I went to the Folklife festival on the Mall today. (The Mall is the grassy field about 3 or 4 blocks long between the Capital and the Washington Monument.) It was perfect weather - about 80 degrees and a nice breeze. Unfortunately, the Folklife Festival runs June 24-28 anffd 7- 1 to 7-5, and it is 6/30!

Joke

The meanie post reminds me of a story told by Seneca Foote (check out the link - He had a lot more hair when I knew him than he does in that picture!) to my Dad. He told this story way back when he was new at Nursing Home administration. The way he tells it, they had cantankerous old man at his Nursing Home who was never happy with anything. Seneca went up to him one morning and asked what he would like for breakfast. The man said he wanted two eggs - one scrambled and one fried. Seneca came back later and saw the man was sitting there with one scrambled and one fried egg. "Wow - looks like they got your breakfast just perfect," Seneca said. "No! It's horrible!" the man replied. Seneca was dumbfounded. "Look, it's one scrambled and one fried egg, just like you asked." "HMMPH!" the man said. "They fried the wrong one!"

Meanie

We have this miserable (and, actually, you can use either definitation of that word - she, herself, is miserable, and she's a misery to others) old woman who lives here. She plops herself in a chair directly opposite the concierge and closely watches and comments on anything that happens in the lobby. She has an absolute fit if they try to move her or the chair. She's just mean and nasty - she yells out cruel observations to passerbys, she calls people ugly names (.............not that she hurt my feelings, mind you). She makes absurd demands on the concierge. As a self-defense measure, all the residents have learned not to speak to her or even look at her. I walked into the "library" today, and there were about four people reading the paper, and all 4 of their chairs would normally have been facing hers, and they had all 4 turned around completely backward, so that they were facing, not the same direction, but away from her. The thing is, though, if one happens to be in the shadows watching from afar, she's really quite sad. She's probably been mean all her life and brought this all on herself, so I'm certainly not excusing her, but she really is sad. Here is the dialogue that went on today:
Her: what day is it?
Concierge: Tuesday.
Her: My family comes every Tuesday.
Con: No they don't. They come Sundays.
Her: what day is it?
Con: Today is Tuesday.
Her: Call my daughter right now. Tell her that her mother wants to talk to her.
Con: (picks up phone and dials. Carries on muted conversation. Woman occasionally yells, "Tell her her MOTHER wants to talk to her." Con hangs up phone.) She says she'll see you Sunday.
Her: What day is today?
Con: Tuesday.
Her: My daughter is coming today.
etc., etc.

To continue the story, (if you remember, Dad and David are at Randolph Macon moving Susan out because she flunked out) David and Sue pretty much don't know each other at all at that point, and, if you know Dad at all, you know he goes absolutely ballistic without a moments notice, so poor David was probably scared to death. He was also embarrassed as shit, because these people he was being forced by Dad to march in and "strong-arm" were the kinds of people that had been his friends in college just a year before. According to David, they just pounded in and started grabbing dishes out of cupboards and linens off beds, and even took the typewriter table out from under Stephanie's typewriter while she was trying to type a paper. To give you a final wrap up, Sue and I moved in together, which Mom and Dad were sure was going to be her final undoing, but which actually ended with her graduating with honors from George Mason in economics and the getting a job as a contractor with TASC. Stephanie, the girl who was typing (can you believe we actually typed back then?) became a lawyer and married a marine. I'm not real sure what happened to Shannon. Last I heard she lived on the West Coast and had invented and developed three dimensional fold-out tourist maps.

turtle

Anyway, I promised you a turtle story... When Sue was much younger and in college, she lived in a house with 3 girls and unbeknownst to my parents, at least 2 boyfriends. A great deal of - well, lets just say "partying" - went on there all day and night. For some reason that none of them remembered, they obtained a full size box turtle. One of them brought it in from somewhere, it didn't just crawl in for shelter from the wilderness. They had two kittens., so they figure it ate the cat food. Their apartment was trashed, and occasionally when they were "mellow", the turtle would just crawl across the floor, and they would say, "Hey, man! There goes the turtle!" The odd tie-in of this story to my life is that Sue flunked out of school, and Dad took my much beloved friend David, who at that time was Dad's employee and not yet my friend, to bring her stuff back home to Falls Church (where Dad and David were both at Dulin UMC To be continued...

