Making My Own Fun #1

While cooling my heels, waiting to Fulfill My Life Goal of Working Internationally, I stay with my 85 y/o aunt at her "Assisted Care Facility" in Llandudno, North Wales. A young person here would be 70. So I have to make my own fun!


The ladies (they are mostly old ladies. Such are the demographics of old age.) have generally led very interesting lives. And I talk to them about that. Here are some highlights:
1. one lady used 'vagina' in a scrabble game recently. She said, "Well, it's really tough to get rid of a V."
2. Mrs. E is 90, walks with 2 sticks, has a stooped neck, and terribly arthritic feet. But she told me one night that she used to love doing the charleston and swinging her long charleston pearls. She kind of mimed it, actually - she flicked her wrist, and wiggled her hips a little. I offered to help her up onto the table to give us a demo, but she just laughed, and politely declined. Bummer.
3. Mrs. L told me about an old movie she had seen. It's called Blonde Bombshells, and it's about an all-girl band formed in 1943. There was 1 guy in it, and he dated each band member, except one. He ran into her years later, and asked her, "Are you sexually active?" Mrs. L said it was really shocking, but of course, the second time she saw the movie, they knew to watch for it.... "Are you sexually active?" tee hee hee, peels of girlish laughter....
4. Mrs. H worked with her husband, distributing war rations immediately after the end of WW2. In 2 weeks, they travelled through London to Belgium to France, and helped to devise a way to distribute too few rations to too many war survivors. Then, they went to Berlin, and worked to distribute rations to the refugees that were streaming into Berlin. The situation was pretty grim, and her husband penned a report detailing it, that was read out in the UK Parliament. She hoped that this contributed to the Allies all working together to try to increase their efforts to help refugees. Years later, in the 70s, she was invited back to Berlin as part of a delegation in celebration of the International Year of the Woman. She was in the German Parliament Building, the Bundesrat, and could look down on the Wall and The Death Strip. She said it was incredible. And awful.