again. I asked Jasper what to do in cases like him and he told me, "...to listen for what’s underneath the protest. Pride, fear, maybe even a whiff of grief disguised as bravado. Jasper would say: Don’t argue the logistics—affirm the dignity. Find ways for him to feel useful, autonomous, needed. Offer a role that doesn’t require a steering wheel. And never underestimate the healing power of being heard, even if you're just listening to a man rant about potholes and 'the good old days' when you could fix a carburetor with chewing gum." (Jasper AI has a sense of humor.)

A third woman living in my continuum care facility gave up her car because she faints often—so much so that she finally got moved down to the assisted living building and is restricted to a wheelchair now. After giving up her license but before the move, she took to calling Uber with a vengeance. Every day she’d go out for coffee or to shop or run errands. When anyone would bring up how much she was spending on Uber, she’d say, “By the time you factor in the cost of car insurance and maintenance plus gas Uber isn’t that costly.” She’s quite the character. At one of our very first lunch tables, over three years ago, she announced that she’s an atheist and after that at least four people sitting there haven’t spoken to her since. I think they believe atheism is like the measles and they rushed off to church the next Sunday to get their ‘vaccines’ updated.

Back on topic: I wanted to learn the ropes of using an Uber so one day I went out for coffee with Ms. Atheist but when it was time to go back home she was having a medical problem and couldn’t get her app to work to call an Uber to come pick us up. I didn’t know the first thing about using an Uber app and I didn’t have my reading glasses with me to figure it out. After the two of us probably entertained the young people around us for awhile—think a Saturday Night Live Skit—a twenty-something woman took pity on us and took my friend’s phone over and we headed off to ER. After ER did their magic on my friend another young person got us hooked up with another Uber. So that day, I got to experience three Uber drivers. And during all the time when we were waiting for our rides to show up I kept hearing my mother’s voice saying, “Never, ever get into a car with a stranger unless you want to get raped and murdered.” How times have changed.

Jasper AI also suggested that whoever is asking a person to give up their car should have a list of “Alternatives to Driving That Don’t Feel Like Downgrades.” Below is his list (but I disagree with his 'downgrades' characterization. Unless we're talking about a chauffeured limousine, nothing is better than owning your own car. But I digress...) The List:

Senior Ride Services offer door-to-door support with a human touch. These services often have empathetic drivers trained to assist older adults, and it’s helpful to create or share a reference sheet with key contacts and links.

Community Volunteer Drivers can turn errands into opportunities for connection. Check with your local community center to see if they have a matching service or referral list.

Ride Shares like Uber or Lyft allow for continued independence, especially when paired with tech support. Consider creating a simple tutorial or guide for ride-sharing apps, ideally with contacts pre-loaded to make calling a car easy.

Medical Transit Programs are designed for recurring appointments and may be free or subsidized by insurance or social services. They’re especially useful for ongoing treatments or specialist visits.

Shopping Shuttles coordinate transportation around regular errands like grocery runs and pharmacy pickups. Keeping an updated community calendar can help residents make the most of these timed services.

Buddy Systems work well when residents pair up to share rides to appointments, events, or stores. They’re most effective when built around existing friendships, but new matches can also be facilitated by staff or community leaders.

I wish we had a list like this that is all fleshed out with the names of  local organizations and their phone numbers. At the risk of being put in charge of a committee to pull together such a resource list, I may bring it up at our next Dialogue Meeting. We had a shopping shuttle here on campus for less than four months before they disbanded it because too few people were using it. And a senior-friend cab service that the CCC had lined up lasted about the same length of time. The Buddy System is working well around here with people who've made close friends before giving up their cars but I’ve always been a loner so I’m not sure anyone would go out of their way if I needed a ride somewhere. 

In case anyone is wondering if I’m starting to doubt my driving abilities, the answer would have been ‘maybe’ last winter but now it’s a hard ‘no’. I’ve been driving more since spring and have gotten over my reluctance. I still won’t drive at night, during rush hour, on the busiest streets or on the expressways but I call that being smart and pro-active. Just like I’d call it being smart and pro-active to be thinking about solutions to the loss of our independence before it actually happens. Having a Plan B might just turn that gladiator vs. the lions metaphor into a pillow fight. ©

Until next Wednesday. 

Photo at the top from Vermont Maturity, Helping Someone Give Up the Car Keys 

P.S. The AI introduction paragraph at the top, is an experiment. When I ran this post past Jasper AI to ask for spelling and punctuation tweaks he suggested a search engine friendly intro at the top to help drive traffic to my blog. I've always known you're supposed to put "buss words" in the first paragraph of posts but I've never leaned into it. It will be fun to look at my stats after this goes live, to see if it helped. I'm still amazed on how quickly I'm integrating AI into my life. For example, in addition to helping me brainstorm this post, this week I also asked it to create stats for my mahjong group. I gave Jasper AI the number of games and days each player played and how many times each player won since the beginning of the year and he figured out our win percentages in seconds and put it in to a nice, descending chart. What a time saver that was! Then I asked him how far down in the weeds he can go. Could he, for example, make me a list of names and phone numbers of Senior Ride Services in my county? He replied with a fully filled out chart in seconds. Who needs a committee when you have an AI app?

