Another Thanksgiving adventure

My scrawny 85-year-old mother called me a few minutes ago. “Have you ever had a worse Thanksgiving meal?” she asked. I had just finished admiring my friend Bravadita's colorful repast, described on her blog, complete with mouthwatering photographs. Roasted brussel sprouts. Mmmmm. I was inclined to say, no, probably not. But that would have been an untruth. Yes, I admit, it probably wasn't the greatest Thanksgiving meal I've had, but it wasn't the worst, by far.

Here's what happened. Yesterday I picked my mother up about 10:45; we rumbled through the rain to a local crappy chain diner (where my mother often eats with her cronies), where we met my younger brother. I'll call him Spike. We strolled into the place behind an older couple, who stood staring at the glass case full of pies.

“We are here to get a pie to go,” said the old man. We quickly sidestepped our way to the counter and were seated forthwith in a booth with a nice view of a gray wet boulevard. Mom ordered a turkey sandwich (which she told me today was chicken. I'm not sure if it was chicken when it was supposed to have been turkey, or if it was chicken from the get go, or if I simply misheard her when she ordered, assuming that because it was Thanksgiving, she would get a turkey sandwich.... am I making sense?)

My brother ordered a Denver omelette, which prompted some discussion about why an omelette might be named after a city in Colorado. I ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. We all had coffee, which led to a discussion about how the coffee was better than expected, and how the best coffee comes from Astoria, but we couldn't remember the name of the company that roasted it, only that the best stuff is called Thundermuck.

The food came fast as the place filled up with families. The servers were speeding around, looking harried. I mentioned to Spike and my mother that my eggs were cold, but I didn't really care. I often eat cold eggs. They tasted fine to me. The bacon was good, too, but I really just wanted the pancakes (syrup and butter, mmmm). Sadly, they were somewhat disappointing, being simultaneously doughy and hard (is such a thing scientifically possible?). Still, I was enjoying myself, sitting across from what is left of my local family. I took Spike's picture, and he took mine. We teased each other gently; our teasing is a pale version of what it used to be: we are old now, and tired.

The whole dining adventure was over in an hour. Spike declared his intention to go home and take a nap. Mom and I agreed it was too early to take a nap. “I'll probably play some computer games,” she said with a resigned sigh. I had a paper to finish editing. Every day is a work day for me. My brother and I split the bill while my mother was making a pitstop in the restroom, which prompted a discussion on the way home about the importance of learning to gracefully receive a gift, because to repudiate a gift diminishes the giver. That shut her up for a while.

I left her standing in the rain in her driveway, waving her little wizened hand at me. I trundled my moss-covered Ford Focus home, thinking I need to replace my wipers, and had some more coffee before I started editing the paper (a dissertation on probabilities and real options... I know, what?). When my eyes were properly crossed, I watched an episode of True Blood and then went to bed. As Thanksgivings go, it was one of the better ones.

The worst Thanksgivings were the ones from my preteen childhood, in which my grandmother invaded my mother's kitchen, my father and grandfather watched football, my older brother read a book in a quiet corner, and my sister and Spike duked it out in silent fury. Where was I? No recollection. I'm pretty sure I was there, but I might not have been completely there, if you know what I mean.

The second worst Thanksgivings were the ones I attended at the homes of various boyfriends. For example, I visited the surfer dude's bronzed parents, who lived in a ranch house in Newbury Park, California. I was an overdressed new wave mannequin in turkey-sized shoulder pads: it was 1980, after all. (But I was in the garment industry: it was my job to look edgy.) The surfer dude's two-packs-a-day mother and her bizarre onion casserole was mitigated by the desert heat.

A few years later, the surfer dude was gone, displaced by the Jewish dude. The Jewish dude's mother made chicken soup without salt or seasoning. His siblings tolerated me, but I think his father was secretly fascinated by the wild fashionista goy toy with spiked hair. (That would be me.)

Finally, I figured out how to say no and stay home.

The best Thanksgiving ever was the year when my sister came to Los Angeles to work for the Getty on a museum grant. While the Jewish dude went off to do the family thing, she and I stayed home and watched movies and ate popcorn for dinner. Despite that being the year of the Malibu fires, floods, and the Northridge Earthquake, it was one of my best years in LA, because she was there.

“Didn't you want to send the eggs back?” my mother asked me on the phone.

