Wedding halls and nursing homes
Will begin with Saturday evening's wedding of R's boss - in order to start and not end this post with the bad taste.
Caveat: This is not intended to be a bitching blog and I seek no book deal based on industry trash-talk. So I will say only that the wedding was not what I would have wanted for myself.
The Wedding
It took place in a Hyatt, amidst the new developments of Jersey City's waterfront, an MC in black announced the arrival of the wedding party (in pairs) with disco lights...
I think that about covers it.
Note: If the marrying couple had appeared crazy in love and launching into a beautiful life together, if there'd been palpable good cheer and kind words, I'd be gentler. I'm not a ghoul and won't harp on the tacky if there's love all around to soften its brittle edges. Wasn't feeling love - was feeling drinks and conspicuous consumption and serial marriages in the future.
Mimi visit
But the same Saturday began with a warmer picture: me, Dad and Sarah, early-risen and clear of Manhattan by 8:30, at Mimi's nursing home in Oyster Bay by 9:30.
This was our third visit, Mimi moved into the nursing home 6 months ago when the various ravages of old age (she's 89) became too numerous and daunting for the Irish sisters who'd been minding her in her own home.
No one can really love a nursing home - they're drop-off centers for the soon to, or one-day-shall, die. You check in and regardless of your activity-level prior to check-in, you're parked in a wheelchair to begin your slumping, drooling decline; soon a vegetable if you hadn't been one before.
Why keep chin up, appearances together and best slippered foot forward if there's no "out"? And no one had packed Mimi a suitcase of nice clothes so she's dressed in pilled white polyester slacks and drip dry oxfords, and easy spirit black tie ups (that never touch the ground). She was elegant in her day.
I'd decline.
Mimi declined.
On our May visit, Mimi indicated life only in that she breathed. She'd been switched to a permanently reclining wheelchair where, with her eyes widely glazed, yellowing, fixed and unhealthy to look at, and pillows mounded around her, she resembled the snowdrift-bound corpse in Wyeth's "Spring".
Entering the dreadful nursing home this visit, assaulted by pee smells, down the hospital corridors past rooms of crumpled residents comatose with remotes, we were steeled for another sobering glimpse of our own futures.
Instead, we spotted Mimi upright and animatedly scooping up pancakes in the garden room. Whilst her neighbors were hand-fed by nurses, or had fallen face-first asleep in their breakfast, Mimi looked like a young chick. And someone had dressed her in a yellow.
What followed were two lovely hours of the old Mimi - flirting and eye-batting and playful. We took her round the garden, put flowers behind her ear, painted her nails. For all who'd started the count when she was down, we were witnessing a phoenix, a fighter, a Mimi who, for whatever vein of will, was ready for another round.
When we wheeled Mimi back up to her room, we passed a similarly alive looking fellow posted outside his room on the first floor. His eyes may have followed Mimi as the elevator doors closed.
Who the hell knows how many rounds we're each due for?
To Mimi.
C
Caveat: This is not intended to be a bitching blog and I seek no book deal based on industry trash-talk. So I will say only that the wedding was not what I would have wanted for myself.
The Wedding
It took place in a Hyatt, amidst the new developments of Jersey City's waterfront, an MC in black announced the arrival of the wedding party (in pairs) with disco lights...
I think that about covers it.
Note: If the marrying couple had appeared crazy in love and launching into a beautiful life together, if there'd been palpable good cheer and kind words, I'd be gentler. I'm not a ghoul and won't harp on the tacky if there's love all around to soften its brittle edges. Wasn't feeling love - was feeling drinks and conspicuous consumption and serial marriages in the future.
Mimi visit
But the same Saturday began with a warmer picture: me, Dad and Sarah, early-risen and clear of Manhattan by 8:30, at Mimi's nursing home in Oyster Bay by 9:30.
This was our third visit, Mimi moved into the nursing home 6 months ago when the various ravages of old age (she's 89) became too numerous and daunting for the Irish sisters who'd been minding her in her own home.
No one can really love a nursing home - they're drop-off centers for the soon to, or one-day-shall, die. You check in and regardless of your activity-level prior to check-in, you're parked in a wheelchair to begin your slumping, drooling decline; soon a vegetable if you hadn't been one before.
Why keep chin up, appearances together and best slippered foot forward if there's no "out"? And no one had packed Mimi a suitcase of nice clothes so she's dressed in pilled white polyester slacks and drip dry oxfords, and easy spirit black tie ups (that never touch the ground). She was elegant in her day.
I'd decline.
Mimi declined.
On our May visit, Mimi indicated life only in that she breathed. She'd been switched to a permanently reclining wheelchair where, with her eyes widely glazed, yellowing, fixed and unhealthy to look at, and pillows mounded around her, she resembled the snowdrift-bound corpse in Wyeth's "Spring".
Entering the dreadful nursing home this visit, assaulted by pee smells, down the hospital corridors past rooms of crumpled residents comatose with remotes, we were steeled for another sobering glimpse of our own futures.
Instead, we spotted Mimi upright and animatedly scooping up pancakes in the garden room. Whilst her neighbors were hand-fed by nurses, or had fallen face-first asleep in their breakfast, Mimi looked like a young chick. And someone had dressed her in a yellow.
What followed were two lovely hours of the old Mimi - flirting and eye-batting and playful. We took her round the garden, put flowers behind her ear, painted her nails. For all who'd started the count when she was down, we were witnessing a phoenix, a fighter, a Mimi who, for whatever vein of will, was ready for another round.
When we wheeled Mimi back up to her room, we passed a similarly alive looking fellow posted outside his room on the first floor. His eyes may have followed Mimi as the elevator doors closed.
Who the hell knows how many rounds we're each due for?
To Mimi.
C
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