AT THE CONSERVATORY

In the meantime, at the Conservatory where I live, life goes on as usual, after a fashion.

We have had many changes - staff members came and went. Residents moved away or passed away. Life, however, goes on.

Since I came here, we have had no few than five Directors, numerous different housekeepers, many different maintenance crew, four or five chefs (including a super-duper soup chef whom we all loved).

We survived the covid academic, and had covid cases every now and then, for a while. We are okey now. 

The weather had been strange, too. 

Now, we are in the south, right? We did not have extreme cold weather in the former years. No frozen pipes to worry about. No busting-pipes either. But now, we certainly do. Freeze, severe  thunderstorms, tornados even . . .

However, the salespeople have been doing a good job in securing new residents. The only big difference is that it seems a lot of the new residents need much more care, health wise. There are more walkers and more motorized carts (some of their owners don't seem to realize that the speed limit is not the same in the hallways as on the highways.)

I am not kidding you. One of the residents was ran over by one of those carts a few months ago. Her leg has not been the same since.

I think I am here to stay for a while. It is much too much trouble moving. Right?

I am of the opinion, Life is what you make of it. 

Make your surroundings as pleasant as possible. It is up to you. You are in charge, We are not prisoners. Unless you allow us to be.

  

 

THE ALBUM II

The phone rang on the other end of the line.

 After a few rings, a lady's voice came on.

I introduced myself and told her that I saw the ad, and I have something that might be of interest to her. I described the paintings to her and so on.

She said, "Take pictures, and send them to me."

I went on to say that I thought the paintings were quite old and beautiul  . . .

She said, "Take picures."

I started to tell her what I could translate from the writings . . 

She said, "Take pictures."

I said that she might like to see them . . .

She said, "Take pictures."

So I said, "Okay."

Now, I am not a photographer, but I do take pictures with my cell-phone. So, I set the paintings down on a white background and start "shooting". The light was not too great. The pictures did not turn out to be what I liked. I, however, sent them to her - via my phone.

I told my daughter, Melinda, about it. She thought my pictures were not good enough, and took it upon herself to take pictures of the paintings with her better phone. We bother agreed that the lady needs to see the paintings in person.

I guess our "nagging" kind of got to her, and to pacify us, she agreed to send someone to my apartment a few days later.

In the meantime, my other daughter, told me that the film covering the camera-eye of my phone, which I have had for a few years, had not been taken off. The film was old and wrinkled. She did not understand that I could have been taking pictures with the wrinkled film cover on the camera-eye all these years. Well, what do you expect from this 94-year-old ??? There were NO instructions . . .

"Any how" (as they say in the South), a nice tall and lanky young man came to my apartment, a few days later. He introduced himself to me, and handed me a business card. He said very little, but he did TAKE PICTURES. One after the other, together with my amateur translations of whatever I could made of the calligraphy.

I showed him some other paintings and he dully took pictures of all of them. Then he left.