a little red hen

Roxie Reads New York Times...Style Section, thank you

 

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.

Grannies Speak for Us & Arrested Once Again

MARCH 18, NEW YORK CITY, Eve, 6th anniversary Iraq War, Times Square Recruiting Station

 

 THREE YEARS AGO, a Tax Day Protest, Harlem Recruiting Office, April 15, 2006

(top two photos by Eva Baird of Granny Peace Brigade)

WHAT YOU CAN DO...Read about them HERE.  Find out ways to help Counter Recruitment in YOUR community.

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.]

 

Goodbye PDX, Hello Again New York

You'd think it might be the other way around, that I'd be energized by returning to the Big Apple, its subway sounds and sights.  No, been very slow--not reading blogs much, not writing here.  In the week we've been back have  been housebound mostly.  Oh yes, to the doctor about persistent arm/shoulder pains...more later. 

More serious medical stuff has been around Ron's lingering Northwest cough (see Marianna at Hattie's Web; visiting grandkids in Seattle was her source).   He was helped by going to one of  Providence Hospital's Urgent Care sites.  Great views from the parking lot!  But then a nasty side effect of leg pains.  Turns out antibiotics  depleted his potassium.  He's fine now, vitamined-up.

  We had such a good time with our grandkids.  What a treat to live right across the street from them.  So much so that I will refrain from details of the challenges of the house where we stayed.

Instead, here's a view of some of their shell collection under a tub.  Folks who own the place have spent many years working in southeast Asia, like us they have run out of places to store shells.  There were gorgeous baskets too.

 Back to my lethargy in the City.  Finally have one idea:  I was employed!  Yes, life with our daughter, Rachel, means you are in her system.  For seven weeks, we retired from retirement.     Found this perfect button at a cute store in her Portland neighborhood, with its cute name, Noun.  They take pages from discarded dictionaries and make  $1.00 buttons.  Wore mine pridefully, along with Obama buttons.

Though it had warmed  in Portland the day we left--and did so periodically during our visit--it was very cold as we stepped off the plane in New York.  

Our son was back to wearing his huge, fur-lined hat. The style he wore as an undergrad at Wisconsin, then again in grad school at Brandeis.

He finally got a Visiting Prof gig at Tulane in New Orleans (before Katrina); very hot summers.   Ron tried the hat, then Roxie, of course!

Now all in our extended family in the City have colds--not restricted regionally.

Postscript:  You wonder why button appears upside down?  Me too!

Nick Bloom Hits NY Times on Groundhog Day

I was about to get in the shower this morning when my cellphone rang.  It was my friend Audrey calling from New York.  "Have you seen the Times?  Nick's on page 8 in the first section!"  Our son had told us last week about his upcoming appearance on the Time's blog to answer questions about the City's public housing.   But we had no idea that it would be announced in the daily paper this way.

Since the publication last spring  of his book, "Public Housing that Worked:  New York in the Twentieth Century," he has received attention in public and academic quarter for his even-handed approach.  Many are suprised to learn how successful public housing has been in New York City--and why it needs to  be supported. 

Today, nearing the end of our long visit in Portland we are far from Nick in New York.    This afternoon our grandson Zach was excited to see Uncle Nickel's picture on my laptop.  There are similarities between the two of them besides looking alike as young children.  Both have great eye to hand coordination and worked together on a book about China when Nick, Leanne, and Roxie visited this summer.

Of course, this special event for our family has nothing to do with Groundhog Day.  Except that we will remember February 2, 2009.  For an entirely different take, check out today's  Mason-Dixon Knitting.  Kay Gardiner can really put a spin on the every day.

UPDATE:  The affordable, paperback edition of "Public Housing that Worked" has just been released by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

We Meet Again...Powell's, City of Books

The Grandmothers met again...this time in a less amiable climate than before.  Marianna coughed.  I sneezed.  Hers-- the result of visiting her young grandchildren in Seattle.  Mine, my entire  Portland family has  colds.  I have a vision people all ages along a trail  through the Northwest as a noisy and nosey cacaphoney, tissues in hand.

