July 2022 – Not the Final Chapter

The Dreaded Pendant

Now, here’s something that left me a little gobsmacked… On the day we signed the paperwork to take possession of our villa, one of the last things that Brooke, the marketing person, gave each of us was the “pendant,” a device that dangles on a lanyard around your neck and is designed to save your life if you fall or get attacked by a bear, or whatever. It has a button on it that can be pushed in an emergency, and each and every pendant is monitored 24/7 while you’re on campus. It works like that Life Alert (c) device that you see advertised on cable TV. Well, both Carolyn and I almost went into shock when Brooke handed us our pendants! No, I thought, that is something for old people, and not for me!

There is more to this story… Upon arrival at our villa after leaving the marketing office, we discovered an emergency cord in the bathroom, in case one of us falls in the shower and his or her pendant is dangling on the doorknob, where it generally resides. Okay, I expected to see pendants in every room of the villa, and perhaps in my sock drawer, in case I collapsed while reaching for a clean pair of socks! Well, there are really only three, so my fears were somewhat overblown.

And there is even more to this story… About three months into our occupancy, I had to make a solo trip out of state, leaving Carolyn and Kiki to fend for themselves. Guess what?! Carolyn wore her pendant while I was gone! She said she felt safer wearing it while she was the only adult in the villa. So, the “dreaded” pendant may not be so loathsome, after all, and it could save lives. It has other uses, too, but that’s a subject for a future post.

The Carousel of Time

We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.
“The Circle Game” – Joni Mitchell

We now live in a new community. No matter how lovely your previous home was, you cannot go back. Who would want to go back to the worry and fear about being left as a widow in that huge house? It snowed the first week we moved into our villa. I lay on my bed, looking out the window at the falling snow and felt a strong sense of peace and well-being. The move was over and we had landed at last. Today the house is arranged and Kiki is happy. She was a big worry for me. It turns out that she is quite popular. She enjoys her two walks a day with no cars. Visitors come and go, always petting her. I look back, but I don’t feel any desire to go back. I’ve had years of having to do hours of housework and cleaning so many houses. Like Emily in “Our Town,” I would like to go back to my parents’ house on Clinton Street for one day. I think that the emotions would be too painful, so I’ll stay in the present. Jim just took Kiki for a walk and a man is cutting our grass. No going back, Carolyn.

Don’t Gawk

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

My mother would admonish me if I stared at people with disabilities. She would say, “Don’t gawk!” When you come here, you will see people in all stages of aging, including those who need assistive devices to get around. You will not see children, babies, teenagers or motorcyclists. At first it was shocking to see some of the people who are really old. I didn’t think I belonged here. I have trouble walking and tire easily. Jim always says, “There’s a reason we’re here.” There are many more women residents than men. Some people tell you the same story or ask the same questions again and again. You have to be patient. Be compassionate. We are one of the lucky couples still together. I take care of the house and organization. Jim does all of the heavy lifting. I feel like a whiny little b—h when I see others here who are alone or frail. You will think at first that you made the wrong decision. What are your other options? Stay in your home into your eighties and let someone else decide where you will go? You can choose your own CCRC while you are still healthy in mind and body. Just remember, when you first move in, “Don’t Gawk!”

Life and Death

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
James 4:14

The decision to move to a CCRC is coupled with an acceptance that we are truly going to die. This is not an easy thing….to hold two distinct beliefs…that you should live fully after this move and yet you are probably going to die here. Well, you have to die somewhere. We lived on a small drive surrounded by six other houses. Ten years in our house while there were 5 deaths, one house fire (a total loss), one cancer case, one stroke, and one heart attack survivor on our short street. Death is everywhere. It doesn’t care that you live in a CCRC. It can find you when the time comes. We already have our plot and funerals paid for, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept the inevitable. Jim said it best: “This is NOT a nursing home.” There is one, though, if and when we need it. Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, Hospice, then mercifully and finally, Your Flight is on Time.

