h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Activities 1

It was dangerous to get too close to my great-aunt Ethel Oberholtzer. Especially if there were no restraints. Mother took her to Sea World once, and as they sat on the bleachers the announcer exhorted the audience to introduce themselves to the person sitting next to them. Great-aunt Ethel's restraints flew right off and she turned to her neighbor. As mother recounted it to me, the conversation went something like this:
Hello!
Hello!
I'm Ethel Oberholtzer.
I --
I'm from Lansdale.
That's in Pennsylvania.
I have a son called Cresson.
My husband Henry is dead now but he was a salesman.
We're related to the Kriebels and the Benners and the Cassels.
They're from Lansdale too.
And so on until her victim fled. That was great-aunt Ethel. No restraints.

I have only met one woman like her so far. I don't know her name because it wasn't necessary; she wheeled up to me and sort of trapped me in a corner, uttered a big Hi! in broad New York City accent, complimented me on my hair, and then she was off. After about five minutes and the third stomach tumor recollection I found an excuse and moved off. She didn't mind, she and her bright red sequined vest and shiny black cowboy boots. She always smiles broadly when she sees me and calls out loudly, "Hiii!! Howaya?" Ya gotta like her.

That first encounter took place in the day room where it's OK to wheel up and introduce yourself to strangers, or start conversations with acquaintances. I don't spend a lot of time there because I'm not a cocktail party kind of person. Nor am I into bingo, Wii bowling, being read aloud to, or gathering in a circle to toss a ball back and forth. Or watching The Price Is Right communally while growly bear F keeps up a running commentary.

Activities! I'm talking about activities. Both secular and religious. Despite a rather limited budget the head of Activities tries to schedule one outing per month. It might be to WalMart or it might be to the Natural History museum. She schedules live music on weekends and special occasions -- country for the Anglos, ranchero for the elder Hispanics. The monthly birthday party. Garden club in the summer, teach-yourself ASL in the winter. It's eerily like an elementary school in many ways, even down to the decorating of bulletin boards and the twists of crepe paper that festoon the room on holidays.

I am not being the least bit condescending about this, even if none of it tempts me to participate. It's an important way of filling up the day for a lot of residents. Oh, I've been hailed by one volunteer or other when I'm on my way through the room, and invited to join in finding "how many words you can find in 'schoolteaching'." But my laptop and kindle are waiting for me, and I have things to do!

Very few of us do. J used to be my room mate until my air conditioning ways drove her out of my room and in with Bertha. I noticed that she had certain things to do at certain times -- the crossword puzzle from the newspaper, the rosary at 9:30, the coffee at 11, and always a novel at hand. Several residents have laptops, several more have ebook devices. The rest have... activities. They had jobs and social networks and stuff when they were independent, but somehow they left all that behind and brought little with them.

Take Anna. She was, for a long time, quite a pain in the butt, because she would roll into my room with no invitation and start picking things up. Not just my room, but wherever her eye fell on something. She sees something and decides it's out of place and then, by Balthazar's Hammer, she won't be deterred, and she'll check back again and again until the memory wears out. She was born to keep house. Staff sometimes give her a pile of towels to fold; it makes her happy, satisfies a drive I recognize in myself to be productive. Where this compulsion to neaten becomes inconvenient or worse is when she finds some papers lying on someone's table and carries them off to the shredder box. Or when she starts pulling on catheters, not realizing what they're attached to.

When Anna tried to neaten me in my bed I appealed for help to the head nurse, who came up with a length of material with velcro at both ends that could be attached to my open door. No, I can't close my door; my room mate is a fall risk. The length of gauzy stuff had a big red STOP sign in the middle, which wasn't a lot of help with Anna because she speaks only Spanish. Of course the staff hated it, and then it got less and less sticky, and it all came to an end when Anna wheeled over, pulled the cloth down, folded it up and placed it on my room mate's table before wheeling out again. So there.

All activities but the ranchero (that's a peculiarly Mexican song form usually with a sort of polka rhythm) music take place in English, so Anna is one of the group kept at the nurses' station. She sits and watches, or dozes, or folds towels.

[Amy P]

Yet again, a fascinating journal! Your tone comes across as humourous and compassionate although a lot of what you're writing about must be really irksome.

Deb

Anna must be channeling 2legs.

My mother and your great aunt might have been soul sisters.

I'm so glad for you that there is wifi there, imagine how terrible it would be without this outside link.

Who need organised activities in the day room, when you've got towels to fold!

Hi Lil

I have been following all the journals for the month but somehow I had missed yours. Found them just this morning and have spent the last hour reading through, alternately laughing and weeping. I have three extra years on you but my 'history' has many of the memories that you listed. At the moment I am, what do they call it, 'hale and hearty' having not had enough opportunities to behave disgracefully and over indulge! So far at least.

Your journals have given me the impetus to think about the possibilities of where and how I might end up. I need to somehow put in writing that if I ever end up with certain anti social or offensive behavioural patterns I would wish to be put down. Large overdoses of hallucinogenic substances my preferred method.