07:40 – I’m going to have to have a talk with the management at Brian Center. Barbara and Frances are very upset because the clothes they take over there for their dad keep disappearing and he ends up wearing donated clothes from their common supply. I know what’s going on. Dutch needs to be changed frequently, so they put on whatever they have available and send the dirty clothes to their own industrial laundry. If some of Dutch’s clothes are in the batch, they end up mixed in with all the others and instead of being returned to Dutch they end up in the common pile and distributed to other patients in the facility. But I understand why Barbara and Frances are upset; they keep buying new clothes for their dad, and those clothes keep disappearing. So I’m going to tell management that, although we appreciate them providing additional clothes for Dutch as needed, we really want them to put all the dirty clothes in plastic bags that we provide and leaving them for us to collect and launder.
Our stock of biology kits is getting perilously low. Barbara labeled a bunch of containers yesterday, so today I’ll work on filling those. Once I finish that, I’ll start making up subassemblies for 90 more biology kits.
This happened to my grandmother when she was in a care facility for Alzheimers. My parents went out and bought her clothes on several occassions, so she had something decent and well-fitting to wear. Her clothes always disappeared and every time we visited her she was wearing donated/extra clothing. I’m sure if we had looked around we’d have seen her clothing on various other patients around the facility. We hollered at the management several times about it, but they seemed to act like all of it was to be expected and seem perplexed that we couldn’t understand that. Having advanced Alzheimer’s robs their dignity enough. There’s no need for them to look like thrift store mannequins.
I never heard of anything like that happening with my mum’s stuff.
In a microbiology course I once did we were supposed to buy a lab coat and *leave* it in the lab after each prac, rather than take it home, where the (non dangerous) bacteria on it might cause problems. Okay, so I did that. My coat disappeared the first week. I got narky with the department and eventually they paid for me to get a new one, which I then took home. I’m sure the bacteria on my coat were safer than the average keyboard, or even KFC outlet.
The nursing part of the local facility here where my aunt and uncle briefly lived, require all clothes to be marked with names in indelible laundry ink. Those clothes will be returned to the owner. Anything not marked goes into the common shared pile. Are you sure there is not some similar requirement where Dutch is?
At the assisted living, all tenants are responsible for their own laundry and there are free machines on all floors. However, many residents either hire someone to come in and do their laundry, or they send their laundry out to a local place that picks up and delivers. But even at the assisted living, everyone is urged to identify their laundry with markers.
You say thrift store mannequin like it’s a bad thing. My wife aspires to having her mother in law looking like a thrift store mannequin. At least then her clothes would be clean.
Each resident at Brian Center has a small closet with a sliding sign on the door that can be set to read “Family”. That’s supposed to mean that all of that resident’s dirty laundry goes into a plastic bag in a basket in the bottom of the closet. In theory, there should have been no need to label Dutch’s clothes. The first batch of stuff Barbara took over has mostly disappeared, I’m sure into the shared clothing room at the facility. I just spoke to Bobette, one of the senior managers. She assures me that (a) she’ll talk to all of the CNAs to make sure that they put all of Dutch’s dirty laundry in his basket, regardless of whether he own it or it’s a loaner, (b) they will look for his missing clothing and return it if they can find it, (c) they will pay for anything that’s disappeared that can’t be found. I’m satisfied.
Aren’t you forgetting something here, Bob? You live in the U.S.A. You now must retain an attorney forthwith and file suit against these nefarious perpetrators for lost (probable theft) of property, loss of your valuable earning time, and of course the resulting pain and anguish of having to deal with this at all. Remember, though, that your attorney gets a third of the windfall.
