a little red hen

The Last Time I Saw Portland...

Unexpectedly, it was snowing here in January.  Now Portland, Oregon's  weather is sunny, the envy of our friends in New York drenched with rain over the past week.  The two cities seem to have exchanged climates.

It's been too busy since we arrived to think about blogging.  But today I read the last two posts at TimeGoesBy.  Reading her responses to the prevalence of Blackberries on her visit to Manhattan was timely.  My daughter's Blackberry was next to me at the breakfast table.  Left there as she took the baby up for a nap.  I never get over how tiny the keys are.

But I have seen it's utility.  Last week a call from a broker while we were on the playground with Zoe.  Nice to have a cellphone.  Needing to make arrangements for her to show someone our apartment, we were impressed by how she could receive call and email on her little device.  "Now I get it," told my daughter.

Of course it's all so speeded up--faxes for contract exchanges were added to the mix.  I guess these innovations are more appealing when they facilitate something important to me.  But no Black or Blue or Redberries in my future--too much to keep track of along with my knittng.

Today's TGB, a tidy listing to terms around the healthcare debacle plus concise explanations of what is at stake, sparked an "Aha" moment.  Here is why we will not get a single payer plan or even a very useful "public" option.  It would mean that all Americans would be joined in a way that would threaten what is so important in our political system today:  how to keep groups of us at odds with one another.

Think of it.  Medicare for all, for example, reduces the conflict between  older and younger people.  Our energy might be directed toward making a better national health system rather than setting up old people's entitlements versus those of children. 

What would keep the Repubs and Dems going?  They'd have to be thoughtful--finally answer why only Congressmen and Congresswomen were entitled to the best healthcare benefits.  And that might lead to, oh you remember the term, Democracy.

Ron Bloom Celebrates Another Birthday!

All my love and thanks for all the places we've been, crises we've survived,  children and grandchildren we've loved...

...and your great patience in teaching me too many things to list...what I've learned from your pleasure in sharing with everyone who comes within your range.

  All of us look forward to many more June tenths with you--

most especially yours truly ...

Celebration: High-Rise Style...Last night--a building party where we live. Lee Morgan, Ron's co-chair and great party-giver, suggested this one as they wrapped up their term of office, turned it over to another pair. Singing the Birthday song was a high point of the pot-luck evening...who says New Yorkers don't care about one another?

Coming Out: Myself as "Reluctant Elderly"

Flipping through images in my iPhoto file (favorite thing about my Mac), I come upon images from birthday lunch for my 75th last August.  I meant to blog on how it felt to be "feted" by a group of strangers.

Did I enjoy it?  Absolutely.  Were the people my age or older?  It was a mix at my table, mostly women but more men than I'd expected.  Must have been 100 there for lunch at the Lenox Hill Senior Center.  Got that?  The invitation to celebrate this landmark day (pictures here from the event) came about because I had joined the Center back in 1998.  And never returned.

Backstory.  Deep into kitchen composting as an art form, I'd applied for a small grant from the Puffin Foundation.   The idea was to form a group of seniors into a Kitchen Compost Troupe.   We'd  celebrate the 2001 closing of Fresh Kills, home of the world's largest garbage dump on Staten Island.  Each of us would have nurtured my patented invention, "WormWare,"  world's smallest kitchen composter.

Of the several ways I devised to gather such a group together, I visited Lenox Hill Senior Center.  I spoke with a social worker about making a future presentation on "Composting in Manhattan."   She suggested that I have lunch that day and get a measure of the participants.  Readers, I joined a senior center.

That was a jolt.  It was very personal--unlike teaching a class in Baltimore at an "Eating Together" program in my fifties--this was about me at 66.  Not ready, too soon, I thought. The grant came through but my plan changed after writing a second grant.   "This Dirt Museum:  the Ladies' Room," was an interactive installation at Queens Botanical Garden in 2001.

