Poor Son Notes

Many residents of the Happy Sunset Senior Home seem pleased to have their smiling faces appear on advertising material. My mother does not wish to contribute to their advertising campaign. In this episode I explain why.

I pause to reflect upon the cruelty of the system of "Elder-[don't]-Care". Moreover, it is hypocritical and ugly to notice the misrepresentation on every webpage and every Facebook page......As if everyone who is elderly spent their time having "fun", smiling, and enjoying the good times. A criminal misrepresentation of the cruel reality! And I didn't even mention the criminality of the food served in the dining room......

You would think that if you pay for help, you should get it. My mother's experience has been that this is not true. The result is that she is neglected, and the neglect borders on abuse. It is not active abuse, but passive abuse. She's left to sit in a dirty diaper for an hour--even though she's buzzed for help two or three or more times.

My mother, a 95-year-old invalid, couldn't get to the dining room for breakfast. No one came to help. She pays to have people take her to the dining room. The Assisted Living place where she lives is permanently under-staffed.

This episode is based upon a conversation with my mother, a 95 year-old invalid. It describes how bad it is in the so-called "Assisted Living" residence where she lives.

Hearing the obnoxious, already-too-often played pop music, as I walked to the laundry room, I thought about how this represents the outright contempt which is delivered on a daily basis to my mother, and others of her age...

Planning my trip to the local hospital for a Covid test, I am so happy! The most direct route is shut down for repairs. I shall have to voyage through the slummiest part of town, where there are factories and roads with prize-winning potholes! How interesting! The people who work in those factories look like ghosts, often smell like cigarettes. And, on the same buses, you may see a starry-eyed young nursing student. LIke night and day, those two groups of riders. So, I shall waste my time riding the long way for the Covid test. And, as I think about it, the joys never end. I'm supposed to do a census. The online census portal won't admit me. I need an official ID. I've got a government issued number. It doesn't work. I've got my passport number. It doesn't work. I even tried to register through my bank (what a concept!). That didn't work either. I tried three or four times. Wasted my time. Wasted my eyes becaues I increasingly suffer from tired eyes on days when I teach online. Finally, I shall have to walk over to the closes post office; and that means wasting the better part of an hour. Evidently my time is not valuable. How happy I am!

Public transport should be free. It should be convenient and easy to use. The buses in Pardubice seem to keep (pretty much) to their schedule. Otherwise, I have nothing good to say about them.

I recently spoke to my mother. She is 94 years old, and has severe arthritis. It is not comfortable when the AC blows cold air directly onto her. Her care-givers--who are 40 or 50 or 60 or more years younger than her--do not notice this or think about it. I attribute this is a broader indifference to the consumption of energy in the USA, and especially wasteful and unnecessary use of AC. (Alas, I see this starting to happen in Europe too....) When I lived in El Paso, Texas, I witnessed young people who would dash to turn on the AC if they merely sweated a little bit. This is wasteful and self-indulgent. Of course, there are times when AC is necessary, but that ignores the most basic fact that my mother's actual comfort is neglected. (And we are paying these people to take care of her!!! Some of them, it seems, take care of themselves first!) I would also like to add into the total equation the fact that my mother's residence is owned by a "real estate trust", and the management company which runs the place must return a reward to the owners (a.k.a., "social parasites"). In order to do that, costs must be cut. One way this is done is by keeping the place perpetually short-staffed. Another way is to have cheap AC/heating units, which, it happens, are noisy--on top of their other inconveniences. (EG that in the middle of winter, they regularly blow freezing cold air before they blow hot air--and 'blow' is very much the operative word. Drastically inferior to steam heat....) Another noteworthy feature of the place is that there is only one elevator, and it regularly breaks down. (The poor manager on site was embarrassed when on the grand day of the first "Corona Virus Vaccine Clinic", the elevator broke down, and stopped people coming down from the upper floors. It was repaired pretty quickly, but the scene was revealing about how the place is really run. A while back, a previous manager actually talked about buying a brand new elevator. It never happened. And there were also rumors that the place should have had two elevators, back when it was first built. Obviously, such an expenditure would cut into the demands of the social parasites called "owners".) My mother is virtually a prisoner, in her own "home".

In these two comments I stress a basic point which wasn't previously emphasized. And I engage in a dialectical discussion of a doctor who greatly saddened me, "Dr. G." (But who also, truthtold, did help me.)

Sometimes, it seems my life is filled with the experience of washing my clothes, by hand, or with a machine. And this seems to indicate a sort of flow, a pattern or rhythym in my life. I do not understand it, but here I recall some of my experiences--during a stay in Eastern Europe, whilst attending a Summer Seminar for College Professors, and currently. Is it really to much to ask for? To ask for the ability to choose the soap I wash my clothes with? Am I too demanding when I say I don't want someone else deciding how my clothes will smell? Apparently, here (again) in Eastern Europe, I am being too demanding....