Happy Friday, DMV! It’s June 5.
I’ve been senior-living curious lately. It started when I read aloud to my daughter “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman — about a retirement village with a group that meets to solve cold-case murders. We laughed. We cried. And it made me wonder about retirement communities and the residents’ lifestyles.
So when Patti Konrad — a Daily Dose reader who is “almost 80” and had shared the photos in Wednesday’s newsletter — told me she lived in a retirement community and invited me for lunch, I said yes.
I met Patti on Thursday at Greenspring Village in Springfield, Virginia. We made our way to the dining area where our lunchmates Larry Rood, 88, and Sandy Grundeman, 86, were seated on a couch waiting for us.
I introduced myself. “How are you?” I asked.
“Old,” Larry replied with a chuckle. Larry and Sandy said they still envisioned themselves in their younger forms and were surprised when they saw in the mirror how they’d aged.
Because it was my contact with Patti about her photos that brought me to Greenspring, she had invited Larry, who has a photography show up on an art wall near the dining area.
Larry Rood, next to a wall of photos he took, points to his favorite. (Alisa Tang)
Sandy leads a drawing class, with some people who had never drawn before. In a stroll around the property, Patti showed me residents’ woodworking and ceramics pieces.
It seemed each room and hallway hosted activities. We passed a group playing Sudoku together…
(Alisa Tang)
… and another singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with string musicians.
(Alisa Tang)
Patti, who had lived 46 years in the same house in Annapolis, had moved to this community in 2023 because her husband had “significant balance problems.”
Larry, who had lived 45 years in nearby Burke, Virginia, moved to Greenspring in 2017, after his wife had recovered from “a serious medical condition involving significant surgery.”
This suburban community of elders had built rich social lives. If they wanted, they always had dinner companions.
But I was surprised that the absence of young people left me emotional. The only younger people there — based on what I saw during my brief visit — were staff, another visitor … and me.
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📰 News around the DMV
The Kennedy Center’s National Symphony Orchestra ‘is in real trouble,’ Ben Folds says. Here’s how we can help. (Variety, h/t City Cast DC for flagging it in their newsletter)
Trump moves about 8,000 federal positions to Schedule Policy/Career (Federal News Network)
🌼 Things to do
Saturday-Sunday: The Dupont Kalorama Museums Consortium hosts Walk Weekend, with participating museums open to visitors free of charge.
1:30 p.m. Sunday: The Shambhala Meditation Center of Washington DC will hold in-person meditation at Seekers Church in the Takoma neighborhood in the District. All are welcome. Organizers ask that people arrive 10 minutes early for free meditation instruction. The one-hour practice is followed by tea and snacks, then a 3 p.m. discussion of the dharma (Buddhist teachings). Donations are welcome.
Also …
A local’s guide to America 250 in Washington (City Cast DC)
13 great Pride events to attend in the D.C. area (Washingtonian)
15 things to do around D.C. this weekend (The 51st)
📷 Your joy
(Stephanie Sperling)
Stephanie Sperling, 50, of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland took this photo on May 30 as the blue moon — the second full moon of the May — was rising.
“I have a part-time job working for a catering company, and it takes me to beautiful locations all over the Annapolis area,” Stephanie wrote in her submission. “I had to pause and take in this gorgeous scene over Whitehall Bay in the midst of cleaning up after an event.”
🪕
