did i mention we were in mexico for a couple of weeks? and did i mention that for the two months before that, aunty jo was in hospital - at the grey nuns, a day trip from here?
i did?
well, i know i didn't tell you this bit.
the day we left for mexico, everything was going tickety-boo. ok, it was 54 degrees below zero, and my car broke down, and i had a migraine, but other than that, everything was going tickety-boo. i aimed to be home mid-afternoon, with one last task to accomplish, finalize my packing, run the dishwasher, and head to the airport.
when i walked in the door at 3:05, the phone was ringing. it was the head nurse at venta care, a northeast edmonton nursing home. "we have a bed for your aunt," she said, "do you want it?" i stammered and hemmed and hawed (furiously texting mo at the same time) until she said, curtly, "i can't save a bed for two weeks." and that was that.
but of course the second that's that, you worry you've made a big mistake. with mo AWOL (or in a two-hour meeting, whatever), i called the social worker at the hospital. "take the bed," she said, "there's a 5400-person waiting list."
i text this to mo.
when i called the head nurse back i got her voicemail. the facility's switchboard confirmed she was gone for the day. "that can't be!," i wailed. "i talked to her just five minutes ago!" but it was so. "well, can anybody else help me?" claire was kind enough to offer to stay late, if i could get there by 4PM. "i'm on my way."
i text this to mo.
remember, i have no car and it's 54 degrees below zero. meaning that i when i call for a cab, i'm on hold with dispatch for a looooooooooooooooooooong time. 3:19 turns into 3:26 turns into 3:31 and i'm starting to panic. i hold with the landline on ear 1 and use the cellphone at ear 2. call mo: still no answer. call my parents' place: busy. call my mom's cell. turns out she's actually with jo - at the grey nuns hospital, a day trip from here. yellow cab tells ear 1 that my call is being answered in the order it was received. at 3:34 i get through to my dad on ear 2: can he drive from southeast edmonton to northwest edmonton, pick me up and get me to northeast edmonton by 4PM? he can, he says, and he will!
three minutes later he calls back to say, oops, i forgot, your mother has the car and she's at grey nuns.
by this time my texts to mo contain language i'm actually hoping she doesn't receive.
long story long, i get to venta care, claire and i whirl through in about five minutes, and i say: we'll take it.
text mo.
the actual move happened while we were in mexico, and there were some ins and outs i'm still not clear about - the match was broken, the match was mended, there was a short stay somewhere interim - but she's definitely got a bed at venta care, so the last few days we've been catching up to the big move.
she hates it, of course. "a ROOM? you expect me to live in a ROOM? i had a whole apartment! you have a house!" well, we say, really the whole complex is your living space - think of it that way! "i like to cook for myself," she says, "i like to buy my own groceries." oh, jo: you mean that pound of hamburger with the best-before date in may? or are you referring to microwaving the frozen meals-on-wheels you leave on the counter for a day and a half? we ask, how's the food here? "oh, the food's okay," says jo. then, recalling herself, "i have such a sore mouth, though." ("hmm," said the nurse thoughtfully, "doesn't slow her down much at mealtime.") don't worry about your sore mouth, we crow, there's a dentist on staff! we'll put in the paperwork for a consult! she looks at us levelly, then changes the subject.
"where's all my things?" "in storage, jo. everything's in storage." "what about my furniture? my double bed, 2 bedside tables and a dresser?" "your bedroom furniture is in storage." "in the living room i had a sofa and a chair, and two long tables - my TV sat on one of them - and my dining room table was round: where is all of that?" "that's all in storage too." "what about the things in the kitchen, my dishes and so on?" "storage." "eh?" she hasn't heard us. "STORAGE! IT'S ALL IN STORAGE!"
repeat.
what we didn't put in storage was her walker, so that we could bring it to her at the first opportunity. we were relieved to see that ventacare had given her a loaner so she could get by. we apologized profusely for her inconvenience, said we'd thank the ventacare people for the loaner and return it. she barely flits an eye in our direction. "no," she says, "this is my walker." i think she's misunderstood, so i try again. "they loaned you one when you moved in, but this one, here, this is your actual walker. remember, the one without the cushion?" "that's not my walker," she says. mo tries: "jo, hon, it is! i brought it from your apartment myself! look, it has your name on it." "well," she says, "that's strange. i don't know why my name would be on that walker when this is the one that belongs to me." we're slackjawed. "look," she says, "how mine has a little basket, and a cushion on the seat...." and bright black paint, we can see now, and shiny reflective decals, and unpebbled wheels.
she's got to be kidding. she spent years resisting the walker. and now she's a freakin' conoisseur?
ultimately, i think it bodes well for ventacare. i think the way to keep jo happy is to ensure she always has something new to despise. next week i'll sign her up for a perm at the in-house hair salon. nothing will make her love her tablemates more.
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Livin' ... in vancouver?
it used to be that my favorite thing about traveling was -- and here let me issue a warning to stalwart comrades: you can still exit this post with your sense of me intact -- shopping. it's the main way i orient myself into a place. i figure out where the funky shops are and it gives me a bead on the place. chain store after chain store: ok, i know you. a little side street with secondhand record stores and some hopeful clothing designer who's just hung out her shingle? we can be friends.
this time in vancouver it wasn't like that, and i'm not totally sure why. partly it's because vancouver, like everywhere else, is inundated with chains. granville, for instance, is like a linear version of south edmonton common: urban barn next to restoration hardware across the street from chapters and EQ3, and every one of 'em has its own starbucks. you know how people are talking these days about companies that are "too big to fail": why does that apply to pottery barn?
that's not the only reason shopping is different these days, though. even though we could have strolled some of the littler shops along main -- smoking lily specialists, say, or sunja link's flagship (ha!) or that new little design shop in deep cove -- i just wasn't motivated to do it. eh, it was drizzling, i was tired, and i came up with quite a litany of other excuses.
the real reason? i think we shop bigger now. so in fact what we did on the first night we were in vancouver -- seriously, friends, you can still leave! -- is troll MLS for the kinds of places we'd like to own. we think we could be happy with a second home in the low 700s, the burning question being west end or kits. we have become those lesbians, the ones who attend open houses in yaletown instead of going to the rally on commercial drive.