I’m just trying to imagine any circumstances under which I’d actually sue someone. My problem is that, despite my borderline Asperger’s, I’m very good at putting myself in other people’s positions to try to understand their points of view. In my experience, the staff at Brian Center are all friendly, hard-working, and care about their patients. As I told Barbara last night, it takes more than four people at 40 hrs/wk to cover one position around the clock. When you consider that several different staff positions may end up changing Dutch at any hour, there are probably a dozen or more people involved, and they’re often under the gun to get many things done at once. So it’s not surprising that mix-ups occur and that stuff gets misplaced. I’m sure that none of them are doing anything wrong intentionally. I also understand why Barbara and Frances are so upset. Barbara said she didn’t want her dad dressed in cast-offs and looking like a homeless person, and that the loss of dignity was bad enough as is without having him wear other people’s clothes. Bobette understood that, and I’m sure she’ll do everything she can to make it right.
Just kidding, of course; good to know that the place is being run well with good people running it. Not always the case, as you no doubt know.
73 here in Retroville today under cloudy skies, drizzle, and MIL on her way up from points south (about 35 miles) bringing flower bulbs for us to plant. Got one raised bed set up and another one underway, lawn mowed, weeds whacked, bratwurst and boneless pork chops grilled, and studies underway for ITIL v3 Foundation cert, along with certs in CompTIA A+, Network +, Server +, Security +, etc., etc. Mrs. OFD has her sea glass jewlery organized and new acquisitions from Fort Bragg, Kalifornia, and also has her presentation down for tomorrow at the state department of health who are interested in getting her organization’s Mental Health First Aid program running here in Vermont for youth. As I pointed out to Mrs. OFD just now, our publik skools up here are, according to the nooz media accounts, simply rife with rampant bullying, racism and suicide, so not a moment too soon.
We find the racism claim quite hilarious; Vermont takes turns each year with Maine, Wyoming and Iowa as the whitest state in the country; our exotic minorities here are Bosnian Serbs, found only in our largest city (about 50k) and college town, Burlap. There is also the occasional Somali; one of whom was caught ripping off his foreign student tenants for rent while working them like navvies in his somosa restaurant in the state capital, and another found stalking and assaulting young women down there in that den of iniquity, Burlap. And of course we have our Latino farm workers and Jamaican orchard people, rarely, if ever seen.
Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for The Doors, died this AM in a Rosenheim, Germany hospital of cancer. My favorite keyboard player of all time. In fact, The Doors were the perfect rock group, IMO. Nobody better.
Okay, so none of my RSS news sources have the story of Manzarek’s death—only TMZ. Guess I’ll have to add TMZ’s RSS feed, but geez what a lot of crap to wade through to get an occasional important news flash.
http://www.tmz.com/rss.xml
Damn, that’s harsh news. Ray kinda was the glue for the band for so long. And OFD actually wept a bit when Morrison died, unlike for when Janis or Jimi went out; dunno why that was.
My favorite keyboard player of all time would be J.S. Bach. Oh you mean modern popular music? I’m gonna say Rod Argent.
“Rod Argent” sounds like the screen name of a porn star.
I don’t usually like the favorite this and that game that was sooo popular in the ’80’s, but no doubt for me that The Doors were the perfect amalgamation of talents. Morrison’s voice is still a haunting force today. There are a lot of people I like—some, like Emit Rhodes, are virtual unknowns;–but The Doors were special. Every one of them.
Rod Argent was/is the driving force, with Colin Blunstone, of The Zombies. He can crank on a Hammond B3 half a century later, after “Time of the Season,” “She’s Not There,” and “Tell Her No,” among others. Colin still has his voice. Of course there is Keith Emerson and the late Jon Lord, but yeah, Manzarek was a multi-instrumentalist and Morrison’s voice can still haunt. The movies made about The Doors sucked, though.
@OFD: Good luck with the certification stuff – that takes a lot of patience, and a lot of cramming of weird factoids.
Racism is a great buzzword for someone who wants to force something down your throat. They figure that you will not dare to question their actions if they claim they are fighting racism, and if you do, they can accuse you of being a racist. For me, hearing the word “racism” means there’s some idiotic-but-well-meaning idea that cannot stand on its own merits.