Someone to Watch Over ME!

Call us the Sandwich Generation - Baby Boomers - whatever you want. The truth is, we're tired! We're working to put kids through college (one down, 2 to go); we're helping our folks managing their lives, sometimes on a day to day basis. We still have a mortgage, and that private college tuition increase is putting us over the edge.

Last week as our middle daughter was heading back to college (the $40K+ a year expense item) she talked about how nice it was to be able to just run over to the school cafeteria and pick up some hot, home-made food without having to take the time or effort to cook it herself. Even though she'll be living in an off campus apartment, she'll still take advantage of the cafeteria from time to time.

I laughingly told her I was looking forward to moving into a retirement community myself someday and having someone cook for me, too. I like the idea of someone planning social outings and cleaning my home, too, on a regular basis.

While so much attention in the news focuses on people trying to stay out of retirement or assisted living housing, there is certainly a segment of us boomer population who are anxiously looking forward to the days when we can just run to the dining room and pick up a hot, fresh meal – prepared by someone else.

In our community (Portland, Oregon) a new senior high rise on the city waterfront, the Mirabella, being developed by Pacific Retirement Services is already sold out with a waiting list - and it's not scheduled to open until 2010. Some friends of ours have signed up, and they can’t wait to move in. Other friends are signing their parents up for this opportunity to live in a downtown, waterfront location with all the amenities of luxury retirement living. One sales representative recently told me that they were getting questions they’d never gotten from retirement living prospects before – questions like, “Will there be space to store my kayak?”

As I not-so-laughing said to my daughter, at either ends of your life you get someone to cook for you; in the middle, you’re busting your toosh cooking – and everything else – for yourself and your family!