as i probably don't need to say, mo and i can no more afford a second home in vancouver in the low 700s than you can, and possibly even less, given that we are saving up to buy a new sleeping pad for the ole tent trailer (memory foam at superstore: $175). but it is telling that this is the line our fantasies take. while the acquisitiveness of this fantasy life makes me uneasy -- what happened to tread lightly, think globally, keep on rockin' in the free world? -- it also suggests tenderer things. specifically: that we are getting older. we talk about where we want to live when we retire, for example. what is charming about my fantasies of retirement is that i see my life as being essentially the same as it is now, only with more money: we're both in good health, our parents are all alive and independent, our friends are all vital and mobile. no strings, just possibilities. in my fantasy, we could just pick up and move wherever we wanted, and our perfect life would blossom in a new place.
and so i'm not going to challenge this fantasy. there is time enough to come to terms with grimness; life has a way of bringing grimness to you. buying a second home in a city like vancouver is a marker of gobsmacking privilege, especially if you think globally. but the real privilege? projecting the life you actually live as a fantasy for the future.
this time in vancouver it wasn't like that, and i'm not totally sure why. partly it's because vancouver, like everywhere else, is inundated with chains. granville, for instance, is like a linear version of south edmonton common: urban barn next to restoration hardware across the street from chapters and EQ3, and every one of 'em has its own starbucks. you know how people are talking these days about companies that are "too big to fail": why does that apply to pottery barn?
that's not the only reason shopping is different these days, though. even though we could have strolled some of the littler shops along main -- smoking lily specialists, say, or sunja link's flagship (ha!) or that new little design shop in deep cove -- i just wasn't motivated to do it. eh, it was drizzling, i was tired, and i came up with quite a litany of other excuses.
the real reason? i think we shop bigger now. so in fact what we did on the first night we were in vancouver -- seriously, friends, you can still leave! -- is troll MLS for the kinds of places we'd like to own. we think we could be happy with a second home in the low 700s, the burning question being west end or kits. we have become those lesbians, the ones who attend open houses in yaletown instead of going to the rally on commercial drive.
as i probably don't need to say, mo and i can no more afford a second home in vancouver in the low 700s than you can, and possibly even less, given that we are saving up to buy a new sleeping pad for the ole tent trailer (memory foam at superstore: $175). but it is telling that this is the line our fantasies take. while the acquisitiveness of this fantasy life makes me uneasy -- what happened to tread lightly, think globally, keep on rockin' in the free world? -- it also suggests tenderer things. specifically: that we are getting older. we talk about where we want to live when we retire, for example. what is charming about my fantasies of retirement is that i see my life as being essentially the same as it is now, only with more money: we're both in good health, our parents are all alive and independent, our friends are all vital and mobile. no strings, just possibilities. in my fantasy, we could just pick up and move wherever we wanted, and our perfect life would blossom in a new place.
and so i'm not going to challenge this fantasy. there is time enough to come to terms with grimness; life has a way of bringing grimness to you. buying a second home in a city like vancouver is a marker of gobsmacking privilege, especially if you think globally. but the real privilege? projecting the life you actually live as a fantasy for the future.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Getting out the vote
my mother is a mensch. she went to see aunty jo a few times in the hospital, especially when mo and i were in argentina, and has been threatening to pay her a visit at home ever since. last week, she made good on it. joyce is in fine form these days, probably the best we've seen her in ten years. for all that she demurs, i think she likes having her laundry done for her, and, allah be praised, she's using her walker. "i don't know if you knew this," she confides, "but i didn't used to care for the walker." "no?," i ask, ordering the muscles in my forehead to raise my eyebrows. "but, you know, it's actually very convenient. if i go to safeway, i can put things right into the basket." she points to the basket. she throws an accusatory look my way, for holding out on the best part: "also, if i get tired, i can sit down on the seat for a moment."
you don't say.
anyway, jo being in fine form, she enjoyed my mom's visit, which is also to say that she got her to check on a doctor's appointment, pick up a few things and then stand unsteadily on the bed in her bare feet to change a burnt-out bulb. having thus softened her prey, she -- i think the verb is "hornswaggled" -- mom into coming by again yesterday to take her out to vote.
mo and i agonized when we heard. see, we know two facts about jo and elections. fact one: four years ago, joyce announced that if she lived in the US she would vote for george bush "because his wife is really pretty." fact two: jo lives in a swing riding, the one riding in alberta that might not go conservative. mo and i whipped over to the elections canada site to review the candidates: conservative incumbent rahim jaffer, liberal candidate claudette roy, and NDP contender linda duncan. how would joyce vote? what was she thinking? we figured the french name put paid to the liberal. we know she'll always go for the man, in this case particularly if she saw a picture of RJ, who is politically odious but in a dishy sort of way. but would handsome trump white? could you get any more good old-fashioned anglo-saxon solid-citizen than "linda duncan"?
as it happens, we needn't have worried. mom writes:
As Joyce is putting on her shoes, she says something about voting, which I didn’t catch so I just did the discreet “Hmmmm.” Then on the way up the ramp – what a trek – down the sidewalk, around the building, circle the flower beds, round the stairs to the ramp, up the ramp, the wind blowing icily around our ears the entire time – she says something to me about McBain. Catching on, I explain that Mr McCain is in the US election. She looks a little confused. So I tell her we have Mr Harper and Mr Dion, Mr Layton and Ms May. No help. We shuffle behind the cardboard shield – which I proceed to knock over - and I read out, in a good strong voice, the names and the parties – no doubt to the consternation of the scrutineers. She looks a little more confused and whispers to me “what should I do?”
to my mother's credit, she couldn't bring herself to have the dear old soul vote for the marxist/leninist party, so they "chose someone else."
the voting out of the way, jo moved on to the real agenda: how about a trip to kingsway mall, she angled, and then boston pizza for lunch?
and that's really the thing about elections, isn't it. everybody's got an agenda; it's often obscure; somebody's always surprised; somebody's always disappointed (there was no BP yesterday) -- yet sometimes, just sometimes, there's a happy ending in spite of it all.
linda duncan won by 442 votes. and who knows: one of them might have been jo's.
you don't say.
anyway, jo being in fine form, she enjoyed my mom's visit, which is also to say that she got her to check on a doctor's appointment, pick up a few things and then stand unsteadily on the bed in her bare feet to change a burnt-out bulb. having thus softened her prey, she -- i think the verb is "hornswaggled" -- mom into coming by again yesterday to take her out to vote.
