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Aging in place

Aging in Place…by Damn!

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Why in heaven’s name did I never think of this?  It’s so obvious!

Hire someone to come to the house and provide the services you’d get in an old-folkerie.

  • What would be the advantages?
  • What would be the disadvantages?
  • What would be the effect on M’hito?
  • What be the effect on me?

Y’know, my father checked himself into one of the first and most prominent “life-care communities” in Arizona. (Don’tcha just LOVE that marketing euphemism?) The place was called Orangewood…and it was within walking distance of my house in North Central Phoenix.

My mother had refused to go, so he was stuck in their house in Sun City until she croaked over — which she did promptly enough, thanks to her suicidal tobacco habit.

You need to know that he had gone to sea all his adult life, living on naval vessels and commercial tankers. So he was deeply accustomed to living in an institutional environment.

  • He didn’t mind close quarters.
  • He didn’t mind having to behave like he was in jail.
  • He didn’t mind bad food.
  • He didn’t mind other people telling him what to do and when to do it.

Personally, I loathe that lifestyle. Hated living in the dormitory.  And I would — truly — take a flying leap off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon if I were forced to move into one of those nursing-home knock-offs.

Turns out that some alternatives do exist, even though they’re not obvious.

Bear in mind: moving into one of those awful “life-care communities” will take ALL of your life savings.

So…uhmmmm…. If you decline any such move, will you not then still have your sticky little hands on said life savings?

And if that’s the case, couldn’t YOU decide how said L.S.’s will be spent, on whom, and when?

  • Why could you not sic your financial representative on the agencies and organizations you’d need to hire? Have him ride herd on them, see that they’re paid, that they do the job, and they don’t cheat you.
  • Helle’s belles, hire a second financial rep — or a lawyer — to ride herd on the first one.
  • It would be complicated as Hell and you’d need to have honest, reliable representatives…but…it could be done. Couldn’t it?

See the gist of what I’m saying here? You could hire your own people to provide the services you get from a “life-care community.”

You’d need more than one person. Taking care of an ailing oldster is no easy task…and it is, as a practical matter, a 24-hour job. You’d probably need at least three people, to cover three eight-hour shifts.

Hiring three people to hang around and watch over you 24 hours a day would, indeed, cost an arm and a leg and then some. But remember: when you move into one of those life-care outfits, they take everything you have.

To move to Orangewood, my father had to fork over his entire life savings, including the funds he got from the sale of his paid-off house. And though he wasn’t John D. Rockefeller, as an inveterate cheapskate he had piled up quite a mound of cash to see him and my mother through their dotage.

Okay. So: what are we looking at, if instead we hire private staff to babysit us in our own dotage?

  • What would be the advantages?

* They would be my employees, not beholden to some company acting as a holding pen to store my body while we wait for me to die.

* Therefore, I could hire and fire at will. If I were dissatisfied, I could find someone else to come in.

  • What would be the disadvantages?

* I or my son would have to ride herd on them.

* This would mean we not only would have to be sure they were paid fairly and on time, but also that income-tax documents were filed and that the employees understood their responsibilities for paying their taxes.

* Any dishonesty or shiftiness on their part could have painful consequences for us.

* Any loss of marbles on my part could also have painful consequences, for everyone involved.

* And of course, having someone in your face every day would be, for a loner like me, quite the little adjustment…

  • What would be the effect on M’jito?

* It would foist an untoward responsibility on him, one that could be quite a burden.

* If tax reports were incorrectly filed through no fault of his or mine, the government could harass us.

* It would free up large amounts of time for him, during which he would not have to ride herd on me.

  • What would be the effect on me?

* No doubt I would be less than perfectly pleased to have someone underfoot all the time — at least 8 hours a day, and maybe more than that.

* On the other hand, if it would keep me out of an old-folkerie, no doubt I could somehow make myself adjust…

In some ways, it’s a toss-up, isn’t it….

Swampy Day//Swampy Brain

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Quarter after 7 in the morning. Just back from an hour-long doggy walk through the swamp: 80 degrees on the porch (relatively cool! …but…). Fifteen percent humidity.

So sez Wunderground! I would dispute that: it is a SWAMP out there just now. The air is so wet you feel like you’re swimming through it.

Good thing about it, though: relatively few dog walkers at the park. Ruby and I were able to walk around there with rather little pestering — people don’t realize that what Ruby wants, as she wags her tail so cutely at them and their dog, is to remove their pooch’s head. 😀

LOL! Speaking of Swamps, I’m told (without credible proof, that I’ve been able to see so far…) that I have Alzheimer’s and my brain is going to Hell on the Proverbial Handcart.