Making New Friends

Early in the evening of our first day in our new home, there was a knock at the door, and our dog, Kiki, made sure we knew there was someone standing outside. That’s how we met Jackson and Betty, our neighbors on our left. In an instant, we had new friends. When you meet kindred spirits, it’s almost magical how quickly you can bond with them. Jackson and Betty were just completing their fifth year at Otterbein Pemberville, and needed us as much as we needed them, as the residents on our court were getting a little long in the tooth. Within days, the four of us were setting up activities and planning future outings. Jackson is a retired contractor/builder and has considerable handyman skills that helped us negotiate the usual hiccups that go with any move. Carolyn has written in a separate post of how we met our other neighbors, Debra and Paul, so I won’t go into any detail about that here.

When I joined the Army after high school, I was thrown into a mix of every race, creed, and education level, and all of us got along fine, because we were “soldiers.” In a CCRC, all residents are essentially equal, kinda like the Army, though without the regimen and drill sergeants! The rule I live by to get along with all my neighbors is to leave religion and politics at the front door. Friendships without politics or religion can be deep and rewarding. What really counts is intellect, and there’s plenty of it in a CCRC. What you have in common with all the residents is that you made the choice to live there.

You’ll make new friends easily, and you don’t have to give up your old ones. A CCRC is a great equalizer, because basically nobody has any more than anyone else. You’ll be surrounded by people of pretty much the same social and economic class as you, because your fellow residents have probably the same amount of money as you, and in the USA, that’s what defines you, like it or not. Besides, the rich will go their own way.

Storage

Storage will always be a problem for renters, and our villa is a rental. The house we moved from had a large crawl space, which we did not use, and lots of attic space. Funny how quickly an attic can fill up. After all, you’re taking stuff up there only one box at a time. When it came time to move, I spent two afternoons pulling the stuff back down and then vacuuming the entire area. Not fun.

Much of what I pulled down went to auction or into the dumpster. Actually, dumpsters, plural. The city we lived in dropped off a 3-cubic-yard dumpster, which I filled, and later another, which I also filled. Some of the items I tossed probably could have gone to the auction or a yard sale, but it was January, and I didn’t have the patience for any of that.

Our villa has a one-car garage with a single shelf on each side, extending the full length of the garage. A lot of storage space, but nowhere near enough. So, multiple trips to Lowe’s for plastic storage shelves that couldn’t be more than 14 inches deep, or the car wouldn’t fit in the garage!

If you’re going to be buying new beds when you move into your villa or apartment, consider one that has storage space underneath. One of our beds has just such a thing, and we’ve put its storage space to good use. The other bed has about 3 inches of clearance underneath, and probably will be replaced in the near future.

The lesson to be learned here is, as I’ve written before, downsize BEFORE you move, and bring bookshelves with you, if you have them. Unlike moving from one house to another, moving to a villa/apartment will most likely be about a four-month process to get completely settled in. Even with tremendous planning, you’ll probably be making multiple trips to Goodwill, a consignment store, or the local landfill after your move.

Downsize First, Then Move

Thanks to our downsizing BEFORE we moved, the recently-emptied moving van pulled away from our villa by mid-afternoon. Nothing to see here, folks, just a bunch of boxes and two exhausted renters. Truth be told, the place was a disaster! The kitchen was totally inaccessible and the TV sat, unplugged, on the living room floor. We should have gone out to eat, but didn’t want to abandon our dog, Kiki, after uprooting her from the only home she had ever known. We knew that setting up the villa would go so much more smoothly with only half of our possessions.

CCRC villas and apartments are smaller than you might like. Our villa is half the size of our previous home, though the kitchen (pictured at left) is comparable to our old one, and possibly even a little larger. Getting rid of half your possessions isn’t as hard as you might think. Decide what you want to take and auction off the rest! To accomplish this, draw a schematic of your new villa/apartment and lightly draw furniture in the rooms with a pencil. I used a software program to do this and got a computer virus for my troubles! When everything has been placed, you’ll quickly see what must be auctioned or sold. The money we made from the auction was used to buy new smaller pieces of furniture that were more appropriate for the villa.