I never returned to the Lenox Hill Senior Center.  Well, they were all the way over on the east side of town where I rarely go except to museums.  Their knitting group was not as, how would you say it, "up-to-date" as the ones I attended.  The food was very institutional and I felt uncomfortable about it's small one dollar price.  This was not me.  At that moment, aside from reluctance to see myself as one of them, I hit the social class issue.  Senior centers in many cities have been established for people with limited resources.  In New York, their financial support comes from  non-profits working with the aging and the City Council.

Fast forward to 2008.  After all my years of neglect--I did carry the membership card in my wallet for years-- Lenox Hill was gracious enough--to send me an invite to their monthly Birthday Lunch.  Had I been asked in other years (I forget much these days)? I decided to take them up on their offer.

I really enjoyed myself, Ron too but he's less critical than I.  Several of my lunch companions were working seniors.  One woman in public relations wanted to connect with my westside Democratic club because she said  it seemed more active in the Obama campaign than her eastside group.  She also thought  knitting Condom Amulets was amusing and a smart way to promote safe; the actress sitting next to her agreed. 

Having heard that there was a national a move to "update" senior centers.  In New York City the Mayor had big plans to make them more "health-oriented" and reduce their funding.  On the way out I spoke with the two social workers running the program.  Things were not good they reported.  In December, Mayor Bloomberg was resisted in his efforts, with strong opposition by our Council President, Christine Quinn.  Elsewhere from Wellesley, Massachusetts to Los Angeles, California, it's evident that denial about aging takes many forms in addition to my own reluctance.  

Ron and I will soon move into a continuing care retirement community in Portland, Oregon.  Besides accepting it to myself,  I have come out to anyone who will listen that it feels right to describe myself as "elderly."   Yes, more attitude adjustments lie in ahead.

[This post in appreciation of  two this week at TGB on aspects ageism and especially the comment by Tamar at Only Connect that followed the first post.]

Katie and Three Doctors* Arrested in Senate Hearing

My friend Katie Robbins was arrested in the U.S. Senate this week.  The occasion was the Senate's second "public roundtable discussion" on healthcare.  Is this the best we can do for idealistic, young people? 

Late last year I met her, the one and only person running a tiny office-- just a desk in a room with other organizations-- for CNHP-NOW (Campaign for a National Health Plan).  You can read about this courageous group of single-payer healthcare supporters and their non-violent protest here and  here. 

They are mad as hell.  You should be too.  Have you written an email, signed a petition?  Max Baucus, that condescending Democrat Senator from Montana where there are NO people, yet they have two Senators just like the eight million here in New York City. 

Why is Max Baucus so tied to the insurance industry?  It cannot be about what they do for Montana;  it must be what the insurance business does for Senator Baucus himself.  Yes, it is discouraging to have such a lame Congress representing our needs--both parties are in need of serious change.

As if all of us single-payer advocates were not angry enough, the great placator,  New York Senator Schumer (who represents me) has come out for some sort of compromise, a Band aid, to keep regressive Democrats in the fold.  Folly to try this approach.  I'd rather put money and energy into support of better candidates for their seats--and let them know NOW that we will.

Can Elderbloggers like you and me and Hattie's Web and Happening Here and blogs I have not identified as yet (add others, please)  convince you to become Little Red Hens  around single payer health insurance or Medicare for All--even though the powerful interestes in this country hope to disempower all who know this is the best route to universal healthcare in America?  [Links in the first paragraph of this post have dates organizations are mobilizing a heightened effort in the month of May.]

Can we do more for those younger than us, or are we so tired of the struggle that we  think--and sometimes I have this thought-- it's not our problem anymore?

*Dr. Margaret Flowers, one of those arrested and now known as the "Baucus Eight," tells why they did it in a two-part interview at News from Underground, Mark Crispin Miller's political blog.

Manhattan Apartment Sale: A Lesson in Flowers

For you the time from the end of February to today is a blip in time.  You, of course, are a normal person.  Selling a home in America right now is strictly for the less than normal--folks like me for whom time stretches something like that Salvador Dali watch image.