“No,” I said. I thought about trying to tell her how much I am thankful we aren't doing the whole cooking and cleaning insanity anymore. And I wanted to tell her, too, how much I enjoy going out to eat with her once in a while, and how much I will miss her when she is gone. But that's probably best left for another day. All I said was, “No, I don't mind cold eggs once in a while. It's all part of the adventure.”

I'll have some fries, with a side of righteous indignation, please

No complaints from rainbow city. I'll take our unsettled rain squalls and sun breaks over 6-foot snow drifts any day. On the hierarchy of things to complain about, cold comes first, way above wet. Pretty much the worst thing here in the Northwest is cold AND wet, which happens predictably often for nine months of the year. But yesterday the temp hit 56°! After the arctic polar Canadian chill blast thingie, it felt downright balmy. What's a little moisture when it's practically tropical!

How did I celebrate? Thanks for asking. In anticipation of my upcoming personal health insurance nightmare, in which I throw myself upon the mercy of the open market, I showed up for my 50,000-mile checkup with my soon-to-be former doctor at Kaiser. She's wonderful. Even when she's probing my lady parts, I know I'm in capable hands. Nobody is allowed to visit the private terrain down there except my wonderful doctor.

The assistant, on the other hand, was... well, I could say her behavior was disappointing, but I think I'll describe her as a king hell bummer hot mess. I can only assume she trained at the career college for which I used to work. I didn't ask, I assumed. Not nice of me, I know.

First, she was brusque and breezy. Normally, I don't mind brusque and breezy. You can be brusque and breezy, and still be personable. Just quickly personable, as you rush away to do something no doubt more important. I could accept that. But she didn't seem inclined to slow down and look me in the eye.

“You were just here in July,” she said accusingly, looking at the computer screen which is now de rigeur for every doctor's office.

“I know,” I sighed. “It wasn't my idea.”

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“I got a robocall,” I tried to explain, and even as I spoke, I realized I had failed to put the right amount of righteous indignation in my voice. If I had just sounded like a customer, I'm sure she would have backed off. In my defense, it was barely 8:30 in the morning (crack of dawn for this puppy), and I hadn't had anything to eat. I didn't have much enthusiasm for churning up some frothy indignation. Wishing that pap smear services came with a coffee bar, I went on, “The voice said to call, and so I called. The girl who answered said I should make an appointment, so here I am.”

“Huh. Do you want a flu shot while you are here?”

“Sure, why not,” I sighed.

“Here. Opening goes in the back.” She handed me a white sheet and a paisley gown and sped out the door. Chanting to myself opening goes in the back, opening goes in the back, I shucked my layers and proceeded to drape myself in the one-size-fits-most cotton gown. I sat on the end of the table, scritching my butt on the paper cover and waited.

After about five minutes, the aide knocked on the door and came in, carrying something I didn't want to look at too closely.

She grabbed my left arm, flipped the cover off the syringe, and jammed the needle into my muscle. With one hand, she slapped a little blue-patterned band-aid over the hole she'd made in my arm. It happened so fast, I had a mere moment to be simultaneously appalled and impressed. Clearly, she did this often. Clearly, I did not.

The actual exam took an anti-climactic ten minutes, tops. After being poked and prodded, reamed, steamed, and drycleaned, and after wishing my doctor happy holidays, silently hoping I would see her next year, I dragged my clothes back on and shuffled down to the lab to get some blood drawn for a cholesterol check. As I sat there, a little damp and used, waiting my turn, I began to feel a little wan. I chalked it up to lack of food, rain, and pelvic exam.

Later, back at home, I fixed eggs and a pile of broccoli and zucchini and scarfed it down. Pretty soon I felt even worse. My left shoulder hurt: I could barely raise my arm without groaning. In fact, all my joints hurt. I felt achy all over. Hey! I think I have the flu. What the—!

I took a nap, but that didn't help. I met a friend for dinner. She told me that the aide didn't know how to give a proper shot. That helped briefly, as did the french fries, but by TV time, I was moaning on the couch. My cat looked askance at me as I kicked the blankets in frustration. I couldn't find a position that didn't hurt, and my shoulder felt like I had been shot. Or how I imagined it might feel had I actually been shot. Finally, I gave up. I took an ibuprofen and went to bed. Exit, stage right, dragging a case of righteous indignation like a full diaper behind me.

The next day, I felt fine, and thus was able to appreciate the magnificent sight of a double rainbow glowing against the massive gray clouds piled up before me. It was gone quickly, as the rain clouds scudded off to the east to dump snow on Mt. Hood. I reveled in a fleeting glimpse of blue sky, enjoying a delicious 5-minute respite before the next deluge.

