I found Virginia Square Metro today. It really is just right next door. Then I went to Ballston to try to get a new cel phone and they won't let me get one until June. I even showed her how the actual casing on mine was fractured, and she scotch taped it together and said, "Come back in June." I just don't understand. I want to BUY something.

There is the new Cezanne exhibit at the National Gallery.. I think my next kiibbutz will be to that. It got a good review in the .

This rickety old computer isn't letting me highlight whole words. That is why some of the links look weird.

comparison

Yeah for Ron!! He found me internet service on Verizon and has ordered it for me. No more writing under scrutiny!!

Truth is, there are certainly just as many day to day frustrations here as there were at the other place. The care managers are problematic, though I imagine things will improve as they get more used to me. The good thing is that there is a very good supervisor here named Diane who is on top of most situations and who actually listens and reacts when a resident has a complaint. That is something Sunrise never had -- at Sunrise NO ONE was in charge. Each care manager just set up her own little fiefdom and operated by her own rules. But, on the flip side, the care managers seem better trained and More competent.

I sure wouldn't want the job of this supervisor, though. She is ALWAYS on the run, and I've seen her dealing with countless unsavory situations. Just today I watched her talk down a loudly discordant senile old man who was certain that the kitchen was serving him a used steak sandwich, and that the new one they brought him was used also. And he was LOUD!

Actually, though, that type behavior is very unusual here. In Sunrise, most of the residents weren't cognizant enough to read or carry on a conversation. The majority of them seemed to just sit around the place in their wheelchairs and sleep or complain all day. It was very rare to see anyone initiate any independent action or conversation.

Here, on the other hand, people just move about and do their own thing. I'm in the activity room now, and people keep going in and out to smoke on the veranda. Others are working a big jig saw puzzle. In Sunrise, they all just gather around the elevator and wait for a "nurse" to take them up to bed.

Greetings from Arlington

The internet still isn't on, nor is the cable for the TV installed, all of which has completely frustrated me, but this morning I found a computer with internet access out in one of the community rooms which I can use sporadically until my access is set up. Elderly residents consider it to be not the least bit rude to crowd up and read over my shoulder, though, so I gotta watch what I say. Still, I'm real glad I found this computer. It is amazing how much one depends on computer access in order to be able to function. I can't manage my money or pay my bills. for one thing, and I'm really not willing to do that from this public computer, although probably that's provincial of me and it's probably fine--What do you guys think? I also couldn't check to see what movies were on at Ballston or what those movies were about. (Banking be damned, lets talk about the important stuff like movies!)

Anyway, I'm bound to get all this worked out, right? And this place is so much better than the Sunrise When you walk up to the front door, it swings open!

Out at last!

Sorry I haven't kept the blog up to date!!! I hope that at least a few you stayed with me...... And I hope readers who left come back. I've just been working so hard to get ready to move! This is hard, you know?

I've been fighting sporadically with Comstcast. They aren't going to switch on my internet until about the 28th, so, in the meantime, I plan to write funny and interesting stories about both Sunrise's people and the people at new place and also about the experience of moving between assisted living facilities. I'll post them when I get back online. so keep checking! (please!) Hasta luega!

Packing

Gave the transistor to a good (not great) care manager named Tomika. One of the very few American care managers, she is a 35ish black woman with no husband and two pre-teen daughters. She brings them in when school is closed for snow, and they watch the big screen T.V. in the party room and argue. I also gave Tomika some candy I don't want to move.

I think I've decided to ditch the lava lamp. Want one?

Packing is hard work - think I'll hit the hay.

packing boxes abound

I'm not going into the details but I will say that I had a terrible experience with a "care manager" today and, that, if you have a defenseless family member in Assisted Living, you should talk to the family member often, and make sure the staff knows you are asking about what is going on and are taking any complaints quite seriously, If the complaints center around a certain staff member, arrange for that staff member not to be assigned to your relative. It is quite serious, and some of these old people are so defenseless that it breaks my heart to think of them dealing with this same humiliation.

Good news - one box is packed and one cabinet emptied. Now comes the hard question - what do I pack and what do I ditch?

KEEP

1) Stuffed fox dressed like a waiter, carrying a tray with glasses, that says (in a French accent, when you push his stomach, "Hellllo. My name is Fineas Fox. Would you like a cafe au lait?" - TAKE

2) 3 snall portable radios when I have a stereo and music on the computer. = DITCH

More tomorrow morning...

Computer smart

OMG - my computer monitor broke. It seems I am totally dependant on having a computer. I can't bank , I can't shop (which is probably a good thing since I can't bank or figure out my finances!), I can't request Metro Access access after 4:30 PM, I can't communicate with my friends, I can't play my favorite games, L can't play my music... Just imagine how quickly all this has happened. In '75, when I went to college, no one had a computer. Now college kids have never had to live without one.

NEXT DAY
The problem is solved now. Sue and Ron went shopping and bought me a new monitor and Ron connected it. Everything on it looks bright and new.

Back when I was in college (well, actually the summer before I went to college), I actually got a job that was supposed to involve writing programs for a great big main-frame computer. Ha, ha!) It happened because Dr. O'Brien, a UVa med school professor and the father of my friend Colleen, was interested in helping out a high school kid, so he decided to give such kid a job in his office. He'd done so in prior years with two girls who actually were computer and math whizzees, and it had workked out well.

Well, silly man, he asked Colleen if she knew anyone real smart who needed a job. Silly Colleen said. "Debbie Taylor".

I ain't that kinda smart.

The first day he handed me a book about how to write computer programs. It had something to do with sequences and binary numbers (whatever they may be). He told me to write a simple program that acted as an index to a bunch of programs.

I worked on it all day and had to ask lots of questions.

On the second day I began retyping Dr. O'Brien's address book, which was my my main job the rest of the summer.

Oh - and make his tea. I also made the perfect cup of tea.

For some reason, he never hired me again.

Deerly beloved

Charlotte Cleary, my friend who started as registrar in Arlington the same year I started in Falls Church, has told me things about activities available to people who live in Arlington. (Things like the "Learning in Retirement" Program, where one can take all kinds of interesting classes for not much money.) I think I'm getting kinda excited about the move.

I had many unusual experiences with Charlotte, because she kindly drove me around the state to all the registrar meetings. This alone was exciting, because Charlotte is an excellent, but nervous, driver. If an 18-wheeler approaches in any lane, from any direction, she slams on the brake and screams, "You never know what they are going to do!" We once spent a Monday night in Richmond, having battled DC's Monday afternoon rush hour to get there, because Charlotte wanted to avoid the much less potent Richmond morning rush the next day! But, way cool, Richard Gere was filming a movie in the lot next door to our rooms,

One thing Charlotte told me disturbed me, though. She was reading to me out of the little Arlington paper, and it seems the found a severed deer's head a couple blocks from my new place. I said, when she read it, "They found a dead deer?!", and she said, "No. Just the head."

That's probably an unusual type event, though.

Rub A Dub Dub

Hip-Hip-HURRAY!!!! They are fixing the bathtub here today!!!! At last I can bathe!
Maybe this calls for a poem!!

Yippee hurray
I'll soon bathe today!
It won't be long 'til I am clean.

Not like Christmas week
When the tub also leaked.
Leaving me dirty and mean.

I feared I'd spend Easter
All alone on my keister
With my friends and my family unseen

'Cause I might be icky
And I 'd make them feel sickly.
And they'd get real faint or turn green.

But the bath's fixed today.
Hip Hip Hip Hurray!
And very soon I shall be clean.

Actually, come to think about it, that probably didn't call for a poem at all, did it? Oh well..... Never mind!