Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome in.
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This is Ron Greenwald, the Ron Greenwald Podcast, and this show serves as a lightning rod for older adults in their journeys to a happy and successful lifestyle.
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We talk, we bring in professionals, we bring in older adults, we bring in all those people that can bring benefits of great stories and great knowledge to help older adults as they navigate their journey.
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So we also invite the children and the grandchildren of those older adults, too, to listen to this, to help and understand the journey of aging.
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And today I am thrilled to introduce my guest who we just met about a couple months ago, and I said immediately you must come on and do a podcast with me, pearl.
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Welcome to the Ron Greenwald podcast.
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Welcome in, it's great to have you here.
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Thank you, ron.
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It is just a pleasure to be here.
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I am so happy to be here with you again.
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We had such a fun time last time and I look forward to a fun time this time too.
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Thank you, and you look fabulous.
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The first thing you said to me is that you love glitz.
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And how did all that come about?
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Well, I like to dress up as a young child.
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About Well, I like to dress up as a young child and that was fun in my mother's wedding dress, which was overwhelmingly large on me.
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But the older I get, the more glitz I get and I just let it go at this point because it's fun to do, that's all.
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It's just fun.
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It makes me happy to do.
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That's, that's all.
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It's just fun.
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It makes me happy and that is a big thing in my life.
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That's my responsibility to make myself happy well, that's awesome.
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Tell us a little bit about yourself.
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You, you're welcome.
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You're willing to give your age to the world, to this part, oh you can all know my age.
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I'm going to be 85 in June, the end of June this year, and what a blessing it is.
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I remember when my dad turned 70, he said I said, oh my goodness, you're getting old.
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And he said, Pearl, there are lots of people who don't live to be 70.
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Look at how lucky I am.
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So I never planned on getting to be 85.
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I thought I'd die young, but aren't I lucky I'm here.
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And you're married to Bob.
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I'm married to Bob and you're celebrating your.
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What number anniversary.
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It's going to be our 64th anniversary, and that is a joy, because lots of people don't stay married 64 days and here we are 64 years, ron.
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And tell us a little bit about the family.
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We have three children.
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We have two girls and then a son.
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One daughter lives in Carlsbad, One lives in Tennessee and our son lives in Dallas, Texas.
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So they're scattered around.
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They are scattered around, but only the last two and a half years.
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Until then we all lived up to.
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Our one daughter has lived in San Diego for probably 30 years and our other daughter and son they lived right in Thousand Oak West Lake, moorpark area.
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Which, for those that don't know, is kind of a northern of Los Angeles.
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It's about an hour north of Los Angeles, you're right.
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Bob, so is that what you said?
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Most of your life is in the Los Angeles area.
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Well, the last, probably 30 years of it?
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Yes, that has been in that area.
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And what did Bob do for a career?
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Well, we were born both of us in Canada and I met Bob when I was in nursing, in training, and he was in the hospital, he worked in the department where they take care of the money, and we went out a couple times and then he said to me you know, you're a nice girl.
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But he said I want you to know right away, when I get married I will have one or two children, and then I am moving to California.
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You see, he had been out here on a trip when he was 18 and loved California, but the United States had a draft, we Canada did not.
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So he wanted to avoid the draft and he said so, pearl, if that sounds good to you, we can continue dating.
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If not, well, maybe we can be friends.
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So we did continue dating and from there we got married, and it was a couple years later because I was still in nursing and then we had a child and, due to his predictions, then we moved to California.
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And did you continue being a nurse?
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I did do nursing for quite a while.
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That was a passion of mine.
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I loved nursing.
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To this day I love nursing.
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But he decided then he would.
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We had two more children in California and after the third one was born, was born in November, in December he came home one day and he said to me he was due to go out and his friend and he had set up a whole I don't know thing for doctors in their offices for collecting money and everything.
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And when he came home from seeing one of the doctors I said to him how did it go?
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And he wasn't telling me about how this business of his or future business was going to go.
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He started telling me about how he could go back to school and he could become a chiropractor.
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That was total news to me and that long ago chiropractic wasn't looked upon with a lot of oh, wow, isn't this wonderful?
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And so I said well, how is that going to work, bob?
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He had a wonderful job at Getty Oil Company.
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He was corporate accountant for Getty Oil.
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I thought if we ever make any money near close to this, how are we going to live, bob?
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Was this a?
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midlife crisis for Bob.
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Well, I thought it was a midlife crisis for me.
