WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

Once again, I forgot to post this yesterday. That's the second time and I have no excuse except that--well, I forgot.  

WEDNESDAY: In the morning, I steeled myself to take the trash out and pick up the mail from yesterday, being especially careful to push the cart and walk reasonably slowly. 

I was alarmed to get a notice from the post office that a registered letter had come from a law firm in Jersey, which they tried to deliver yesterday, but nobody was there to sign it. What? I had been home all day on Tuesday and nobody had rung the bell. I decided to ask Noreen to drop me at the P.O. after we went to lunch. Did a color wash and cleaned up a bit before she did at 1:00. I had asked her to decide where to go to eat and she chose Danny's Deli, which was fine by me. Her friend, Gary, met us there and we had a good time. As ever, Noreen and I talked and talked and Gary mostly listened--or didn't listen, as he was a hearing loss. I know he has a aid, but he doesn't seem to use it and we have to repeat a lot. 

After a leisurely meal,  we said goodbye to Gary and Noreen took me to the post office. It turned out the letter was no big deal. It was from a firm announcing about a new development being planned in Little Egg close to Sunrise Bay, where my house is. I guess it's just a legal requirement to notify nearby residents. 

Home at 3:00 and I was tired. Watched T.V. for an hour or so, then took a short nap. After dinner, I played around on the laptop. Happily I slept well and just got up at 5:15.

Today, Ellen will get here at 12:30 and we'll start on our quest for Mama's living arrangements. Now I'm actually looking forward to it, strangely enough--the quest, that is, maybe not the actual move.  

THURSDAY:  Now it's 7:00 am on Thursday, November 7. I'm going to make this short although it was a very full day. We got to our first look-see, The Lexington, at 12:30, and were greeted by (the director? the manager? The Big Mahoff?--Can't remember the title) and shown around. It's pleasant enough, but seemed a little dated (it opened 46 years ago). I thought the apartments were oddly laid out, especially the one-bedroom ones, which I would probably choose.  We were then ushered into the dining room (not impressive) and had lunch. Ellen had a taco salad and I a hamburger, which did it for me. It was clearly from the freezer--and I was naive to ask for it rare, and it was clearly a pre-shaped, bought frozen one, perfectly round and grayish. What's more, they don't serve alcohol, so no IPA--horrors! Of course, you can bring your own, but.... Of course, it hall all the usual amenities, but considering the negatives--and remarkably, it was one of higher priced ones--no.

Next, we visited The Orchard. I'm not going in to a lot of detail, but just read the previous paragraph and turn all the negatives to positives. It's only twenty years old, the dining room was lovely and there were nicely printed menus on all the tables, and the one-bedroom had a wonderful large balcony looking over the landscape. To top it off, we talked about the cost--well, we negotiated and it's actually lower than the one at The Lexington.  I also liked the fact that there, the independent living section is in  different building from the assisted living/memory care.  If that sounds mean, so be it. The only drawback--wouldn't you know, there was one--is that it's in Ventura, not Ojai, so is an extra fifteen minutes away from Ellen's. Anyway, here's The Orchard:

I'm going to end this now, but there was much, much more to like about The Orchard, including Carissa Peach (love the name!), the sales director, who showed us around. Ellen had told her about me, mentioning Fractured Actors and my writing, and so on. I was amazed when she gave me this notebook for my writings:

The three of us had a lot of laughs together and I told her that when I was in H.R., so long ago, I would hired her immediately.

Anyway, home about 5:00 and El and I talked about our experiences at the two places. Today, we go to Cypress Place at 12:00, but won't lunch there, as El has a doctor's appointment at 3:00. Now I'm going to end this have breakfast--sorry for the missed entry. 💖