From North Shore Living - February 28, 2024

Buffalo Herds

This song, “Buffalo Herd,” at first seems like a throwaway. With its references to ridiculous situations regarding things that you can't do and ending with “but you can be happy if you've a mind to” 

I’m sure most of you have seen a buffalo herd or at least a few buffalo in your life. Imagine roller skating through the herd. Last month in midst of our second Covid-19 episode it got a bit crazy just like this song suggests. 

We played a lot of hallway Bingo so we could gather distantly with the least possible amount of exposure to one another. During one Bingo game in particular I started off by calling a staff member who was in our Waves household so those residents could hear the numbers being called. I was sitting near a wall in the middle of the 300 hallway calling Bingo from an over the bed table. One staff was down the hall making sure those ladies could hear and were putting their chips on the correct numbers.  My Bingo board that holds the balls was hanging over the edge of this table on both sides. While I was calling the numbers the lady in the room closest to me had my dog on her lap and was talking to her. Every number I called this lady asked Miss Molly if that was her name. Are you N44?  I call the next number B12. Are you B12 Miss Molly was asked. Can you imagine that I called about 60 numbers during each game and we played 7-8 games? That was at least 420 times I heard my dog being asked if that number was her name.  Every once in a while I would get a question hollered at me from this lady, “How am I supposed to know what her name is when she won’t answer me?” I stop and tell her Miss Molly’s name and continue on with the rest of the game. 

At one point Miss Molly goes into the next resident’s room and I had to listen as I was calling Bingo to make sure this resident wasn’t giving her any snacks she shouldn’t be eating. Along came a lady with the arm of her wheelchair brushing right along the side of my over the bed table almost knocking the 30 balls off on to the floor. 

As we were now on game seven I kept calling Bingo and along came a resident’s family member stating they were heading home and where should they leave their loved one?  I said bring her here she can help me. I kept calling Bingo and here she came so I showed her the balls and asked her to call the numbers for me and so it went. 

We had lots of goodies and lots of coffee and we played lots of games with one being Family Feud. We played Waves vs. Woods. Waves won with 237 points to Woods 194. One fun question was “something old people and babies have in common” What do you think the answers were?

Snowball Fights 

Have you ever had an indoor snowball fight? It can get rather unruly for sure.

We started off shooting snowballs into various sized boxes getting points according to the technical difficulty then all heck broke loose and snowballs were flailing everywhere. Residents, volunteers and staff alike. You didn’t know when to duck. You were sure to get pelted by super soft white balls of fluff. Irene blasted someone in the nose and exclaimed, “Oh I’m sorry.” There was lots of laughter happening which is definitely good for the soul. If you want to have a snowball fight this is the way to go especially when there is no snow to be had in good old Cook County in the middle of January. Snowballs can be found on Amazon in various sizes. It was a blast for sure. 

Coffee, Cookies and Kitchen Creations

I put out a Facebook plea for Girl Scout cookies and received donations for 20 boxes. This was a great addition to our larder as everyone knows we love cookies and coffee. We also received the ultimate most delicious chocolate chip cookies from one of our favorite bakers Barb Wright Tonya and Kaleb Klegstad also shared some delicious Valentine treats with us. 

A group of ladies gathered for our Kitchen Creations activity. We got out our super dull knives, rubber gloves, cutting boards and other supplies and got down to business. Char was so excited to do a little taste testing she didn’t even stop to take her gloves off before she gobbled it up. She declared it delicious and almost everyone had a dish for dinner that night.

Birthdays and Passings 

Irene Peterson turned 103 years young on January 22ns. She celebrated with her family. Ethel Walsh, Yvonne Smith and Doris Blank also celebrated birthdays with family and friends.

Our friend Diane Bennett passed away on January 30th. She loved animals especially cats. She was thrilled with her great grandson Callen Smith and had numerous pictures of him in her room. She loved when he would come for a visit. Diane was thankful for staff and their care of her. 

Thankfulness

Of course we are so thankful for all our volunteers. You sharing your time and love with us makes our days so much richer. We are thankful for our Care Center staff for helping us get to activities and helping us live a more meaningful life.

Thank you to the cutest young Girl Scouts for stopping over and visiting with us and sharing your coloring pages with us. We enjoyed your company.

Life is anything but boring here at North Shore Living. I went home laughing after the Bingo episode thinking what was this day like? That’s when I thought about roller skating in a buffalo herd.  Go ahead and listen to the song “You Can’t Roller skate In A Buffalo Herd’ on YouTube. The Activities profession sometimes isn’t for sissies and Covid-19 episodes definitely aren’t for sissies, but here we are living life being happy because we put our mind to it.