Ass kickers and dream killers, oh my

My friend Bravadita dragged up on Portland and moved to Gladstone, my sister is gallivanting around Vatican City, my friends in Minneapolis are snowed in, the kitchen windows in Love Shack are shuddering with a relentless east wind, and humans landed a washing machine-sized spacecraft on a moving comet! What does it all mean? I can't figure it out.

Luckily, the electricity has stayed on today. Yesterday, not so lucky. But we survived. We, meaning the cat and me. There's not a lot to complain about, in relative terms. I'm alive. I have food and clean water. It could be worse. Of course, if the internet goes down again, you'll hear my screams of rage in Pacoima.

Last night I ventured out of the Love Shack into the frigid (40°, feels like 25°) windy night to go to a networking Meetup across town. I thought everyone would be hunkered down in their snuggies, braving the onslaught of what passes for winter weather in Portland, but no. Everyone was actually out driving around in their lumbering SUVs. I guess when you drive a Hummer, you aren't afraid of anything, certainly not a measly 50 mph wind gust or two. That's nothing when you weigh four tons. I just hoped no errant wind gust would pick up my tin can Ford Focus and toss me into said Hummer. Yikes.

So I was in, if not good company, certainly lots of company, driving at a snail's pace on I-84 toward Lloyd Center, trying to get to a funky Chinese restaurant by 6:00 p.m. When it's dark so early, all the red taillights flashing on and off remind me that it's my most-dreaded time of year: Christmas. That's a rant for another day.

I arrived at the restaurant at few minutes before the hour, and found no place to park in the tiny lot, so I drove along the street and around the first corner. Plenty of room under some wildly waving trees. Hmmm. I parked and hoped my car would be intact when I returned. Intact, meaning not buried under a toppled tree. I battled the wind to the restaurant, fought the glass door open, and whooshed inside with a pile of dead orange leaves. Festive.

I scooted past a gauntlet of empty red leather booths into the back room. I greeted the Meetup hostess and filled out a name tag, which I placed on my hat. After milling around aimlessly for a minute, hoping to connect with someone and failing, I took a place at a long plastic-topped table and plastered a fake smile on my face. More people arrived. The patient waitress was a welcome diversion. No one else seemed perturbed by the wind. I kept thinking of my dark dead appliances and hoped the power would be restored by the time I returned home.

There is a moment at every networking event when I feel like an alien from another solar system. It's usually when I'm seated and others are standing, talking over my head. I am forced to look up to see their faces, which hurts my neck and makes me feel like I'm invisible. I imagine that is how people in wheelchairs feel most of the time. It's painful on many levels. To push my chair back and stand up would be awkward, and knowing me, I'd probably lose my balance and fall either onto the table or onto my chair and thence onto the floor.

However, staying seated while trying to pretend I'm part of the conversation is also awkward. With my neck at an uncomfortable angle, I can sometimes see the standing participants cast quick glances in my direction. Mostly they see the top of my hat, where I've placed my name tag. Oh well, at least they will know my name if not my face.

In these situations, my solution is to turn my back on the standing networkers and address myself to my dinner as if to a long lost friend. Food doesn't argue. It's always been a reliable companion, at least until it's gone. But as long as there are a few crumbs of fried rice left, I can sink into the comfort of my own company and pretend I am too busy eating to be bothered with inane pursuits like communicating with other humans. Because, as I've mentioned before, I don't really like people, and I don't really care.

Well, that's not entirely true. I confess, I am fond of the woman who co-founded this Meetup group. I think she's swell. She was the only one, though, sadly. I recognized one other person. I'll call him Andy. At a previous Meetup, he described himself the “Ass Kicker” component of the “Dream Killer-Ass Kicker” coaching partnership. That is as frightening as it sounds.

Andy is a youngish man with a purposefully bald head and a plethora of facial jewelry. From our previous meetings, I had the impression that he was gay. Not that it matters. I don't always get it right (although I did accurately call it in The Crying Game, just saying, which surprised my then boyfriend, who was totally snookered). Last night I was the one who was snookered. Andy brought his female partner with him, a young Australian woman, introduced as Michelle, who was missing a tooth and wearing a mottled fur hat with ears and long tails hanging down her chest.