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He's not here, so he can't answer.
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For me it was.
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But I said how is this going to work?
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Well, he said you know, I've got it all figured out, pearl.
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He said I can go to school, I can go to work at Getty, I can leave the house at 7.30 in the morning, I'll go to Getty, I'll work till 5.
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Then I can go over to school after that, and I'll be home by 11.30 at night.
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And I thought how is this going to work?
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And I said, bob, how long does this take?
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Well, I'll be done in three years.
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And I thought I will do it too.
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But you know, if I didn't say yes to that, I might have regretted it for a long time, or I might have regretted it for a long time, or I might have heard about it.
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And I thought, I guess he thinks he has to do this.
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And it was a real embarrassment for me because I didn't and he had never done anything that he wouldn't complete.
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We were into is this a good thing?
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Is it workable and doable?
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So I said, yes, go ahead.
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And so we did that and after a good year and a half I realized it was going to, we were going to finish it.
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In the beginning I didn't have a lot of faith that that could be finished with three kids, but you supported him.
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But yes, yes, I did.
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I think you should be a marriage counselor for the younger generation today in terms of how to support one another.
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Well, anyway, it did work out for us.
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He had an extremely successful practice.
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And then he came home one day and he said I had the best news today.
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Okay, bob, what's the news?
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Oh, he said, one of my patients, you know, he's in real estate and he found a residential care facility that we can buy.
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And I said well, why can we buy that, bob?
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Well, the real reason is it's going under Pearl, these people.
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They just redid the whole thing.
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Everything's been redone, it's beautiful, but they don't have the money.
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They didn't have enough backing.
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They've only had it six months.
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They thought they'd be rolling in money in six months.
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So Is this in Los Angeles?
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This was in Thousand Oaks.
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Okay.
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So I said well, I guess you're going to look at this, right?
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He said oh yes, it'll be a great thing for you, pearl.
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I know you'll be able to do this and you'll have fun with this.
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Now, what age are your children at this point?
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Were they having the second?
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Well, they were probably the oldest, one would have been maybe 10.
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Oh.
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And so the youngest would have been about six, and this was in Thousand Oaks and at that time we lived in Chatsworth, which was quite a drive.
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Nonetheless, we did buy that facility.
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It had 109 beds and we kept the lady on for one year so I could learn how to run a residential care facility.
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So that was a new experience and I did that full time for probably about two and a half years and then we got directors.
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After that I stayed very involved with it that if they ever went on vacation or had sick days, I would always go in and replace them and I would go in every week regardless, because that was my baby checking up on it checking up on all of my residents and my staff so you're managing an owner of a residential care community up in the Thousand Oaks area.
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Your children are still weaving their way through teenagerhood and going on to college, so part of our mission of this podcast is how to fast forward a little bit.
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You are moving, you moved it, so you sell that at some point in time and move to san diego, is that?
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right.
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We sold that.
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We owned it for 25 years.
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I was 35 when we bought.
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True, we decided we would move.
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Because my, our daughter decided she wanted to move to out of state, to where her sons could afford to live in.
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There If they got married and had a wife and children, they could have homes and the wife could make a decision Did she want to stay home or did she want to work.
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So she decided they would go to Tennessee and we would go to Tennessee.
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So we had the moving people come.
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They came and they went through the house and said this is the size van you're going to need, and that was fine.
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Then, when they came to do the move, they brought the van different young man again and he came to me and he said your house is not going to fit in this van.
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Well, why won't it?
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That's what they told me.
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No, he said I don't care what they told you, it's not going to work.
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So I called my daughter apart and I said Grace Ann, this is not going to work.
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Oh, she said what can we do?
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I said there's nothing we can do, except what we're going to do.
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You are going to come with me, we're going to walk through the house, make a decision what we don't need, and then you're going to take the boys and they're going to move it all outside onto the driveway, parts of it at a time, and you're going to take videos and this was her decision.
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I'll take videos of it and we'll put it up free.
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Everybody will come, it'll be gone and every half hour I'll go out.
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And then if it's gone which I think it will be bob she said, then we'll put more stuff out and I'll check every half hour.
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So we got sterling silver, went out and you were willing to part with all that.
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You know know it was a decision that had to be made.
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The kids did not want Sterling Silver.
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They didn't want the work involved in it and there was no time to call friends and say, would you like this Sterling?
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Maybe their kids didn't want it either.
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That's a story unto itself.
