text: Not so Easy Rider | I Advance Senior Care
  Whenever I need to get some clarity in life, I have two choices: either visit a therapist or Canada in winter.
  Not Vancouver, where I grew up. That's not really Canada-it's just a more polite, slightly less caffeinated Seattle. I'm talking about the real Canada. North. Way up north.
  Why do people live there, under such harsh conditions? Like so many of life's important questions, I've learned there is no answer. They just do. For no reason. Because they can. My wife's parents are perfect examples of otherwise rational folks who seem to take a perverse joy in daily survival on the frozen prairie. You'd think they'd tire of chipping the ice off their contact lenses every time they get the mail, but not so far.
  Perhaps believing that time in the world's second largest walk-in freezer would focus my mind and be cheaper than hypnosis, I made a winter sojourn to the colder part of Canada recently. And though I did experience an epiphany there in the frozen north, it wasn't the kind I had hoped for. Instead, in the twilight of a sub-zero winter day, I was visited by the Ghost of My Long-Term Care Future-in the form of an elderly woman on one of those mobility scooters.
  Talk about pure, bullheaded vitality. I've never seen anything quite like it. And I realized I was watching the kind of independent spirit that doesn't and won't fit well into some nursing homes' institutional models of care.
  And what about my music? Where will I blast The Beatles and Radiohead at deafening decibels as I shuffle about my day? I've been listening to loud music all my life. Why would I want to stop just because I'm old, sick, and hurt a lot? If anything, as my pain increases, I'll probably want to switch to Metallica and turn the volume up to 11. I'm not sure that would be allowed in today's nursing home, as it might drown out the overhead paging system.