rain and the rest home

It's raining today. I like rainy days a lot more since I got my hot pink wellies. The sky may be grey, but my feet are colourful, darn it.

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This morning I found myself thinking about the nursing home. When I was a candy striper I spent a lot of time in the extended care wing of the hospital, and I was struck by how undignified senility is and how the parts of our personalities that persist are random ones that we wouldn't necessarily have chosen...there was the woman who whistled, for example, and the woman who kept talking about how she had to go feed the chickens. Now, I do a pretty good impression of Cartman, Gollum, and a few other tv/movie characters with strikingly weird voices. What if, once all higher cognitive capacity has gone, that's what remains?

Nurse: Well, and how are we doing today? Time for your pills. Let me adjust your bib for you.
Me: *ululates like an orc falling off a bridge in Moria*

The more I think about it, the narrower the window seems in which we're able-bodied, in control of our own destinies, and at least able to choose whether to behave in a dignified manner or not.