Out With the Old

Word is California’s social distancing and mask mandate ends June 15.

You can probably read my mind as to how I feel about that.

I will no longer be able to complain about people not wearing a mask but, for sure, I’ll still be asking people to back up off me.

And just like I took a wait and see stance on the vaccination, I’ll be wearing a mask well after June 15, as I wait to see how things go out in the world.

When I do decide to drop the mask, there’s still a use for them. Like when I empty the vacuum cleaner to keep dust from flying back into my nose.

Also for when I have to take the seeds out of Serrano Chili Peppers.

Serrano is my pepper of choice and, in the past, the hot spicy fumes that permeates the air during the deseeding process has sent me flying out the front door, choking and gasping for air. Not to mention the times, though I thoroughly wash my hands after, some remnant remains on a fingernail and, when I touch my eyes hours later, causes distress.

Tired of nearly choking to death, but not willing to give up serrano, I got the bright idea last week of using the pandemic mask.

Worked like a charm, so that’s what I’ll be using my masks for long after we no longer have to wear in public

It appears our senior complex has gone multi-family.

From my perch on the couch, I’ve been noticing more than a few faces I’ve never seen before, and none of the faces looked age-qualified for this complex ─ including a young child I’ve seen playing in the grassy knoll every day for weeks, accompanied by an adult male.

The adult male has an “I’m out of work, down on my luck” look about him, so I took him to be a ghost resident ─ off lease/sneak living here with a senior. Although making himself so highly visible every day is a poor job of sneaking.

Not necessarily so, says a resident a quad over, who’d stopped me as I was headed for the market, day before yesterday, asking for my assistance with a downed fledging.

Discussions as to how to catch the fledging, so she could drive it to the vet ─ and who could help her, because I told her my heart couldn’t take it if the fledging died, led to a long conversation about this that the other.

I learned some unpleasant things about her neighbor Shadow, whose unit faces hers. Not just unpleasant, but creepy scary things that not only validated what I’d sensed about him, that he’s not good people, but things that left me thinking he’s evil, Satan possessed.

When I asked her who’d moved into Cat Lady’s unit, she’d said it was a couple, and that I wasn’t the only one to have noticed how young some of the new residents appear to be.

According to her, there has been much speculation as to whether this is still a senior complex or a multi-family.

Did they run out of old people to lease to or it a simple case of out with the old, in with the young?

It may be the former, because this resident told me of other residents who’d been lured away by other senior communities and/or are planning to move/follow friends because of incentives being offered.

I guess it’s sorta like the fast food employee shortage, only it’s a shortage of old people, so it’s an incentive war.

No surprise this money hungry corporation isn’t about offering anything to stay or to come. Instead, they just open up to a younger audience.

Upstairs across the quad Sue’s unit is about ready for a new tenant. Will be interesting to see if it’s 55 and over or a young family who moves in.

I did learn from following up on the story of the 19-year old on Tik Tok, who chronicles how she “mistakenly” moved into a senior living facility that, technically speaking, though a complex can be designated for older adults that it’s “equal opportunity housing” status means it cannot legally discriminate against younger renters.

Going to be interesting to see who shows up when activities ─ such as community breakfast, potluck lunches, BBQ’s begin again. Is it going to be the young, the old, the in between?

On the other hand, those activities may never return because it was Apache and the Baker who spearheaded them. Apache is gone, the Baker will no longer put herself out to help Activity Director, and I’ll no longer liven things up with photos and a resident facebook page.

Nothing will ever go back to the fun way it was.

It was a happy ending for the downed fledging. It’s mom flew down from the trees, pecked at the fledgling’s wings and, shortly after, it flew up to join it’s mom in the trees.