Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Did you...

...ever sleep in an elderly home? even though you are not yet in need of living in such a home?
we did the first 4 nights when we were in the netherlands; we slept at tim's grandmother. not in her room, but in the guest room. as a guest room with only 2 beds in it, it was a decent size, but what if it becomes your living/dining/sleeping room? thats not a lot of space....!
all corridors looked like above (although this is at the cordova museum here close to boston; the corridors of the amsterdam-elderly home were not that photogenic). while staying there, i discovered that the walls are very thin, the shower not so good (not good at all; the temperature was not constant, it kept suddenly becoming hot and then cold again), and the nurses seem to have forgotten that all those people actually live there; in the early morning they were loudly exchanging stories of driving in the snow and what not all while standing in the corridor. maybe they assume that older people feel less and are deaf anyways? or were they just not aware that although they are at work, the people they take care of are at home? i guess it would be good if everyone would once spend some days/nights in such a home.....
anyways... tim's grandmother became 95 today! can you imagine? last year she and tim took a plane to france for a short weekend! and it wouldnt surprise me if her social life  is more active than ours, being locked in a lab for most of the time....