A Star is Born...94 and a half years ago.

This is so cool! One of our residents at Stone Gardens was chosen to be the subject of a short "documentary." He has been an artist all of his adult life and has done beautiful metal sculptures, ceramics and paintings. He's had pieces in galleries and shows as recently as last year. He's 94 years old now and has lost most of his eyesight, but he has never stopped producing art. He works almost every day at it. He is an inspiration and I am honored to call him my friend. Please take 3 mins. to watch this film.

http://getold.com/#inspire/10466

You saw him in yesterday's post as our prom King.

Senior Prom

Last week we held our annual Senior Prom.

We encouraged people to dress up.

Above: The Once and Future King

Below: This is the first time we've seen this man in long pants and a button down shirt. He prefers comfort, but thanks to RA Sandra Bell, he bit the bullet and showed up dressed for the occasion.

Below: The Soon to be Queen for a Day.

The coronation.

Even Vesna, one of our servers in the Dining Room, changed into her prom dress and stayed for the festivities after work. Boy, I'll bet she hasn't put on a prom dress in, like...two years.

Signs of Spring

As I was walking into the building the last week I noticed that our Weeping Cherry Trees were in bloom. There are six Cherry Trees as part of our Holocaust Memorial Garden next to our Rose Garden in front of the building. I knew that if I wanted pictures of them in bloom I'd better act quickly because they only bloom for about 37 seconds. On Wednesday, I got out there with my camera, and while they were just past their peak, they were still nice.

I walked around the building for a few minutes and snapped some photos of some of the other signs of spring. All of these are pretty much right in front of our building within just yards of each other. You know, we may not exactly be in a bucolic setting, we may have a freeway to our east, Cedar Road to our north, and Beachwood Mall to our west, but, if we just take the time to look, to really look, we can notice beauty and small miracles all around us all the time. (Hint: Life Lesson Alert.)

 There's some construction going on on the south side of our building. I've heard all kinds of rumors all over campus about what we're building. I've heard that we're adding another wing and building up three stories. WE'RE NOT. What we are doing is some great new landscaping. We're creating a new enclosed garden. The new garden is being created with Helen's Place in mind, but will be available for everyone. We hope to have it open by the end of May.

Pooch Parade

On Monday we had a Pooch Parade.

We had a total of seven dogs come to visit.

This one is Bailey and she's mine. She was with me all day at work. She loves coming to work. And she works for kibble.

The seven dogs ranged in age from 5 months to 14 years, and they came in a variety of sizes.

This one (below) is Einstein, a Golden Retriever. I asked him to bring me some lunch, but he did not retrieve. Not very well trained, I guess.

Pictured below is Breezy, a trained therapy dog.

Apparently, Breezy has never heard this joke:

A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, you gotta help me. I think I'm a dog." And the psychiatrist says, "OK. Come over here and lie down on the couch." And the man says, "I can't! I'm not allowed on the furniture."

This is the five month old. The dog, I mean. The lady holing the dog is Donna Head, our past receptionist, and with her is her granddaughter. The dog's name is Dexter.

This resident brought his, uh, "dog" Buck down to take part in the festivities.Buck, he told us, never bites. Which, I must say, is kind of a relief. In fact, Buck never eats, sleeps, poops, or does any of those annoying regular dog things. Although, he did mention that Buck once saved his life. I didn't ask.