Today I'm tired of talking politics. It's a Monday. And I'm kind of pissy on Mondays. It's my hardest day at work, and my boss is pissy, and my favorite co-worker started a diet today, so SHE was pissy, so I guess that's where I'm at...
I called on an assisted living place today, and it made me so completely sad, that it has stayed with me all day. In the Texas town I work in, there are more expensive places and really crummy places, and this one is for the poorer retirees. Ugh, it made my heart bleed. Here are all of these people my mother's age, if she had lived, and someone has dumped them there if they even had children. I had to sit in the lobby for a long time, and made an effort to smile and talk to the residents. One man with no teeth just kept doing circles in his motorized scooter that had a flag on the back. He would ride past me and stop, nod his head, and go on. And then I saw this really neat old man in the social area in his wheelchair, and he had a book with all of the old songs of their era, and kept singing off tune songs like, "My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea..." Then he started a circle of residents singing old hymns, and told them they were doing a good job. He didn't work there, he was just trying to make the best of the situation. This place is so crummy that they don't have organized activities, so they all just sit in the halls and stare. When I was finally able to talk to the (foreign) manager and owner, who spoke very broken English, they told me that they had started a vegetable garden outside for the residents. And that they had gotten a dog, and that the dog could get a few of them to talk that wouldn't otherwise do so.
Sometimes it's the little things...
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