Forest Wildlife

MESSENGER

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought
The wood began to move.

Macbeth, Shakespeare
Act 5, Scene 5

We were so thrilled with the view in back of our villa. We have a short expanse of grass bordering an old growth forest. It was cold weather. We were treated to a small herd of deer walking across the larger field every evening. They were so lovely in the snow. We also had Chippy, our resident chipmunk who sat on the same branch every day just outside our kitchen window. There is no rose without thorns. Our lovely forest harbors many forest critters. I have seen thus far: salamanders, mice (in our villa), a snake (came in the door and went right back outside) centipedes, large and small ants, spiders, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, chipmunks, tree frogs, roly-polys, mosquitoes and flies. Last night the mousetrap under my bed snapped shut in the middle of the night. I did not sleep well. Jim said, “Well, look at that!” NO, I don’t want to see it! Prior to buying traps, there was a lot of running around while screaming. But then….we have a beautiful, rare view. We see many unusual birds. I refuse to be driven out by forest critters.

What to Bring With You

This post is kinda personal, as it shows a major failure on my part to consider everything that I might need at our new home. Chalk it up to my being a guy, thus not likely to ask around the new neighborhood before our move to find out what sorts of things I might need. When we moved, we auctioned off every last garden tool I had, and believe me, I had one of everything. I didn’t realize, nor did I even ask the question, that each villa has an area in front and in back that is the owners to do with what he or she wants. The person who lived in our villa before us was not a gardener, so I had basically a blank slate to work with.

For a small fee to cover the cost of the lumber, the maintenance staff at Otterbein Pemberville built me two 2’x6′ flower/vegetable boxes. At the local nursery, I found a wide assortment of hostas, spireas, tomato plants, and annual flowers. And, you guessed it, I had to buy new garden tools to plant and care for them.

So, the advice I have in this post is to take a close look at the new villa or apartment, ask the neighbors lots of questions, and find out BEFORE you downsize your household what you are likely to need when you move. I didn’t think it through, and I really regret it.

What?! Free Yoga and Cable TV!

As part of the registration process, Otterbein Pemberville included a form for us to list all our current expenses at the house, for example, taxes, utilities, cable TV, repairs, etc. These figures were written in a column, beside which was another column of what those costs would be at Otterbein, which were all pretty much “Free” or “No Charge.” Bottom line, Otterbein bears the expense of cable channels, utilities, taxes, and all repairs. When we compared the two columns, we saw that it was essentially a wash — we would be almost breaking even in the bargain! (That’s not quite true, but close enough.)

The cable TV is a real bargain, and among the channels is Otterbein Pemberville’s own internal channel (more about that in a future post), but it doesn’t include the Internet, which is a small expense for a blindingly fast connection (over 100 mbits, for you geeks). What we didn’t fully realize is that the Village offers all kinds of free programs, such as concerts, excercise classes, and my favorite, yoga four times a week. The yoga instructor, Cassandra, teaches in the local university’s music department, and she and her significant other perform in a live concert once a month here. She’s even had some of her students perform, as well. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as far as musical performances go, but more about that in a future post.

It seems like every week Otterbein Pemberville has a tour arranged at a nearby tourist attraction, transportation provided, often meal included (for a small, extra fee). These are first-rate tours, and the food is prepared by local restaurants. The bus is air-conditioned, the tours are guided, and the experience always unforgettable!

This is just a sampling of the perks at the Village. I bring them up here for two reasons — 1) There’s plenty to do that would cost a lot of money if you did it in your old life; and 2) Every time you take a class or go on a tour, think of it as lowering the cost of living at a CCRC. You just might learn something new in the process.