Welcome to Senior Warehousing REFORM Protection Program.com

I am now unshackled! That picture is an example of what senior retirement communities sometimes consider entertainment for their resident who average age 84.  I don't care how old I ever get. I'll never "average" any particular age or for that matter anything in general! 

In August I turned 76. I still feel like I am 36 trapped in a Time, warped body. From September 2019 until January 30 of 2024 I was "caught in the system"! In much the same way youngsters who have no parents get caught up in the state systems until they turn 18 years old and are cut loose to function in the world they don't recognize.

I mistakenly considered myself an intelligent woman until September 2019,  when, as a semi-retired investigative journalist, and with the encouragement of my family and church members, I sold my beautiful, three bedroom two bath Arizona home and blissfully and blindly landed in the web or "system" of senior living.

I was not financially prepared for the cost associated with getting older. Just as when I turned 18 and no longer lived with my parents, there was no guidebook to introduce me to this wonderful world of marriage(s), education, kids, writing, endless writing!

POOPING PRETTY?

Worse yet, there was no "how-to-do-life-with-a-baby" book when I went home from the hospital with a tiny screaming stranger. I loved my babies, but "cute" didn't make poop pretty Back in the day when you had to hand-rinse a dirty diaper, you were a little more grounded in the reality of life! There were no pampers for this girl!

Because I am the oldest of five siblings and I left home very early on, it was many years before I truly grasped the dynamics of a group of siblings as widespread agewise (and now geographically), as we are. For example, when I got married and moved away, my sisters were only 10 and five years old.

One funny memory I have is of my little sister (who is now a nurse)  being outraged when my newlywed husband and I rushed to my parents home to change into the honeymoon clothes that we had purchased for our trip . She had been unable to go to the wedding because of an Illness.

 When we ignored her, went inside  and I closed the bedroom door with my new husband in there,  my little sister banged on the door and screamed she was gonna "tell mommy" I was in there "with him"! Those were the days!

HAMBURGERS IN HEAVEN?

I never realized the absolute treasure my sister was until I comprehended it from 3000 miles and a lifetime of years away! The little girl who sat with me on the couch in our family home one day after kindergarten,  and seriously asked me if I believed there were "hamburgers in heaven" grew up, graduated, married, became a mother of two and lived three doors from my parents, caring for both of them until they passed away.

That sister carried a burden for both her older sisters, who had moved away from the Midwest years earlier,  so I personally did not have the pleasure of experiencing my father's dirty diapers, but thankfully, by that time there were adult pampers. In retrospect, if my father's jaded corporate brain had invented them, they would have been marketed as  "Slammpers": "When you have to go, it's nobody's  business!" That's right, dad, it's not! Until it was! Thank you sibs!

THERE IS NO REAL PLACE FOR MOM

I'll bring this portion of my blog to a close by saying that until the day I greet her in heaven, I will always be thankful that my mother's sweet innocent spirit never had to experience "senior living"  anywhere outside of her own home!

She struggled with cancer, she struggled with life. She struggled with leukemia. She spent one entire special "set-aside-just-for-you"day with each of her five children. We read our father's love letters to her. We reminisced and we laughed about things that we would've never talked about before. 

That woman taught me how to live with integrity and die with dignity and in moments of absolute peace, I could equate life to the ultimate simplicity of correctly folding towels. "Kathy,  there's only one way to do it. It makes more rom in the closet. It's the right thing to do.  See? When you do it the right way it just makes life so much simpler !"

Thank you, Mom . Sometimes when I am having difficulty sleeping, I relax simply by remembering the" right thing". When life was simpler. When life was just nothing more complex than how to fold it correctly.

DIRTY DISHES FOOD SERVED BY HANDS JUST FINISHED CLEANING TOILETS

Check back for my next blog about folding towels being served food on dirty dishes, and how retirement living dining managers plan their budgets for the types of food they serve residents..

Who tells you the truth anymore unless they want you to buy their book and once you send the check or your credit card number you're hoping that what you'll read will have some basis and truth, but how about some free truth for a change?

I have uncovered shocking truths in senior retirement communities. This blog aims to shed light on those findings and advocate for the protection and reform of senior living conditions.