Monday, August 17, 2015

Welcome aboard!

We have a new neighbor three doors down the hall from us, a lovely woman who is not on a walker and seems to have all her marbles.  I am thrilled!  She moved in Saturday and as a duly charged badge-wearing Ambassador, it is my duty to welcome her and give her my number if she needs anything.  Bless her heart she got the whole picture right away.

First of all the elevator on our end of the building was out of order while repair men pounded away with a jack hammer to correct the bump on the entrance floor.  Add very loud banging to this story. So her movers had to haul her furniture, etc a good distance from the back of the building moving to the rhythm of the jack hammers below.  Ouch!

Then I went up to the third floor to get the new menu and calendar to deliver to her and when I came back, our crazy alcoholic neighbor was in a rocking chair near the neighbor's front door surrounded by 6 firemen/EMTs with a fire truck and an ambulance waiting down below.  They were taking her blood pressure and giving her oxygen.  She had a big black and blue bump on the side of her head but couldn't remember getting it or how.  So the movers were hauling a sofa delicately around this group.  Honest to God, I'm not making this up.  I'm not really complaining as those firemen are all young gorgeous hunks...they could take my blood pressure anytime.

I step into the new resident's apartment to deliver the menu and calendar and the poor woman is looking at me  like "What in the world is going on?"  I assured her that the patient would be okay, that she calls 911 about once a week.  They take her to the hospital, she sobers up, calls a cab and returns home a short time later.  She showed up about midnight after this episode.

Welcome to the good ship Lollipop!  I haven't laid eyes on our new neighbor since Saturday.  There will surely be a poem in here somewhere!

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Tangled without the Zen

I should have known!  Zentangles are the perfect metaphor for my life right now minus the meditative, relaxing aspect.  Where to begin?  Six weeks ago I was dealing with bronchitis which seemed to never go away, just got a little better and then suddenly my heart started racing and I ended up in Park Plaza hospital for 3 days with sinus tachycardia.  I went there for an EKG with He-Who-Sleeps-A-Lot along, of course.  So then there was the problem of what to do with him when they decided to hospitalize me.  Thank goodness for wonderful friends who live near the hospital who came and picked him up and brought him home.  And I am so grateful for the wonderful support here at Brookdale that quickly responded with caregivers to come and check on him a few times a day.
I am happy to say that I am now feeling like my old self again just dealing with the record-breaking heat.  I treated myself to a pedicure and manicure yesterday and came away feeling like a new woman...need to do that more often!

He-Who is doing well physically but the memory is slightly declining which leads to very frustrating conversations like the following when we were out running errands:

Me:  "Would you like to eat lunch out on the way home?"
HW:  "Yes, I want to go to that place across the street>"
Me:  "The Chinese place, Qin Dynasty?
HW:  "  Yes, Chinese."
   I drive into the parking lot of the above restaurant right out the front gate of our community.  No parking anywhere...
HW:  "No, not here."
Me:  "You mean you want the Vietnamese place across the street?"
HW:  Angrily "No, no, just forget it.  I want the one across the street.  Go whereever!"
Me: "Point to where you want to go."
HW points to the north where a new Olive Garden has gone in.
Me:  " You want to go to the Olive Garden?  You want Italian food?"
HW:  "Yes."

This has to be as frustrating for him as it it for me but these kind of conversations are occurring more frequently now.  I'm learning to take deep breaths, ease up on the accelerator of life and go with the flow.  Patience has never been my greatest virtue but life seems to present the lessons one needs to learn, right?

And guess what!  My book club is discussing Still Alice this afternoon.  He-Who may attend and I hope he will add something from his own experience.  I will certainly add from mine.

P.S. My Zentangles class went well and several want to continue. More tangles to come!