mo and i agonized when we heard. see, we know two facts about jo and elections. fact one: four years ago, joyce announced that if she lived in the US she would vote for george bush "because his wife is really pretty." fact two: jo lives in a swing riding, the one riding in alberta that might not go conservative. mo and i whipped over to the elections canada site to review the candidates: conservative incumbent rahim jaffer, liberal candidate claudette roy, and NDP contender linda duncan. how would joyce vote? what was she thinking? we figured the french name put paid to the liberal. we know she'll always go for the man, in this case particularly if she saw a picture of RJ, who is politically odious but in a dishy sort of way. but would handsome trump white? could you get any more good old-fashioned anglo-saxon solid-citizen than "linda duncan"?
as it happens, we needn't have worried. mom writes:
As Joyce is putting on her shoes, she says something about voting, which I didn’t catch so I just did the discreet “Hmmmm.” Then on the way up the ramp – what a trek – down the sidewalk, around the building, circle the flower beds, round the stairs to the ramp, up the ramp, the wind blowing icily around our ears the entire time – she says something to me about McBain. Catching on, I explain that Mr McCain is in the US election. She looks a little confused. So I tell her we have Mr Harper and Mr Dion, Mr Layton and Ms May. No help. We shuffle behind the cardboard shield – which I proceed to knock over - and I read out, in a good strong voice, the names and the parties – no doubt to the consternation of the scrutineers. She looks a little more confused and whispers to me “what should I do?”
to my mother's credit, she couldn't bring herself to have the dear old soul vote for the marxist/leninist party, so they "chose someone else."
the voting out of the way, jo moved on to the real agenda: how about a trip to kingsway mall, she angled, and then boston pizza for lunch?
and that's really the thing about elections, isn't it. everybody's got an agenda; it's often obscure; somebody's always surprised; somebody's always disappointed (there was no BP yesterday) -- yet sometimes, just sometimes, there's a happy ending in spite of it all.
linda duncan won by 442 votes. and who knows: one of them might have been jo's.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The other queers
pride week sort of sneaked up on me this year. mo and i went to the march yesterday and planned to go to the dance (or at least a pre-party) last night. when 7 and then 8 PM rolled around, though, we didn't really feel like going out again. we didn't have very good excuses: i wanted to try a new noodle recipe, mo didn't want to drive all the way to the city's southeast, i can't really dance on my knee and wouldn't want to be tempted, and anyway greece and russia were playing each other in the UEFA tournament .... and so we made the decision to stay in fairly easily.
we did, however, get up this morning and head off to the "mayor's pride brunch for camp fyrefly." we hadn't been planning to go, but we ran into michael phair in churchill square yesterday and he had two extra tickets, so i put on a dress and heels, mo grabbed a commuter mug of coffee, and we got to the crowne plaza by 11. walking into the room, i had to wonder: when did we become these queers? -- the ones who skip the party but make the fundraising breakfast, the ones on friendly terms with the mayor and MLAs, the ones who make small talk with strangers over waffles and eggs? and as for the small talk: there's the obligatory wink to partying like only queers can, as in "yes, 11 does feel early after last night..." but for the most part the chat was solidly un-queer middle-class stuff: how we feel about vancouver or toronto and where we've all traveled recently.
things are equally disorienting at the other end of the age spectrum. no doubt about it: camp fyrefly is amazing. in its third year, this four-day experience for queer youth from across canada is something i can't even imagine having experienced when i was in high school. these young people actively celebrate their differences (from each other, from their families, from all the other people/posers/losers at their high schools) and, once the camp is done, support each other through the year. when i think back to high school, i remember feeling unrelievedly miserable, lonely and isolated because i was desperately uncool, being too brainy, too brawny, and insufficiently feminine. i bought something resembling respect through establishing a cottage industry of fake IDs and porn, and i defended my reputation with fist fights and blackmail. god, though, wouldn't it have been easier to go to gay camp? the idea of having your freak cherished is -- well, i don't know what to think of it, really. it sounds like a disney movie with a helping of self-esteem on the side. and can you imagine what it would mean, on any given day of high school, to get a text from outside? your cell phone'd be a frickin' genie.
mo and i were struck, yesterday, by the number of young people at pride. at first i wondered whether it was just me: when i was 18, everybody over 35 fell into the undifferentiated category of "old." am i living the obverse of this, where anybody short of graduate school is "young"? but i don't think so. the concept of "youth" seems to be a significant twenty-first-century phenomenon. stretching from 16 to 25, in most usages, "youth" refers to that no-longer-a-kid-but-not-yet-comfortable-being-an-adult stage of life. it's probably a consequence of minivan parenting (or whatever they're calling it these days), and i'm sure it has to do with post-secondary tuition rising so ferociously that students have to live at home to go to school.
sometimes i balk at the new youth concept. my first objection: youth runs to 25? i was finished my doctoral coursework by 25! by 25, mo had been living on her own for a decade! also aggravating: when you're involved with the arts, it's clear that "youth" is a magic word, an open sesame that other terms -- say, "mid-career," "experimental" or, the real death knell for funding, "feminist" -- can never even approach. finally, like a typical old fart, i find myself thinking, oh fer chrissakes get over yourself and get a real job.
at the same time, i understand the need for such a term. whatever i might think about recent socioeconomic shifts and their causes, i know from my experience in undergraduate classrooms that your typical student doesn't see herself as an adult. she doesn't want to call her classmates "men" and "women"; they're "guys," if not "kids." part of this is simply germane to university education, of course: part of our role, as i see it, is to bring students through this transition and to model them as adults for each other. but what i fail to take seriously is that it is a transition, and a big one. if you don't see yourself as a grown-up, you're not going to magically change just because i see you that way.
at this morning's brunch, one of the fyrefly youth leaders spoke briefly. she looked about 17 -- young -- and she referred to herself as a "youth." i wouldn't have pegged her as queer if i'd run into her at a bus stop, which is a whole other puzzle to me about kids (sorry, youth) these days. she said to a room of 250 mostly middle-aged queers, "you know what pisses me off? people always ask us youth what we want to do when we grow up. well, i want to do things now. i am doing things now! part of being a good leader is learning how to lead yourself. we at camp fyrefly are building a better world for ourselves and for each other -- and for you, too. and if the world we build threatens to backslide, well, that's just too bad, 'cause we won't let it!"
