Hot

The heat has just been incredible this month. Today was a bit better, but it won't last. It is supposed to be high 90's again by the weekend.

I don't remember it being so hot in the past. Is it global warming? Or is my memory failing?


Heat is horrible for MS. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

This leads me to a discussion of the air conditioning status of the various parsonages we lived in when I was a child. It could actually be a quite short, succinct discussion, consisting of the phrase, "There aint none." Or, rather, more correctly, "There weren't none".

Francis Asbury, at Virginia Beach, is the first parsonage I remember. They had no AC. As a matter of fact, they didn't even have a church. Dad built the church building in the front yard of the parsonage... Which was not air conditioned.

We had a screened-in porch with an overhead fan. In summer months, that is where we ate our evening meal. I know it was still quite hot out there because I can remember my dumb little 2 year old brother standing on the porch in his dirty, baggy diaper. He was screaming over and over that he was hot and wanted water.

So Dad poured a glass of wrater on Ed's head.

I guess that incident was just yet another illustration for Mom and Dad of how silly it was for them to have produced a 2nd child when they already had a perfectly wonderful girl at home.

TO BE CONTINUED!

80th birthday poem

Sue, Ron, Ed (et.al.), Marthha, Shirly, & I got Mom a digital cameers for her 80th. Here is the poem I wrote.

"What can we get Mother?"
This question has been weighty.
We wanted something special, 'cause
This year you're turning EIGHTY!

And so we've thought of all the things
That you consider fun.
You had fun on vacation, but
Vacation now is done.

You have got your pictures, so
You always will recall
The happy time at Myrtle Beach.
(But please forget the fall!)

You've always loved your pictures. You
Take pictures with great glee.
"A camera is the perfect gift!"
Both Sue and I agree.

But Ron, alas, says, "Cameras
For film are now pass*.
That type of camera is not sold
In any store today."

"You are loonie!" we reply
And run off to the mall
Where we find out that he's right -
They have them not at all.

Like old Victrola radios
Are not in modern stores,
Cameras for film are gone.
They aren't sold anymore.

So a new-fangled digital
We had to get for you.
To take a shot, just point and click.
That's all you have to do.

And when the camera is all full
Call Ron or Deb, and they
Can take the disc to CVS
And make prints right away.

Your pictures will look just like now!
And though you have turned 80,
This camera will show all the world
That you're a modern lady!

Alas!

Oh, good lord!

The evening care manager helped me get from my wheelchair into my easy chair. That is fine, right? I wanted to be in my easy chair to watch. TV. It's 7:10, and Jeopardy comes on at 7:30. So she comes in and I get in my recliner. I like this woman, so we josh about a bit.

Pleasant, right?

I SHOULD NEVER LET MY GUARD DOWN

(this is a picture of people not letting their guard down)





















My call button ended up being left on my desk. This is across the room from the upholstered chair in which I was sitting. I therefore could not call for assistance, and might have been left sitting there until someone noticed I was missing... perhaps when the rent was due? So I thought about it for a bit, and realized I could reach across the table with my my grabbing device and snag my purse, which was on the other side of the end table, and use the cel phone inside to call the front desk and get them to get my care manager to come back and give me the button. So I did so. A few seconds later I hear the woman at the desk announce, "Will the care manager for room 101 please go to the room?"

Yikes! The problem NOW was that I shouldn't have been hearing this announcement, because it was coming in over the care manager's radio... which meant she had left the radio in my room... which meant that she had no radio with which to hear the announcement... which meant she was never coming.

I called and explained. Once the lady at the front desk had finished laughing, she found someone else to send.

coasters

Modern roller coasters are evil. Sue and Ron rode the one in Dollywood (actual picture above), and Sue threw her back out so badly that she's been in agony ever since. She's been to doctors and a chiropractor. Finally she went to a neurologist who gave her steroids - prednisone - and she says it is finally feeling a bit better. And not long after that happened, a veteran with no legs rode the same type roller coaster and fell out and died! So don't ride roller coasters!

Roller coasters used to be gentler. They didn't flip the rider upside-down. Examples were the "Rebel Yell" at King's Dominion, the coaster at Lakeside amusement park in Roanoke, and the little coaster on the beach in Virginia Beach. Those coasters were fun, not deadly.

When I was just ages 3 to 6, we lived at Virginia Beach ans went to that amusement park all the time. I, of course, didn't ride anything but kid rides, but I remember they had a row of glass boxes windows across the top of the arcade. In one of them was an animatedd doll of a great big fat lady who rocked back and forth and laughed and laughed endlessly. I loved her!

$$$

Emeritus told me yesterday that,for no actual reason, they are raising their fee. (Not for everyone - just for me.) The level of care I receive is currently called 4. From now on, they will call it 5. I will get no corresponding additional care, mind you. But my same amount of care will cost an additional $600.00/month.

I've been here 4 months now, or, in other words, long enough to be sorry to have to leave. But I will leave!

Apparently Emeritus originally offered a lower fee to get me to move here from Sunrise. My pastor ccalls this "the old bait and switch.

Metro

Rather than using Metro Access, I took the regular Metro train to the Newseum yesterday, There are several reasons why I did this. First and foremost was flexibility. On Metro Access, travel times have to be arranged by 4:00 p.m. the day before the trip. On the subway, of course, passengers come and go at will. I preferred the freedom from timetables that the train gave me.

The train is quite convenient. I live immediately next door to the Virginia Square Station.