Seems  ages  ago that I wrote the post, This is my kitchen in Manhattan & it's for sale!   Many of my friends in Elderblogland wished me well and admired my pretty kitchen.  Though our life here has continued with going about the city, seeing off-off Broadway plays, getting together with granddaughter Roxie, the sales project has been quite distracting.

  Figuring out how to be our own real estate agents (more on this in another post) has evolved into at least a half-time job.  Then I thought, why not document the flowers I buy--turning the project into a minor art endeavor. 

 Doorbell just rang.  There are other apartments on the market here in Morningside Gardens, with its six buildings.   Studios, one and two bedrooms like ours. 

Open Houses are held periodically, so we get some visitors on those Sundays.  We straighten the hall pictures,  leave for two hours, fingers crossed!

And promise to post more regularly both here and at my other support site, Elderexercise.  (Have you noticed that I've made attempts to take some flower photos ala Claude, my co-author of the exercise site?  Looking at her Blogging in Paris images provides a high standard.) Today learned from the New York Times that the big city where most people stay in place is Paris.  Something to think about.

Jon Stewart, Comedian, Marks Passover with Offense

Last night my disgust with "The Daily Show" and Jon Stewart show was tempered a bit by watching an old episode  of "Third Rock from the Sun" before bedtime. This morning I was still angry that he could use his considerable influence to demean old/elder/elderly people-- along with Jews-- by "celebrating" National STD Awareness Month with the most tasteless, offensive skit imaginable.

Did Stewart or cast member Jason Jones, who carried out the segment in a Jewish Senior Center in Miami, have a particular agenda in mind?  Jones began by interviewing an 80-something as he smiled with how his goal in life was to get as much sex as he could--by whatever means.  When Jones asked if this might amount to assault, I thought he might be going in a purposeful way toward highlighting the problem usually addressed in talking about younger men toward women.

Wrong.  The "interview" went on to belittle the Center's efforts to educate members about safe sex.  I believe the woman demonstrating how to use a condom was Miriam, The Condom Grandmother.  Remarkable person who became an educator after  losing two of her bridge partners to AIDS--women who did not demand that sexual partners use condoms--or maybe did not know they should.

When I read  Ronni Bennett's post today, "Elders and Fair Hiring Practices," on the insensitivity of journalists who give job-seekers advice  totally skewed to the not-young, I used that opportunity to express my anger about the ageism of Stewart's show.   Do you ever see an older person there?  Nancy Pelosi, Madeleine Albright have appeared.  The staff must feel quite clever in covering two invisible  categories of untouchable on the program's guest line-up--women and old people. 

Stewart puzzles many of us.  Often his humor is ironic.  But what about his own often expressed discomfort with aging?  Worried about losing his very young audience as he might be mistaken not as their bar buddy but their father?  Frequent references to himself as Jewish more toward the ironic too.  But last night, the night of the second seder for Passover, it was strictly anti-semetic as Jones played for laughs in this obviously Jewish setting in South Florida. 

Have you read the statistics on the high rate of HIV there?  Do you have a suggestion for who should get my complaint about the show?

Old people, we do not have an advocacy group.

Funeral as in a Snow Globe from my Harlem Window

 "Get your camera...look out the window!"  Saturday morning, 9:30 a.m.  First, a pair of white horses with funeral carriage behind.  Waiting?  Then a long truck.  Another horse, this one tan was attached to them.  Another truck with second white carriage, one to carry passengers.

Next a car with a coffin...carried to public housing building, followed by a woman dressed in white, many mourners.   Space is made around a woman with turban and objects in her hand--perhaps a  griot-- followed by another.

Mourners return to the street, family members climb into open carriage.  Mourners receive white umbrellas from man (seen at bottom of griot photo) probably part of the funeral home arrangement.  We believe we're watching a Jamaican funeral... began in the brief morning snow, left Amsterdam Avenue to turn onto 125th, accompanied by drummers.

We were reminded of the more elaborate one we watched from our windown for Dr. Barbara Ann Teer.  For today's person there is no notice in the New York Times.  I offer this visual record to my neighbors at Grant Houses.  