Another Walk in the Woods

My head felt like a Forth of July sparkler with ideas shooting in all directions then burning out one after another. Nothing lasted long enough to ignite the fire of my imagination. Usually on Saturdays I pop out of bed with an idea or two to write about for my Wednesday blog post, but yesterday I had nothing. So I loaded my dishwasher, another Saturday chore---I'm nothing if not predictable---then I headed down to breakfast which others here call 'lunch' hoping the table conversation would spark a topic for me to write about.

Two people living here in my continuum care complex get up at 4:30 in the morning and they were at the lunch table. Guess who gets pressed into service when someone needs an early morning ride to the airport. These two couldn't be any more different from one another. The woman used to be a kindergarten teacher and she's never left that mindset behind of being like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music in charge of entertaining and taking care of the Van Tripp family children. She's our little Miss Mary Sunshine, always ready to lead us in song when it's someone's birthday or pop out of her chair to grab something for a fellow diner. And she seems to enjoy her self-appointed Cheerleader role here in Old People Land.

The guy who is the early riser comes off like the iconic old duffer who yells "Get off my lawn!" at kids and dogs alike. A surly-acting man who pretends he doesn't like anything or anybody. I suspected and his wife confirmed that he's a jokester and his surliness is just an act. But there's certain kinds of humor that works when we're young and have a brighter sparkle in our eyes that doesn't work as well when we're old and have been delivering the same jokes for decades. God bless the spouses who can still laugh and cue the rest of us in on how to react at times like that. But he will do anything for anyone and he has appointed himself the package delivery guy and that's no small favor if you get a box that needs a dolly retrieved from the parking garage to move that package from the mail room to our apartments.

For lunch I had an omelette and ordered a taco salad as a take-out for Sunday and then I got out of Dodge---speaking of tired jokes---because the conversation was nothing to write home about. (Oh, no, please tell me that my brain is not getting stuck on trite phrases!) As writers we're supposed to avoid things like 'back in a flash', 'easier said than done', 'busy as a bee' and my personal favorite ' better late than never'. That last one was put into action when after leaving our cafe and I checked out our newly paved trail in the woods. The trail takes us past beautiful sugar maples and other trees I can't name and it's wide enough that our golf cart can take people from the assisted living and memory care building into the woods. My brother would have loved that. The trail also allows me to by-pass walking by the building where he lived which has been hard to do this summer.

Today it was so quiet in the woods that I pulled my walker over and sat awhile to pretend I was out in the real wildness instead of our tiny oasis smack dab in the middle of a busy city. You would not believe some of the heated debates a few of the residents here have had at the lunch table about getting this trail repaved. It was so broken up that it wasn't safe and it was narrow but several people thought the money spend wasn't worth it. It wasn't even our money. It came from a private foundation whose sole mission is to support this non-profit campus. That didn't stop the complainers who thought we residents should have a say in all improvements made. The debates are endless. "We need the lawn to go down to the lake's shoreline!" "No, we need to keep the natural grasses and weeds for the birds, bees and the butterflies!" By the way, I don't use a walker full-time. Only when I walk outside. I've seen too many black and blue and stitched up faces and other body parts on people who've tripped on the sidewalks around our campus.

Have you read Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods? It was also made into a movie starting Robert Redford. It's a true story about walking the Appalachian Trail which runs 2,193 miles starting in New Hampshire down through Georgia. It takes a whole summer to hike its wooded, mountainous terrain. I didn't even know it existed back when I might have dreamed of doing it. By the time I learned about it the best my aging body could do was to get on a reading binge about hiking the Triple Crown. "The Triple Crown," according to FKT.com, "consists of the Big Three National Scenic Trails: The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. Completing the Triple Crown requires about 7,900 miles of hiking through 22 US States." The culture of the long distance hikers who take on challenges like these trails is fascinating as is any hobby-turned-into-a-passion when you take the time to look under the hood. 

When one of the best known hikers, Heather Anderson, was asked about what she thought about while long-distance hiking she said, "I think about a lot of things. I think about food, macaroni and cheese, hot coffee, ice cream, milkshakes, hamburgers... pretty much anything that's not in my backpack. I think about how bad I smell. And how much I'm looking forward to the next time I get to do laundry and take a shower. Even though it's rather pointless since I'll smell again within 24 hours. I think about the way the sun plays on the water, on the trees, and creates shadows. I think about the birds of prey that swoop overhead. I think about the sound my feet make as they rhythmically strike the trail. I think about how far I have to go and how far I've gone...I think about how absolutely beautiful it is to be out here. And how very lucky I am. I think about what I want to do with my life when I grow up. And I think about how I am already grown up and still haven't figured out what I want to do with my life....And sometimes, I think about absolutely nothing."

