Frita wrote:If the need arose, where do you see yourself as an elder in need of more support?
Well, my three younger sisters and I are trying to establish a multi-generational retreat/recreation footprint in the realm where we have always vacationed together. Our rough somewhat joking plan is that we will all live together, each with different body parts gone decrepit, after all our men have died off. This plan also envisions the likelihood of a theoretical-not-yet-born scruffy 19 year old grand-nephew/niece/child or two crashed out on sabbatical year, smoking pot and making art in the tiny apartment above the garage barn, in exchange for hauling in our firewood. Or something like that.
Also, both of my adult children are quite fond of me as a human as well as a mother, and my DD32 is by nature one of the most conscientious Level Green/Yellow humans imaginable. And, I plan on maintaining/expanding my polyamorous circle of intermittently-useful-although-grouchy-old-men and/or finding more communal living arrangement in the city with non-related others in addition to northern rural communal plan with related others . So, I'm hopefully going to be more complex-social-web covered at Level Blue merging into Green/Yellow than many of my peers or even many of my mother's peers who find themselves alone with Level Orange offspring busy/distant and just one husband dying first.
What do you mean by, “better able to speak the language of the most educated” in regards to your high net worth friend receiving better medical care? I don’t think that being consistently grouchy facilitates good relationships of any kind. Was there even more to the issue?
Oh, just that in addition to being extremely irascible, he could also be quite crass in his commentary. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if a young nurse arranged for him to receive "extra" sedatives. I like eccentrics, but others not so much. Also, he wanted to understand modern science, because he was a follower of "Intelligent Investor" practice, but he wasn't really keeping up at age 80. And he was in many oddly mixed ways on the err-towards-miser side of frugal practice.