and then, as if that weren't enough of a high, they did the 50/50 draw and my girlfriend won $400. right there at the front of a crowne plaza ballroom, she hugged michael phair and winked at laurie blakeman. i think the mayor waved a little, and i know fern snart gave her the nod. then mo came back to the table where our new friends congratulated her and we all made jokes about how she could fill the car for a week on that money.
we did, however, get up this morning and head off to the "mayor's pride brunch for camp fyrefly." we hadn't been planning to go, but we ran into michael phair in churchill square yesterday and he had two extra tickets, so i put on a dress and heels, mo grabbed a commuter mug of coffee, and we got to the crowne plaza by 11. walking into the room, i had to wonder: when did we become these queers? -- the ones who skip the party but make the fundraising breakfast, the ones on friendly terms with the mayor and MLAs, the ones who make small talk with strangers over waffles and eggs? and as for the small talk: there's the obligatory wink to partying like only queers can, as in "yes, 11 does feel early after last night..." but for the most part the chat was solidly un-queer middle-class stuff: how we feel about vancouver or toronto and where we've all traveled recently.
things are equally disorienting at the other end of the age spectrum. no doubt about it: camp fyrefly is amazing. in its third year, this four-day experience for queer youth from across canada is something i can't even imagine having experienced when i was in high school. these young people actively celebrate their differences (from each other, from their families, from all the other people/posers/losers at their high schools) and, once the camp is done, support each other through the year. when i think back to high school, i remember feeling unrelievedly miserable, lonely and isolated because i was desperately uncool, being too brainy, too brawny, and insufficiently feminine. i bought something resembling respect through establishing a cottage industry of fake IDs and porn, and i defended my reputation with fist fights and blackmail. god, though, wouldn't it have been easier to go to gay camp? the idea of having your freak cherished is -- well, i don't know what to think of it, really. it sounds like a disney movie with a helping of self-esteem on the side. and can you imagine what it would mean, on any given day of high school, to get a text from outside? your cell phone'd be a frickin' genie.
mo and i were struck, yesterday, by the number of young people at pride. at first i wondered whether it was just me: when i was 18, everybody over 35 fell into the undifferentiated category of "old." am i living the obverse of this, where anybody short of graduate school is "young"? but i don't think so. the concept of "youth" seems to be a significant twenty-first-century phenomenon. stretching from 16 to 25, in most usages, "youth" refers to that no-longer-a-kid-but-not-yet-comfortable-being-an-adult stage of life. it's probably a consequence of minivan parenting (or whatever they're calling it these days), and i'm sure it has to do with post-secondary tuition rising so ferociously that students have to live at home to go to school.
sometimes i balk at the new youth concept. my first objection: youth runs to 25? i was finished my doctoral coursework by 25! by 25, mo had been living on her own for a decade! also aggravating: when you're involved with the arts, it's clear that "youth" is a magic word, an open sesame that other terms -- say, "mid-career," "experimental" or, the real death knell for funding, "feminist" -- can never even approach. finally, like a typical old fart, i find myself thinking, oh fer chrissakes get over yourself and get a real job.
at the same time, i understand the need for such a term. whatever i might think about recent socioeconomic shifts and their causes, i know from my experience in undergraduate classrooms that your typical student doesn't see herself as an adult. she doesn't want to call her classmates "men" and "women"; they're "guys," if not "kids." part of this is simply germane to university education, of course: part of our role, as i see it, is to bring students through this transition and to model them as adults for each other. but what i fail to take seriously is that it is a transition, and a big one. if you don't see yourself as a grown-up, you're not going to magically change just because i see you that way.
at this morning's brunch, one of the fyrefly youth leaders spoke briefly. she looked about 17 -- young -- and she referred to herself as a "youth." i wouldn't have pegged her as queer if i'd run into her at a bus stop, which is a whole other puzzle to me about kids (sorry, youth) these days. she said to a room of 250 mostly middle-aged queers, "you know what pisses me off? people always ask us youth what we want to do when we grow up. well, i want to do things now. i am doing things now! part of being a good leader is learning how to lead yourself. we at camp fyrefly are building a better world for ourselves and for each other -- and for you, too. and if the world we build threatens to backslide, well, that's just too bad, 'cause we won't let it!"
and then, as if that weren't enough of a high, they did the 50/50 draw and my girlfriend won $400. right there at the front of a crowne plaza ballroom, she hugged michael phair and winked at laurie blakeman. i think the mayor waved a little, and i know fern snart gave her the nod. then mo came back to the table where our new friends congratulated her and we all made jokes about how she could fill the car for a week on that money.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Poor poor pitiful me
is there a worse feeling in all the world than self-pity?
it's corrosive and induces misery. it close worlds down, eviscerating all that's good and emphasizing everything bad. it distorts narratives so that every little event in the past leads directly to the grim present you should have seen coming. it makes you use phrases like "in all the world."
i've been treating my knee as per last week's diagnosis, as a sprain, but it's not getting better. in fact, it's getting worse. so today i saw a sports medicine doctor, and he was able to narrow the diagnosis a little more. it's almost certainly not ACL. it's almost certainly a meniscal injury. specifically, the meniscus has a tear. or a bruise. or a snag, or a lesion. we'll know more in a few weeks, hopefully. but maybe not. a meniscal bruise or lesion can take months to settle. a meniscal tear can be repaired surgically, except when it can't.
meanwhile, it just hurts. it hurts when i walk and it hurts when i sit. it wakes me at night. it's worse when i use it, for instance walking to the bathroom. it hurts to drive. i find it takes a lot of energy to manage the pain. i can feel the rest of my body starting to adapt. my hips are out of whack and my lower back aches. so i go to yoga, try to modify the poses, but bearing weight of any kind only makes my knee hurt more. the new idea is to give it a good rest -- "but keep it moving." whatever that means.
if i were a better person, i would greet my knee injury with zen equanimity. more, i would take it as a gift: the gift of time, an opportunity for contemplation. i would see the big picture.
as it turns out, however, i am not that person. i do not see the forest, i see the trees. i see the centimetre i took off my waist coming right back on and bringing its fat friends, too. i see the end of soccer. the end of running. immobility. long periods of sedentary depression punctuated by jags of sharp self-pity. old age. death.
what would i think about, if i were a better person? first of all, i'd differentiate injury from illness. from there i'd extrapolate, drawing distinctions between a temporary setback and permanently curtailing my lifestyle. i'd reflect on my great good luck to be middle-class and university-affiliated, with access to orthopedic surgeons. i'd wonder how many homeless people suffer joint ailments: probably a lot, when you think about it, yet such injuries probably never even surface as significant, given all the other pressing concerns faced by homeless people. is there anything more fortunate than to suffer a torn meniscus?