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I mean, as I say, having worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of people moving to, you know, senior communities or down right sizing.
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That is a story I haven't heard yet.
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So bless you, pearl then the grand piano went out on the there, because that's another big piece you moved the grand piano outside outside.
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The boys did.
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We had three young strapping boys.
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They got it outside.
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And you were giving that away for free.
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For free.
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Everything that went outside went outside for free.
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The people learned they didn't leave.
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Grace Ann was telling.
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I never went outside and looked at it.
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I thought what's going is going.
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But she said the cars and the vans and the trucks were staying because they knew stuff would be coming and so all kinds of stuff went out till finally they said okay.
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I said now is that enough stuff that's gone, can you do this now?
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And when they said yes, then that was yes, yes.
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But the story gets funnier.
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We're still not in San Diego, we're still going to Tennessee.
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At this point, we're still going to Tennessee.
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So all of the furniture then gets put in the vans and then they come for the cars, because cars go on the moving vans, on those car loaders too, and all of the cars go.
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I think there were five of them that went.
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And I said to Grace Ann she knew ahead of time I had told her your dad and I are going to go down to San Diego.
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We're going to stay in San Diego for one week.
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We're going to take each of us a small suitcase that will hold only enough clothes for the week.
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We'll stay with Diane so we have some time with her.
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That was wonderful.
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So we came down here and we stayed with Diane Diane's your other daughter.
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She's our other daughter.
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She's in Carlsbad.
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And then the second last day we were here, she took us to Westmont facility, which is a retirement facility, for you can get help or you are self-care there.
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It's a wonderful, wonderful community and before we knew it we were signed up to stay at Westmont and we'd be close to our daughter, diane, who desperately wanted us to stay here.
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But now all of our clothes oh are in Tennessee and all of our cars were in Tennessee.
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But you know, for a woman isn't that wonderful.
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I can go shopping and I can buy.
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It's like lost luggage on an airplane, it is, it is.
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And I told him, I said you know, I am not shipping it back again, bob, we're going to go and we're going to buy whatever we need and I'm going to buy all the clothes.
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And he, he, I told him, I said, and you're going to be very generous?
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And that's what he was, and that's what I did.
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Oh my gosh.
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So did the clothes in Tennessee ever make it back?
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No, they're just off the good wheel.
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I go there twice a year usually for about four weeks each time At least.
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I go twice a year, and then I have plenty of clothes when I'm there.
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Oh, my goodness, gracious yeah.
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So okay, so that was what two years ago.
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That was about two and a half years ago.
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And you come to San Diego and you just so how did the conversation?
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Westmont is a Westmont Encinitas senior community is pretty new at that point.
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It was brand new.
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It was opened in July and this we were here the middle of December and took occupancy the first part of October, so it was very new.
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And so the conversation with Bob and the family is going yeah, we don't really want to deal with a house.
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I mean, what is the conversation to go?
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Hey, this is a much better lifestyle for us.
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Well, you have the background in senior living already so you know that part of it.
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So it wasn't a foreign object to you in any capacity.
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No, not at all.
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So um.
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Can I?
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pause really quick.
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What is that the alarm?
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Well, that gives you a ten minute.
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Well, that is a story.
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Isn't that so great, ron.
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When I heard that, I was like what?
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That you threw everything at me because nobody does that.
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No, I just love your flow with life and as things happen and you just go okay, then this is here and this is what we do.
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And then this is here, and then this is what we do.
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Yeah, it's just a new thing, there's no drama or panic, or you know.
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No, I do not panic.
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Can you tell?
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me again.
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I do not panic.
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I might inside have my pulse rate go faster and think, how are we gonna work this out?
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Well, don't worry about that, just let right now take care of itself.
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And Okay, I think we're good to go.
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Okay.
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Where were we you?
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were talking about the Westmont community.
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The Westmont, yeah Right.
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So you come in about two years ago, two, three years ago, and you're with Diane and you wake up one morning and go Bob, maybe we should go up on El Camino Real and go check out this beautiful new senior community called Westmont.
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Is that the conversation?
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No, no, no, Diane had gone to see Westmont apparently before we arrived here, oh, okay.
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And she said you're going to love this, mom.
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She knew I loved the water, I love the pool.
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I don't swim but I love to exercise in it.
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And she said you're going to love this.
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And she knew the director at that time was Charlie.
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She knew him and she said we were very fond of Charlie, I think you're going to be happy with him and the apartments are lovely, you will like them, and everything positive she could say to me.