The Guided Tour: From College To Assisted Living

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Christine Vanderberg

It seems like only yesterday we were touring college campuses with our teens. Now, we’re touring assisted living facilities, looking for a place for my husband’s father. When it comes down to it, there isn’t much difference in the whole process. I’m still asking the same two questions. First, and foremost, How is the food? And then, Are there any activities or clubs to join?

My husband is still asking the same two questions he used to ask the college admissions officers: How much does it cost? And Is there any financial aid available?

We go on the facility tours, which are much like the college tours – except that the elderly guide in assisted living speaks louder and walks a lot slower than those perky young college students that jogged through the campus tours.

The rooms they show us on the tours are spotless, compared to the college dorms we were shown so many years ago. The square footage in each bathroom is larger than my son’s freshman dorm room. There is a cleaning service that maintains the bedrooms and bathrooms once a week, and laundry is done “in house” by aides.

The dining room resembles a five-star restaurant, with wait service, centerpieces on the tables and real cloth napkins at every place setting. This is so much classier than the college cafeterias we toured.

“What if you take a nap and sleep through dinner?” I asked one assisted living guide. “Will you still be able to get some food if the kitchen is closed?” I remember my son telling me that the cafeteria at his college closed at 10:00 PM and, if he missed dinner, his only option was a sleeve of Ritz crackers with peanut butter.

“No problem,” the guide answers. “You simply call down to the kitchen and a staff member will make whatever you like and bring it up to your room.”

Sounds more like Downton Abbey than assisted living.

One thing that is identical to the college dorm scene is the arrangement of the living quarters. There are men and women on the same floor, and I couldn’t help but wonder if any of the elderly residents behave like college students and sneak into each other’s rooms at night for a little hanky-panky. Now that medical marijuana is legal in New York, they can share a joint while listening to music and discussing the difference between Medicare Part A & B. Every night can be a party!

I add up the hours I spend grocery shopping, cooking, doing laundry and just maintaining a “tidy” home (because I honestly don’t do much real cleaning). In assisted living, someone else would be doing all those mundane chores for me. With all that free time, I would actually be able to have fun doing the things I want to do.

I’m ready to enroll on the spot. Assisted living would be my last chance to see what it was like to live away at college – something I still regret not being able to do in my youth – when I worked full-time and attended college at night. I missed out on all that college dorm fun and communal living and never experienced the thrill of living on my own.

If I ran the PR ad to attract Baby Boomers like myself to assisted living, it would read:

Assisted living: Reliving The Glory Days Of College – With Legalized “Medical” Marijuana On Site

As we leave the assisted living tours, I’m chattering excitedly about the possibilities – the different room sizes available, the huge bathrooms that someone else would clean, the prepared meals, the room service, the laundry service and all those day trips on the calendar.

“I want to live there!” I tell my husband. “Let’s do it. We’ll sell the house. I won’t have to cook or clean. I’ll finally have time to write my book! Did you see how empty the exercise room was? No more standing in line at the crowded gym, waiting for an exercise bike with a sweaty seat.” I try to find something he can get excited about…”You won’t have to shovel snow or mow the lawn anymore!”

But he cuts me off and punctures my balloon. “My father is the one who has to decide on a place,” he reminds me. “He’s the one moving into assisted living; not us.”

When I tell my adult son about the assisted living facilities, he agrees with me. “We should all be able to live in assisted living, no matter what age we are,” he says. “Then we could play all day and have everyone else do the work.”

“Exactly!” I say. At least someone in this family understands me.

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A Letter To Caitlyn Jenner

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Christine Vanderberg

Dear Caitlyn,

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you should have spoken to more 65-year-old women before investing all that time and money on your transformation from male to female. You may look like a 30-something woman now, but big changes are coming your way. Let me fill you in on a few.

Those perfect boobs you have now?   They will be heading south soon and, in a few years, they will catch up with your waistline – if you have any waistline left. All those curves you have now will spread out and fill in to blend into one amorphous shape, similar to that of a sack of potatoes. It won’t happen overnight. It happens so slowly that you won’t even notice it at first.

One day, you will pull out a pair of vintage pants from the back of your closet and you won’t be able to button them. You’ll swear that they shrunk in the closet because they will be two inches too short, and when you try to pull up the zipper, you’ll get a wedgie so deep you might have to call a proctologist to access the damage.

That beautiful mane of hair on your head will start to thin out soon. And the funny thing is that while the hair on our head is thinning, the hairs on our upper lip and jaw line are multiplying rapidly. Soon your face will resemble a giant fuzzy peach.

I understand that, despite your fabulous feminine appearance, you’re still bothered by the voice thing. When you open your mouth, you still have a man’s voice that isn’t quite right – now that you look like a woman, that is. I don’t think you should trouble yourself about that. Most women in their sixties start to sound like men anyway. It’s a hormonal thing – like the hair – so that’s the one area where you’ll fit in perfectly with the rest of us gals.

How do we explain these curious metamorphoses? It’s nature’s ironic joke: As men age, their testosterone levels decrease and their estrogen levels increase. In aging women, it’s the opposite: their estrogen levels decrease and their testosterone levels increase. So men become more feminine as they age and women become more masculine.

