I learned the sad news that our manager, Nikki, is leaving her job. I certainly don’t blame her, as I feel that many folks didn’t like her from the get-go. She is a high energy person and not much for delegating, but she did a lot of positive things for this place, but so many residents can’t handle the changes that she made. Little things like relocating bulletin boards and having quarterly resident meetings rather than monthly meetings. Her job was high stress because of major breakdowns and people not being able to understand setbacks that she had that were out of her control (delays in scheduling contractors, parts not being available, having to work within a budget, and working within corporate requirements). I thought she was a fresh breath of air around here and will miss her friendly greetings whenever I saw her. It is strange to live in a place like this where people my age act like they are already in a nursing home.
I turned out to be the only person attending Genevieve’s art class on Tuesday so I got a private lesson. We made clay prep bowls and my idea was to make three nesting bowls. We talked about her gardens quite a bit and I offered to take a look and give some advice on plant choices and pruning. So I went to her house on Friday and we took a tour of her yard and gardens and I came up with a few suggestions. We then sat on her patio and had a very nice salad for lunch and then she went with me to an estate sale that I was planning to go to. I will be helping her with some pruning and a little bit of planting this morning.
I was so hungry for barbecue ribs, that I bought a rack at the store and gave them a good coating of dry rub seasoning and baked them for dinner last night, along with baked beans and coleslaw and strawberry shortcake for dessert. I invited Deb and Cathy to join me and we had some great conversation for a couple of hours.
Joey got a bath on Wednesday and a haircut yesterday. I decided to try the haircut without giving him any calming medication and it worked out just fine. He is really sensitive about having his legs and face cut but as long as I do those areas in short bursts, it works out. I got the job done in an hour and have a few areas to touch up. I keep scissors and brush nearby so whenever he is relaxed and sitting near me, I do small areas at a time.
We have gotten air quality warnings almost daily this week due to warm temps and air currents bringing smoke from Canadian wildfires our way. My eyes have really bothered me and although the daytime temps have been very comfortable, I have had the AC running most of the last week. It was so bad on Wednesday that many activities were cancelled, including the twins’ soccer game on Wednesday night.
I spent a couple of hours with Genevieve his morning, pruning some shrubs and cleaning out some garden beds. She showed me this cool garden sculpture that she made and we cut all of the damaged branches off a cedar tree that the deer had attacked and used the trunk as a support for her sculpture. I think it turned out great and we both really liked it. I will be going back to help out again in a week or so.
