If more people discussed the senior issues before they were there it might help, although it may still be tough to recognize you are there.

A woman in my book group has been awesome this way. She, her husband, and a bunch of their friends pooled together to get in at the pre-construction phase of some condos downtown. They were able to have design input to make everything handicapped accessible, they're close to restaurants and shopping, and they're near a bus hub for when driving becomes fraught. She's thinking they'll be good until they need full-time nursing home care.

Mom talked a good game and checked places out. But she kept saying she wasn't that old until cancer and mobility issues pretty much trapped her in the house. After she passed, Dad moved into a senior apartment complex. He stayed pretty active in his church and had friends who checked in on him. And, for the last year or so he had me there nearly every weekend. It's a good thing I don't have kids, because juggling both would have been fraught.

If I were planning to stay around here, I'd try doing what my book group friend did in about 15 years. (Getting everything planned and built took ~3 years.)

My grandfather (91) and his wife (early 80s) moved to a senior living place more than 10 years ago when she was in great health and he was doing okay (could still sail). But it's still hard - my mother (64) is flying to MD from MA this week to help coordinate care when he goes in to get a pacemaker. My aunt was doing a lot of this - she lived 45 minutes away - but she died a year ago, rather unexpectedly. I don't know if the facility is not doing enough or they are reluctant to ask for more help. (They have also had issues with somebody stealing Oxycontin - my grandfather has a ridiculously huge prescription for it, although warranted. I should note that this is a super-high-end senior living place, the kind of place people who own a sailboat move to.)

Of course I certainly expect to never ever get old or sick, but I at least feel comfortable that DH and both boys each have strong nurturing qualities. I trust them to make decisions and/or convince me to do what I should.

I will be posting pictures some time later in the week, but my level of glee with the house projects is off the charts. We have done a huge amount of work the past few days. Tearing out the patio screens, lots of yard stuff, changing the exterior paint color. The results were better than I imagined by far. I told my neighbor he deserved vast quantities of hugs and kisses for his suggestions. The parental units will stop by tomorrow on their way north and I am anxious to show off. Many hands helped. My boys, and basketball kids, and friends of friends. Awesomeness.

Are these preparing to sell the house projects, Laura? I'm glad they are going well, whatever the purpose.

Definitely a coffee and pie for breakfast day for me. Lucky for me I happen to have coffee and pie available.

Yes, -t. The house needed some 'curb appeal' updates.

Mmmm, pie.

It's nice to start the day already under the bus.

Right there with you.

It's nice to start the day already under the bus.

I did not get enough sleep last night and I feel like well trod ass.

I'm pretty sure my boss is mad at me for asking if we could not do the weekly meeting yesterday since we were all really busy. I didn't even add the part about the weekly meeting being a complete waste of time, but she's still annoyed, and she's going to be in my office today which means I have to spend more time I don't have trying to get her unannoyed

re: trigger warnings for college classes

see this article in Salon: [link]

I don't know WTF to think about all of this. My courses, while not free of controversy, do not often feature explicit assault kind of material. So the kind of trigger warnings I see on tumblr and twitter would not fit. However, on occasion, I have told students to prepare themselves for shocking visuals (like of really bad disease) when I show a research ethics movie.

What I think a lot of people are unprepared for, but I don't address it via "warning" is discussions about racism (for example). Some of that stuff is triggering, really. But since it is part of what they expect to discuss, I feel people know what to expect generally.