Heeeee! I could believe it more readily if the docs in question hadn’t just met me. If they’d known me for any length of time, they’d recognize that the handcart left a LONG time ago.

Truly: I’ve been air-headed and absent-minded for decades. And…y’know, by way of checking your marbles, the doctors give you silly little arithmetic problems to solve.

Heh…  You’ve heard of dyslexia? Well, folks: I have dysmathia. 😀  No kidding: I NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE NUMBERS IN MY HEAD. Part of the reason for that is that I never learned the math tables. You know: 7 x 8 = [Gawd knows what]? So when a Mayo shrink sits me down in his office and tries to get me to tell him what 7 x 8 equals, quite naturally he thinks that particular marble has left the building!

Do I think I’m l having some cognitive problems?

You bet I do!

But do I think those problems indicate Alzheimer’s? That, I would question. Vigorously.

Sentimental Journey…

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Oh, my goodness! You cannot begin to imagine how much my mother would have loved my son. How smart she would have thought he was. How right on in his moral compass and opinions.

And how I would have loved for her to meet him.

Those thoughts (among one helluva lot of others) drifted through my dainty head his morning, as I cruised around the west-side housing subdivisions, sightseeing.

Sun City, where my parents betook themselves for their retirement, is over on the west side. The tracts have continued to grow, crawling across the desert like a hungry fungus. The parenta would be just AY-MAZED if they could see the place today.

But equally amazing is the other growth out there.

The Sun Cities are now HUGE. And whereas the original neighborhoods consisted of little brick bungalows, now the newer parts are built up with standard plaster-and-tile tract houses. Interestingly, though, they’re pretty well designed, Result: even though the houses are eve-to-eve (that would drive me nuts!), they’re rather attractive, and the entire development is more than pleasant enough. I think my mother would have liked its new incarnation.

There’s much more shopping and things to do out there now. Back in the day, my mother had to drive in to Phoenix to shop for anything other than groceries. Now, it looks like just about anything you want can be had without having to drive around much.

The newer chunks of Sun City run right into similar, older tracts, built of brick and mortar.

Would I like to live out there, now that I’m old?

Probably not…for the same reason I’ve never coveted the Sun Cities: It’s segregated housing. Only people of the desired age (and, we might add sub rosa, the desired color) need apply. That’s just not how I wanna live.

A Black friend of mine bought a house out there a few months ago.

He lasted…what? about three weeks.

No kidding: so much hate greeted him that he turned right around and moved back to the East Valley, whence he came. Charming, hm?

That notwithstanding, today it was kind of entertaining — in a blandly monotonous way — to drive around and inspect the houses and the neighborhoods.

But I’m mighty glad I don’t have to live there anymore…

Home or Old Folkerie?

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Sittin’ around the house thinking….

Am I gonna be able to stay in my home until I croak over?

Or will I be forced to sell this place and lock myself up in one of those prisons for old folks?

You know whereof we speak: “life care communities.” All the rage for keeping elderly delinquents off the streets these days.

Welp, y’know… Those institutions had just come into vogue as my parents entered their dotage. My father, having gone to sea all his life, was not the slightest bit daunted at the prospect of selling their little home in Sun City and consigning himself to the care of an institution.

But…my mother would have none of it! NO WAY in hell was she going to put herself in a nursing home before she needed it!

Little did she know how soon she would need it. She died on my birthday in her 65th year.

The cancer so generously gifted to her by the world’s tobacco companies killed her….less than a month after her 65th birthday. The nursing home was rolling her, in her hospital bed, down to the Medicare ward when she passed.

She was decently cared for in the nursing home…probably because my father drove in from Sun City every day. walked in the door when they opened at 7 a.m., and sat there beside her bed, watching, until they threw him out at 11 p.m.

But…

Frankly, I think my father was right: They should have imprisoned themselves in Orangewood, the “life-care community” of my father’s choice, before she got sick. He had discovered the existence of such places about eight months or a year before she fell ill, and he’d tried to persuade her to move into one. She would have none of it.

And…

Well, I don’t blame her. Personally, I loathe institutional living. Truly, truly hated living in the dorm. And that is why I don’t want to move into one of them. Too much like living in prison…

After she died, he promptly sold the little house in Sun City and forked over most of his net worth to move into Orangewood. And I can assure you that he liked it there. Well: except that he made a key and unreconcilable mistake: he married a horrible dragon lady who, once she had him trapped with a wedding ring, made his life miserable.

