Friday, September 2, 2016

The Day After

Today was sort of like one of those where were you days.

Like if you were to ask anyone where they were, what they were doing, what was their reaction when they learned something momentous/something history changing happened in the world, they can tell you.

The two new neighbors in the downstairs units are totally in the dark. Having not been here long enough to have gotten the treatment or to learn from other residents of all the goings on, it’s of no consequence to them.

Of the old timers, not everyone knows she’s been fired, but all are happy she’s gone and are smiling and thumbs-up when asked for their reaction to the letter from corporate.

My next door neighbor came into the Community Room this morning making excuses for Nurse Ratched’s behavior, “She had health issues. That may be why she was the way she was.”

She’s talking about the fact Nurse Ratched once saved her sister’s life by donating a kidney.

We’re old, most of us have health issues, I myself have health issues I don’t discuss but I don’t see myself or others displaying bully behavior and pathologically lying.

When I learned about the kidney, which incident occurred before Nurse Ratched came onto the property in 2012, I thought it a nice thing to do, but for Next Door Neighbor to suddenly throw it out as an excuse for Nurse Ratched’s having chased so many nice residents out of the complex, and to make others so fearful was total b.s., and that’s precisely what I said to neighbor.

So anyway, the Nurse Ratched phase of life here is over. My goal now is to forget she ever happened.

I didn’t get to catch up on recorded television programs and work on the needlepoint project yesterday because, after checking into the Community Room to get the details of Nurse Ratched’s departure, granddaughter called for help moving boxes from her upstairs one-bedroom unit on one side of her complex, to her new upstairs two-bedroom unit on the way far side of her complex ... in 95° weather.

Not that I can go up and down her steep stairs dozens of times, let alone lift a box. She did the heavy lifting. I just drove her back and forth until the job was done.

It was exhausting for her, and exhausting for me watching … unable to help.

I’d suggested something like Starving Students when she first announced she’d be moving, but nooooo. “I can do it myself”, says she.

By the time the job was done, she regretted that decision deeply and called me later to drive her up-the-street to Baker’s for a dinner of fast food, because she was too exhausted to cook or walk the quarter mile.

Time to myself was not a total miss because, while waiting for granddaughter to load and unload, I explored the area and managed four new captures, which leveled me up to 9.





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