Plants on the Patio

Arriving early for yesterday’s Lab appointment, I was able to get in some reading time on Randy Rainbow’s book.

During a previous reading, I was surprised to learn that he once worked as a Hooter’s Girl — the first male host at Hooters NYC. He didn’t wear the tiny orange shorts the girls did. Instead, he was dressed in khaki and white polo shirts.

I was even more surprised to get to the part in the book yesterday where he mentioned having been a blogger — Right here on Blogger under the blog name "The Randy Rainbow Bloggity Blahg-Blahg".

He’d blog about the reality TV show he’d watched the night before, the Broadway musicals, his dating life, his "excruciating" subway ride to work.

Once the blog gained a following, he changed the name to "The Perez Hilton of Broadway".

I got called in for Lab work before getting to the part of the book that tells when he stopped blogging and why. I’ll have to put my nightly Tik Tok obsession aside (not likely) and, instead, keep reading.

At last week’s bingo, I got into conversation with the resident who lives in the unit upstairs over the one that used to be occupied by the invalid lady — the 98 year old that recently, after 22 years here, the last 10 unable to care for herself, made the decision to move in with her son.

This resident I was talking to (no blog name as of yet) was telling me she wanted to move to that downstairs unit.

She certainly needs to because it’s painful to watch her struggle up those stairs. It’s painful to watch her walk … period, because of an issue with her legs

Her legs are very heavy, knees don’t seem to bend but she’s not on a walker. She manages to get around, to walk, by leaning right, leaning left, propelling her body to where she wants to go with those repetitive motions.

It hurts me to watch her struggle, but she seems well adjusted to her condition. She manages her grocery shopping, she rides the bus, she even packs up her luggage and goes on an occasional trip. She’s very independent, but she needs a downstairs unit.

I’ve seen lot of the seniors, some recently, trade upstairs for downstairs due to medical conditions and this resident said she’s requested the move, her doctor gave her a letter to submit to the office indicating she needs that downstairs unit, but she didn’t have much hope she’d get it.

When I asked why, she said that she and another resident that needs and asked to be moved downstairs, are not liked by management.

I didn’t ask why but it’s easy to guess it’s because management doesn’t care for residents that give them a hard time — complain about their not doing their jobs, cause trouble for management with various agencies … like my buddy Apache did.

Noticing yesterday that someone appeared to have moved into that unit — the black box attached to the railing no more, replaced by plants on the patio, lights on, I was hoping it was she in the process of moving downstairs.

But noooooo.

Seeing a new face walking through the quad a couple times today, I finally got up from my perch on the couch to see where she was going, and she walked into that downstair unit. She’s the new resident and seems lithe, not needing to be downstairs.

I’m thinking that, because of how difficult it is for the upstairs resident to get around, that the noise of her stomping around — noise that probably did not annoy the invalid lady due to hearing loss, is going to create a problem for the new resident. Management may regret not switching things around.

Lastly, and sadly, for those of you who may not have heard, our blogging buddy Madge is no longer with us. She fought the good fight but has lost her battle with cancer.