My Date With Rita

Sauerkraut!

Normally my job is to do community outreach but occasionally, I’m asked to step in and drive residents to/from doctor appointments, today was one of those days.

After a long day of driving across the valley I was on the final leg of my trip, picking up Rita.  I love Rita!  She’s by far one of my favorite residents. 

Rita.

Rita is 88 years of age.  She spends most of her days walking, slowly, around the community with her walker, or her “scooter” as she calls it.  And yes, it has tennis balls.  In the basket on her walker she carries a giant calendar that she writes notes on and a bunch of other papers that she has writes the same notes on.  Each week Rita gets on a kick.  One week her mission was to find her missing eagle head that had important documents and personal photos hidden inside it (There was an eagle head.  She won it from a funeral home, but it was solid, so nothing could have been hidden inside) and another week she was tracking down the contact information for a Boy Scout who wrote her a Christmas Card. 

A note from Rita to "The Secret Elf."  I was actually the secret elf. 

When I picked Rita up the receptionist told me that Rita was very hungry.  Predicting the kitchen staff would deny her food and thinking it would be fun to take her to get a hamburger I asked if she would like to stop and get one.  She responded, “A hamburger!  That sounds interesting.”  Later she decided that it sounded pretty good because she hadn’t had a hamburger in a really long time.  How sad is that!?

After placing our order we headed back to the old people home.  Rita seemed to enjoy her French fries and when I asked her how they were she said, “Good.  I’m just eating potatoes!”  

When we got back to the old people home I helped Rita carry her stuff upstairs to her room, “3…3…3.”  I planned to leave Rita to eat her food by herself, but she had other plans. Upon her request I went to the car, got my food and returned to her room to eat with her, a true date.

When I walked in her room she had placed two chairs up to her kitchenette and a clementine (that her sister “Kitty” had sent her from Maryland… A couple months ago… Like Christmas.) in front of each chair.  Together we ate our burgers while she searched for ketchup for her fries and dessert for when we finished our meals.  She tried to feed me cookies, Crunch Bars and fudge… That her sister Kitty sent her from Maryland.

It wasn’t long before I finished my burger but Rita was still working on hers.  She then instructed me to eat my “orange” and without a word I picked it up and started peeling.  It wasn’t long before I realized that Rita had served up a molding clementine.

When she wasn’t paying attention I covered the orange in a napkin and later when she wasn’t looking I stuffed it in my pocket.  Moments later she told me to take her clementine for later… I stuffed that one in my pocket as well.

When Rita and I’s date was over I helped her pick up the kitchenette and escorted her down to a musical performance.  When I thought she was distracted I tried to get away but got caught up by some coworkers.  Moments later, during the pianists’ performance I heard Rita yell, for all to hear, “Hey!  Pull up a chair lets listen to this guy for a couple of minutes!”  I asked Rita if I could use the restroom and left, with clementine’s in my pocket, for her to enjoy the music on her own.

Oh Rita.

That is all.

Sauerkraut