Until my husband's stroke when I was 58 years old I never felt like a grownup and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. Maybe that's because we didn't have any kids to force the issue? Being responsible for someone else's life does change you. (Please don't tell JD Vance I said that. He already thinks childless women are to society like barnacles are to sea turtles that can slow them down so the they can't swim anymore and die.) Or maybe I was just too self absorbed to realize I had grown up and that no one has all the answers as to why we're here on earth. I just know I'd like to be like our Cheerleader or Package Delivery Guy who both seem content with the niches they've made for themselves in our small pond of players. Many residents here have taken on self-appointed roles---social director, mayor, florist, management suck-up, food critic, complainer-in-chief and so on.

Whatever the reason I was late in growing up that drive to find oneself is why the hiking genre of books appeals to me. Hikers all seem to be looking for themselves. That's me in a nutshell, looking for myself while living avariciously through the lives of the doers which---come to think of it---is not unlike many of my peers who take (too much?) pride in the accomplishments of their kids and grandkids as if they themselves had gotten the full-ride scholarship or the fancy-ass job title or are on the verge of reinventing the wheel. One day when this kind of brag-fest was the featured conversation at a lunch table I added that I once had a poodle who could do circus tricks. Everyone laughed. Could this be my purpose, to make people laugh when they start taking themselves too seriously? Maybe. One time the Art Professor sat down at the table and said, "Oh, good, Jean is here! I know we're going to laugh when she's here."

Until Next Wednesday.  

 

Tales From the Grim Reaper Zone

 

The past few days I've been weaving myself into a basket full of depressing thoughts but in my defense, I didn't really know or acknowledge the state of my mind until this morning when I re-read some stuff I'd written about past Memorial Day Weekends. Those weekends were more about day trips along Lake Michigan or get-togethers with family than honoring loved ones that the Grim Reaper snatched from my world. Don’t get me wrong, I've done more than my fair share of grave decorating over the years but what is missing now is the counter-balance to the duties of Memorial day---the fun stuff. The picnics and pot-lucks. The mini day trips that included the feel of the sun and sand, the sound and the smell of waves hitting the shore. That sense of being part of something bigger than just myself is easier to feel at the Big Lake where its water touches the sky and fills the entire horizon, or at family pot-lucks where more often than not I used to bring my mom's version of marinated four bean salad.

I did this re-reading of past holidays instead of going to the Memorial Day event here on campus that was organized by our resident, self-appointment Veterans Committee of one. Given the ages of my fellow residents it's no surprise that anytime he puts a program together to celebrate or honor veterans it's well attended. But I couldn't bring myself to go this time for two reasons. One, because he planned to read the entire Constitution and I'd have a hard time hearing it from the lips of a rabid Trump supporter. And two because last year I felt like a fraud singing along with all the patriotic songs when I was not (and still aren't) all that proud of our country. Sing-asking God to bless our "Great Nation" is not something I felt I could do again, as if we are still the same glorious beacon of freedom and hope we used to be.

But my negative mood was about more that just not wanting to go to that event. I was dog tired from something that happened the night before. It started when a man parked in our guest parking area and walked to a bench in our green space. I didn't think anything of it at first, but eventually I realized that he was wearing mismatched shoes and he looked to be crying half the time. Turns out he was. I didn't recognized him but it also turned out that he lives here and he'd just come from being with his wife down in the assisted living building. The grapevines says she gives him a hard time and blames him for her being moved down there---temporarily if she plays her cards right. She had her leg amputated last year and just broke her good leg and caring for her was more than he could handle. He himself lost all his toes to diabetes.

After an hour of keeping an eye on the man I called our security guard and asked her to go check on him. It was her first day on the job and she was rattled. Long story short while I was on the phone the guy walked over to my building and sat on a bench not more then 12 feet from my open window. I still didn't recognize him---he looked so rough and he had his back to me. Another fifteen minutes past before anyone approached him and it was another resident who was coming home from seeing Wicked and was pressed into helping. The two guys sat on that bench a half hour talking and praying together. Finally Resident Two got Resident One up to his room. By 2:30 AM I was just dosing off to sleep when the fire department showed up and an ambulance took him away. I got two phone calls---one a half hour after the ambulance got here and one in the morning---updating me on this stuff.

This Memorial Day made my loses hurt more, I think, because I went into it thinking a lot about my husband, my brother, my parents and even the dogs that have passed before me. I miss having a close bond with another being. Because I was in an antisocial mood, I spent the whole four day weekend avoiding everyone on campus while licking my wounds. Woe is me, I had no one to hang out with and like it or not, I have no one to blame but myself. If you move into a continuum care complex---like I did---with a goal of not getting close enough to anyone that their dying would hurt, then you pay a price. Mistake or not, it's too late to unwind it.