                                                                                     ***

DEPARTMENT OF CLARIFICATION:  Surprised that this real event was mistaken by a commenter for a movie set rather than the actual event, I contacted  my source for all things Harlem, Uptown Flavor.

"There have been a couple of high profile people who have died recently - Harlem politicians and the owner of the Amsterdam News.  I couldn't pinpoint who it was but I was venture to say someone like that would have a procession in the neighborhood."

Your St. Patrick's Day & Mine

March 17 has an odd resonance for me.  Back in 1945, it was on that day I got my period for the first time.  [Would the new "My Little Red Book" been helpful... Is this what my granddaughters will need?]

Here's my brief  litany of other life changes that have occurred on notable holidays.  Thanksgiving: lost my virginity...An abortion on Labor Day.  Married Ron on October 29, famous anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash.

Riding an elevator, I overhear a woman in her forties  describe in detail how she recalls the day from working at Saks Fifth Avenue in the 1980s.  Drunken women would be throwing up  beyond the revolving doors--some would come in searching for a bathroom.  People tell me that liquor is now prohibited for  marchers but there are the observers.  When I was a young working woman in the 1950s, I'd dread going home from work on St. Pat's.  Unleashed inhibitions abounded in Manhattan; men--not women in those days-- reeled everywhere. 

Today I was unaware of the holiday, my bus and subway ride from Harlem to the east sixties had been absent any green.  At Crate & Barrel, though, a middle-aged couple entered in goofy, oversized green hats.  I asked the gentleman if people commented on his outfit,   "We own the city!" he declared.   I could not resist, "Well, you did own it."  He insisted, "Today we own New York!"

Walking west along 57th Street,  a policewoman at Madison tells me The Parade  began 15 minutes earlier   further downtown.  Picked up my pace.  At Central Park South, a man was giving out small cards enclosed in plastic bags.  Handed me one.  When I lifted my camera he asked if I'd like him to cross the street so the horse drawn carriages would be included.  Not really, "I'm glad to take a picture of a mature couple." She seemed to be an out-of-towner with a heavy Irish accent.

Tucked here and there on the less Irish upper west side were other markers of the day.    Silver Moon, the French bakery at Broadway and 105th, offers a timely selection plus  shamrock-shaped cookies.

When I got home the free card turned out to contain "The Gospel Bracelet" with a warning of my need to repent.  Perhaps.

I think Roxie will like the wrist decoration and it's adjustable.  I also realized the three things I'd bought at Crate & Barrel were green.

And  the message?  That the Irish always entertain-- even us cynical, overly-grounded, non-believing descendants of other European peasants.

Check out the Irish Potato King in the Chicago River pictured at Hattie's Web.  Something equally exotic could be in the future for New York City's Hudson River on another March 17 when the Irish own our town.  

 

This is my kitchen in Manhattan & it's for sale!

Yes, that long winter visit in Portland, Oregon,  even with its unseasonable snow, confirmed our decision.  We'd gone with the idea of  re-locating.  Call it Second Stage Retirement.  In the first one we were in our early sixties, had two unmarried children. 

Fifteen years and one quadruple by-pass later, we're ready for  a place slower than New York.  The subway steps are more of a challenge these days.  Both children are married, have their own kids. The idea of being with the three in Portland as they grow is very appealing.   It is, we believe, our last move until the very final exit or Third Stage.

With the unstable real estate market we wondered, as we left in mid-December, whether we'd look to buy or rent an apartment as a temporary measure?  Few days before we left, I Googled "retirement communities" in Portland.  I'm still not sure how it escaped my eye before.  It's been around for 50 years!  Unlike most retirement places, this one is  right in town--we could walk to the center city, take a bus to our family's neighborhood.  Maybe a possibility?

 January 10, was our first visit to Terwilliger Plaza.  A non-profit  CCRC   (continuing care retirement community), it is designed for "healthy people looking for security.   When I stepped toward the reception desk to sign in, the pleasant resident volunteer (I'd say she was a bit older than I, maybe early eighties), looked at my Obama button, smiled, said "Isn't it wonderful?"