I did go meet Ron and Sue at Ballston yesterday - I had called Sue and knew she was coming, but it was a wonderful surprise that Ron was there. We saw "IronMan 2". This is not normally my type of movie, but I am in lust with Robert Downey, Jr.
Tee-hee - I have a got a picture of Robert Downey Jr. on my web page. I may live in an old folks home, but I'm about 12 years old emotionally.
I'm going to go ahead and post this only because I'm going to dinner and I've on occasion has entries just disappear when I've gone to dinner! YES, RON, THEY JUST DISAPPEARED!! Like, Poof - they're gone!

later, dudes

Sorry for not posting yesterday. It was SO hot, it actully made me sick - which reminds me to say again - NEVER PUT YOUR WEAK OR HELPLESS LOVED ONES IN THIS PLACE - IT WOULD BE CRUEL! i'm planning to meet Sue at Ballston for a movie, so I'll plan to write later. I have lots to say - most of it amusing and involving a turtle!

New Song

Song TO: They'll Know We Are Christian By Our Love

I get one free bath Wednesday.
Saturday, one for free.
And for 600 dollars I now bathe each Mondee.
It has been one hot summer, yes.
It has been hot as hell.
And they’ll know we’re from Sunrise by our smell. By our smell.
Yes, they’ll kn-ow we’re from Sunrise by our smell.

I went to church today and stapled bulletins - no big whoop.. When I got back, I rather half heatedly searched for something to do tomorrow, and hadn't found anything by the time it was too late to call Metro Access. I think that this non-motivation has to do with the heat. Tomorrow I'll probably regret it.
I guess I'll just get my weekly injection and indulge in a frappachino at Starbucks tomorrow.

I'll work on the blog some, too. Let me know whether you view that as a promise or a threat! (If, indeed, anyone reads this!)

Hot weather

It was over 100 degrees all day today, and I'd not planned anything to do, so I pretty much didn't do anything at all. That's majorly depressing, specially with my siblings at the beach AND I OUGHT TO BE THERE WITH THEM. There - that little outburst helped absolutely not at all.

I've been trying to negotiate more extra showers. I don't know if I told you, but I've managed to arrange for 3, rather than 2, showers a week for $600.00/month. I've been telling them that, for $600.00/month, I should get 4 showers a week, and also "please tell me how much it would cost to get 1 a day", and they just said it can't be done for any amount of money, so I called Penelope Bonsall, a woman at the corporate level who helped me last time I had a problem, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet. I don't see how they get away with calling this "assisted living" rather than "geek and old folk warehousing", because they sure don't provide enough assistance to actually be able to live a normal life. Normal people don't stink from not bathing.

Mom and Dad are considering a retirement home. They would probably go into The Hermitage, which is the Methodist one. All their preacher friends have moved into one or another - Al Stables, Hugh and Dee, David Smith, etc. I bet Seneca and Becky Foote haven't, but they are younger. Dad really wants to go, probably to guarantee that Mom will be safe, but Mom is really against it. She thinks their life right now is fine. I tried to convince her to do it now, while they had time to think, because if she broke her leg or something it would be a pressure move. I don't think she appreciated that line of reasoning, and I can't say I blame her!

National Gallery

I went to the National Gallery today. I actually went just to not be here. I saw the Alan Ginsburg exhhibit, which I kinda don't understand, because the man was a poet, not a photographer. I guess the photos and the commenys he wrote under them round out our understanding of the artist, but I don't see how they themselves are art. BUT, I don't claim to understand Beat art, so probably I'm missing the point.