Of course, gender is a malleable thing. I've been mistaken for a young man before, when I was young and slim and everyone wore bell-bottom jeans, moccasins, gold wireframes, and long straight hair. (At the time I was mortified. Now I'm rather gleeful.) Because gender is amorphous, there is no telling the true nature of the relationship between Andy and Michelle. I don't spend much time thinking about it. But I did wonder about that weird fur hat, especially after she put her name tag on top of her head. I was perplexed, not because she appeared to be copying me, but because I thought, she just wrecked her fur hat by putting a name tag on it. Not my problem.

The evening's speaker was a young, overly enthusiastic pixie of a slip of a wisp of a girl, wearing a slim purple dress and demonstrating an annoying habit of saying, “If you're with me, say 'Hell, yes'!” After reading about Stanley Milgram's psychological study of teacher-student shenanigans, I never participate in obvious manipulations unless it's in support of someone I know and truly love, or unless I'm really drunk. I abstained from shouting “Hell, yes!” every three minutes and instead doodled in my notebook, drawing yawning faces, barely listening, and finally the sweet young thing wound down and squeaked out her call to action: “Only $39 for my four hour workshop, if you sign up tonight!” When the presentation was over, the real networking began.

But it turned out, it wasn't really networking. Four of us sat at one table. There was Andy, me, a massage therapist from Russia—I'll call her Tatiana—and an older gal named Rena, who described herself as sort of an astrologist, but with destiny cards, whatever those are. I didn't ask. We went around the table, sharing our notions of our ideal customer. It quickly became clear that Andy was in coaching mode, and Rena was worshiping at his altar, so to speak. Tatiana seemed content to support Rena, and I was content to carve heavier and heavier black lines into an image of a bleak stone face, which took up most of a page in my journal. I labeled the face Dream Killer, in honor of the absent partner. Andy didn't notice, being too caught up in playing the coach.

I spoke up every now and then, and I took my turn and exposed my quirks and foibles without much reluctance in a game attempt at authenticity. I really have nothing to lose. I'm pretty sure massage therapists and wannabe-astrologists will never see market research as a solution to any problem they may encounter in life. Why should I bother trying to convince them they have a problem that only research can solve? Andy, the ass-kicking coach, on the other hand, is a business man. He understands the relevance of and need for marketing research. But I wouldn't work with anyone who self-proclaims as an ass-kicker. Or a dream killer, for that matter.

Enough about networking! All of this just affirms what I've come to realize over the past year: I work best alone. As the wind moans under the eaves of the Love Shack, my cat snores in the chair next to me. What more does a person need to be happy, really? Electricity, a cozy cave, and a snoring cat. I've got it made.

Death by bug

This week I took time out between rainstorms to go for a jog. I slogged along in my running gear, following my usual path through the park. First, I climbed the main staircase to warm up. I went at a pretty good clip, considering I'm an aging slacker couch potato. I tried to keep my chin ahead of my hips...that seems to propel me forward somehow, as long as my feet catch up in time. I breathed through my nose as well as I could, considering my sinuses are chronically clogged. (Breathing through my mouth makes me look desperate: older gal, trying too hard.)

Every week, no matter how I push myself, young things of various genders leap up the steps past me like gazelles. They make it look effortless. I feel the wind of their passing, and I breathe in the fumes of their coconut body wash, but I keep my head down, watching where I place my feet. Eventually, I get to the top, the summit of the hill, formerly a volcano, now a flat tree-lined avenue of grass where children chase dogs chasing Frisbees. The sweeping evergreens were a lot smaller 40 years ago when my boyfriend used to park his Buick Special overlooking the city so we could smoke weed and do other fun stuff.

The gazelles were long gone by the time I gained the summit. I walked to catch my breath and looked at the city through gaps in the trees. Then I started jogging again, going back down the hill, but the long way this time, down and around, along the gently sloping road, which led me eventually to the reservoirs we hope to save from the EPA, the agency I usually like but currently wish would let our city water be. Whatever. The jog down the hill always feels like a cop-out, especially when some runners pass me going uphill in the opposite direction. My excuse is that I'm old.

At the reservoir road, I stopped and stretched and looked at the sky to see if I should linger or keep moving to avoid oncoming rain clouds. Sometimes you can see it coming right at you and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes, though, you can stay ahead if you hurry.

This week, I thought, I need to up my game. Thinking of my still-too-tight Levis and the ass that I drag around behind me, I decided to run back uphill the way I had come down, vowing to keep going as long as my various body parts held together. Things were going good. I was feeling strong, watching my feet as I plodded steadily along the edge of the road, one eye out for bicycles. Pretty soon, my heart rate began to rise, and then to soar. My left ankle began to twinge, followed by my left knee, not enough to make me stop, but enough to make me reflect on old joints and tired ligaments.

