Lunch At Home

This past weekend was the Official Visit to our Senior Living Community in Yorba Linda. This is an event done every year, usually in February or early March, where the Grand Officers perform the work of a mock meeting for the viewing enjoyment of the residents of our Home. There are almost sixty members of our Order that live in our Home, some of them having moved in quite recently and others having lived there for years. The current Home in Yorba Linda is our third or fourth property (depending on which ones you count :-) and is quite beautifully furnished and appointed. I particularly enjoy the stained glass windows, which were moved from a previous building into this one when we purchased it. The locations of the invidual apartments is a bit confusing, but since most of the spaces are in a big circle, if you keep going you will, usually and eventually, get to where you are going. This year, each of the Grand Officers was given two or three of the residents to be our own Special Pals and we send them cards and try to visit with them when were are at the property. After the Official Visit was over on Friday night, I had a chance to visit with one of my ladies in her apartment and we made arrangements to have lunch the next day, with my other Sister to join us, since I was going to be back on Saturday for meetings for the Home Board and the Finance Committee. Also, I had heard some very mixed comments about the food service and I was interested in seeing it for myself. While I had eaten at the Home on special occasions, such as the Christmas dinner in 2008 and 2009, I had never before shared a regular meal in the dining room with any of our Residents. So at a break in the meeting schedule, I went to the dining room to join my two ladies and we had a delightful time. I had a chance to speak with them about how things worked in the Home for the Residents and get their perspective on the people, policies and happenings which is all the more valuable to me because it is true first hand information. I also had a chance to ask a bit about how some of the Residents feel about the different format suggestions for the Christmas party and of course, I got to try the food for myself. Overall, it was a fine meal, although I did end up with one or two questions that I will have to ask later on. It's a good thing I picked the corned beef and not the fried chicken though, because I ended up having chicken for dinner that night. Dodged a bullet on that one, whew! :-) The meetings were interesting and always informative. I learned a lot there too. The Sisters and Brothers that serve on our Home Board and our Finance Committee put in a scary lot of work for our Order and considering that both of those are multi year commitments, you really have to be a dedicated member to take on those challenges. I know that those two groups also tend to get a bad reputation because they have to make hard decisions, especially in these tough economic times, and it is a shame that people sometimes fail to make a virtue of necessity. On the other hand, I think that there are also things that can be done that would ameliorate, or soften, that reputation, with a little bit of effort. After all, nobody needs a good PR firm as much as people with their hands on the purse strings. :-) Next weekend is one to stay at home, but I am going to go to the dressmaker to do a final design approval before cutting on the Worthy Matron dress I have chosen and I need to get my tax returns done since we won't have another free weekend before Tax Day!