Age Restricted Community like Living in a Dorm

Any visitor would know I live in an age restricted community before they even rang my doorbell.

There are likely to be firetrucks and paramedics askew in the road with lights flashing. We have lots of folks in their 90's who really should be in assisted living. 

The buildings were built in the 1960's and all of the apartment doors open onto a two hundred foot long, dark, institutional hall that looks unchanged since it opened. 








Thank goodness our building doesn't have a lobby full of artificial plants and a questionable chair. (Too easy for bedbugs to be incubating there.) And some buildings have recessed doors that allow residents to "decorate" with tiny tables and seasonal kitsch. We're spared that too.









What our building does have is a narrow give-away shelf on the way to the laundry room. When people clean or move out they share household extras like trash cans and flower pots, and unopened food items. Once it was candy. I took the bag of Hershey miniature chocolates. Last week it was five packets of dry turkey gravy. There have been cookies and potato chips.  

Last night there were half a dozen packages of water-soluble fiber, oh so telling of a senior population. Bill and I joked about it on our way by. This morning he happened by again and told me there were only two left. For some reason we thought was really funny--probably because we didn't need it. 

Now I wonder, did one person take the other four, or were there several people who benefitted? Sometimes living here leads me down mental roads I really don't want to travel. 

It often feels like living in a dorm. I see the socks and underwear that got stuck in the washer and slung over a rack to be claimed. Sometimes I hear the man upstairs groaning. (I hope it's groaning.) I hear the feet of the dogs running past my door before they're leashed for their 5:30 am walk. 

On the upside I have found fellow music makers in the development.   Although the community center building has rooms that sit empty much of each day, they require a contract and rental fees.  So the banjo player, guitarist and I opted to jam in the living room. 

I sure hope no neighbor calls in a complaint to the community response office, since I'm already on record with them for another disagreement. 

This all reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's parents' condo at Del Boca Vista.  Be sure to click on the link for a chuckle at homeowner association antics. 

  

International Fun at Home

We took our grandchildren on an international field trip without leaving town.

We visited the huge Asian Pacific grocery store in town for a scavenger hunt.  I texted them the list of items they were to find. Once we were at the 40,000 square foot market, we paired off to explore. Then they took photos of each item from the list:

1. The biggest vegetable or fruit
2. Something you wouldn't eat
3. Items produced in foreign countries
4. A strange-to-you candy or pastry
5. An unusual drink
6. Some personal product - shampoo, soap, etc.
7. A fruit you've never seen
8. Some food you would like to try

We headed back to the fish department with live fish to buy and take home to eat. It prompted discussion about buying live things just to kill and eat them, in this case lobster or crabs. You can tell they don't have farm or hunting backgrounds.

The produce department was the most amazing. We saw things we'd just read just read about, like sugar cane and the durian fruit, the world's smelliest fruit. We found something that looked like a three pound grapefruit, and another that was so heavy I could barely lift it. 

Addie's drink of choice was a Japanese orange soda.

prepare the coconut

Our granddaughter decided to buy a fresh coconut, and got lots of free advice from the store clerks and other shoppers on how to open it.

An entire double sided aisle of tea attests to its popularity, and the immense variety. I brought home a box of cinnamon green tea which I've enjoyed.

Within the store was a sub-section for other international foods. We barely scraped the surface there.











We glimpsed different cultures in the goods and the shoppers. Our timing was right to be introduced to the upcoming celebration of Chinese New Year February 16th, the Year of the Dog. They had a huge display of coconut candies and fresh plants suitable for gifts for the holiday.

At stop number two, the middle eastern market, we found a flier for Persian New Year, which coincides with the beginning of spring.
One of their customs is to buy, or grow a small tray of sprouted wheatgrass.

I'm ready for some green already. I may try it!

By Anthon01 at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53601927

So grab the kids and head to the nearest foreign-to-you market. Introduce them to a taste of the rest of the world. It may be as small as the local Mexican grocery, or a large as the Ocean Pacific Marketplace.  We need to be intentional about cultivating a sense of adventure and acceptance of new things in our kids. 

And if you come to visit, I promise to take you to one of these fascinating markets.