Queen of the what?

Well, I've been here a few months now, I've accepted things and am making the best of them. I really don't mind this place that much. I mean, no one dreams of living in a nursing home, but, there are nice things about it. I don't clean any more, I have staff to do that and they're awesome. I no longer have to worry about laundry. I no longer have to struggle to get groceries or make meals. All that is done for me. I do miss my cats a lot. In fact. it's kind of embarassing, but, when I first got here I would cry thinking of them. Especially Uma Thurman, the tuxedo cat that I belive has some form of feline autism. But, she's doing well and so is Preacher. In fact Sandy caught on that Preach had a growth in his neck. It was a cyst that was wrapped around his carotid artery and would have killed him, but, she got him the help he needed. I'm not sure I would have even noticed it because I lack a lot of sensation in my hands now. He's alive because I had to send him away. Fate is a very weird thing isn't it? 

My days are spent productively, I can tell you. I have all the time in the world to create...stuff. I'll show you pics of the jewelry I've been making. It doesn't matter if you like it or hate it, you will admit that I have been prolific and the designs are all my own. I like most of it and wear it. The staff and residents here like it and several wear it. I have recently started working with hand colored paper, Origami combined with sketches to make pieces that I have no idea what to do with yet, but, I sort of like them. I'll show you those too. They aren't where they're supposed to be yet, but, it's a start. Unlike most of the jewelry, they take a lot of time and patience to complete. I was allowed to bring my favorite guitar here with me. It's the Schecter 6 string acoustic electric that belonged to Eric. It's totally mine now and I sleep with it. Not because I'm obsessed, but, because the other choice is keeping it in the closet where the stand fits. No thanks, it's too hard to get in there and get it out when your in a wheelchair. On the bed, I can just grab it anytime and I do. I've been playing a lot, been writing songs too. I can go into one of the empty dark dining rooms at night and play as loud as I want. Of course we have homey living rooms here, several, but, the dining rooms acoustics are a trip. Sometimes other residents join me, but, that's early after supper. By about 10 pm most people are asleep and it's just me and a few other oddball insoms who slink around the dark halls searching for something to do or hitting the vending machines. There's a room where people put together puzzles and it's not unusual to run into a stray puzzle lover in the hallways in the wee hours of the morning. Most of the staff are seldom seen and it's a different world.

There are some real characters here. You'd think they'd all be old, right? Nope, we have them all ages, some people here are quite young adults. There's Donny, down the hall on my wing. Donnie's in his early thirties, I think, with thick dark hair and big brown eyes. He just missed being handsome because he was born with Cerebral Palsy. Luck of the draw, I guess. CP caused his face to droop on one side and both his arms are withered with claw hands that fail to grasp much. He's in a snazzy purple electric wheelchair (purple's his favorite color) and has never really had a normal life. When his mom died, he had to come here. One of the worst things about his CP is his voice. It that low inarticulate kind of slur that's common in the mentally retarded. Joke is..Donnie's not mentally retarded. In fact he's about average intelligence, if you ask me. Some of the things he does makes him devious and manipulative and he can take advantage of some people by using his disability to disarm them and make them feel sorry for him. He has and uses a cell phone and is proficient on the computer, he uses the voice command option. He's woman crazy and gets cute staff members to pity flirt with him. He's my friend, I like him and he'd do anything for anybody. For example, when my laptop charger broke, he lent me his and just said he didn't need it for awhile. Which wasn't realy true, but, he kne how bummed out I was to be offline. He'll do something super nice lie that, then he will turn around and fully use his disablity to get what he wants, but, I've told him to his face to cut that shit out. I was making him a new storage bag for his new wheels and we were talking.. it was late at night, we were alone in the dining hall one. He starts this dumb conversation about how his roommate, Fred, was pissed off and asked him if I was his girlfriend. Jeez. I asked what he said and he puffed up and got chivalrous. "I told him, what's it to you, Fred, if she is my girlfriend." I looked up from my sewing and stared at Donnie, like wtf? So then he quickly says "because you're so nice, I knew you'd do it if I asked you." Do what? "Be my girlfriend." I told him I'm damn near seventy years old and I'm damned sure no one's girl friend. So then he has the gall to look at me with those big eyes and blubber out "You won't be my, be my girl fwiend?" He said it extra speech impedimenty. I told him I knew exactly what he was doing and he could cut it out because it's not cute. He sat there a minute then said "It's a little cute." Geez, I about spit Pepsi all over. Still when he's not doing goofy horn dog shit like that we get along. He turned me onto Kid Rock and now I do some Kid songs. Pretty well to, at least I like 'em and I'm not embarassed to sing them in front of people. We have some good late night talks and just when I think Donnie's got it straight...he tries to cop  feel during Bingo. Jesus.