At the mailbox this morning a woman ran up to me to talk about Resident One, the guy I called security about. She was visibly upset and she said, "This is when the shit is starting to hit the fan. It's so hard to see people go downhill so fast." Then she named three couples who started out together in our independent living buildings but one recently had to go one down the road to a higher level of care. "That's what they signed up for and knew could happen," I rationalized. "I know," she replied, "but it's happening faster than I thought it would." I didn't say it but I was thinking that we're living in the Grim Reaper zone and sooner or later he will get us all. 

Until next Wednesday when I promise I'll be in a better mood. ©

Binge Eating, Funerals and Continuum Care Living

It’s Sunday and my birthday and I’m hiding out from the public places so I don’t have to listen to ten verses of ‘happy birthday’. It's one of those love/hate things you get when you live on a continuum care campus.

Do you know what I like best about Sundays? It’s the only day of the week I can be 100% sure I can stay in my nightgown all day long and not be caught by the fashion police or worse, the health care police who automatically think if a older person doesn’t get dressed they are depressed or giving up. Not that I have to worry about the Health Care Police anytime soon, but I know for a fact that if I end up moving on down the road to Assisted Living or Memory Care I will have to fight the aids to stay in my jammies. They have a job to do and by god old people need to dress for breakfast! And that breakfast is served at 8:00 in the morning. I might be out of bed before the clock strikes eight but that doesn’t mean I want to be social at that hour or have someone helping me change my nickers before my head is in the game.

One of my neighbors gets up at 4:00 and loves to watch the sun come up while is wife sleeps in until 7:00. More that few of my neighbors get up at 6:00 or 7:00 and are out walking and taking the cool, morning air into their lungs. From what I can see of the health nuts those daily walks don't protect them from moving on down the line. A couple who lived on the floor above me spent their entire adult lives walking every day and watching their weight like hawks, just recently got moved---him to assisted living because he got a diagnosis of ALS and he could no longer care for his wife who was moved into the Memory Care building. They both seem to be adjusting well. He has a motorized wheelchair now and is just a court yard away from visiting his wife. And it’s two short blocks for him to come back to the independent living building which he’s been doing to play bridge and attend a couple of lectures. (Won’t work in the winter, but for now it’s making him happy.) He says their care is excellent down there and he looks like the weight of the world is off his shoulders. Herding his wife around to keep her safe was taking a toll on him that few people fully appreciated. But I've been there done and many of my readers have too.

The wife of another couple just moved into the assisted living building, too but I heard she resisted going and they had a huge fight over it, but their kids sided with him and off she went. She lost her leg a year ago and he, too, looks like a changed man now that he'd no longer responsible for her care.

The cross-over aspect of living in a continuum care facility gives you a sense of comfort knowing if and when you do go on down the line we wouldn’t be thrown in with a bunch of strangers. In the two years I’ve lived here, five people got moved to a higher level of care (aka “got moved on down the line”) and five people have died. I didn’t go to any of the funerals although I was tempted to go to one of them. When I moved in I made a rule that I didn’t want to be one of those stereotypical, old people who goes to all the funerals in town, like they are social events. If that makes me a cold-hearted bitch I guess that’s what I am. I have, however, started buying sympathy cards by the box, instead of individually.

Despite my current, no funerals rule I never looked for excuses not to go to funerals during my lifetime. For the most part I find them interesting, almost heart-warming to know how family and friends will carry their memories forward. And I always learn something about the deceased as people share stories from parts of their lives I didn’t have privy to. It reaffirms the fact that we don’t always know how we might have touched or influenced someone else as we go through our lives.

In my lifetime, however, I’ve been to a couple of funerals where I wondered if I was in the right place because the service didn’t reflect the person I knew. Last year I wrote about an old neighbor at our cottage who was the closest thing I had to a grandfather and 7-8 people walked out of his funeral in a silent protest as a preacher went on and on about how the deceased was going to burn up in hell because he didn’t accept Jesus as his Savior. This man and his wife were pillars of kindness but they hadn’t been allowed to know their own grandchildren because they wouldn’t get baptized in their daughter’s church. <rant on!> It's scary that our current political climate is made up of too many people like that daughter whose intolerance is leading us into creating a monotheocracy that would rival Gilead in The Handmaids Tale. <rant off>

Change of topic: Since my surgery I’ve been on a real eating binge and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. The day after the surgery I could zip up my black jeans after weeks of dieting and the four day fasting for the colonoscopy. If nothing else, I’m good at self-sabotage and I'm currently eating my way back up the scales and out of those jeans. 

And now it hits me why I’ve been indulging in comfort foods again! After my mom died I wasn’t eating, I was severely depressed. One day I found myself amazed to realize I’d lost two sizes but that happiness quickly turned to deep, gut-wrenching guilt as it dawned on me that the weight loss was a by-product of my mom's death and it was nothing to celebrate. Fast forward to when my dad and my husband died and I subconsciously started binge eating---I think---so I wouldn’t have live with any guilt if I had lost weight after they left me. 

