We went to an elder (but not really) day care facility to basically hang out, do a craft project, and eat lunch with clients of the facility. This particular place serves people with traumatic brain injury, dementia, frontal lobe damage, etc., mostly over 60, but they have some clients in their 30s, (which is why it's "not really" an elder day care facility). Some people have impulse control issues due to their brain injuries, some have motor control problems, and some have both. The craft: Flipflop planters to hang on the fences! We were in groups of two, and we painted little terra cotta pots to go in the flip-flops. I have a photo! The one I ended up painting (there's a reason *I* painted it instead of sharing the painting duties with my partner) is the green-with-blue-dots-and-blue-with-green-dots one on the top row:
The reason I did almost all of the painting is because it turned out my partner has motor skills problems. She painted the blue band around the top and then told me to finish it. Okay, can do! I told her she was the art director. I asked her if she wanted the bottom part green, and she did, so it was painted green. She told me to paint the bottom of the pot orange, so the bottom of the pot is orange. She wanted a certain spot painted blue, so it was painted blue. I asked her if she wanted contrasting dots over the blue and green, and she did, so that's what happened (I used the handle of the paint brush/sponge as a dotter. Someone asked where I got the idea. Doing my nails! They asked if I meant hammer-and-nails. No, silly, manicures!). I love the color combination. I might do my nails like this over the weekend!
ANYWAY. If you have the chance to volunteer at one of these sorts of centers, do it! The main reason they like to get volunteers to come in is for socialization. That's it. Just sitting, chatting, and being around with new faces.
(Oh, and we also did some chair tai chi because that's one of the things they do every day. It seems that the University of Oregon has done some research into cognitive therapy, and tai chi helps the right and left halves of your brain work together, In the kinds of clients they have, this is *very* important. And it's chair-based because a lot of their clients have balance issues -- because brain trauma -- or are in wheelchairs. I had never done it before, so I hadn't realized how meditative and calming it is! I might have to look into finding a class or instruction something-or-other so I can start doing it at home.)
One weird thing: There was a guy there who looked vaguely familiar. I finally decided he looked kind of like a cross between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Kiedis. So. I was chatting with one of the staff members because she thought I looked familiar (yeah, I get that *all over* the states of Oregon and Washington. Let's just say that my grandmother had a *lot* of half-brother and half-sisters that no one knows anything about), and all of a sudden I felt someone giving me a backrub. I thought it was one of my coworkers, which would have been an odd thing for one of them to do, but whatever. It turned out that it was the aforementioned hybrid guy. ALL of my coworkers noticed before I did -- and every single one of them commented on it. I think he must have been one of the "impulse control issues" clients that the volunteer coordinator told us about at the start of the session.
/emoticons/