Metaphysical

For some reason I've really been thinking lots about religion and belief today.. partly because it is Sunday, of course, but it really isn't that easy. I remember one time saying to David, "You are begining to sound as if you actually believe in this stuff. Do you?" He just changed the subject, but I bet that's because I already knew the answer.

I don't know. I suppose at some level I must believe, because I know for sure, deep in my soul, that someday I'll be with David again.

My sister, Sue, is going to the beach today with my brother, Ed, his wife, Dayna, and Charlotte and Lu, their daughters. This breaks my heart because I always went on summer vacations with Ed and Sue to the beach. So lets just gather ourselves back together for a minute, huh...? I can still go to the beach if I want to go. It's just going to take a lot of advance planning. We could rent a van to transport my wheelchair, (I sold my van when I lost my job and moved here, basically because the only one who ever really drove it was David) and get one of those beach wheelchairs with big tires. David pushed me around in one of those on either Cancun or Barbados trip (or both). I probably also would have to hire an aide to go along and take care of me so that Sue didn't feel pressured to do so - that's what my therapist said. Actually, I'd have to hire a very strong aide, because David said those beach wheelchairs are hell to push. Perhaps next summer I'll have enough sense to plan something.

I wonder what constitutes "vacation" when you've been fired from your job (because the damned evil Falls Church Electoral Board doesn't want to work with a gimp in a wheelchair)? Is it just going somewhere fun?

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I didn't have anything planned to do today, so I went to the library. I really need to start reading more. Until I got in college, I used to read for pleasure all the time. What I'm tempted to say is that I quit reading much for pleasure when I had to start reading so much for school, but I think the actual truth is that I quit reading much when I started getting drunk or stoned all the time. Now I haven't been drunk in several years, so I ought to start reading again. Currently I'm reading "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. So far it tells the story of a black woman the 1930's. The foreword says it has been criticized by black male critics for not being authentic or bitter enough. Susan Craft gave it to me to read, though, and she loves it, and she has a black son and she's always had black lovers. (Except for her late husband, Rudolfo Hernandez, who was Hispanic and who was incredibly smart and wonderful.) Anyway, I'll let you know about the book as I go along.

Home hunting again

Well. good news and bad news, and it's all the same news. I went in to see the Director, Julie, yesterday to formalize the 3 per week showers, and she called me on the carpet for "yelling" at her dear care managers. I told her that I'd worked in retail for years and that unsatisfied customers often yelled, and she replied that if I did it again, she was kicking me out, and I said, "fine", and she, rather shocked, repeated, "I said I would kick you out," and I repeated, "fine". I don't believe I actually yelled at the care managers, (I never yell at anyone!) (except Susan) but I'm positive that I didn't, and still won't, accept it quietly if they aren't doing their jobs. FSo I suppose I'm not supposed to speak up at all if something is unacceptable. Guess I'll find a new place to live. That's sort of exciting!

Indian Summer

I spent a very hot sultry day today in the new American Indian Museum. It was fascinating and really well done. I didn't see anywhere near all of it. Every time I go to a museum, I leave with a LITTLE more knowledge and a HUGE understanding of how much more there is to learn. They have a section of the exhibit that deals with each of the Indian nations. I spent a lot of time in the Apache section, because it was the first one I came to, and a lot in Cherokee, because we used to go to their NC reservation quite often. One thing confuses me, though. (OK, many things confuse me, but one thing confuses me about Cherokees right at the minute.) The father of Hilary Weiss, my high school friend, was David Weiss, a drama professor at UVa. She told a story about when he was directing "Unto These Hills", the Cherokee outdoor drama in Maggie Vally, NC. She said he told one of the Indians who was playing a warrior to dance while he was waiting to stand lookout, so the guy jumped around and flapped his arms a little, and her dad said, "No. Don't just make it up. Do a real tribal dance.", and the actor said, "I can't, man. Cherokees don't dance!" We high-school girls hooted at that story, but in the museum, they had Cherokee dancing costumes, so I guess the actor just didn't know how to dance and didn't want to admit it.