Now you know what’s coming down the pike – as far as the bodily changes go. What I failed to mention is that by the time most women reach your age we are wizened enough to know that looks do not define what it means to be a woman. And hopefully, in the natural process of ageing – losing our youth, our radiant beauty our sex appeal, and all the things that we have grown up believing are the essence of a woman – we learn something about our inner selves and what really matters.

So, forget the estrogen shots, the plastic surgery, the airbrushed photo shoots. If you really want to know what it’s like to be an authentic 65-year old woman, join the rest of us who wear elastic waist pants, have short-layered haircuts and trim the peach fuzz off our faces every month.

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A Staycation Vacation

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Christine Vanderberg

My husband and I took a “staycation” this year and were very pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had.  There is so much to be thankful for, living where we do on Long Island, and often, because it is all so close to home, we take it for granted.  We have some of the best beaches in the entire country just a few minutes from home:  Robert Moses State Park, Town of Babylon’s Overlook and Cedar Beach and other smaller town beaches like Tanner Park and Venetian Shores. The view from the Robert Moses causeway bridge is spectacular – deep blue bay and ocean waters and bright green beach grass as far as the eye can see.

August 1, 2015: Our first day at the beach this summer. Finally!

August 1, 2015: Our first day at the beach this summer. Finally!

We heard music on the beach one evening at Tanner Park while the grandkids ran around in the cool evening sands, ice cream dripping down their arms.

Beachkids

Future Lifeguards

Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

We went sailing with a brisk north wind that pushed us to the beach.  In the afternoon, the wind shifted to the south and carried us home.

Oh Captain, My Captain

Oh Captain, My Captain

We had dinners out most nights from our neighborhood restaurants.  My favorite fish dinners are not at a fancy restaurant, but from our local Peter’s Bay Village Diner at 236 Broadway in Amityville. “Of course!” the owner told me. “I get the fish fresh – every day!”  It’s great to have a local place to eat, where people greet you with a smile and that small town familiarity.

Sometimes it’s wonderful to stay in your own backyard and avoid the crowds and the traffic, the flight delays, pat down security checks, the hassles of packing and uncomfortable hotel beds. Sometimes, we have to open our eyes and see our old familiar neighborhood like we’re looking at it for the first time.

I often think – we’re so lucky to live where we do.  People pay lots of money to travel to a vacation spot like this, with beaches and restaurants, live music, outdoor theater, boardwalks and ocean views – all within a 15-30 minute ride by car. Dorothy was right. There’s no place like home – even when you’re on vacation.

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The Fear Factor And Other Effective Disciplinary Tactics

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Christine Vanderberg

Forget all that psychobabble about talking rationally to children. And don’t bother with those useless “time outs.” You can’t reason with a child; they’re smarter than we are. They know how to work us, how to manipulate, bargain and charm us into doing anything they want.

Want to know the secret to a well-disciplined child? It’s the fear factor. If you can instill the fear factor at an early age, you’ll have it made. How early? As soon as they stop being cute, around ten months, or around the time they start pulling themselves up on the furniture and tossing your precious knickknacks off the shelves – whichever comes first.

My mother knew how to work the fear factor. She didn’t argue, or raise her voice at us kids, she simply said: “Wait until your father comes home and hears what you did!” Those words were enough to make me stop in my tracks and start begging for forgiveness, even if I didn’t know what I had done.

When that strategy failed, she grabbed the wooden spoon, the heavy-duty one that she stirred the macaroni with. It was a sturdy swatter, enabling her to extend her reach at least a foot beyond her own arm’s length. I used that method on my own children.

I only had to say, “I’m getting the wooden spoon!” and they stopped misbehaving immediately. Sometimes, all I had to do was rattle the spoons around in their holder or smack the counter top a few times so they could hear me from the other room. It was relatively effortless, on my part, but very effective.

Wooden Spoons - A very effective fear factor

Wooden Spoons – A very effective fear factor

As the boys got older the wooden spoon became a joke, so my husband took on a more mature method of discipline, which involved no punishment at all. Instead, he would take them into a room, close the door and give them, what became known as “the talk.”

The first time he did this, I didn’t know what he was going to do. I waited anxiously, with my hand on the doorknob, ready to run in at the first sounds of spanking or crying. But, even with my ear pressed to the door, all I could hear were low muffled sounds of someone calmly speaking. It sounded like they were behind the confessional curtain with a priest.

When the talk was over, they would both emerge from the room calmly, silently, with downcast eyes.

“What happened in that room?” I would ask my son the next day, when my husband wasn’t around.

“Nothing. Dad just talked.”

“He talked?”

“Yeah, it was pretty boring. We would rather have you punish us, mom,” they admitted. “Dad takes too long.”

Later, when they were much older, and started to drive, I had to come up with something unique to put the fear factor into them so they would obey their curfews. They were much too old for the wooden spoon and my husband couldn’t stay up that late to give them “the talk.” One night the new fear factor unfolded by chance.

I fell asleep in a living room chair, waiting up for my son to come home. It was well over an hour past his curfew when I heard him quietly sneaking in the front door.

My eyes were already adjusted to the darkness, but he couldn’t see a thing. I moved silently, with a Ninja’s stealth, through the dark room to within two feet of him. And at the moment when he thought he was home free, I whispered, “What time is it?”

The neighbors probably heard his screaming all the way at the end of the block.

The fear factor. It worked; he was never late again.

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