 That first  surprise was followed by the second:  it was much more affordable than Kendal on Hudson, another non-profit CCRC, that interested us earlier.  Plus the apartments were attractively designed, most with a  view of Mt. Hood.  Most important was that  Ron was very enthusiastic too.  The postings on the bulletin boards on each floor indicated that we would be comfortable with the social environment.  Of course we'll be a bit "different."  Always a bit outside the line,  I was amused when Ronni Bennett once described me as one of New York's  "typical upper west siders."  Yes and no.

Speaking of Ronni and selling our apartment, I called her last week to talk about the upcoming sale of our apartment. She left the City three years ago  after an extended effort to sell her much-beloved place in Greenwich Village.  Just like our visit with her in  Maine two years ago, our free-flowing conversation surveyed everything from blogging to bagels.  Great to hear her laughter again and get her input about financial stuff we'd face.

Leaving Roxie, our local granddaughter, is the sad part of this move (seen here with a pickle, one of her favorite foods).  We rationalize by saying that our daughter and her spouse are permanently (or as much as anyone can be these days).  Our son, Roxie's dad  has the potential for more mobility as a young academic. 

Many readers  had much to add on my December post, "Housing Ourselves in Late Life."  The dialogue continues today and in the months and weeks to come.  In my effort to include a PDF file for the first time on A Little Red Hen, this is how the link offers itself-- Download Co-op flyer NEW color.  If you know anyone who would be interested in our  two-bedroom co-op in Morningside Gardens, that will give you the photo above plus two others and details.   Our very special community with its six buildings around a beautifully landscaped central garden has a history of being unknown in New York.  Thanks to Wikipedia we get our due in their description of  the many sides of  the upper westside neighborhood, Morningside Heights.

[Visit Marlys Styne's Never Too Late! for another Elderblogger experience on a recent move to a highrise CCRC in Chicago.]

 

"Not Massachusetts, Please!" HR 676 Supporters Alert Us

Yesterday this important email arrived from Healthcare-NOW!  It outlines what has been going on behind closed doors to push single-payer healthcare (also known as Medicare for All) off the table.  Read, pass along to friends: 

"Invite everyone you know to watch the upcoming Congressional forum on the Massachusetts reform live on February 25, from 2-4 PM. This is a unique opportunity to listen to witnesses, medical professionals, union representatives, and patients from the state of Massachusetts testify against the problems of the reform to Congress.   Listen this afternoon to the Congressional Forum

The New York Times reported last week that, "Since last fall, many of the leading figures in the nations long-running health care debate have been meeting secretly in a Senate hearing room."

The sentence should make us all tremble. Those whose pockets books will benefit most from health care reform are secretly meeting. It also sounds familiar. 16 years ago, the last time health care reform was on the national agenda, the secrecy and exclusion of Congress in its development was one of the major reasons why the reform failed.

Similar clandestine strategies are at work again today. The people sitting at the table include pharmaceutical and industry lobbyists mixed with big labor unions and other special interests. The people who will be most affected by the reform have no voice at the table, and there is certainly no strong advocates for single-payer included.

The Kennedy legislation will include a mandate component to health care reform. This means any citizen not eligible for a public option - primarily Medicaid (for those with low-incomes) or Medicare (for the disabled or those over 65) - will be forced to purchase private insurance or risk being fined or otherwise punished.

The "Individual Mandate" model is currently used in Massachusetts. It is a deeply flawed plan resulting in huge profits for the insurance industry and little improvement to the health care access and quality of the state. This is not a model for the Nation.

Here are the major flaws of the Massachusetts model for reform in a nutshell:
-The plan is bankrupting the state.
-It is not universal.
-It criminalizes the uninsured.
-It is not affordable for everyone.

Is this the model we want for national reform? NO!

If you haven't already done so, invite your representative to attend in-person on your behalf here. "

One part of me feels there's a magic moment now...for genuine equity in health care, i.e., that we can act as if healthcare in America is a right.  Please, let me know your thoughts.