Blog

OMG - I mentioned my book by Bob Dole on the blog the other day and Adsense ended up putting all these Republican ads on the page! This is totally NOT how Adsense is supposed to work! It is supposed to understand the meaning of the blog and post ads that the people who read this type blog will click on. Doesn't Adsense know when I'm being sarcastic? Of course, maybe I might actually have a Republican reader out there. Do I have a Republican reader out there? Do I have a reader out there? Now I'm going to try to get Democrat ads - Democrat Obama Kennedy Carter Democrat donkey liberal Lyndon Johnson Biden

Shower poem

What Sunrise has discovered,
And it pays off handsomely,
Is that folks won’t pay for showers
If one hands them out for free.

Nothing here is free, of course.
To live here costs a fee.
This fee includes two showers.
If they’re skipped, folks might want three.

‘Cause, to a filthy resident,
The utmost luxury
Is found in taking showers,
So Sunrise will, for a fee,

Provide three weekly showers.
$600.00 is the fee.
If Sunrise gets folks real dirty
Then they’ll pay that happily.

I've fallen for this shower scheme,
Although reluctantly
And Sunrise will be quite content
To just clean up on me.

good money after bad

I'm planning to splurge on a selfish indulgence. Please let me explain before you get all bent out of shape.

It is totally wrong of Sunrise to charge so much extra money for this indulgence. Were Sunrise actually to be an assisted living facility, this would be part of the package. But Sunrise's service is far from assisted living. They don't want to help anyone make an actual life for his or her self. That is way too much work. Instead, this place is a warehouse for damaged goods. The idea is to keep residents (inmates?) as quiet and compliant as possible until they die.

For my $6000/month here, I get 2 showers/week. I get them on Wednesday and Saturday nights. It has been over 100 degrees every day this week. On both Monday and Tuesday night I woke up in the middle of the night and just lay in bed feeling filthy, which is a rotten way to feel if you can't do anything about it! I just kept thinking "Wednesday will soon be here!" Thursday morning I'm supposed to go to church and do my volunteer work, so I'm thinking how glad I am that comes after my Wednesday night shower.

So Wednesday evening at about 6:30 PM two caretakers came and told me that I couldn't have a shower that evening becausee they'd painted part of of the bathroom during the day. They didn't know when or if the bath would be open the next day.

At first I just couldn't accept it and argued and fought. Then I started to believe it was really true. I howled and wailed. I cried for 2 days. I really couldn't help it, not only because of the shower, but also because I was realizing anew that I'm not in control of any part of my life anymore.

I went to complain to the director. I told her I want 3 showers/week. at least in the summer. She said OK, but it will cost $600 more a month. I told her to go ahead and do it. What do y'all think?

I just realized that I have a book written by Bob Dole that is autographed by him! He wrote, "To Anne, Bob Dole" in black felt-tip. I got the book, "Great Political Wit" at the AAUW used book sale for .10. I guess that is indicative of the popularity of this former Republican Presidential candidate! I bought the book because I thought I might find some snippet in it I could quote in my blog. Let me look and see...

I see nothing worth repeating. So now what am I going to do with the damned book? I don't have much room here you know. Do you want it? It's autographed and everything! I'll sell it to you for just $20.00!

Look at this appropriate picture my pastor emailed me. His note in the email asked,
"Is this the kind of place you hang out?"

Sackler and Freer

It was wonderful weather yesterday - 70 - 75 degrees and no humidity. I had heard the day before that it was going to be nice, so I made plans to take Metro Access to the Freer/Sackler Galleries. I chose those museums to attend because I'd never been to them, and to see Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia. It was really amazing to see these ancient bronzes, some even from prehistoric times. It just amazes me to think that primitive man even back in prehistory knew and cared enough to distill and mix metals, create molds, and pour bronzes. Here is one bronze
It is a god who is half boy/half elephant.

While there, I looked through a number of the exhibits, but there a still many more to see. They had a large Whistler exhibit in the Freer. Apparently, Freer, himself, was a friend of Whistler (hmmm... wonder if his Whistler's mother knew about this?), and it was Whistler who convinced Freer to concentrate his art collection on oriental art. Whistler's art was heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese works.