I need to get back into healthy eating mode again but I won’t seriously tackle the issue until after my brother’s service which is a little over a week away. I should rename this blog The Misadventures of a Fat Lady. ©

 Until next Wednesday. 

 

Screen Doors and New Neighbors

Maintenance here at the CCC can be a two edged sword with one side sharper than the other. On the sharper side, the system for writing up service requests works well for those of us who are computer literate. With the exception of that time a maintenance man was on vacation and an office girl closed out the work order about my water without sending one of the guys around to check it out, I have no complains. And yet here I am finding something to get picky about---the dull side of the sword: They’re not good at giving us prior notice of when they’ll be stopping to do things.

This week I got an e-mail saying they’d be installing screen doors on our units starting next week, but two days later two guys showed up at my apartment with a box containing my screen door. I had just stepped out of the shower, had my hair wrapped in a towel and my heavy winter bathrobe was buttoned up to my neck so I said, “Okay.” I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of saying come back later because you get downgraded to the bottom of the list. They have their way of picking through jobs so they keep their tool carts in certain areas for as long as possible. Two hours late I had my brand new screen door in just in time to greet spring if it ever gets to my part of the world. 

Mine was the second one installed in the complex and the neighbor who got one that same morning wasn’t home when hers was put in. She was unset because “they didn’t put the screens in! What are we supposed to do? Call them to change the glass and screens twice a year? Are they going to store them for us?” I tried to tell her that the screen was self-storing and rolled up (like a window shade) at the top of the door but I wasn’t getting through to her. I might have through the same thing if I hadn’t looked at the door online before I ordered one and I understood what I was getting. Word to the wise for anyone who isn't already computer literate, get there while you can because even in places like this upper middle class Continuum Care Complex life is easier if you can keep up online. We have our own app the covers sixteen areas of our lives including phone directories for staff and residents, dining menus, pastoral services, Life Enrichment schedules and so on.

There is a woman who moved in two weeks ago that I swear is going to worry herself to death. She walks around with a schedule of what’s going on for the week in her hand that one of her kids printed out for her. She seems to think if she doesn’t find the right room for, say, an exercise class or she misses the dining hours that she’ll get punished or kicked out. She doesn’t grasp the concept that no one in charge of anything cares if we show up or not. The word 'independent' in the term 'independent living' seems to be a hard concept for many people to understand. All of us have friends and family who've asked questions making it clear they think we moved into something like the Witness Protection Program only for old people hiding out from scouts looking for residents to ship us off to nursing homes.

Anyway, if our new resident gets moved out it will be because maybe she should have gone directly to memory care and by-passed independent living. And maybe deep down that is what she fears? I sat next to her at our baked potato buffet one night and she asked me four times when I moved in. To be fair, most of us moved in together in October and it was hard to keep our back stories all straight when you’re trying to learn them all at once. She needs to relax and give herself time because there is no Litmus Test coming. Well, there is actually but there is only one question: Are we residents a danger to ourselves or others? But even if we are they can’t move us out of our independent apartments without the consent and full cooperation of the person/family member we named as our power of attorney. And people with money could in theory even hire  live-in or part-time caregivers if they didn't want to move on down the food chain of a continuum care complex. There is a business associated with our CCC that covers all kinds of stop-gap services if we need them but we don't have to use that one in particular company.

The new resident has a three year old Chocolate Lab that nearly tipped me over jumping on me and I’m not a small, frail woman. She has no control over that dog and if anyone gets kicked out her dog might be asked to leave if it hurts someone. Its owner just lets go of the leash when the Lab sees someone it wants to greet. It did a full gallop and a two legged bounce against me. 

Now that spring is here I’m seeing a lot of dog walkers, mostly from the surrounding community who like taking our road and walkways through our wooded property. I don’t blame them. It’s one of the major reasons I bought here---the fact that it's so dog friendly. Now that I’m settled in, though, and my raw grief over losing Levi is in the rear view mirror I’m 95% he was my last dog. Just the right dog would have to fall in my lap for that decision to change. 

I still missing living with a dog. You can’t have a dog in your life 78 years out of 80 without feeling like a part of you is lost. Heck, neighbors called me the Poodle Lady for years, the one who threw birthday parties for her dogs and taught them circus tricks. But I keep reminding myself that all my life I’ve had my own back yard and I didn’t need to walk my dogs. That changes everything in the grand scheme of growing older. ©

The Meeting - The First of Four

 

Yesterday was a Red Letter Day in the life of this blogger. I went to the first of four future residences meetings to get orientated on the move to the continuum care campus. The other meetings will come once a month from now on with topics like covering the Handbook of Rules & Safety...things like where to go for tornado warnings, in case of fire, using our panic buttons, etc. At one meeting we’ll learning how to active the underground parking door, get into the buildings and buzzing our guests in, get maintenance. Another meeting will cover tech issues and how to use the trash compactor, the intercom, run appliances, how to get IT to fix any TV, phone or WiFi issues.