We talked about politics in this city where she once lived.  Currently there's  the sad story of Portland's new Mayor.  Will his recent disclosure end his career?  My knitting led to an explanation of the way  needle-wielding  women had emerged in a virtual explosion over the last 15 years.  Groups, yarn shops everywhere.  We want to make things with our own hands.  An accomplished cook, surrounded by great fruits and vegetables in her current home in Hilo, Hawaii, she understood.  

Elderblogging had brought us together.  What would Ronni Bennett reveal from her time off from the practice?  She thought I'd met Claude in her hometown, Paris.  No, we had an in-person visit when she came to the U.S.  Marianna knows a great deal about European cities unfamiliar to me like Barcelona.  It's quite noisy I learned.  Oh, Portland is wonderfully quiet after New York.  I've only heard one car alarm in all these weeks.

Our spouses began their own conversations.  That worked for us.  Ron was the major cougher in our group.  Terry, partner to Marianna, seemed to have escaped the popular illness.  We envied him.

I realized afterwards that it would have been fascinating to hear what each of them would say about one of my recent Powell's purchases--she from a literary perspective, he from a scientific one.   Our time together was too short!  It's the green one pictured here I refer to.  ( I've only just begun the one on dieting.)  Still trying to figure out what fuels my robot interest.

Photo at top features two abandoned books outside Powell's.  A friend suggested maybe the bookstore's secondhand desk would not buy them, so they were left for the taking.  Very Portland.

My plan for this posting  included a link to our first meeting last year shortly  before Obama's election, once again I've been undermined by TypePad.  Something else Marianna and I have in common is our shared struggle with TP and their unhingeing of our posts and comments.  Too much innovating, I've told them.

They've lost the photos from that post, also  rendered  it unlinkable.  So here reposted is my snapshot  of her and Ron from that balmy day, outside Pearl Bakery in Portland.

 

Obama Begins, January 2009: Reflections from a Singular Week

Much as I loved the inauguration, it was odd to be viewing it from the west coast rather than east.  This sense of distance from Washington, gave me some insight to something I'd noticed as we've visited Portland over the past ten years.  Events that are powerful for us in New York, often do not have equal impact on people out here.Except for 9/11/01.  We came here the month after and often were asked, "How was it?  Do you feel anxious living there?"  All the intensity around security seems to have been directed toward the anxiety of those living outside New York City.  We had a better idea that we are no longer safe.  We have to live with it, go on with our lives.  Forget taking shoes off at the airport.

Tuesday, January 20, I could forget the things that do frighten me-- the dedication of the far right to shift all I valued.  We had pushed them aside for the moment, enjoyed our power to elevate to the Presidency an intelligent, humane man. And not-white--remarkable for aging people like me who had sat-in at segregated lunch counters in the late 1940s, been a summer school student at the University of Kentucky in 1954 during its first moments of integration.

At the last minute my grandson's elementary school gathered kids into the auditorium to watch the inauguration in the auditorium on a small TV with rabbit ears borrowed from a first-grader's family.  On the other coast, the momentous event would be less improvisaional.

Barack and Michelle Obamas sang the national athem.

What must they have been thinking?  We heard the thoughts of Reverend Joseph Lowry, my own connection to last century's civil rights struggle.

Charming to have it all end with "old school dancing."  Even as I know how very difficult the years ahead will be.  Like them, I want some simple pleasures.  Theirs was this glorious day with its two million on-site participants.  For me, it was feeling more hopeful for my famiy.

By the end of the week, I was ready for the two women pictured at the beginning of this post.  Melissa Harris-Lacewell, historian at Princeton and Patricia Williams, Columbia Law School and columnist for The Nation appeared on Bill Moyers' Journal.  The link leads to the transcript which I urge you to read.

