Update about blogCa

The Lakeview Center for Active Aging, Black Mountain NC - soon to reopen after repairs!

Sunday, March 1, 2026

I'm brave plus some food

 Rabbit rabbit.

by Amuelle

by Annie Peeker


And I must tell you about how brave I am!

Somehow even with this old two story apartment building having newer windows and plastic cladding, there are some critters that sneak in the cracks. One is the stink bug. They are geometric shaped flat critters, who really do stink if you smash them, which I learned the hard way of course. So I usually grab a tissue and pick them up and throw them outside. This time of year they may be flushed, because why make them suffer in the freezing weather.

One’s exo-skeleton was stuck hanging above the shower, somehow attached to the rough ceiling for months, because I couldn’t reach it. Apparently it died of natural causes.

But this last week, lying in bed, suddenly I saw one slowly walking toward me, on the bed sheet about 6 inches from my body…the sheet I was lying on, not the covers. It looked quite determined to climb onto me. I did the brave thing and flicked it off the bed. I didn’t feel I could get my body up out of the prone position, find a tissue, etc. and actually it was fight or flight response …so then for 2 days I wondered where it had gone. Yes they fly, and hide very well. Clothing is all over the bedroom, as well as storage shelving.

So finally two days later, early in the morning on Friday it was crawling up the wall in the bathroom. It was the biggest one I’d ever seen. I said a few words to get my “fighting attitude up” and grabbed the tissue and gave a well timed flush. Whew. The conquering heroine I am!


My shrimp hibachi style, white rice with soy sauce, and carrots. A nice sauce for dipping. I also had already eaten the egg roll, and had to ask for sweet and sour sauce to go with it.


A renovated Mexican restaurant is now the Japanese- style “Kyoto,” still owned by the family who owns Ole' Guacamoles. Here Teresa and I tried to include some of the little plastic Bonsai trees on each window-sill in the background.

My take away? The shrimp was overcooked - really dry…grilled popcorn shrimp needs just a minute on a grill. Or it had been left from the day before? But I liked the veggies, since every other Asian place is high on veggies that I avoid, namely peppers and onions. The side of carrots was wonderful, sweet contrast to the salty hibachi flavor.

The same dish may have chicken or steak or even salmon as the protein. I may try one of those. The egg roll left me cold. And our obviously Latina waitress couldn’t understand enough English to answer most of my questions. She made efforts with a translator on her phone however. 

So would I give her a good tip? You bet cha! I remember trying to be a bi-lingual Pan-American flight attendant and how difficult it was to understand rapid Spanish compared to my classroom Spanish conversations!

 But it also didn’t help me find out how the Kyoto cooks made their spring rolls. My Latina waitress could only say they were microwaved.

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BIG NEWS in my life.

The Lakeview Center for Active Aging is opening again in a week, on March 9. No more carrying lunches home in a Styrofoam box! And exercise classes will be held there too! Eating around a table of 8 seniors each day for lunch! Whoopee!

So the inspections following the downstairs structural work have met standards. But I think there is still more renovation to be done, since we won't have the space downstairs for classes yet.




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I am so sad about the girls killed in their school in Iran by the United States and Israel.

That is all.