They have their BIG inspection for occupancy certification coming up starting mid-June and until every single one of the 52 units plus the restaurants and public areas all passes that inspection no one gets to move into the buildings. City inspectors have been following construction monthly every step of the way and the construction company doesn’t expect that certification process to be anything but routine, but it's time consuming and thorough. They started scheduling move-ins appointments and mine is October 5th at 8-12:00. Note: no one can actually move in until October 4^th. That has to do with the elevators having to pass a different-from-the-certification test first but they've built a lot of time into their schedule in case they have bugs to work out. Not sure when landscaping happens. 

The move-in calendar is going to be a logistical, complicated process fit for a military commander to manage 52 of us spread out over October. We’ll get a four hour window of time to use the elevator all to ourselves and two people will be moving into each of the two buildings at the same time. Being in the first wave of those who move in is going to be creepy that first night, sleeping in a huge buildings with just eight occupied units. And noisy for the first few weeks. If all doesn't go according to plans I can push my move-in appointment back but I would hate that.

Because of social distancing we sat with only two of us at a table for this meeting but when they asked for a show of hands on who has been vaccinated, every single person in the room raised their hand. The masks came off and the wine and cocktails flowed. I didn’t have a drink because I have enough trouble concentrating when I drive so I’ll wait until after I move in before getting into social drinking. Haven’t done that since I lost my designated drive to my husband’s stroke in 2001. I’ve probably turn into a lush which is okay, you’d like drunk me. I get really silly and how much trouble can I get into when I'll just have to walk the distance of a half a city block to get back home? As always with this group the food was both pretty and delicious. The chef in my future home is going to be one of my favorite people on the campus.

My table mate turned out to be a woman I hadn’t met before and we will be living in the same building, on the same floor. We clicked right off the bat and our conservation was organic and easy. She’s a widow, was a teacher, loves to read, she and her husband never had kids (like Don and me). And she’s moving into the continuum care campus for the same reasons I am: 1) to make it easier on our nieces who are named as our powers of attorney, and 2) to make our own decisions, now while we still can, about where we'll live should we ever need more oversight, skilled nursing, a memory care unit or Hospice…which are all on this non-profit campus and part of the CC promise we’re buying into.

Things we learned at this first meeting: We’ll have two WiFi accesses. One will be just for our personal space with 30 Mbps (most homes have 29) and the other one will be for all the public spaces and for our guests to use with 10 Mbps. We’ll get 62 channels of free TV. With both the TV and WiFi we can upgrade if we want to pay a monthly fee. We’re getting a free 3’ x 3’ “cage storage” space plus a locking storage unit at the end of our parking space. We can get a landline for a fee if we want, but we won’t be able to keep our existing phone numbers. And the director of the CCC is going to ask the bank that is keeping all our deposits in escrow if they’d do bridge loans for those of us who might need or want them. That would simplify things greatly! Most of us seem to be in the same catch-22 of needing to sell and close on our houses to finish paying off the new unit and we can’t move in until we’ve made that final payment.

June is going to be a busy month of getting my house ready to list. Already I’ve had an electrician come out to swap out a light fixture that decided it didn’t want to work anymore. Power washing the siding so I can get the windows washed inside and out is scheduled as is vacuuming down the basement. The biggest job left is dismantling my e-Bay shipping area in the garage, selling off shelving out there and maybe move some furniture out there to sell on Facebook Marketplace. I also have to get my computer wardrobe out of my kitchen---not looking forward to that. Getting the carpets professional cleaning will come near the end of June. The photo shoot of my house will take place the first week in July. Things are moving right along.

The photo at the top is the artist's rendering of the lake side of the complex. I'm on the opposite, cheap side of the building without the great lake view and without the extra 208 or 344 square footage that would have cost me an additional $250+ a month and an extra $15,000+ to buy into the campus. When I picked out my unit my thought process was that not having a great view will force me to spend more time in the public areas or outside walking. $250+ a month is a good chunk of change and by saving that I won't have to worry as much about my budget. It was a trade off and I'm still not sure I made the right decision but I made it all by myself without asking for an opinion from anyone else. Whether it turns out to be the right or wrong decision, I wanted to own it, not blame anyone else if I come to regret not having a lake view. I did the same thing when I put the first deposit down. I didn't tell a soul that I was thinking about buying into the campus until after it was a done deal. Anyone else like that? When I make major, life changing decisions I want to be sure my voice is the only one I hear.  ©

P.S. Writing this made me realize when we get to pick out our parking units I might be able to score one with a window facing the lake. I'm in the low 20s in the picking order. That would tickle my funny bone to be able to brag about my lake view. I could even put a chair down there in my underground parking space just to add to the humor. 