I also walked through the Korean ceramics, Many of them are beautiful, but. to tell you the truth, my main reaction is astonishment that ceramics could survive intact for 2,000 years. Not all of them were that old, of course, but some are.

There was tons more to see that I never got to. I barely skimmed Chinese or Japanese or Egyptian or Thai. I did see In the Realm of the Buddha. That was impressive because they had lots of representations of Buddha made of many different materials from all through the ages. There was even a recreated "Tibetan Shrine" to go in.

This was all particularly fascinating to me because Religion was one of my double majors in college, and Buddhism was one of the two religions I concentrated my major on, The exhibit sure made me aware of how much I've forgotten since college!

As a matter of fact, both these museums leave me realizing anew how much stuff there is out there for me to learn!

Picnic

I had a great time yesterday evening. Susan Craft invited me over for dinner, and she cooked steaks out on the grill. Her wonderful 13 year old son Alex was there, as was Alex's friend Angel, as was Susan's signifigant other.

Susan is one of my oldest friends (actually, one of the friends I've known the longest, not the one that is the most elderly. I actually think she is quite young, meaning "the same age as me!") We first met in 1977, when she became one of my roommates in what shall forever be known as "the apartment from Hell". We were 19 years old and 2nd year in college, and we've been close friends, on and off, ever since.

Isn't it weird to think that we could bond together in friendship so many years ago and live lives that took totally different paths and still be so close that I can anticipate what she's going to do in most situations?

We graduated from Virginia in the class of '79. The only three people I know from that class are Katie Couric, who is a respected newscaster, Susan, who is a stoner, me, a ne'er-do-well individualist, and Barbara Fielding, a hard working wife, mother, and church lady.

I didn't know any of them in school but Susan. I know about Barbara because a tenor said in choir one night, "My wife was in Katie Couric's college graduating class." and I said. "WOW. So was I!"

I used to resent Katie Couric. I said, "Why does she get the great job and get to be so famous? I have the same credentials she does!" Then I read her resume in a magazine and found out that she worked real hard in college. She was in tons of organizations, and even worked on the Cavalier Daily. She might even have lived on the Lawn.

I, on the other hand fully renjoyed such tradions as Easters Weekend And so what if I didn't live on the lawn?
I got to live in the apartment from hell!

Unacceptable

This has really been a rotten place to be dependant on other people for the last couple days. I told the Director this morning, "This is supposed to be an assisted living place, not an assisted "put in time until you die" place. Wonder if she knows the difference?

Marina

I am going to share memories of Hatteras with you again today. Directly across the street from the Burrus was the Marina. It had a deli where you could sit out on the dock and eat snacks or sandwiches and watch the charter fishing boats come in. That was really cool, because when they came in, they poured all the fish they'd caught all day onto the pier, so we could just sit up on the deck and drink imported beer and look at these big piles of fish. Later guys in hip boots threw them in these big barrels on wheels and pulled them in the back to be cleaned. They sold it from a room in the back. Here are some pictures of us at the marina.


Here is a really neat picture of the marina at night.

Sue loved the marina so much that she decided to name her first born girl child "Marina". She decided to name her first boy "Jacque", and her third child, boy or girl, "Baby Shamu". David put the nix on that idea, because he said he couldn't see our dad leaning over a crib and saying, "Goodnight little Baby Shamu."

Insurance

My long term disability insurance has finally begun paying! This really makes all the difference to me in the world, because it is the difference between having enough money coming in every month to pay the bill at Sunrise and living off of savings and wishful thinking. They only began offering this insurance at work a couple years ago, and I bought the maximum allowable amount, because I thought, "If anybody needs disability insurance it's me!", and now it APPEARS I DID SOMETHING RIGHT FOR A CHANGE!

