"We're all just waiting to die here - I don't wanna be like that"

Rydal Park Retirement Home, The Fairway, Rydal (Jenkintown) PA

When I visited my friend Betty Wms here, I'd park in the Whole Foods parking lot. I was hoping to see Betty and I did. Plus many other wonderful people.

Here's my dear friend Helene in the living room of her three-bedroom well-windowed apartment. She's experienced mild shell-shock from leaving her own home in Maple Glen about a year ago. Then her children sent her to the Artman Home, dementia capital of the western world, but her friends helped her escape.

I came straight from shopping at Giant where I brought her

Helene badly needs intellectual stimulation, so I also brought her a copy of a Paris Review Interview with my fave writer, Nobelist John Steinbeck.

At noon we went down for a cafeteria lunch.

I couldn't eat since I didn't bring my insulin but in her apartment I ate my whole-wheat pretzel sticks and an unstoppable amount of really fresh almonds.

Just got off my exercise bike cuz my sugar was a whopping 174. While on bike, I watched Bonanza for the first time in lo these many years.

Great episode! Mistaken identity will cause Paw to be hanged. The other Ben Cartwright is a con man.

Will exercise at end of blog cuz I had more than the allotted watermelon and chili con carne.

My chili is really delicious. I used left-over pickling spices, which I'll never do again cuz you must spit them out, and the usual veggies. I prefer chili sans meat.

The beautiful bowl was given to me by Helene. She said her son dumped the rest of her dishes in the Dumpster to expedite ridding her Maple Glen house of furniture.

Here's Helene's couch which I remember from the living room of her Bauman Drive house. There were two of them separated by a coffee table with seashells on them, among other objex d'art.

I just kept snapping away, a regular East Coast Bill Hess.

Above is my friend Betty Williams. I said to her, Betty, I still have those little dishes you gave me when you moved here from your home.

They're in my downstairs baffroom next to the ND phone I keep permanently off the hook so I won't hear it ring. It goes directly into voicemail.

Betty was aghast when her husband Bill insisted they move into Rydal Park. They'd traveled the world together, have wonderful children and great-grandchildren. He died about 10 yrs ago, as the men usually do.

He used to organize programs at Rydal Park in the below room. I never met Bill and would've been scared to anyway.

Their main room where they have entertainment and hold religious services. One time I went past and heard the pastor of Abington Prez  preaching a hell and brimstone sermon for the elders. I was horrified. Fortunately most of the residents are hearing-impaired.

I just love Betty Wms, who I met when she was in NAMI. When she and her aide Sue were in line I asked her How are you doing?

Terrible, she said.

How's your garden, I asked.

I don't have one, she said. They moved me to another floor.

Such are the indignities that occur as we age and enter our dotage.

Here's Betty, 90, and her aide Sue from Liberia. All of Sue's relatives are in America. Like me, they watched the Olympics last nite tho Betty did not remember. I watched at Mom's house. Mom had no idea what was going on. Neither did I.

How's Chip, I asked Betty about her only son.

Fine, she said. He's coming to visit this afternoon.

Meet Kurt Simon, 90, who escaped from Westphalia in 1939 before the Nazis could get him and his family. He worked as a German translator for the government before retiring.

He's been at Rydal 14 years and is very happy. Helene and he are on the same floor. I said to him, "Helene says you have a wicked sense of humor, Kurt."

I asked if he has any family. "I'm the end of the line," he said.

Basically I talked to everyone around me....Edith, 82, from Elkins Park who's been there two weeks and loves it. "I do everything here I could do at home."

She was eating a healthy salad and said the food is too good, she's worried about gaining weight.

Helene can't stand the food. She was a wonderful cook back in the day. I used to go over for b'fast and she'd serve me Davie Eyre Egg Pancakes and for dinner when we'd often have flan for dessert.

For lunch, Helene had a really unappetizing meal: lox and cream cheese on lily-white bread. No wonder she hates the food.

Next time, I said, get it on whole wheat bread. A bagel, she says, is too big to fit in her mouth.

No one can understand what I'm going thru, she kept saying. She does not accept suggestions at all.

Here's a previous post I wrote about HAR.

The many windows at Rydal look over sumptuous gardens.

Altho Helene wanted to go up to her room after lunch, I prevailed upon her to walk around the downstairs, which admittedly is now governed by the Gestapo.

Previously, one could come and go as they liked. I used to just walk in to visit Betty, but now, as in Artman, you must sign in. Every resident wears a bell around his neck. An identification thing where you can probly holler for help.

All told, I spent less than two hours with Helene.

When I exited thru the sliding glass doors and was greeted by a sheet of hot air, I looked at my watch: 1:30 pm.

It felt like I was there for six hours.

On the way home I stopped at a garage sale on Sleighride Road, where I bargained for a few items.

I told the woman who ran the sale, on the right, I never come down Sleighride but they've milled Cowbell so now I traverse Buckboard and Cowbell instead of kicking up dust, heigh-ho Silver, on Cowbell.

I snuck into Scott's house and delivered this 'golf shirt' I bot at the garage sale. For $7, I bot the shirt, a pair of sunglasses, and two books for Grace Catherine.

Grace and Mom-mom, whom I visited yesterday for lunch.

"I push this chair in," said Grace, as she smashed her toy dog Lucy's head against the table as she pushed the chair in.

"Bye, Bubby," she said, as she and Mom-Mom climbed up for the nap.

I just love when she calls me Bubby.