Tuesday Smoke Break

I work part time at an assisted living facility Tuesdays and Thursdays. I take my smoke breaks outside where the residents also take their smoke breaks…and feed the cats, rats, squirrels, and birds the less desirable bits from the meals in the cafeteria…Sort of like a hood-Brooklyn-Snow White vibe.

Sarmat, sits on the same bench, in the same spot every day, smokes his pre rolled cigarettes and feeds the creatures. Today he threw out some peanuts and pasta salad from his disposable clear plastic cup. ^^As we can see here in the above video-squirrel guy laying spread eagle is very much enjoying himself a peanut… and the teenage cats (not pictured) are in the far right corner collecting bits of chicken to take back to their brood, very proud of themselves I’m sure.

Sitting on the bench with Sarmat is Mikey. He’s in his 60s or 70s, with white hair tied into a low pony tail. He’s very thin and lengthy always wearing pants slightly too short, giving him the appearance that he is much taller than he really is. As he was finishing his cigarette, he updated me joyously on the kitten situation letting me know we have two more kittens about. One orange one and one black one.

The people here love to take care of and facilitate relationship with the little guys-naming the cats, identifying the different birds and getting friendly with the squirrels…the rats make themselves scarce but do sometimes pop out for a little crumb. This spot has its own eco system…the cats do their thing and multiply and in doing so they keep the rat problem at bay, the birds and squirrels keep it relatively bug free- everyone has their job. Occasionally some of the residents do get pissed off when a woman named Joan goes crazy with the rice throwing for the birds-but otherwise no real problems. It doesn’t seem dirty and crusty or weird to me-it’s actually very lovely in its own right.

As my smoke break comes to an end, I reflect on how grateful I am for the brief and simple interactions I get to have with these humans. I finish my Marlborough light and quickly deal with some divorce stuff via email (oh yea there’s that too). I get up from my usual bench and walk back inside to finish my day as a recreational therapist… on the docket: manicures, bingo and bananagrams.