And, for people with Metro Access cards, the train is free! This creates problems of its own, though. It's easy to get in the station - you just show the Metro Access ID card to the Station Manager, who then lets you in. The problem is that, once you get in, there are gates scattered throughout the pathways of the station. The gates require insertion of a fare card before they will open, and a non-paying Metro Access customer has not got a fare card.

At first, this stymied me. When I arrved at a closed gate, I sat at the gate and looked worried for a while. Then I attempted to remedy the situationn by frantically travelling up and down the length of the station. When this solved nothing, I'd stare at the "emergecy" buttons and wonder if this was an emergency. I'd also yell "HELLO!? HELLO!?" up to the balcony above the platform.

Finally, though, I figured it out. Now I just force the gates open by prying them apart. A loud alarm goes off, and a Metro guard rushes over, but who cares? I get through the gate!

Once in, its time to ride the train. In a wheelchair, this is presents many challenges. For example, in my experience (and I believe I'll spare you the details of my exact experience!), a wheelchair must enter the train while moving absolutely straight forward. Any angle causes the tires of the wheelchair to get caught in the gap between the platform and the car. It's pretty hard to get exactally straight in front of a moving door.

Once the door opens, getting through it and into the car is the next problem. This is es[ecially true if the car is crowded. A crowd of riders is easy to handle. They are generally curteous and make space. What is frightening is manuvering into a car filled with contraptions.

On my trip to the Newseum, directly inside the door of the car I was riding was another person in a wheelchair, 2 men with large rolling carts of luggage, 1 man with a big double baby carrage, and 2 bicycles!

I think that probably it is always a wise decision to take Metro Access!!

This just in...

I went to the Newseum again today. Once again, it was fascinating.

There was no mention anywhere in the Newseum, though, about the hacking scandal that shut down the "News Of the World". Apparently The "News of the World", the highest circulation English language newspaper in the world, was obtaining a lot of the information it printed by hacking it.

I wish that the Newseum had incorporated the scandle and closing somehow.

But, then again, a museum is not a breaking news story. It probably takes a museum many months, and many committees, to change anything. And this closing just happened in the last couple days.

I asked the security guard if the had any volunteer opportunities, and he gave me a nice printed brochure on being a volunteer. Maybe...?

newseum

I went to the Newseum yesterday. It was fascinating! It has 6 floors, and I only went to 3, so I'm going back today. (The ticket one buys to get in is good for 2 days.). There is one hall lined with televisions showing different famous broadcasts of notable events through the years. You know which screen had a big crowd gathered around it? The one showing Tina Fey doing "Weekend Update"!

I'll go if ever I get a care manager to help me prepare to go out. One blew in and tried to turn off my call button and then blew out again without helping me at all. That is what they do here - they reset the button so that they can say, "We always respond within 5 minutes", but it turns out that all that "respond" means is that they come reset the call button and do nothing else and then leave. That's one really frustrating aspect of life in Emeritus.

4th of July

4th of July this year was a tame family affair, but was quite enjoyablele. Sue and Ron are newly returned from their vacation in Tennesseee and it sounds like they had a good time. Ron was actually on a business trip, though, so, if any of his bosses are reading this blog, he had no fun on the trip at all. He just worked like a Trojan from dawn until dusk. (Not that kind of aa Trojan. Get your mind out of the gutter, please!) Martha, a friend from Park Towers, and Ron's across the hall neighbor, was there, too. Every one left after dinner but me. I went up to the penthouse with Mom and Dad and a bunch of Hermitage residents. They have a beautiful view of the Washington Monument. You couldn't have asked for a better view of the fireworks.

It's July 3rd today, so I went down to the Mall this afternoon to see the Folk Life Festival. The themes this year are Colummbia, Soul Music, and the Peace Corps.. I saw the first two, but it was just too hot out for the Peace Corps. Besides, both Columbia and Soul Music had music performances, which made them quite enjoyable. The only music I associate with the Peace Corps is that they maybe all hold hands and sing "Kumbuya" sometimes.

You know, that last comment was not nice of me and was totally uncalled for.

The Columbia exhibit was enhanced by knowing a pequino bit of Espanol. It was fun to try to translate what the speakers were saying before the translator did.

I saw one really bizarre presentation in the Columbia section. Two woman, wearing authentic native costume, had a doll in a box. It represented a dead baby. They sang a song with the lyrics, "Oh little baby, now you are dead, You were once pretty but now you are dead." Seems bizarre for a festival celebrating the culture, but maybe Columbia has a high infant mortalit rate?

food

I think we are going to focus on "food" in this blog post, because I saw a TV show last night that featureds marvelous cakes, and that got me in a "food" frame of mind.

The food here sucks. The only really good meal they serve is breakfast. You can get anything you want for breakfast.

The old lady who eats with me always gets some of EVERYTHING f0r breakfast. The help doesn't even ask anymore, they just bring it! She has oatmeal, French Toast, 4 slices of regular toast, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, sliced fruit. She eats maybe 2 bites of egg, total. The rest she has them wrap in a napkin and she carrries it to her room.

Maybe she thinks she'll starvee before noon!

Anyway, the bill of fare here is nothing to brag abouut. It is, of course, nutritious and bland, and it is certainly nothing to get hungry about. BUT (and this is a bad thing!) THEY SERVE ICE CREAM WITH EVERY MEAL! That keeps families from complaininhg about grandma wasting away to nothing, I guess, but sure isn't healthy.

But, actually, upon further consideration, I'm not being fair. If you don't want what is on the menu, there are a variety of other selections that can be ordered - hamburger, omlette, pb&j, etc.

I've found a fantastic restaurant down the street. It is Sweet Green, and for about $10.00, you can construct yourself a great big entree salad with any veeggies you want.