Such was our night at Chateau Brickyard's St. Patrick's Day family dinner. Grandpa's been doing well since he moved in there. The staff is very friendly and accommodating. These two strengths became weaknesses last Tuesday.
Grandpa's French-themed assisted living facility likes to roll out the red carpet for the families of their residents, especially on holidays. The only reason I can fathom they do this is to keep the monthly checks rolling in from the people that are probably at least helping to pay the rent.
Christmas was quite an affair. The dinner was hearty and well prepared. The place was decorated like a department store. They even offered valet parking. Since this was a St. Patrick's day dinner, everything accordingly was less lavish. Instead of about a dozen different desserts to choose from there were two, and one of them involved a certain crunchy rice cereal with generous amounts of green food coloring.
Don't get me wrong. It's great that they encourage visits from residents' families. We probably don't see Grandpa as often as we should, but a free meal never hurts.
We apparently weren't the only ones who thought so. Two of the residents' guest groups made up about ninety percent of the people there. They dominated huge swaths of the room, including the one in which we were sitting. Leprechaun-sized redneck larvae in green light-up necklaces and green hair dye ran among the tables while their parents ordered free adult-sized meals for them. It's a wonder they didn't run out of food.
What took the cake for me was when a woman who came in holding a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms turned out to be carrying a baby goat.
Bottom line; at least two families got a massive family reunion fully catered for free, complete with table service. Good thing they didn't have a see-ment pond or the kids might have been defecating in it.
Shortly after we finished eating, Grandpa invited us upstairs to chat with him for a while. We went up and had a nice chat (he's doing great, by the way). In spite of missing a raffle, I was glad for his suggestion. It was getting pretty loud and unpleasant in the dining room.
Other people thought so too, apparently. On our way out I heard a resident venting her frustrations on the bewildered manager who had recently found himself and his senior staff playing nanny to the horde of bratty kids. It was a circus complete with a petting zoo.
It's nice to visit grandpa. It's nice to get a free meal. Next time we'll do it on a really special occasion . . . like Flag Day.
1 comment:
A BABY GOAT?!?! You've got to be kidding me! Wow! I'm glad you got to see Grandpa though I hope he's happier and better cared for in that place. Living alone was definitely not good for him.
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