Time for the next chapter in....

as the assisted living facility turns.  It is very interesting to see how people choose to care for and mistreat others, sometimes doing both to the same person within a short span of time.

Sadly, one of the residents passed away within the last 24 hours.  She had major health issues.  In spite of serious lung problems she smoked like a chimney.  In spite of having lost a limb to diabetes, she continued to eat sweets.  It reminded me of another person who used to live here, who died.  She had been a life-long smoker and even when she was near death and required oxygen 24 hours a day, insisted on smoking.  She actually once started a fire in her room after numerous warnings that smoking in the room would result in her eviction.

So we have this one woman's death this morning.  The woman who told me about it at breakfast told me she needed to tell another resident about it in private, because the moment she heard the news, she would break into tears.  It was a nice gesture.  Yet these same two women were shouting angrily at each other within the last 48 hours.  The woman who will be so shook up by this death had an argument with the dead woman within the past week.

The residents are all worried that the rent is going up.  Almost all of them get SSI or some other form of Social Security income.  Those incomes will be increased come January 1st.  People on SSI who share rooms have their maximum rent rate set by the state of California.  The facility is only following the law.  But someone's spreading rumors that they will actually raise the rent more than is allowable under that law.  I loathe fearmongering.  I think I know who is the source of the rumors but that will not help matters.  Ultimately the decision is going to be made by management at levels I don't have access to anyway.  For the people who get SSI, they won't see any less money each month, so they shouldn't worry.  That does not stop them from fretting though.

There's a resident who sits at the same table I sit at, in the seat I sit in, on the first meal seating (we don't have a large enough dining room for all residents to eat at once, so there are two seatings for each meal).  I've had issues with him coming down to eat very late and still being in "my" seat when the second meal seating begins.  The facility promised to get him down on time for his meals and it's been fine of late.

This morning he ate at the first seating.  But he came back as I was eating during second seating and got very agitated when "his" seat was taken.  He wanted to sit down and read the Sunday paper (which I do in that seat every Sunday) and he couldn't.  He came back twice before finally being seated at another table.  He even wanted to be fed breakfast again, saying he hadn't eaten.  Old age is indeed a trainwreck.

We have issues with cats in the back yard.  Some of the residents insist on feeding the cats.  Management has promised to deal with them.  But management has another problem.  I'm not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the problem.  They are amusing though, take my word.