No, he wouldn’t divorce her, because

a) He was afraid she would “get all my money” in divorce proceedings; and
b) He was afraid of the gossip a divorce would create among the other prison inmates.

Dragon Lady was outgoing and busy: she was extremely popular with the Orangewood natives. And he probably was right: if he did divorce her, he no doubt would want — if not need — to move out of that place. But…those “life-care communities” glom ALL YOUR CAPITAL. He probably wouldn’t have had enough money to get himself into some other place, plus all the money he had given to Orangewood was basically disappeared.

Result of that: he lived out the last few years of his life in utter misery.

***

Would my father have been better off if, instead of institutionalizing himself, he had hired people to come in and take care of him at his place in Sun City?

Putting aside the fact that he was too tight to do that…let us think about it:

* Here, Pool Dude keeps the drink pristine. My father’s Sun City palace had no pool. However, because it was so poorly built (basically uninsulated), its AC bills were far higher than mine. So one might regard SC power bills, compared to my house, as a wash…in the pool.

* Wonder-Cleaning Lady comes in every two weeks and renders the house spotless. Because there are no kids or cats here, the place stays reasonably clean between visits.

* Gerardo wrangles the landscaping — which, because it’s xeric, doesn’t demand much. It has an automatic watering system: I don’t even have to do a hose-drag to maintain the place.

* I have no problem caring for a small dog. Ruby is basically effortless, as roommates go.

Given that my father’s house was paid for, to have stayed in Sun City and hired a yard guy and a cleaning lady wouldn’t have cost him anything LIKE what Orangewood cost. Not even if he hired someone to come into the house daily, check on him, take him to the grocery store, maybe prepare a week’s worth of meals for him.

Zillow estimates my house’s current value at $484,100. Borrowing against that would buy a WHOLE lot of service from Pool Dude, Lawn Dude, and the Cleaning Lady from Heaven. Years’ worth.

And again, let’s remember, he didn’t need either a pool dude or a lawn dude…

Now, what did my father get at the honored old-folkerie?

At Orangewood: a two-bedroom apt.  They refuse to tell you the cost on their website…which ought to tellya something….  As I recall, it took the entire proceeds of the sale of his house to get him into that place. The apartment was tiny: I would describe it as an elaborate studio apt. It didn’t have a real kitchen — just a counter with a minimal stove and a sink. The living room, dining area (if you could call it that), and kitchen occupied one (count it: 1) room.

Median monthly cost of “independent living” in Arizona is $2,738.

He couldn’t have afforded that. ONE YEAR would consume almost a third of his life savings. That’s $32,856/year, bare minimum. Without maintaining your car, without going anywhere, without even buying clothes. Basically what was happening was that he was forking over ALL of his Social Security, plus a substantial chunk of his savings.

It certainly would not cost $35,000+ a year to hire someone to come in and take care of my house. The total cost of everything — maintenance, car, groceries, utilities, pool care, and general living expenses — may come to something like that. Or not…. just now I’m not drawing anything like that out of savings, but I get a decent amount of SS. Not enough to live in middle-class grandeur, but certainly not so little that I would starve.

What that suggests, IMHO, is that moving into one of those places would cost as much as — or more than! — I would have to spend to stay here and hire people to come in and help me. The money I take out of savings, in most years, is recovered because the remainder stays in professionally managed investments.

I would be better off — and my son would be better off — if I can manage to stay in this place until I die, or at least until a few months before that happens. Proceeds from the sale of this house would nicely plump up his retirement savings. Or he could sell his place, invest any profit from that, then move into this place and invest the monthly amount he’s been forking over to his mortgage company.

Speaking of the value of a shack, my parents’ house in Sun City last sold for $255,000: two and a half times the amount of my father’s life savings. Lest you think that was bargain, the place was about the size of the first apartment DXH and I moved into. I think they paid about $8,000 for that house.

Indeed, that first apartment may have been bigger than the SC house…it certainly was no smaller.

Our apartment:

dining area
living room
2 bedrooms
kitchen
Walk-in storage closet in kitchen
2 bathrooms????? Can’t recall…maybe not, though

SC house

dining area
living room
2 bedrooms
kitchen
2 bathrooms
Don’t recall a storage closet, but think there was space behind carport
Lots of wasted space in hallway

The SC house last sold for $255,000!!!!!  2 1/2 times the total nest egg that my father saved for his retirement!

Soggy Doggy Glorious Day…

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WHAT a spectacular morning!

