by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recently our mother moved into what was previously\u00a0called an \u2018old folks home\u2019, but we have come to understand that that\u00a0term is derogatory, insensitive and . . . well yes, politically incorrect.\u00a0 \u00a0So we have created an ever-growing number of euphemisms to cover this concept, but for simplicity reasons we\u2019ll just call it a \u2018senior facility\u2019 \u2013 sometimes the word \u2018living\u2019 is put between \u2018senior\u2019 and \u2018facility\u2019 I suppose to differentiate it from those \u2018non-living senior facilities\u2019.\u00a0 Our mom\u2019s new facility is called Merrill Gardens and it\u2019s located in the bucolic city of Sonoma \u2013 wine country, which often times comes in handy for those visiting our mother.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was her 93rd<\/sup>\u00a0birthday and it was up to either one of my siblings or me to make the trip from Central California, Southern California or Scottsdale, Arizona to Sonoma to celebrate the occasion with\u00a0her.\u00a0 My brother had just had a hip replaced, I\u2019m assuming with another hip, so he couldn\u2019t make the trip; my sister\u2019s pancreas was not doing whatever pancreases\u00a0are supposed\u00a0to do, so she was out, and thus the familial obligation fell upon me.\u00a0 Road trip!\u00a0 The visit would not only provide\u00a0me\u00a0an opportunity to see how mom got nearly 55 years of crap from the last house she lived in, into a one-bedroom apartment, but more importantly it would be an chance\u00a0to meet the new male \u2018friend\u2019 in her life that she had been telling\u00a0us all about for the last several months.\u00a0 It was my job to ‘grill’ this guy and report back to my siblings regarding\u00a0his intentions with our mother.\u00a0 Yes, apparently love has no age limit; love does however have a good sense of irony – mom\u2019s \u2018boyfriend\u2019, as she calls him, is named\u00a0Jack, which, coincidently, was what our father and her husband for 63+ years was named.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018New Jack\u2019, as we have affectionately dubbed him, is 87, which I suppose makes my mother a \u2018cougar\u2019 of sorts, but to her credit I’ve not heard her refer to him once as\u00a0\u2018boy toy\u2019.\u00a0 We’re happy that mom has found someone; our father has been gone for over ten years now and mom was long-overdue as a hen in need of someone to peck.\u00a0 Those who have a parent in a \u2018senior facility\u2019 know that men are at a premium there, so she feels very lucky \u2013 I\u2019m not saying she\u2019s getting lucky, I\u2019m just saying she\u2019s feeling <\/em>lucky \u2013 to have latched on to one.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I met \u2018New Jack\u2019 in the lobby of Merrill Gardens as preparations were being made\u00a0for their big, annual\u00a0Valentine\u2019s Day concert which included the ceremonial coronation of the \u2018Merrill Garden\u2019s Valentines King and Queen\u2019.\u00a0 We arrived at the showroom (actually just some folding chairs set up in the lobby) early; as mom said it would get fairly crowded rather quickly.\u00a0 It did indeed become \u2018walker room only\u2019 thirty minutes before show time.\u00a0 Mom and I found three seats in the second to last row; we sat down and mom put her purse on the seat next to her, thus \u2018saving\u2019\u00a0the seat\u00a0for \u2018New Jack\u2019 who had to go to the restroom . . . again. I suppose in some circumstances we still \u2018save seats\u2019, but I thought we stopped that practice after junior high, with the possible exception of calling \u2018shotgun\u2019 in high school, thus saving for oneself the most dangerous seat in the car.\u00a0 After that we just seemed to accept whatever seat we had and whoever sat next to us.\u00a0 But I\u2019m here to tell you that we return to \u2018seat saving\u2019 in our golden years.\u00a0 The seat next to \u2018New Jack\u2019s\u2019 saved seat was also vacant and being saved by the person in the adjacent seat.\u00a0 As the place was filling up, an elderly woman\u00a0with a rather grumpy face, that we were to subsequently\u00a0learn would match her personality, ambled down our row and tried to sit in \u2018New Jack\u2019s\u2019 seat.\u00a0 My mother looked at her purse on the seat and then back to the elderly woman\u00a0as if to say, \u201cAre you blind, can\u2019t you see my purse on the seat means it\u2019s saved?\u201d\u00a0 The fact that the elderly woman\u00a0was indeed\u00a0vision-impaired seemed not to matter, but watching this interaction, I learned something about getting older, and that is as we tend to rely more on communicating with a look rather than\u00a0verbally, I assume this has something to do with the loss of hearing that typically accompanies old age.\u00a0 I digress; the elderly woman\u00a0looked at mom as if she was a leper and started to sit down in the next seat over, when the woman next to that seat told her it was also being saved.\u00a0 The elderly \u2018seat seeker\u2019 then yelled for all to hear, \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous, they should outlaw seat saving!\u201d and shuffled off in disgust.\u00a0 Seat savers, don\u2019t be alarmed; while our representatives in Congress have passed sillier legislation, I don\u2019t think the seat saving initiative is getting much traction.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As we sat waiting for the show to begin, my mother gave me a running commentary on several of the passers-by.\u00a0 There was \u2018Dog Lady\u2019, thus labeled by my mother, not so much because she owned a dog, but because she looked like her dog, probably just in my mother\u2019s eyes, as \u2018Dog Lady\u2019 had her eye on New Jack before \u201cthe new floozy (that\u2019s mom) moved in\u2019.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the \u2018Chicken Lady\u2019; no, not because she has or looks like a chicken, but because the wing in which she lives overlooks a chicken farm.\u00a0 Nothing too unusual there, except \u2018Chicken Lady\u2019 also had her eye on Jack (remember, I said men were a hot commodity in these facilities) and had a geographical advantage in that Jack lived in the same \u2018chicken wing\u2019.\u00a0 And trust me on this, proximity to target becomes more and more critical the less ambulatory one gets.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Finally the show begins . . .<\/p>\n Continued next post<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recently our mother moved into what was previously\u00a0called an \u2018old folks home\u2019, but we have come to understand that that\u00a0term is derogatory, insensitive and . . . well yes, politically incorrect.\u00a0 \u00a0So we have created an … read more