it's not like i didn't try to be that person. i sat on the stairs to SUB and rallied. i tried to reframe all of this positively. won't i love the river valley even more when i get back to it? isn't it great that my ACL is well? isn't anthroscopic surgery marvelous? i wonder what lessons are in store for me: will i learn something karmic or character-building from this?
and then a bird shat on my head.
it's corrosive and induces misery. it close worlds down, eviscerating all that's good and emphasizing everything bad. it distorts narratives so that every little event in the past leads directly to the grim present you should have seen coming. it makes you use phrases like "in all the world."
i've been treating my knee as per last week's diagnosis, as a sprain, but it's not getting better. in fact, it's getting worse. so today i saw a sports medicine doctor, and he was able to narrow the diagnosis a little more. it's almost certainly not ACL. it's almost certainly a meniscal injury. specifically, the meniscus has a tear. or a bruise. or a snag, or a lesion. we'll know more in a few weeks, hopefully. but maybe not. a meniscal bruise or lesion can take months to settle. a meniscal tear can be repaired surgically, except when it can't.
meanwhile, it just hurts. it hurts when i walk and it hurts when i sit. it wakes me at night. it's worse when i use it, for instance walking to the bathroom. it hurts to drive. i find it takes a lot of energy to manage the pain. i can feel the rest of my body starting to adapt. my hips are out of whack and my lower back aches. so i go to yoga, try to modify the poses, but bearing weight of any kind only makes my knee hurt more. the new idea is to give it a good rest -- "but keep it moving." whatever that means.
if i were a better person, i would greet my knee injury with zen equanimity. more, i would take it as a gift: the gift of time, an opportunity for contemplation. i would see the big picture.
as it turns out, however, i am not that person. i do not see the forest, i see the trees. i see the centimetre i took off my waist coming right back on and bringing its fat friends, too. i see the end of soccer. the end of running. immobility. long periods of sedentary depression punctuated by jags of sharp self-pity. old age. death.
what would i think about, if i were a better person? first of all, i'd differentiate injury from illness. from there i'd extrapolate, drawing distinctions between a temporary setback and permanently curtailing my lifestyle. i'd reflect on my great good luck to be middle-class and university-affiliated, with access to orthopedic surgeons. i'd wonder how many homeless people suffer joint ailments: probably a lot, when you think about it, yet such injuries probably never even surface as significant, given all the other pressing concerns faced by homeless people. is there anything more fortunate than to suffer a torn meniscus?
it's not like i didn't try to be that person. i sat on the stairs to SUB and rallied. i tried to reframe all of this positively. won't i love the river valley even more when i get back to it? isn't it great that my ACL is well? isn't anthroscopic surgery marvelous? i wonder what lessons are in store for me: will i learn something karmic or character-building from this?
and then a bird shat on my head.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Age-related wear
that's the actual phrase my physiotherapist used today to describe the decripit state of my left knee. she hastened to add, "i'm not saying you're old..." and then kind of trailed off.
i've been thinking about that phrase, "age-related wear." like so many things, knees degenerate with use. when i think of how much use a knee gets in the course of a day, let alone a week, month, year, or lifetime, i'm reminded of the sighs and groans of that perpetual-motion furniture-testing machine at ikea. hearing suffers from age-related wear, too. i pepper my conversations more and more with "sorry?" and "huh?" and "i can't hear you when you walk away from me." think about skin. arteries. memory. cars. politics. jokes.
does anything get better with age? well, judgment can. bank balances. wine, for a deceptive while, until it turns to vinegar. other than that ...?
it may be the case, as mo says, that i've been spending a bit too much time with aunty jo lately, but i resent the hype. "40 is the new 30," they say. well, it's not. 40 is 40, and as far as i can tell, it's the point at which your "age-related wear" starts coming home to roost.
i've been thinking about that phrase, "age-related wear." like so many things, knees degenerate with use. when i think of how much use a knee gets in the course of a day, let alone a week, month, year, or lifetime, i'm reminded of the sighs and groans of that perpetual-motion furniture-testing machine at ikea. hearing suffers from age-related wear, too. i pepper my conversations more and more with "sorry?" and "huh?" and "i can't hear you when you walk away from me." think about skin. arteries. memory. cars. politics. jokes.
does anything get better with age? well, judgment can. bank balances. wine, for a deceptive while, until it turns to vinegar. other than that ...?
it may be the case, as mo says, that i've been spending a bit too much time with aunty jo lately, but i resent the hype. "40 is the new 30," they say. well, it's not. 40 is 40, and as far as i can tell, it's the point at which your "age-related wear" starts coming home to roost.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The old folks' home
i don't know about you, but when i was a kid we were schlepped around to do good deeds. of all the good deeds we were required to do -- bottle drives, dance-a-thons, selling chocolates, and grapefruits, and emergency blankets, and magazine subscriptions, and low-interest credit cards (okay, i made that one up) -- of all these good deeds, none was more hideous than christmas concerts at the old folks' home. our gangly grade 7 band would set up in the common room, and all the old folks would be wheeled in by dour aides to have a listen. we trudged through the theme from star wars and meandered around the theme from M*A*S*H, then wowed the crowd with our grade 7 version of "slide and the family bone," featuring anne yakimishyn on the trombone.
after that, and worst of all, we were set loose to visit with the old folks. even at 13, my skin crawled and my nostrils recoiled at the institutional feel of the place, the geriatric horror show. i grew up without extended family. my grandparents all lived in nova scotia; the relatives of my grandmother's who did live in alberta we generally saw in a massive undifferentiated clump of overweight middle-age. to my lazy eye, all of the women looked the same: curly-haired weebles with flaccid jowls and a serious smoking habit. even so, by comparison with the people at the old folks' home, my grandmother's siblings were youthful: stout, to be sure, yet mobile and sound of mind and hearing. nothing in my life had prepared me for the old man drooling on his pyjamas, or the cheerful and wholly mad little old lady bent double like a shrimp, scuttling back and forth to the cookies table. to me, the old folks' home was like a zoo: the specimens of old age had nothing to do with the species that inhabited my grade 7 biosphere.