Bingo. That's where I met the illustrious Tee. Tee is a big bawdy babe with waist length dark hair, big breasts that she sees no reason to fetter, a big mouth and a quick wide smile. She must have been a looker when she was young, but, still big and blowsy. She calls me her Bingo buddy and tells anyone who will listen about my jewelry 'line'. She's a bulldozer, but, she has a big heart. She is missing her right index finger and laughed when I said I hoped the resident manicurist gave her a nine finger discount. She recently had both large legs amputated. It saved her life and I swear she did not wallow in any sorrow nor did she want pity. She just wanted Bingo. She wheeled herself in setting in her extra large wheelchair, bandaged thigh stumps wrapped in bloody gauze coming in first, daring anyone to get in her way. Last time we played she informed me that she WOULD have that fancy body wash prize and if I bingoed first, I was to get it for her. I said: "What the fuck you want that for? We don't give ourselves our own bath and there's only half of you left." I got a 'shut the fuck up and watch your card, white girl.' I play for scarves. I'm doing a cool scarf wall in my room. They hang from the curtain that separates the room and the different fabrics remind me of a Marrakesh type thing. Hippie dippie do. That same curtain now sports a chartruese green hem almost two feet high. Speaking of my room...or rather my half of the room, it's pretty homey. When I move in somewhere I make the space mine. My blankets and floral throw pillows, my pictures on the wall. I took the Homer Winslow, my elf/sock drawing and Casey's 'cats on a fence' to start. I also brought a little shelf for a few old dolls, rubber and composition, one of my salt lights, my big ceramic frog on a bowling ball and a lot of chutzpah, I guess. A bulletin board holds pics of my newest grandchild and baggies containing baby booties and hats I crochet as well as all of the earrings I have card stock for. I have a blue glass lamp with a big eyed squeegie toy creature inside that has a cream shade just right for hanging new jewelry on as I finish each piece. There are pictures of my children and with my pretty old guitar hanging out on the bed,the effect is very homey and comfortable. It looks like the inside of a van parked at Woodstock. People love to stop by and hang out. My roommate is a woman named Kate. Kate is mobile with a walker, she loves to sleep. She sleeps all the time only getting up for meals. We get along alright, most of the time I space her off and forget she's even there. She has her own quirks though, sometimes she fights with herself in her sleep and keeps her obnoxious cowboy shows on her TV 24/7. I thought that would be a huge problem, but, it's not. Once she's snoring I just turn it down and get on with life. I have become fond of Wyatt Earps theme song though. If she gets to assertive with her volume button, I pick up the guitar and start singing Blues Traveler's "Hook''. Suck it in, suck it in, suck it in, if you're Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn! Or a bit of ''Basket Case" by Green Day. If she really annoys me, there's always "Breed" by Nirvana. It's never gone that far. Probably because she can't stay awake more than an hour. She eats in the farest dining hall and I eat in the room, so, I really do forget she's here. Anyway, for all real intents and purposes I feel like I'm alone in here. I don't know how I got this font and so I'm ignoring it. I want to tell you about the woman I share a bathroom with..it's one of those jack and jill things, but, because she's large, infirm and wheelchair bound, she doesn't use the bathroom, but, you can open the door and  get to her room from ours which is handy because almost every night she slips into senility and starts hollering for help in a very loud, low hoarse voice. "DADDY! Help me, Daddy! I dropped my Teddy, DADDY! DADDY!" She has other cries which range from "CALL THE COPS!" to "I NEED HELP, THIS PLACE IS FULL OF MURDERERS!" And when she settles on a phrase she repeats it at full volume for literally hours. He name is Miss Vivianne and you have to talk to her through a dirty, cheap Christmas bear named Teddy. Teddy will let Viviane know what to say to you. Personally, I don't like or trust Teddy, he needs to take his dumbass stocking hat off. It's Spring already. Plus he accused viv of stealing his candy and she said he spit at her. He's a little creep and he smells like old cheese. BUT, heaven help this whole wing if Viv drops his nasty ass at night. That's why the bathroom door's handy. I can get in there pretty quick and retrieve Teddy before it becomes a major issue. The help is few and far between and Viv can scream like a banshee for half the night. In the light of day, thr aides have done their work like elves making sure Viv is changed, dry, long white hair done did and clean nice clothes on. She is then lifted with one of those mini crane machine things into her huge oversize chair and is allowed to wheel herself around. She looks TOTALLY different than night time Viv whose white tangled hair sticks up and blocks half her broad face. One frantic eyeball glares at you in the dark as you realize night time Viv is naked. She seems too big for the giant diaper shes laying on, her sheets and blankets are wet, on the floor and she's calling you DADDY!  Bette Davis and Joan Crawford combined couldn't do this charactor. If you waited for the help to come check on her, you'd be waiting forever because she can't reach her call light and they can't hear her way down in this rather isolated wing. If you let her get wound up, NO ONE possessing hearing is ever going to have any peace until dawn. There's no stopping her. But, if you hold your breath to keep from breathing pee and scan the dark floor you will see her call light, the TV remote and eventually that disgusting sidekick of hers..Teddy. Quickly give her those things, throw a dry blanket over her (they're on her rocking chair) and get out. Pay no attention when she suggests we should watch the home shopping network with her credit card, just go. She calls me Birdy. She knows my GD name, but, she says it doesn't suit me. She's right. And in the morning, she will be the lovely mannerly Miss Viv we all know. She's the only 90 year old lady who will smile at you and tell you to ''always be the best dressed whore at the party, dear." She may be right. She should know, she was married to Bigfoot. As she tells it, his dick was too big so she divorced him and married his brother. She's in a wheelchair because once when she was having sex with Bigfoot, the bed broke and it fucked up her back. She had a little boy once, but, he died when he was born and now she has Teddy. I believe that story was actually true, but, who knows? I offered to give her a baby doll and she said that would be lovely, but, Teddy whispered something in her ear and she said maybe that wasn't a good idea. She thinks Teddy might have homicidal tendencies. 