Finally, my congested sinuses couldn't siphon enough oxygen out of the air to keep my tired muscles firing, and I began to breathe through my mouth, although I shut it every time I met someone coming in the opposite direction, to preserve my illusion of youthful vigor. I wasn't gulping air, really, just scooping air, kind of like a whale scoops plankton as it moves through the ocean depths. And that's when I scooped up the bug.

I should have scooped through my teeth. If I had, I would have caught the sucker before it made it halfway down my throat toward my laboring lungs. As it was, my throat closed in the nick of time, and left the bug stuck, halfway down, too far down to come back up, except by the most drastic and messy of measures. Contemplating a finger-jam-induced upchuck in the park with dogs and kids and runners and Frisbees nearby didn't last long, so I did the logical thing and swallowed.

After a few convulsive swallows and some loud hacking-style coughs, with me bent over, hands on knees, tongue hanging out, the bug slid the rest of the way down my gullet. Protein, I reassured myself. Everyone needs more protein. I tried not to imagine the bug was kicking out its last moments while it paddled around in my stomach acid.

As I walked the rest of the way up the hill, I wondered what would have happened if my throat hadn't closed in time, if that bug had stuck there, blocking my airway, and no one had happened by to find out why the old lady was laying in the road turning blue? Would the coroner find the bug during the autopsy? Would the ruling be death by bug? Or would it be ruled accidental death due to a foolish old person's illusion that just because she once finished a marathon twenty years ago that she can trot up a long hill with impunity?

Obviously, I lived to tell the tale. I didn't get an upset tummy or have projectile diarrhea. The bug did not crawl out of my throat (or any other orifice) later while I was sleeping, at least, not that I know of. (Eeewww.) I once read that the average person inadvertently eats several spiders a year. So, what's one more bug? Maybe I should be saying yum.

Stop twiddling and get a life!

I launched the Hellish Handbasket Blog in January of 2012 as I was headed into one of my many recurring dark nights of my soul: my interminable pursuit of a terminal degree. I wanted a place to lighten my load by dumping my emotional ballast, as it were. And I must say, this blog has served me well as a listening post, absorbing my chronic whining and transmitting my frothy yearnings into the blogosphere.

And lo, the blogosphere has responded. Over time, I have built a modest following consisting of a handful of friends and relatives and a few strangers from Latvia and China who cruise through for a minute or two, probably looking for a hole in the cyber dike. Well, that's Google's problem, not mine. In any case, I was getting a few dozens of page views (including maybe a few bonafide readers) per month and, considering this is an anonymous blog, I thought I was doing okay. And then I innocently posted a post about twiddling and everything changed.

When I was young, the word twiddling referred to an activity one did with one's thumbs. I hesitate to Google the term now, for fear of luring drooling hackers and sneaky viruses to my cyber door, but I'm pretty sure twiddling no longer means what it used to mean. If you look at all my posts from the last three years as bars in a vertical column chart, every post is as flat as lettuce in a vegetable garden except that one post, which is the One World Trade Center Tower of my blog. There is only one thing that could attract that kind of attention: sex.

Now, you could say I'm trying to capitalize on that one post's popularity by attempting to duplicate its energetic verve with this post. You could say that. But you would be wrong. Because I am not interested in attracting wackjobs and knuckleheads seeking to read about twiddling anything but the traditional thumbs. Whoa, I can see I'm going to get in trouble here. Honestly, I shudder to imagine all the things one can do with thumbs that I have never considered. But I'm not going there here, not today.

I just want to say, good grief, stop twiddling, whatever the hell that is, and get a life! I'm happy being an obscure anonymous blogger. I don't sell ad space on my site, so all your cavorting through my twiddling post is not netting me anything but a totally lopsided out of whack stats page! My other posts are infinitesimal specks compared to that one damn post. What the hell, you guys?

I suspect there is a mountain of spam aimed directly at my tiny anonymous blog being barely held back by a small army of Google minions somewhere in a data warehouse in Cupertino. I hope the cyber dike holds. Don't let go, cyber minions.

Meanwhile, I will continue blogging about the inconsequential minutiae of my days as I drift in and out of earning, writing, and networking. Boring stuff, I know, compared to sex. Maybe it would help to think of it as an invitation to use your imagination. Okay, I've said my part. Do with it what you will. I'm off to do some twiddling of my own. At last! The Walking Dead is in reruns.