of course, i am older now and see things differently. i have a higher capacity for horror, a capacity developed in part by trying to imagine what this event was like from the perspective of the "old folks" themselves. even within the highly uncompetitive category of grade 7 bands, ours was bad, a consequence of the fact that mr flewelyn, the band teacher, used to spend most of his time smoking pot in the instrument storage room with the grade 9s. our grade 8 band wasn't much better, even though the program was taken over by the energetic jody missal, who favoured lime green flares and sported an afro. by that time, the band was a microcosm of junior high, with the stoners (percussion) against the keeners and brains (trumpets and sax) against the popular girls with rainbow jeans who all played the flute. i played the clarinet because i hadn't yet developed the eating disorder prerequisite to being a flautist and i wasn't fast enough to grab a sax. tragically for me, chris hamer, whom we all hated, played the clarinet as well, thus sealing my junior high school doom.
anyway, my working image of an old folks' home has been not unlike that of junior high: a vague smell of boiled meat with a tang of urine, forced cheerfulness, grim efficiency, vacant stares, sphincter-tightening fear over my social vulnerability, and edmonton-in-december static cling.
i think that's not your view, at least based on your answers to my little poll of last week. i know now why you are all my friends (even if we haven't met): you are models of optimism and generosity. you are genial, forward-thinking people who expect the best from others. you do not worry about being entombed with scrapbookers; you put your best foot forward, facing the future with pluck.
to remind you of what you said:
1. you're in your mid-80s in a seniors' building. whom do you most want to live with?
- feminists: 6
- left-wing activists: 2
- whoever!: 5
- unitarians: 3
2. in your mid-80s, which do you most hope (plan) to be?
- feminist: 3
- left-wing activist: 3
- myself: 5
- unitarian: 3
a confession: i voted to live with unitarians, though not to be one. why? i like the idea of living with people who don't judge. why don't i want to be one? i can't imagine myself without my highly opinionated, judgmental disdain. my only hope is that, as elaine says, scrapbooking is on its way out as a trend.
or that i get to live with you-all.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Torn
i twisted my knee in a soccer game last friday night, my first game of the season. it was a perfect night for soccer: calm, clear skies, not too warm, no wind. the ground was soft after a few days of rain. the pitch had give. i was wearing new cleats, adidas' latest magic with a weighted last and supple calf leather. "i'm overcompensating," i joked to my teammates before the game, "letting technology make up for the fact that i haven't played much lately." not a lot of soccer, but i've been working with a personal trainer and i felt fit.
the game was humming along, a good match. i was making a play, not a particularly spectacular play, just one of those moves you make from the midfield wing, when the injury happened. thinking back, i believe i was changing direction, but it was such an unmemorable moment in the overall flow that i can't really recall the details. had i already kicked the ball? was i going after it? had the play moved infield? my left cleat was planted, my body moved right, the knee complained. just one of those things. i jogged a little, tested it. it seemed fine: tweaked, but okay. at half-time i stretched. the knee kept swelling until finally, with ten minutes left in the game and another slated for sunday, i came off the pitch. no point overdoing it.
by the time i got home it was really swollen. saturday i couldn't bend it at all. couldn't walk, couldn't really drive. but that's the way with knees: once they swell, they're hard to bend, and it's hard to tell what's going on. i did what we all do, an internet diagnosis. collateral ligament strain? maybe something where the hamstring attaches -- that left hamstring has been iffy of late. could be a tear in the meniscus. i was pretty sure it wasn't ACL. i contracted my quadriceps again just to be sure.
what with aunty jo, it's been a busy enough week that only yesterday did i make time for a physio appointment, and even then it was just so that i could give my team an answer about tonight's game. by yesterday, the knee wasn't that painful. still swollen, but only with these comical little goose eggs. sure, it buckled occasionally, and it was awkward to get in and out of the car. the pain keeps shifting, but it isn't serious -- nothing a little naprosyn and ice can't handle. i was smart enough not to try running, but i went to pilates monday, yoga wednesday, and tuesday night did a long bike ride through the river valley. sure, everything made the knee swell more, and there were certain poses i couldn't do, but it was a positive relief to have an alibi against one-legged planks, to have an excuse for not getting up the hills faster, not holding my lunges longer.
for all these reasons, i was totally unprepared to hear the physio say the fatal three-letter word. "i just don't feel an end point," she said apologetically, after manipulating my knee this way and that. "how does it feel to you?" "weird," i said, "hollow, empty." and then i burst into tears.
see, i've been down this road once before. i tore my right ACL in january 2002. i know something about the wait for surgery and the two-year rehab, not to mention the catastrophic personal consequences. i just don't know that i can do it again. i know, i know, it's too early to make such a call -- i've barely absorbed this news, and still feel dismayed. but none of the options look good to me.
on the one hand, there's the surgery. which is amazing, from a purely scientific point of view, and, for most people, from a personal physical point of view. the surgery is arthroscopic. the surgeon makes four small holes in your leg, grabs a little hamstring tendon with a crochet hook, folds it over a few times and strings it through your knee, thereby building a new anterior cruxiate ligament to connect your upper leg to your lower leg. over time, your body accepts the makeshift ligament as the real thing, and builds blood vessels and neural pathways along the new ligament. it's an incredible process, when you think about it. it's also a long and painful one. for me, the knee was strong and stable within a year, but the hamstring has never fully recovered. when i'm doing a hamstring curl, you can still see the gap where the tendon used to be. when i think about the surgery, i remember lying face-down on my bed trying to straighten my leg, crying and crying in agony. it took four months? five? to straighten my leg after i had surgery. post-surgery rehab was a lot of work -- and i was six years younger then.
on the other hand, there's no surgery. what that means long-term is still opaque, but some things are certain: no soccer. no downhill skiing. no surfing. longterm knee instability leading to higher potential for other knee injuries. it means wearing an ugly brace at least some of the time. what about running through the river valley in a perfect summer morning? what about my goal of running from canmore to banff this summer? what about swimming? how will an unreconstructed knee age; what will it be like when i'm aunty jo's age? nikki the physiotherapist said, "don't worry, you'll be active again." what does that mean: when, and how? and in what ways?
i feel numb, dumb, not even angry or upset anymore. just a gloomy sense of should-have-known inevitability. a formal feeling.
