Quote of the Day

"I bet they all wish they were shot."

Floyd- thinking wild animals would prefer to be dead then to be out in the rain and have "nothing" to eat.

Tales from the Mountainside and "Current symptoms of a fallen world."

Yesterday began my summer career of Unit Assistant in the Mountainside Residential Center. (You will note at this time that they are no longer called “nursing homes.” That is a term gone with the times, or so my Grandpa says.)
Working with the elderly is to put it in a few words: stressfully hilarious. One of my jobs as U.A. is to do what they call “one on one” with some of the residents that are more active and need attention. In certain cases it turns out to be more like baby sitting except you can’t punish and you can’t pick them up.
Floyd needs the most attention of anyone else on the second floor and it has fallen to me to make sure he stays “out of trouble.” The first time I met Floyd I offered to go on a walk with him before dinner. He heartily agreed (thinking I was his long lost girlfriend) and grabbed me around the waist as he proclaimed, “I knew we were meant for each other!” Needless to say he took a little getting used to.
Clifford is another interesting person. He and I hit it off right away because we both laugh a lot. Today he said he liked me so much that “there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me.” And during dinner he thought I could use some fattening up so he continually offered me some part of his meal. Of course I couldn’t take it so I spent the better part of 30 minutes thinking up different ways to say “no.” That was exhausting.
The floor that I work on has 40 residents. I have tried to meet most of them and one thing I’ve noticed so far is that no one has the same name. It’s kind of strange actually. Walking down the halls there are name plates by each door; some of the names are pretty umm different. Like Hedgwig (called Heddie for short, thank goodness), or Lester, Iris, Harvey and Wanda. Wanda is really funny. She kind of reminds me of Fezzik from The Princess Bride because she loves to rhyme her words. Her favorite little rhyme that she says over and over is: “such is life without a wife, and here I am without a man.” Then she lets out a big sigh and sits quietly, meditating on who knows what.
So, I’ve only been there for 2 days and am finding that there is never a dull moment. And then I come home and find there aren’t any dull moments around here either, so I umm think at the end of the summer I will take a sabbatical.
On an entirely different note, I have also been occupied with saving trees from the current symptoms of a fallen world (also known as the plague of the caterpillars.) Those of you who have been out here before would be amazed if you came now. Usually in the summer the trees are green and brown; like normal trees. But this year everything is brown, brown, brown. And it’s all because of the caterpillars- they have eaten and are still eating the leaves. So today after dinner I armed myself with two containers of Vaseline and set about making slimy rings around the trees in the yard. It was very satisfying watching the creature’s clime up the trunk and then touch the slime and promptly go back down again. I decided that caterpillars are dumb after witnessing the same one go up and down about 4 times.
Anyway, I shall sign off now and wish you all “goodnight!”