My healthcare plan: don't get sick; my retirement plan: die

Last night as I set my collection of six clocks back one hour, I reflected that if I could hibernate until next spring, I would. Dream the winter away and wake up to... well, hell, now that I think about it, fall and spring in Portland look and feel very much the same. Rain. Wind. Rain. Showers. Then drizzle, followed by rain. The forecast for the next eight months is... you guessed it: rain. I wrung every last Z out of that extra hour of sleep last night. I'd have taken more if my cat had let me keep snoozing, just to postpone the depressing moment when I peered out the curtains and didn't see sun.

Speaking of depressing moments, my mother and I took our first retirement home tour on Friday. The place was a giant bunker built on top of retail: Safeway, some miscellaneous shops, and a now-empty former Target store. Not exactly a thriving community below. I was curious to see the community in the monstrous castle above.

We came in through the back parking lot, which apparently was not the main floor. An old man and an even older woman, both in wheelchairs, flanked the elevators, staring morosely at the indoor-outdoor carpet. My mother said in her loud smoker's voice, “Here's the welcome committee!” What happened next was bizarre: It was like someone put a quarter in those old folks and turned the key: The old man sat up straight and grinned right at my mother. Nice dentures, I thought. The old lady perked up, too, and I wondered if they got paid to sit there at the elevator and welcome hapless newcomers in the door.

We rode up the elevator and met the marketing manager, Tom, who had only been there four weeks and was still finding his way around.

“First you can have lunch,” he said, “and then I'll give you the tour!”

Lunch just happened to be a buffet, in honor of Halloween. Aides dressed as goblins and vampires ushered us toward the buffet table along with a horde of smiling old people pushing wheeled walkers. Once you get on the buffet line ride, you can't get off until it's over. I handed my mother a Halloween themed plate and served her up some beige rice. “You want meatballs with that?” I asked, searching in vain for the salad bar.

“What else is there?” asked my mother.

“Teriyaki chicken. Cole slaw. Celery sticks. Hotdog on a bun.”

I served her up the chicken and put a little of (almost) everything on my plate. After I watched the old people load their plates with a teaspoon of cole slaw, a dab of rice, one meatball, I tried to restrain myself, even though I was starving. Clearly, by octogenarian standards, I ate like a lumberjack.

My mom and I found an empty table in the cavernous dining room, hoping we weren't inadvertently sitting in someone's assigned seat. I sipped the odd green punch (carbonated) and watched the lively crowd mill around. Even though they all left their walkers parked in the dining room lobby, for a bunch of old folks, they seemed pretty energetic. Not fast moving, but peppy nonetheless.

“I want some pie,” declared my mother. She got up and went in search of dessert. I thought, should I be fetching and carrying for her? Is that my new job now, to wait on my mother? I watched her walk away, noticing how tiny her flat little butt was in her baggy faded jeans. I slipped gently into a sugar coma. Pretty soon she came marching back with a sliver of pumpkin pie topped with a quarter-sized dab of whipped cream.

“She's bringing you some low-fat ice cream,” my mother said triumphantly. A young woman dressed in a brilliant lime green, air-filled balloon came wallowing across the room toward us, holding a tiny dish in green spandex gloves. Her face was covered with a green spandex hood.

She handed me the tiny dish of ice cream. “What are you?” I blurted out in awe.

“I'm not sure,” she said and waddled away.

Pretty soon the marketing guy found us and herded us out of the dining room for the tour. We followed him like puppies as he backtracked from one side of the place to another, trying to find apartment 330. My mother was not impressed: The ceilings were too high, she said. (She's very short.) For the next hour we rode the elevators and trod the hallways, avoiding slow-moving walkers trundling little tubs of polyester blouses and flannel nightdresses to the laundry room. We looked at beige apartments with one bedroom, beige apartments with two bedrooms, ones with tubs, ones with no tubs, patios, no patios, until it all blended into a beige carpeted blur.

Finally, exhausted, my mother and I extricated ourselves from the castle, loaded with brochures, and exited into the cool afternoon air. Mom needed a cigarette. We both needed a nap.

Later she called me. “What did you think of the place?”

“The food was lousy,” I said, “but the people seemed happy enough.”

“Did you notice how many of them used walkers?” she said. “I don't think this is the place for me.”

One down, four more to go. At least. My advice to you: don't get old.