Then there's Miss Irene, across the hall. Irene, also known as Hagatha Crispy, is 95 years old. Wheelchair bound, she is a very tiny woman who has extremely thinning white hair down past her shouders. Her large bald spots with wisps of said hair clinging to the flakey, shiny skin of her scalp are kind of hard to get passed. She also has a good sized black ulcer on her nose which looks like cancer and sparse teeth of an undetermined color. Kind of moth wing complexion. She is dressed (by aides) in little elastic waist bluejeans and checkered button up shirts with peter pan collars which she likes to wear tucked in and a tiny pair of white Keds. Irene pushes herself all over this end of the building all day, going nowhere, slowly, stopping for naps. Sometimes she nods off in such precarius poses that you can't help but, stare at her, waiting for her to breathe again. Whew, still alive. That sort of thing. She is pretty much deaf and wears no hearing aid. I don't know why, but, now that I've typed that, I will try and find out. You have to get right up on her and kind of yell. "Irene, you're lunch is coming, sit still." Said about five of us at once when she forgot she was eating and took off. Irene is a very nice person, she is always polite...well almost. If she perceives that you've wronged her she will pitch a hissy. Once she asked if she could join me at a table where I was sketching. I said, "sure, Irene, but, the nurse just sat your pill and juice over there.'' I don't know what she heard, but, she told me off good. "If I'm not welcome here, I'm leaving forever and you and all your kin can go square to hell!' Alrighty then, Hagatha Crispy. An hour later she's forgotten all about it and we're the best of friends again. I made sure she got to see my newest grandson, baby Jon, when he came to visit. She was so tickled, she touched his little foot and her light blue watery eyes got bright. She kept thanking me for days. She doesn't have any visitors that I know of. She has no children. She slips into dementia sometimes and comes to my door and asks me if I've seen her mom or dad today and are they coming to take her home to the farm soon? It hurts your heart. I always say that I don't know, but, I'm sure she'll hear from them soon. I tell her they seem like such a nice couple. Am I lying? She's pushin' 100, right? Some of the workers who have no patience, bluntly tell her the truth and it makes her cry. I don't see the point. I give them dirty looks when I hear them doing that. Sometimes she just gets lost and tired and doesn't know where to go. There are several of us who watch out for her.

The title? Glad you asked. The residents had some contest and they voted a King and Queen of Garden View. I was voted Queen. I got a plastic crown and everything. Yeah, it wasn't a dream come true, but, I'll throw it in the bucket, right? At least they like me and no one wants to kill me. Except that ugly naked guy on C wing, but. he wants to kill everybody. I'll tell you about him and some others later. 

Oh, I told my daughter I was voted Queen. Not missing a beat, Casey says "Oh, mom, I always knew someday you'd be Queen of something." Oh, that dry wit. :)