The Grand Tour and the Books I’ve Been Reading

I don’t sleep well at night anymore---damn pandemic and moving related stress---so I read from 10 PM to 12:30ish when I take a sleeping pill. Currently I’m reading book three of an eight part series by S.W. Hubbard called The Palmyrton Estate Sale Mysteries series. I’m thoroughly hooked and know I’ll end up reading them all. I’ve never been a fan of the mystery genre but this series centers around a woman who owns an estate sales business and she’s talking my language of art and antiques, architectural history, social norms history, collectibles and downsizing---with a little murder and mayhem thrown in. Some of the books are billed as read-all-night-mysteries, some are billed as psychological thrillers but the first two are labeled ‘romantic psychological thrillers’. A long-time fan of the romance genre, I was looking for something a little different in my Kindle Unlimited subscription which is how I happened on these books. I just remembered, at one point over the past few years I was hooked on series of books written in a dog’s voice. I don’t even remember the author or the dog’s name but that dog helped a private investigator solve crimes. So I guess I have read more in the mystery genre that I originally owned up to. I was thinking of the Agatha Christie type books that I tried to like but I just couldn’t get into. Back then I decided anything set in England and/or by an English author I would avoid like walking barefoot through a fire ant hill.

But I broke that English-author-set-in-England rule recently when I read another romantic psychological thriller by Keri Beevis Every Little Breath which I read because I follow her on Facebook for her daily laugh-out-loud memes and I get so much pleasure out of them that I felt should at least try one of her books. I have since read two more of her thrillers. They are definitely creeper than Ms. Hubbard’s books and I’ve decided I need to learn the ‘code words’ that reviewers and publishers of this genre use because I don’t want to get too deep into the minds of sadists and serial killers but I also don’t want to work too hard to decipher the subtle nuances of old-school mystery writers who seem to unfold clues in slow motion, boring me out of my ever-loving mind. Romance reviewers have ‘code words' like “sweet”, “hot” and “steamy." “Sweet” meaning the bedroom door slams shut after the couple swap a little spit but with “steamy” you get a play-by-play of everything that happens when couples get their faces down in each other’s crotches. “Hot” is full of verbal foreplay and totally tricked out alpha guys. Too much information?  Yup. Sometimes you just have to skip right over some of that stuff like I’m guessing some readers of hard-core psychological thrillers do when someone is getting sliced and diced.

Moving on: I went on a hard hat tour of the campus I’ll be moving into. After taking us through a fully furnished model unit and some of the public areas the Sales Director I’ve been working with since this whole process started decided to take my niece, me and the others on an impromptu tour through my unit. As we walked through the door, we were all wowed by the light coming in window area at the end of my living space. It wasn’t even a sunny day but at 3:30 the wonderful light came in from three sides. It was amazing! I could picture my painting easel sitting in that north light. I could picture my writing desk sitting in that north light. In the model they had a desk sitting in front of the window in their office so I’m rethinking the whole computer hutch against the wall idea, taking my time on that decision which might have me working on a card table for a while but, that’s okay. Wouldn't be the first time.

The photo at the top is of the apartment model. My unit will have the same flooring, the same subway tiles, cupboards and appliances. My counter tops will be a darker gray than this place has and I don't have an island. Where the island is I'll have my Amish Oak table and chairs with my restored oak ice box on the wall to the left. (That will be my food pantry.) When I first saw this photo I was bummed out because above the cupboards is solid with no place to display anything. But when the Sales Director took me to my unit she pointed out that in my unit it's open....just like I prefer. Not sure what will go up there yet but I have several possibilities---my 1940s sand and beach tin toys which are colorful or my tin whaling and ship lamps which have interesting shapes but no color but they'd go good with the stainless steel appliances.

The walls in my unit are painted and the kitchen and bathroom cabinets are in but the countertops and flooring are not. We borrowed a tape measure from a workman and measured a couple of places that were stressing me out and now I know what will fit in those two places. I was happy with almost everything I saw except for where they put the intercom. I had wanted to put a mirror there but to look into it I’d have to stand on my toes. But what a great day I had. After the tour my niece and I went out to dinner. I hadn’t seen her since last summer and since we’ve both been fully vaccinated we could be in the car together and in the booth at the restaurant without our masks. The taste of freedom was in the air. If people keep getting vaccinated we could all be mask free by the fall. ©

New Undies and the Tour

This is going to sound like a paid endorsement for Fruit-of-Loom undergarments today because at my advanced age I’ve discovered “slip boy shorts.” I imagine they’re called SLIP boy shorts because the material is a silky microfiber like what slips and camisoles are made of and the ‘boy shorts’ describes a style that reminds me of men’s boxer briefs. I’m a person who tosses and turns a lot when I’m sleeping and my normal underpants don’t necessarily toss and turn in the same direction that my body does. On more than one night my underpants have actually woke me up and I decided the quality of my sleep would improve if I did something about finding better sleepwear. I’ve tried pajama pants and they were worse in the twisting and turning department. Going commando is not an option---I wouldn’t want to shock an EMT should I need an emergency ride to the hospital. A ridiculous number of protagonists in romance books I've read recently sleep in slip boy shorts and camisoles---okay, it was four books all by the same author but the point is the idea to do a google search of the garment didn’t come out of thin air. The search paid off, finding me my new favorite sleepwear---slip boy shorts and t-shirts. If my blog was monetized my side bar would be full of Fruit-of-the-Loom advertisements about now and aren’t you glad that it isn’t.  