the game was humming along, a good match. i was making a play, not a particularly spectacular play, just one of those moves you make from the midfield wing, when the injury happened. thinking back, i believe i was changing direction, but it was such an unmemorable moment in the overall flow that i can't really recall the details. had i already kicked the ball? was i going after it? had the play moved infield? my left cleat was planted, my body moved right, the knee complained. just one of those things. i jogged a little, tested it. it seemed fine: tweaked, but okay. at half-time i stretched. the knee kept swelling until finally, with ten minutes left in the game and another slated for sunday, i came off the pitch. no point overdoing it.
by the time i got home it was really swollen. saturday i couldn't bend it at all. couldn't walk, couldn't really drive. but that's the way with knees: once they swell, they're hard to bend, and it's hard to tell what's going on. i did what we all do, an internet diagnosis. collateral ligament strain? maybe something where the hamstring attaches -- that left hamstring has been iffy of late. could be a tear in the meniscus. i was pretty sure it wasn't ACL. i contracted my quadriceps again just to be sure.
what with aunty jo, it's been a busy enough week that only yesterday did i make time for a physio appointment, and even then it was just so that i could give my team an answer about tonight's game. by yesterday, the knee wasn't that painful. still swollen, but only with these comical little goose eggs. sure, it buckled occasionally, and it was awkward to get in and out of the car. the pain keeps shifting, but it isn't serious -- nothing a little naprosyn and ice can't handle. i was smart enough not to try running, but i went to pilates monday, yoga wednesday, and tuesday night did a long bike ride through the river valley. sure, everything made the knee swell more, and there were certain poses i couldn't do, but it was a positive relief to have an alibi against one-legged planks, to have an excuse for not getting up the hills faster, not holding my lunges longer.
for all these reasons, i was totally unprepared to hear the physio say the fatal three-letter word. "i just don't feel an end point," she said apologetically, after manipulating my knee this way and that. "how does it feel to you?" "weird," i said, "hollow, empty." and then i burst into tears.
see, i've been down this road once before. i tore my right ACL in january 2002. i know something about the wait for surgery and the two-year rehab, not to mention the catastrophic personal consequences. i just don't know that i can do it again. i know, i know, it's too early to make such a call -- i've barely absorbed this news, and still feel dismayed. but none of the options look good to me.
on the one hand, there's the surgery. which is amazing, from a purely scientific point of view, and, for most people, from a personal physical point of view. the surgery is arthroscopic. the surgeon makes four small holes in your leg, grabs a little hamstring tendon with a crochet hook, folds it over a few times and strings it through your knee, thereby building a new anterior cruxiate ligament to connect your upper leg to your lower leg. over time, your body accepts the makeshift ligament as the real thing, and builds blood vessels and neural pathways along the new ligament. it's an incredible process, when you think about it. it's also a long and painful one. for me, the knee was strong and stable within a year, but the hamstring has never fully recovered. when i'm doing a hamstring curl, you can still see the gap where the tendon used to be. when i think about the surgery, i remember lying face-down on my bed trying to straighten my leg, crying and crying in agony. it took four months? five? to straighten my leg after i had surgery. post-surgery rehab was a lot of work -- and i was six years younger then.
on the other hand, there's no surgery. what that means long-term is still opaque, but some things are certain: no soccer. no downhill skiing. no surfing. longterm knee instability leading to higher potential for other knee injuries. it means wearing an ugly brace at least some of the time. what about running through the river valley in a perfect summer morning? what about my goal of running from canmore to banff this summer? what about swimming? how will an unreconstructed knee age; what will it be like when i'm aunty jo's age? nikki the physiotherapist said, "don't worry, you'll be active again." what does that mean: when, and how? and in what ways?
i feel numb, dumb, not even angry or upset anymore. just a gloomy sense of should-have-known inevitability. a formal feeling.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Aging
i'm in the elevator at my new hangout, knox metropolitan seniors' building, when an older lady gets on. her face brightens when she sees me. "hello!," she says eagerly. "that's a big suitcase." "oh, i guess it is," i laugh, "but it's the easiest way to carry the laundry around." "you're here to do the laundry?" she asks. "yes," i say, "well, i'm just doing a bit for my aunt." "your aunt!" says my fellow traveler, "how nice. now, which one is your aunt?" "mrs vale," i say, "joyce? she's on the fourth floor." "oh!" says the other lady, "yes. i see. mm-hmm." and with that, a metal door clangs shut our conversation.
clearly jo has not been making friends at knox met.
i've made it sound like i'm in this aunty jo conundrum all by my lonesome, but of course that isn't the case. far from it. mo and bobbee have been great sounding boards and cheering squads from their respective distances, and my mom's been terrific too. when we were in argentina, she wandered the entire fifth floor of the grey nuns hospital carrying a little teacup of fresh flowers, asking for jo by the wrong name and thereby only narrowly avoiding getting thrown into the geriatric ward herself. not just family, but friends come through in these circumstances, too. kate and beau took me out to dinner last night. jennifer is threatening to come over and weed the garden whether i'm here or not. (no egging this time, though, right?) renee said, "if we can't ask our friends to help with smelly mattresses, then the entire basis of the friendship is in question."
i don't know what living would be like without these people, this paint splotch of connections i call, too generically, my community, this chiliagon (that's for you, donna) of complex connections. i couldn't recognize my life as my own without my friends, and it's never occurred to me that i might have to. but over the last couple weeks i've had occasion to reflect -- for the first time, really -- on what life might actually be like when i'm old. i always used to think it would be pretty much the same as it is now, only with more yelling. and slower, i suppose, though i try not to think about that part.
now i question this rosy little picture. think of the last time you took a plane somewhere -- say, an edmonton-toronto flight. now imagine that you end up living in a seniors' building with everybody else in the "hospitality" section: people of roughly the same social class, with different itineraries, yet all on the same well-trod route.
that's knox met. if the globe & mail can be believed, it's not easy breaking into the cliques at the old folks' home. and why would it be? have you ever been anywhere that had more stringent social codes than an airplane? ever tried to "be yourself" in economy?: "actually, i don't care for chicken or beef. what i really like to eat for supper is cereal." can you imagine? on most flights, cranberry juice is tantamount to an alternative lifestyle! and it's not just the flight wardens that ensure conformity. admit it: you've watched someone try to get to the bathroom around the drinks cart, and you've clucked in disbelief, too.
