26 August 2010
 
Tagging Raven


 
The Condo Board meeting was last night, so things got complicated. I had to speak in the five minute block allotted to each resident to speak in favor of two bonus pool weekends in September- so dinner got pushed back. The issue at hand that galvanized me to attend was the proposal- it is usually pro forma- to extend the pool season by two weekends after weekday use stops on the Labor Day holiday.
 
I will be out of town, dealing with Mom and Raven issues- that is the nick-name for Dad that we have adopted, since he has assumed the characteristics of the black bird. In articulate but intensely curious, attracted to shiny things, moving constantly in the night. Acquiring things. Hiding things. Breaking out of the Safe Zone and moving with unknown purpose into the night.
 
But once on my feet, the power came upon me. I had five minutes, and saying that we wanted two more weekends poolside only took a few dozen seconds. It occurred to me, or perhaps better said it occurred to that part of my cerebral cortex affected by the stiff vodka tonic I had upon returning from the pool that I might address another topic in the time permitted.
 
See, there is a loon in the building who is demanding $5,000 from the Board to fix his balcony. His name is Sturmer, and he is a serious piece of work. Tall and dark, he looks like one of the characters from True Blood and not one of the good ones. His current issue- he has a series- is about the Plague. The old concrete (Big Pink was new in 1964) has settled a bit, and since he has a top-floor unit there is no overhang above him and rainwater pools on his unit.
 
He doesn't want to mop up moisture, and though he bought the unit "as is," has adopted the position that as an exterior appurtenance, his balcony is community property and thus the responsibility of the Association to repair. My contention, when I think of such things, is that if his balcony really is community property, I would thus acquire the right of passage to transit his apartment to gain access to it.
 
He won't even let the building staff have access to his unit, much less the balcony, but he claims, seriously that the building is responsible for West Nile and Malaria infections that will inevitably result from mosquito infestation in his concrete swamp. If the Board did not act, Plague would result, and the bodies of the elderly in the building would be on their hands.
 
He also tape-records the endless Board meetings, in accordance with the arcane provisions of the Virginia Condominium Act, as amended, hoping to find some tid-bit on which his lawyer lover can pounce to his advantage.
 
We think he is a scam artist, since he gets things he wants by his implacable insistence on getting his way. He grinds people down. He is the sort of flamboyant gay guy who wears fur coats, so he is irritating on so many levels it is difficult to categorize.
 
Rhonda, the buxom lead concierge, told me some stories about how he financed his kitchen upgrade with Home Depot by refusing the quality of the work so many times that the corporation eventually just wrote off the work. Same with the custom room dividers, and on and on. Any, I prefaced my brief remarks with fulsome praise for the serving board members (including the Weasel) for putting up with the nonsense from some of the residents without actually mentioning Sturmer, who was sitting next to me on the couch.
 
I would have been better prepared, but before the pool there was a conference call with the professional staff of Potemkin Village. Management there has even more challenges than the one at Big Pink, and their newest one is Raven. I mentioned that he escaped two nights ago and was found by a passing motorist as he marched down the street, clutching the photo of the scene at his 60th Anniversary of his marriage to Mom. We celebrated it in New York City, in the very church where they were wed so long ago.
 
I have no idea why he is determined to go out and look for the woman who is slumbering beside him, but that is the nature of this insidious decline.
 
Anyway, the Potemkin staff was having none of this wandering thing, though for liability reasons they do not consider that they have a responsibility to monitor the whereabouts of the residents.
 
Anook and I were somewhat baffled that an old age home had an issue with residents who wander like Raven in the night. I mean, isn't this what a lot of people do? But Raven apparently escaped from an unsecured fire exit and was off into the darkness.
 
He was returned to the lobby by the kindness of strangers, Mom being blissfully unaware anything was wrong. Apparently he has been up in the night for years, gathering things that glitter in the moonlight.
 
The conference call was to determine what was to be done. The immediate answer was to assign overtime to one of the staff and have them sit outside the door. A big sign was placed on Raven's side of the apartment door that read "Construction: NO EXIT!" Duct tape bands were crossed on the exterior of the door to confront him if he unlocked the door and tried to make a break for it.
 
According to the staffer, he made a break for it five times.
 
Five times.

I marveled at Raven's persistence when I checked in with Michigan yesterday morning. No wonder he sleeps so soundly during the day. He has become a creature of the night.
 
Anyway, I was in the Pentagon for a good meeting in the morning and surfed the net for alarm systems that might work to notify the front desk if he emerged from the safe zone. Paying an aide to sit in a chair outside their door was rapidly going to become unaffordable even at minimum wage.
 
Anook was going to be at the office in Potemkin Village at three-thirty, and I called in and Jackie put me on the speaker phone. She had been doing some research on her own, and came up with a radio frequency alarm originally intended to track pets and children. It appeared to have a direct and excellent application to Raven's wanderings.
 
I checked it on-line as we talked and swiftly agreed that a couple hundred dollars worth of investment would enable us to monitor the Raven's whereabouts.
 
“This is cool,” I said, reading the description on line. “An alarm will sound if he breaches the perimeters of the Safe Zone of the apartment.”
 
"Mom is not going to hear it," said Anook, puzzling her way through the problem. “She is deaf as a post now.”
 
Jackie responded: "We can have the monitoring unit with the RN on duty."
 
Anook commented suspiciously that such a service was obviously going to have a cost, as everything does at Potemkin Village. "What is that going to run?"
 
I was surprised. Jackie actually had a number. This is terra incognita for us, so I was interested. "$8.50 per fifteen minute intervention," she said.
 
I ran the numbers, comparing the cost between a dedicated staffer outside the door and five interventions per night. Easy choice.
 
"Let's tag the Raven," I said. "I am clicking through the purchase menu and will have it shipped direct to you overnight.

Jackie seemed pleased, and it is something to try, and if it works, could provide a new revenue stream for the Village. It is at least something to try before we have to confront the prospect of clipping the Raven’s wings and locking him down.
 
I thought about that option for Sturmer, too, as I finished my brief remarks to the Board about the pool. Then I said I had a little water that pooled on my balcony, too, and so long as they were being so generous to the residents, I might be able to use $5,000 myself.
 
The President actually smiled at me as I sat down. They say irony has been lost in this world, but I don't think so.
 
I checked the mail this morning, still a little fuzzy after the late night imposed by the meeting. I got a note from an old pal whose Mom just made it all the way to confinement, since she had developed the same penchant for wanderlust that the Raven has.
 
She said given the inevitable path we seem to be going down, and the way we all depart this world, she was thinking about taking up smoking again. I considered that Raven also has a predilection to remove his clothing when upset, which could remove the tag. He is a clever old bird, even if not completely himself after all.
 
I lit up a Lucky, and decided to hope for the best.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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