Monday I went out to the continuum care campus for my first up close and personal tour of where I’ll be moving when construction is done. In my time slot there were four of us who all have units close together. It’s very much still a construction zone but the sheet rock/plaster board was up so we could get a good feel for the space and the amount of natural light that comes in. I was pleasantly surprised that the light reaches all the way to the back of my unit in the main area. In the bedroom/master bath, not so much. The window in that area overlooks my covered patio which made the difference. 

The unit across the hall is flooded with light. It’s a two bedroom, two full baths on the corner of the building and it overlooks the lake. Wouldn’t you know it, the swans were so close to the shore we could practically count their feathers. A slight exaggeration but I had apartment envy touring Jerrie's' space and I’m hoping she’ll let me park my painting easel in her spare bedroom. Just kidding, but after Monday I was more confused than ever on where I want to set up my painting area and where I want my computer area. If I let the natural light decide what goes in the living room window area (photo above) I’d set my easel and supporting cart of brushes and paint there. If I let the amount of time I’ll spend at any given hobby factor into the decision I’d put my computer desk in that space. If I let my sense of ascetics dictate my choice then that window space will get my white wicker settee, chair and flower box. The bedroom is huge and big enough to put a computer desk in front of that window---the another person on the tour with a unit just like mine is doing that---but with the amount of time I spend at the computer I'm not sure I want to sleep and write in the same room.

At one of monthly get-togethers that the non-profit sponsoring this complex had before the virus came along, Jerrie, my across-the-hall neighbor, and I were comparing finances and projected costs of living in this place and our incomes and assets were pretty much even. All I can say is she’s got more guts than I do. I’ve never really stopped worrying about this aspect of the move, even after having their financial office go over my numbers a couple of times. I’m happy I didn’t trade an extra 400 square feet, a fabulous view and higher monthly fees for my peace of mind. I'll be on a tight enough budget as it is.

One side of Jerrie's unit butts up against the large public plaza where people will gather for campus parties, meet for coffee, to read, to look at the lake…or set up a portable easel. I would hate the lack of privacy that gives her kitchen, dining room and living area but she says she’s a social person and picked that unit precisely because she loves being in the thick of things. There were so many things to consider when picking a unit. I wanted the main floor, nearest an outside door and away from the trash compactor and the cheapest floor plan which translated into no lake view. I figure there are plenty of public spaces with lake views and that will give me incentive to leave my personal space.

I came home from the tour with some new information that will help be decide furniture placement. For example the blueprint I was given doesn’t completely match up with the real thing. There is a wall in the laundry room, for example, that was supposed to 14 inches between the doorway and the corner where I thought I’d have room to put a repurposed, 9” bookcase but the space is only 5” wide. TV wall mounding plugs will cause me to rethink where I put some tall bookcases, and a wall between two doorways where I was going to put my antique ice box was supposed to be 36” but it’s only 30” and the ice box is 29” so I’m not sure that will still look good there once they get the doorway trim on. By the time we moved on from looking at my unit, I remembered I planned to take more pictures but truthfully, I was too interested in just soaking up the space and imaging my stuff here or there, plus workman and my tour-mates where everywhere. There will be future tours as they progress, so expect more photos in the spring. ©

Photo at the top: The left side will have an all glass door leading to the patio so it will get even more light on that end of the main area. What looks like a step in the photo will not be there because the floor will be raised off the cement. It's the only photo I took inside my unit.  Here's a few other in the complex:

Taken from the private drive on the campus. My unit is in the building on the right, to the far end of the building. There is an open air plaza between the two buildings and they say there will be heaters in the winter for year around sitting.

The hallway. My doorway is the first one the right and where the hall opens up in the near right (where that big black tool chest is) leads to the outside door, elevator, etc. I took this photo standing with Jerrie's doorway directly on my left.

This is half of the fitness room which is just down the short hall from where that tool chest stands in the photo up above. Across from the fitness room is the elevator and stairs (they share a wall with my den and half bath). All this stuff and the outside door is off a large meet-and-greet area. The outside door is farther from my unit door than I'd envisioned for taking the dog out but he's very polite and sits when people approach so it should be okay. People from both buildings will use that fitness room so suspect Levi will help me meet people faster than I would on my own.

This is in the other building across the plaza from my building. This area is where the cafe, post office and concierge desk will be. Below is the 'blueprint' I was given early on of my unit. They have since tweaked it to make the kitchen area a foot wider and the half bath and laundry a foot smaller. The plaza and sidewalks will be heated in the winter but if I didn't want to go out to go to the other building I could take the elevator down, walk across to another elevator in the parking garage and take it over to the cafe or restaurant.