lately i've been privy to many opinions about old people, and nearly everyone -- the 30-something clerk at the incontinence supply store, the filipina cleaning lady, rick the middle-aged steam-cleaner, social workers, nurses, doctors -- everyone agrees that old folks are stuck in their ways. this can be good or bad. the woman who cleaned jo's apartment thought it was good: "old people are very tidy," she observed. the steam cleaner was less enamored. "i'm trying to do this lady's dandelions, right? and not for any pay, mind you. i'm doing this for free, as a favour. and she doesn't want me taking care of her dandelions because of her cats. i've explained this to her over and over again, but it just doesn't matter to her. no means no." i'm a bit lost, but rick presses on. "now, same thing with your aunty. you see the wear on the back of this chair? old people grab their furniture in the same way every day, year after year after year." health care people are carefully neutral; the word of choice at grey nuns is "determined," as in "your aunt is a very determined lady!" (oh, i think, so that's what they're calling it now.)
what age do people choose to remain? for jo, i think, it's the 40s -- not her 40s, but the 1940s. she would have been in her twenties then, beautiful, and subject to lots of satisfying attention from men. attention from men is her crack. if only home care hired more handsome young men, we'd have her agree to a bath assist in no time. other women in her building, i think, settle in their 50s: kids raised, husband trained, house paid for. churchy women don't stick to an age so much as a protocol. (raise your chair back during mealtimes if you find yourself neighbours to a church lady!) you'd think holding onto a professional identity would be the way to go, but i wonder what life is really like for the smartly dressed english woman i run into in the lobby. is it harder for her to eat meals on wheels?
will our dotage will be any different? i try to imagine my sister's youngest, everett, who's not yet two years old, opining on his aged aunt. "she's impossible. everything has to be design design design. what does she need with a fancy designer diaper bag? oh, and the food! it has to be organic this, probiotic that. you'd think she'd be happy to be fed at all." i wonder what Activities they'll have at my old folks' home. no one i know plays cribbage or bridge, so you've got to imagine even old folks' homes will change with the times. but change to what: vintage CSI rerun nights? retro wii challenges? no, worse, i can see it now: scrapbooking.
quick: somebody build me a queer retirement home, where at least i can continue to exercise the prejudices i already hold.
clearly jo has not been making friends at knox met.
i've made it sound like i'm in this aunty jo conundrum all by my lonesome, but of course that isn't the case. far from it. mo and bobbee have been great sounding boards and cheering squads from their respective distances, and my mom's been terrific too. when we were in argentina, she wandered the entire fifth floor of the grey nuns hospital carrying a little teacup of fresh flowers, asking for jo by the wrong name and thereby only narrowly avoiding getting thrown into the geriatric ward herself. not just family, but friends come through in these circumstances, too. kate and beau took me out to dinner last night. jennifer is threatening to come over and weed the garden whether i'm here or not. (no egging this time, though, right?) renee said, "if we can't ask our friends to help with smelly mattresses, then the entire basis of the friendship is in question."
i don't know what living would be like without these people, this paint splotch of connections i call, too generically, my community, this chiliagon (that's for you, donna) of complex connections. i couldn't recognize my life as my own without my friends, and it's never occurred to me that i might have to. but over the last couple weeks i've had occasion to reflect -- for the first time, really -- on what life might actually be like when i'm old. i always used to think it would be pretty much the same as it is now, only with more yelling. and slower, i suppose, though i try not to think about that part.
now i question this rosy little picture. think of the last time you took a plane somewhere -- say, an edmonton-toronto flight. now imagine that you end up living in a seniors' building with everybody else in the "hospitality" section: people of roughly the same social class, with different itineraries, yet all on the same well-trod route.
that's knox met. if the globe & mail can be believed, it's not easy breaking into the cliques at the old folks' home. and why would it be? have you ever been anywhere that had more stringent social codes than an airplane? ever tried to "be yourself" in economy?: "actually, i don't care for chicken or beef. what i really like to eat for supper is cereal." can you imagine? on most flights, cranberry juice is tantamount to an alternative lifestyle! and it's not just the flight wardens that ensure conformity. admit it: you've watched someone try to get to the bathroom around the drinks cart, and you've clucked in disbelief, too.
lately i've been privy to many opinions about old people, and nearly everyone -- the 30-something clerk at the incontinence supply store, the filipina cleaning lady, rick the middle-aged steam-cleaner, social workers, nurses, doctors -- everyone agrees that old folks are stuck in their ways. this can be good or bad. the woman who cleaned jo's apartment thought it was good: "old people are very tidy," she observed. the steam cleaner was less enamored. "i'm trying to do this lady's dandelions, right? and not for any pay, mind you. i'm doing this for free, as a favour. and she doesn't want me taking care of her dandelions because of her cats. i've explained this to her over and over again, but it just doesn't matter to her. no means no." i'm a bit lost, but rick presses on. "now, same thing with your aunty. you see the wear on the back of this chair? old people grab their furniture in the same way every day, year after year after year." health care people are carefully neutral; the word of choice at grey nuns is "determined," as in "your aunt is a very determined lady!" (oh, i think, so that's what they're calling it now.)
what age do people choose to remain? for jo, i think, it's the 40s -- not her 40s, but the 1940s. she would have been in her twenties then, beautiful, and subject to lots of satisfying attention from men. attention from men is her crack. if only home care hired more handsome young men, we'd have her agree to a bath assist in no time. other women in her building, i think, settle in their 50s: kids raised, husband trained, house paid for. churchy women don't stick to an age so much as a protocol. (raise your chair back during mealtimes if you find yourself neighbours to a church lady!) you'd think holding onto a professional identity would be the way to go, but i wonder what life is really like for the smartly dressed english woman i run into in the lobby. is it harder for her to eat meals on wheels?
will our dotage will be any different? i try to imagine my sister's youngest, everett, who's not yet two years old, opining on his aged aunt. "she's impossible. everything has to be design design design. what does she need with a fancy designer diaper bag? oh, and the food! it has to be organic this, probiotic that. you'd think she'd be happy to be fed at all." i wonder what Activities they'll have at my old folks' home. no one i know plays cribbage or bridge, so you've got to imagine even old folks' homes will change with the times. but change to what: vintage CSI rerun nights? retro wii challenges? no, worse, i can see it now: scrapbooking.
quick: somebody build me a queer retirement home, where at least i can continue to exercise the prejudices i already hold.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Old folks
thanks to margrit for this link to a multi-part series on seniors' homes. i'll cut to the depressing chase: it's just like high school all over again.
jesus. no wonder aunty jo doesn't eat in the dining room.
jesus. no wonder aunty jo doesn't eat in the dining room.
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