High clouds make for a glorious sunrise as Ruby the Corgi sets out to drag the Hu-mann around the neighborhood. Oh, my: it’s just gorgeous out there.

And damp. And sticky… Very humid: 31%.

What really, dear Wunderground, does that mean? Are you saying that 31% of the atmosphere we’re trudging through is water?

😀

Could be, I reckon. But Ruby doesn’t mind. She charges ahead, a little furry brown rocket. We fly through the ‘Hood, around Upper Richistan, up toward Gangbanger’s Way. Past Marge’s house, apparently unoccupied (????) but not for sale yet.

Marge was (is?) well into her 80s. She wishes, more than anything, to evade being stuck into the Beatitudes or Orangewood or any other such holding pen for the elderly. But there’s no sign she’s living in the house. So…I fear the worst.

She said she had willed the place to her son — meaning she willed him about half a million bucks worth of real estate. He doesn’t live here, so…as soon as title to the house passes to him, he presumably will put it on the market.

It’s a pleasant old 1970s ranch-style house. Not to my taste, and now needing a bunch of repairs and upgrades. But still…lots of people would fall all over themselves to get it.

I actually might be among them, if it weren’t so nerve-gratingly close to Gangbanger’s Way. The traffic racket there would be just unholy! It’s a drag strip for the local delinquents, so all night you get ROAR ROAR ROAR from the brats. And it’s a main drag into town from the west side, so every rush hour you get ROAR ROAR ROAR from the unholy mobs of commuters trudging to work. And let’s not forget the hospital up the road on Gangbanger’s, bringing you WEEE-OOO WEEE-OOO WEEE-OOO from the ambulances racing toward the emergency room.

{sigh} I do miss Marge, who had become my morning walking buddy. I’m afraid she probably fell — or else had a heart attack or stroke — and ended up in one of those horrible prisons for old folks. She dreaded that fate even more than I do. Truly: I would so rather be dead. If she had passed on, surely her son would have sold her house by now (he lives in some other part of the country). She probably landed in an old folks’ slam and asked him to hang on to it lest she somehow manage to escape.

Oh well.

The spectacularity of the sunrise has now passed, and what we have are high, pale gray clouds. Not the rainy type…just the humid type.

What do I hafta do today?

* Pick up the office.

* Call Cox. Demand that they send paper bills. (They’re shifting to “paperless bills.” No, thank you!!)

*Figure out, come to think of it, whether Cox is auto-paid now, or whether I have to send the ba*tards an e-payment or check every month. I think the latter, because I don’t trust Cox.

* Make a grocery store run.

* Argue with my son over medical bullsh!t.

Hmm…. Actually, I could physically go to the credit union and have one of their staff check on the autopays for me. This, while it entails an annoying drive, would take me past THE best Sprouts store in the Valley. And that would allow me to stock up on a pile of outstanding foodoids.

***

Cleaning out the e-mail in-box. OVER 500 NUISANCE E-MAILS, just in August!

Can you imagine? Hope I’m not deleting anything important. I just don’t have the patience to check every goddamn one of those things — not even looking at the email but just checking the subject or sender line. So WHAM! They all get deleted.

But even that is a nuisance. After hitting mass-delete after mass-delete, there are still A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SIX junk-mail messages sitting there waiting to be sent to trash. And that doesn’t count all the real messages from outfits like Amazon and from my client whose work I’m not in the mood to do…

Crazy-making!

“Another Beautiful Day in Arizona…”

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“…Leave us all enjoy it!”

LOL! That was the radio signature of a long-time talk-show host here in the earlier times of Arizona. He would sign on to his program and then crow,

It’s another beautiful day in Arizona!
Leave us all enjoy it!

LOL! Right: if 100 degrees and humid is beautiful, this morning is just GORGEOUS. 😮

Actually, it’s only 81 out there just now, at 7:20 ayem. So it’s not very hot at all. Objectively speaking. But it’s so damp that after circumambulating the park, my hair is wet!

That little jingle was the signature doodad of Jack Williams, who became mayor of Phoenix and then governor of Arizona. He was a pretty amazing guy, all things considered.

Arizona is — always has been — a strange place. Strikes you most when you look at its history and consider the characters who feature in that history. Jack Williams…good grief! Barry Goldwater…he actually was a pretty interesting guy, in person. Bruce Babbitt was cool — we knew him and his wife, Hattie.

Oh well. If hot, partly overcast, and muggy are characteristics of “another beautiful day in Arizona,” it must be pretty spectacular out there.

Let’s see…it’s mid-August now. So we’ve got another month or six weeks of this stuff. Ugh!