Resthome conversations (5 of 5): Retired slaugherhouse owner.

Last month at the resthome, a retired slaughterhouse operator moved in, to come back closer to family after living in Florida for a number of years.

When I was in his room assisting him, pictures were going up, and there was this one huge picture leaned against the wall, of this cartoon cow with wacky pastel skin made up almost like quilt patches, and a small body but huge oversized hooves and a huge oversized head, and he was looking straight at you, blankly.

"My wife gave me that," he was like. "She said it was so I could remember all the cows I tore up."

Later that night, I came back, too, and he had some wedding and family reunion photos finally hung up over the TV.

And, I didn't notice it at first since it was so non-descript, but next to all of that to the right of the TV was mounted on this long light varnished wood board, a tall long thin hook with a small leather strap at the top, and a small metal plaque above it that said faintly, "THE LAST HOOK," and then some date.

"My nephew gave me that," he was like, "It was from the last cow at the factory."

Then, after a short pause he was like, "He went back and got it, and cleaned it up."

Resthome conversations (4 of 5): Job training session presenter.

Last month at the resthome, we had a special job training session on some equipment that's used to evacuate residents down stairs in the case of a total building evacuation, so I woke up early before my shift that one day and came in and attended that, before my shift for the day started that day.

The guy who ran it was a (big) (older) (white) (retired firefighter) who showed us where his new pacemaker was put in, and his (slim) (younger) (blank-faced) (pony-tailed) son.

"We haven't worked together to give a presentation in a few years," he was like, and then he was like, "Don't you know, all firefighters have five or six jobs!".

And, he said that he did emergency management consulting for people sometimes, too, and that a number of years ago he consulted to a place with a bariatric facility on the second and third floor, and their plan in the case of an evacuation with a power outage was to bring people down the stairwells on mattresses.

"A four hundred pound person going down the stairs on a mattress," he was like. "Can you imagine that?"

He also told a story about evacuating a huge nursing home facility when there was a flood threat, and later he figured out the lines of command and he realized that he didn't have to obey the public health official who gave the order, and that he could have given an order and everyone could have sheltered in place like he thought was best.

"But it was all right, we didn't lose any of them," he was like.

He also said that he's helped out with situations where trains hit cars, too, and that train engineers say that suicides are the worst.

"Right before you hit 'em, your eyes meet," he was like. "Or, at least that's what they tell me."

Resthome conversations (3 of 5): Engineering flaw.

At dinner last month, I caught up a bit with the one resthome resident who used to be an (advertising executive), and we were talking about that Miami condo collapse.

And, he said that one of his friends years ago was a consulting engineer who did a review of subway trackwork in the city, and he pointed out to them this one particular curve, and he was like, "If you don't get that fixed, a train will go off the rail in five years, and the rest of the train will keep it on the tracks, and no-one will die, but it will hang off."

And, they weren't too happy to hear that, but they didn't do anything at all to fix what he had said.

And then, like five years later, exactly what he predicted happened.

Resthome conversations (2 of 5): Observational small talk.

Last month at the resthome, I was assigned to assist the one (very old) lady who's (very pleasant) and talks (slowly) and (declaratively) about the most random things.

When I escorted her back to her room after dinner, she took off her anti-Covid mask and handed it to me, and said to put it in the righthand drawer of the big desk that's in her living room.

"That's the drawer for masks," she was like. "The drawer on the left is for napkins."

Later, she mentioned the political troubles of our city's current mayor, and then was like, "Once I took my son downtown for an orthodontics appointment. The next day, Martin Luther King was shot. The national guard was out, with rifles. But, what can you do?"

And, she said all of that slowly and declaratively.

Resthome conversations (1 of 5): Competing outdoor spaces.

A few months ago at the resthome, they converted some unused lawn space out in front of the building into a little patio area with tables and chairs and umbrellas and whatnot, and people have been loving it and going out there a lot.

So, the other day I mentioned that to the one resident who always encourages me to take candy from her candydish, and she said that she preferred the older roofdeck.

"But [name of another resident] was saying how much nicer it is on street level, since there's so much more action down there," I was like.

"I prefer the quiet," she was like. "I see people all the time."

Scholarship coincidence!

This summer me and my one cool (Mormon) scholar friend are doing again our "long distance book club" that we did last summer, where we pick a book that both of us are interested in and we read it and then we discuss it over the phone.

And, I was a bit further ahead than him in the book that we were reading, and I discovered that in one chapter, his book that he co-edited with his graduate school adviser was included as a "Further Reading" recommendation!

I texted him and he thought that that was cool, he had no idea that it was mentioned at all.

Optical illusion.

Last month I was in my kitchen and it was half-dark, and one of the peaches that I had on top of my fridge on the metal tray where I keep my fruit until it ripens looked like it had a rather large bump of mold on it, only I knew that that couldn't be what it was, so I thought to myself what it could be, and I finally hit upon the idea that the little sourcing sticker that they put on it had peeled up around the edges, and that that's what I was seeing.

And, I got closer to it, and I was right.