I've done nothing much worthwhile today - I'm too psyched at no longer being poverty stricken! I went and got my weekly Avonex injection, so that was worthwhile, I guess. I went to the bank and deposited my insurance check. I went to Starbucks and got a frappuccino to celebrate. I dropped said frappuccino all over the Starbucks floor. I fled discretely. But that's about all!

Accessibility

It occurs to me that it might behoove us both if I were to explore the accessibility issues I come across in my travels. After all, an occasion may arise when you may find the information useful.

Sunrise has a heavy front door with no automatic opener, so a person in a wheelchair is dependant on obtaining the help of a healthy person in order to get in or out. When I've complained about this to the front desk, I've been told it was "done on purpose".

The National Gallery seems quite accessible to me. I didn't see any problems.

The Corcoran gallery is quite a challenge. A person using a wheelchair has to use a back door. This takes the patron to a long bare service hallway. The patron then checks in with building personnel who are behind an elevated desk. The patron is then sent down another service hallway. When I reached the end of the hall, no one was about, and I had to search inside what seemed to be an employee break room to find someone to explain that I was to use the freight elevator, which was in front of me. This employee then used his walkie talkie to locate security personnel to operate the elevator. The elevator itself was the size if a small room or large closet. It had no enclosed wall on one side, just a gate, so the rider could see the inside of the building to past. The doors were huge metal things. They made a slamming sound when they were pushed shut. The operator ran the elevator with a panel of old timey controls. While touring the building, anytime the patron wants to go to a different floor (there are 2 or 3) the patron has to get a security guard and use the same elevator. Also, there is one occasion in the main gallery where the exhibit continues up several stairs. Upon asking, I found out that by going into an adjacent room and out a particular door on has access to a ramp, but there were no signs at the stairs where everyone else went up that indicated this.

The Phillips Collection is divided into galleries in the main building and galleries in the "house". The major problem encountered in the main building is the double panel, lightweight swinging doors which provide admittance to the building. No patron in a wheelchair could maneuver these without help.

To get to the "house", the only accessible route is to go back outside and go down a steep, windy ramp that I found to be insufficiently signed. Upon reaching the bottom of the ramp, one encounters a door that it is impossible for a wheelchair to get through without assistance, for there is no room on the landing for a wheelchair to manuver. This door really needs a push button.

Summer Fun '10

Today was a good day. I went to the Phillips gallery today and really enjoyed the collection. These are some of the pictures I saw:


Pierre Auguste Renoir
The Luncheon of the Boating Party


Honore Daumier
The Uprising


El Greco
The Repentant Peter

I still had 2 hours left before Metro Access came after I'd seen the show, so I scooted down to Dupont and sat under a shade tree and drank a strawberry yogurt smoothie. Maybe this is part of the answer to "how do I have fun in the summer now that everything's different?" What do you think?

Hatteras again

I'm writing nostalgic tales of Cape Hatteras because that's what "summer fun" used to mean to me. As to what "summer fun" means now, I really don't know. Just wait, and we'll find out as we go through these next few months together!

Here is a Christmas carol I wrote about Hatteras vacations:

TO: WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE

We three Taylor children are.
In bathing suits we traverse afar.
Sound and ocean
Always in motion
In search of a sand bar.

(Refrain)
OH--h-h-h-h-h
Sea of wonder, sea of might.
We're on the beach both day and night.
Smoking pot and drinking shots.
How do we get home tonight?

(Debbie)
Jarts I bring to the beach again.
Although I hear they puncture your brain.
We play this together
In good or bad weather
While we finish off the grain.
(Refrain)

(Sue)
A big whale boat to offer have I.
He'll be fun when waves aren't to high.
People are gazing,
Think he's amazing,
They gather from far and nigh.
(refrain)

(Ed)
A pole I bring, because I assume
Some big fish has met his doom.
Bait I keep buying,
But it keeps drying.
The pole rarely leaves the room.
(refrain)

Goodness now, behold us arise
At 10 AM, and put ice on our eyes.
Yes, it's true, the sun has burned you, but
It's well worth the sacrifice.