Seesaw and Jacob

We all knew someone who had set up a parent in the Sunset Bay Towers, where the residents ranged in age from the fit-and-fabulous fifties, to the get-your-hair-set seventies, to the put-me-out-of-my-misery nineties; only occasionally did the pendulum swing back to the celebrate-every-moment one hundreds, we should all live such a long life. Sunset Bay wasn’t a nursing home, just a well-staffed and affordable condo building where you could always find a foursome for canasta or a crispy-skinned group of yentas roasting like rotisserie chickens on the pool deck. It helped that the elevators and apartments had extra-wide doors so that walkers and wheelchairs could glide in and out, graceful as the rollerbladers circling Pinecrest Park a few blocks away.

Many of the residents were widows, and the occasional man spotted in the Sunset Bay mail room got loads of attention. A full head of hair, a non-expired driver’s license, and children who lived out of town were traits in high demand, and a man who could meet just one of these qualifications would have no problem finding a Saturday night movie date.

In the absence of male companionship, the women of Sunset Bay cherished their dogs. Specifically, they cherished their white and fluffy minis, too big for a purse, but small enough that they wouldn’t drag their owners off balance into a hip-breaking fall. Sure, there were exceptions—Mrs. Linsky had a shaggy golden retriever named Janis, a nod to her Woodstock days—but you were much more likely to meet a Pomeranian, a Maltese, a Bichon Frisé, or some...