June Chitchat

[Prot]

Same here re more recent movie stars. Bogart was a good actor, who passed away far too soon. I've read that he was actually a sophisticated and highly intelligent man. Alistair Sim was a good actor too.

[agate]

Odd fact: My mother went to school with Humphrey Bogart's sisters. She said he had a speech impediment, and you can hear it ever so slightly in his movies.

[Prot]

I had no idea. What was the impediment? If all goes well I'll be a grand uncle on Monday. Should I feel guilty for feeling ambivalent about it. He will be my youngest niece's son . I have been here nearly 9 years, and the only birth family person I have seen is my late father. There are understandable reasons re my brother, who is not doing well. There are no such reasons for my sister and nieces.The older one will be 32 this year and the younger 29. . I've seen very little of them. I won't see my grand nephew much.


My sister is being far more helpful and supportive about my brother's troubles, than she has ever been about mine. I feel both glad that he's getting the help and support he needs, but also hurt and jealous at the same time.

[agate]

If my mother went into more detail about Humphrey Bogart's speech impediment, I've forgotten them, but I did look Bogart up on Wikipedia and found that there has been considerable debate about how he got the slight lisp that is noticeable sometimes. People seem to assume that it came on later in life but he must have been only a teenager when my mother knew his sisters.

I don't know if it's of any comfort to you but I've run across many people who have close relatives who exist but haven't stayed in contact. It's very unfortunate as we could use friends and support as we age. I've known any number of people in this building who are in that situation: a woman who died at nearly 98 but whose married son and married daughter both lived in remote states. The son never visited in all of the years she lived here (at least 10 years), and the daughter visited once or twice.in all that time. Briefly.

There is a woman who sits out in the hall these days and can no longer get groceries due to dementia. She is relying on whatever food neighbors give her. It has come to light that she has a daughter and two sisters but both are in another state and apparently not in contact with her as nobody here has ever seen them. They should be obliged to come to her rescue but it doesn't look as if that is about to happen.

Families often exist but aren't being traditional families. I'm beginning to think that traditional families might be the exception rather than the rule.

[Prot]

Thank you. I have good,loving, family here in Wiltshire. I shouldn't moan, but it gets to me every now and then. That's awful about the woman with dementia.

[agate]

It's getting more awful by the minute. Often in a situation like this, the building's office manager looks up the resident's contact information, usually a family member if there is one, and lets that contact person know that the resident is having problems and something needs to be done. With luck, the contact person steps up to the plate and either comes on board to help or finds someone who can provide at-home help--or arranges for the resident to go to assisted living or some other facility.

But if there is no luck with the contact person, the building manager probably takes steps toward finding an alternative for that resident. I'm not sure how that works.

This building requires people to be able to live independently. The woman in question is living independently, in a way, but I'm not sure how independent she is if she's depending on handouts from other people for food and even begging for food from people.

It was my hope that the manager would contact one of those Idaho relatives, or all of them, and get some action.

But Thursday was that manager's last day here, and now we have no one. We're likely to have no one for many months yet--based on past experience. This is federally subsidized housing under HUD, and apparently the salaries offered to staff people in HUD buildings are too low to be attractive to most job-seekers. This has been the way it's been for decades.

The manager who left lasted a year and a half. She seemed to have settled in nicely but now she's gone. The other staff person here is the maintenance man and I doubt that he has the authority to contact any relatives of this woman.

She seems to be planning to stay on indefinitely, munching on bags of crisps or whatever people give her in a chair in the lobby. By now people expect to find her there much of the time, with her little food supply handy on her walker. Maybe she can pull this off for years but I doubt it.

Older people are a sadly neglected lot in world where youth is glorified.

[Prot]

To what degree, 'independently'? I'm only 69. I live on my own, but wouldn't be able to - without help and support close at hand. My daughter has done a social services carer's assessment. Having a wife with vascular dementia while having a severe mental illness myself that was exacerbated by stress, was damn hard. I beat mysellf up for not being the 'perfect carer', but on hindsight I did the best I could. It definitely aged me.

On a brighter note. I'm trying to cook a pork casserole overnight in the slo cooker. There'll be enough for 2 meals. 3 at a push. My daughter has been very good, bringing me meals. I had the first proper salad I'd had for ages. It was so tasty.

[Prot]

Pork casserole was a success. 2 helpings + just the gravy have gone in the freezer.