TMI

Good morning and Happy St Patrick’s Day.

Caught a glimpse of the new neighbor moving in yesterday. This would be the person moving into the unit across the quad previously occupied by Grumpy – the woman who was quite nice, but complained about anything and everything.

Grumpy relocated to the Long Island area of New York just in time to experience the nor’easter, and is probably complaining about it right now, wishing she were back in California.

New neighbor is a guy, so we’re finally getting some testosterone in this quad, but he’s not tall, not handsome. He’s coming to us from Minnesota and is battling cancer.

If I only caught a glimpse of him, how do I know all this?

Community Manager announced it in Thursday’s Residents/Management meeting.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it was TMI (too much information).

Suppose new neighbor wanted to deal with his medical issue in private.

If it were me, I know I wouldn’t appreciate it.

Back in 2012, shortly after I first moved in and was becoming acquainted with residents, I quickly learned that, when I could not place a resident’s name to a face, I was given a rather blunt description – usually something about the person’s physical appearance that later became obvious to me, like “The woman with the big butt” … “The woman with one tooth in her head”, "The woman that looks like a man" … or “Pepe Le Pew” because the man always had a bad body odor. Fortunately, as I later learned, residents were much kinder in describing me as “The walking lady with dreadlocks”.

Since we’ve all been told about the new resident’s condition, when his name can’t be placed to his face, he’s sure to be referred to as “the man from Minnesota with cancer”.

And it didn’t end there. It was said we have eight new move-ins, one move back and an eviction in progress. One of the new move-ins is bedridden, another is just out of rehab. (That’s not drug rehab, but medical rehab).

As for the move back, it’s not unusual for residents who’ve decided they don’t like it here to move out, find the grass is not greener elsewhere, reapply and move back. 

A woman, who was one of dozens who left us because they couldn’t tolerate the former Community Manager – that evil Nurse Ratched, reapplied but has been denied.

There are only three reasons for that – a criminal record, which I know she does not have, a problem on one’s credit report, or being over the income limit.

At any rate, going to be a lot of new faces around here.

This afternoon, the Residents Volunteer Committee (RVAC), disappointed with Activity Director’s St. Patrick’s Day Hotdog Potluck, is hosting a celebration of its own -- corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and karaoke.

You might remember, at last month’s Residents/Management meeting, the Community Manager disbanded the RVAC, saying all events had to go through her in future.

The committee brushed that off as her being stressed about the urgency to pass the then impending super bowl of inspections, kept right on with their meetings/planning. And today’s event is not a potluck. The committee is providing everything.

Even though we don’t have to bring anything, no longer feeling the need to close myself off, instead feeling open again, I was up early this morning, doing what I said I’d never do again – making deviled eggs, dyed green for the event, turning my thumb green in the process.