The two have much to say about many sides of this historic event.  Their exchange on why it is  important to see  Obama as our first black president, not bi-racial, needs to be required reading around the nation.  They point to his selection of Michele as partner--a smart, tall, educated black woman--is significant to Obama's claim to his own racial/cultural identity.

A similar impatience with  "bi-racial" was blogged about by Betty Reid Soskin on the same day.  She had just returned to California from the inauguration. (By the way, Betty is an older Elderblogger than I'd recently written--87 years.) A valuable by-product of Obama's campaign has been the chance to hear thinking from more educated black women and men than before he ran.  Who knows what new learning is ahead?   

Invitation forwarded from NYC...which button wiil I wear?

Like everyone else, my expectations are high for President Barack Obama.  Far from the East Coast where I'm usually  closer to Federal action, I feel a bit disoriented.  My Elderblogging friend, Betty Reid Soskin, has flown from California with her special invitation for January 20, 2009.

As I watch from Oregon, I'll think of her, an 83 year old African American (still working as a Park Ranger) who has known discrimination on both coasts and perservered through many life changes.  Her next post at CB Breaux Speaks will be wonderful to read.   My own hopes are expressed in the many categories  listed at the end of this post.

 Sunday's Oregonian featured a long article  on Portland as the whitest city in the United States.  It's a long and sorry story that goes back to its beginnings in the middle of the 19th century.  Young Oregonians and new residents are asking more questions--a hopeful sign.

Housing Ourselves in Late Life

"Can we talk?" that Joan Rivers comedy opener works for this not-funny post.

Name the unspeakable for older Americans, you might think "death."  And after that?  Moving from where I live right now to any sort of shared housing.  The range is quite extensive from retirement communities to cohousing.  We do not want to deal with the idea of our last move?

I know this from my personal life and my Elderblog efforts.  It's harder as the years go by.  Those who made the change from an individual house to a retirement community in their sixities could be seen as "early adapters."  That's one time of choice:  when the idea of a Sun City, golf course may fit a longed-for lifestyle.  It's usually husband/wife couples who make this choice.

My spouse and I moved from a large house to an apartment in New York City.  Both of us had been  NYC apartment dwellers, looked forward to returning to a larger city than Baltimore, were tired of house maintenance.  That was 13 years ago; we're in our seventies now, have thought more about where we want to live ten years from now.  Do we wait till then?  Do we wait till one of us is alone  to make that change?

Ronni Bennett's post this week, Rethinking Living Arrangements, was a great surprise.  I was sure that my interest in collaborative living ideas was not shared by her.   I was wrong, she made clear in a strong declaration, following a bad bout of illness:

One of the things that repeatedly ran through my foggy head during the past four or five days is that old people should not live alone.

Here then is my second or third effort to have us talk.   The comments left at Ronni's blog mirrored the struggle we share in making this decision.  Could we go  beyond the "I know I should but..."  stage and figure out a way to talk back and forth about what we've learned in trying to decide what to do next?

In 1991, Jane Porcino wrote a very useful book, "Living Longer, Living Better," based on her own search.  She found small group living situations around the country where older people pooled resources and responsibilities.   Two years later, Ron and I met her in a group attempting to begin one of those ideas, cohousing, in New York City.  Later Jane and Chet moved into an  early cohousing community in upstate New York.  Was she ahead of her time...will these ideas have more resonance with a changed economy?

It would stretch Elderblogging for me if readers of Time Goes By , of other blogs would figure out a way for us to have an ongoing conversation about late life housing choices--retirement communities, assisted living, fulltime RVing.  You can find Jane Porcino's book for $1.00 online.   There's a website for a Cohousing Association with links to books and blogs about it.  Anyone know of bloggers in retirement communities/assisted living?

UPDATE: Visitor response to this post has been both surprising and gratifying.  Today, Monday morning, December 8, more comments than any other post since I began in March 2006.  It's clear that we want to talk and share resources.  I'm adding a new Category in the column at the left, HOUSING OURSELVES... will return to the topic regularly.    Guest Blogs on your  process are welcome...also  in-depth information/interviews from elders who have made this transition.