Call waiting

When you have to make an appointment to see your mother, it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Since her recent move to an independent living apartment - NOT assisted living, she will remind you - my mother's bingo card is often full: a nightly movie, for instance; breakfast with Bill from Kensington;  a chair yoga workout; streamed Sunday mass. 

It's all good: My mother is instinctively a social animal, so approaching a table of residents or reaching out to someone who appears lonely is a given. 

"They like me because I get along with everybody," she says of her new neighbors, including the next-door resident who had a "do not disturb" sign on her door.   

Guess who breached that garrison.

Now mom gets "all dolled up" - in her vernacular - to mingle with others. No more breakfast in her pajamas. Most recently, she was proud to announce that she got two trivia questions correct. She didn't say what they were. She has asked me to help with word scrambles, so she'll get a head start on the other residents.   

She can have a doughnut during the regular Rosary group. When I asked her how a recent singer entertained without background music, she replied: "She had a microwave." (The mistress of the malaprop meant a microphone.)

Besides her favorite sugar-free creamer and white bread with butter for early-morning nourishment - she gets up way before the breakfast run - her food is provided. But it is hardly gourmet, as is expressed at regular resident meetings. 

Can't have everything, right? There are waiters to take her food order and deliver it. Meals are opportunities to socialize. But the special grub we were told about as we convinced my mother to move to her new home isn't so special.

We have learned to get to CVS - where she insists on bringing her empty pill bottles to get prescriptions  refilled - and a little Italian restaurant.

On a recent visit, I spotted a sign for a class on making a pumpkin spice drink. The night's movie was "Singin' in the Rain." (Quick story: In her teens, mom worked at an old movie theater in her native Philly where the beloved musical drew lines around the block in 1952.) 

There are growing pains, but this will likely be my 91-year-old mother's last home. I'll have to start booking my visits in advance.

      

    

Walmart

                                                             

      

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