Tag Archives: Senior centers

Senior moments: Part ll

Posted in July by

Getting to the Bowie Senior Center proved to be a test of will and fortitude. The drive, less than fifteen minutes on the highway during non-rush hour should have been pleasant enough but I had Miss Cathy in the back seat remember-the killer of all times good.

It’s not that she’s intentionally an annoying companion on the road; I think that being confined in a space with her that’s about as big as my bedroom makes me feel claustrophobic.

Don’t get me wrong I love my car, a 2001 Burgundy PT Cruiser….it’s my lifeline and literally my “getaway” car. I also use it as a “living room” sometimes when I have something intimate or important to do like a private phone call or to write in my journal un-interrupted.

I mean, can you blame me, I’m with my mother seven days a week, twenty four hours a day unless I’m off working somewhere or shopping or heaven for fend I’m out doing something pleasurable for myself like being out on a date or relaxing with friends.

Of course I have plenty of outings and a lot that I do away from the condo, but I’m never gone for long because I don’t like to be away from her for more than five (or eight hours max) and that’s usually reserved for work and not play.

But the point is, I’m never alone..except for when I’m in my car….my PT, my four wheel “safe place”.

My car, I guess, has come to represent one of the few things that’s really “mine” and mine “alone” so I guess I’m hard pressed to share my space when it’s time to put on my chauffeur’s cap and become “Hoke”.

Now that she’s riding in the back she’s given up (more or less) “back seat driving”-cue Alanis Morrisette. It seems that since she can’t see the oncoming traffic she can’t comment or react the way she used to when she was riding shotgun.

I got this little “tony-tip” from my brother and it definitely makes a difference. I’m less apt to daydream about steering the car into a ditch and walking into oncoming traffic as much (so that’s a good thing).

The problem now is that since she has so much room to stretch out in back she’s usually doing something; like emptying out the contents of her purse or snacking or building a bomb for all I know but the noise she creates is just about as irritating as her front seat car talk ever was.

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld could learn a thing or two about torture from this old woman. The constant sound of her digging through her purse makes the idea of water boarding sound like a facial.

First of all it takes a full five minutes for her to get her seatbelt on. Every time she gets in the car (which in itself is very Cirque du Soleil) she attacks the seatbelt as if it were her adversary, pulling and twisting, all the while keeping up a constant stream of jibber-jabber and bracing herself as I put the car into gear and back out of the parking space.

I had turned on her favorite country music station, as usual, thinking that would lull her into a manageable state of inertia but the twangs and warbles of the Oakridge Boys or Shania were no match for whatever she was determined to find, deep in the bowels of her handbag.

Try as a I may to meditate and focus on something else-like driving (or finding a rock somewhere on the grounds of the center once we got there and beating myself to death) nothing could distract me from the rumbling and fumbling, like the constant drip of Chinese water torture, mind numbing and relentless, as repetitive as her constantly asking me what day of the week it is, all the way to our destination.

Senior moments: Part I

Posted in July by

Recently I’ve been driving Miss Cathy around to a few of the senior centers in the area because she expressed some interest in what they had to offer. Of course she didn’t just come out and “say” she wanted to go. Mom’s way of “asking” was to tell me how her sister-in-law, my Aunt Dorothy, who I’m related to as a cousin on one side of the family and a nephew on the other (hey, country folk…..what can I say) really “enjoys” the senior center in North Carolina where she lives and all it has to offer.

After listening to her I read between the lines, the same way I do whenever she asks, “do you like Popeye’s chicken?” (she knows I don’t). But, that just means that “She” does and she wants me to go get her “two pieces and a biscuit”. So I interpreted her chatter about Dorothy the same way, as interest in a senior center and I was right.

Unfortunately, I had thrown out all my brochures and research in a moment of disgust after keeping them for more than a year “just in case she changed her mind” and wanted to avail herself of all that was available to her as a senior.

When I first moved here I collected everything I could get my hands on about “what to do with an old person”. Back then I was eager to please and enthusiastic to share my findings with her (suffice to say it’s an entirely different story these days) my enthusiasm has waned and what I find is mostly apathy.

Back then she told me in no uncertain terms that she had no interest in being in a room full of “old folks” as she called “them”…which led me to wonder who the hell she saw when she looked in the mirror every morning.

But, the times, like underwear, do need to change and it seems that now she was ready for something new.

I was giddy with the prospect of getting her out of the house (even if it was for just a few hours a week) but I was unprepared and not knowing how or where to begin. But, not to worry, after a few clicks on the all-knowing Google I found what I needed and we were off.

I decided to sidestep the quaint facility that was located in Miss Cathy’s solidly middle class neighborhood for another more affluent area. So, our first stop was the Bowie Senior Center less than 10 miles away.

Tom Wolff aptly named this group of moneyed movers and shakers in his native New York the Masters of the Universe so this would be their Washington DC equivalent. If you’re searching for a place to park an old person better there be BMW’s and Lexus’ in the parking lot and not Civics and Ford Focus’s.