Meanwhile, in a salsa class filled with people who are doing their best to convey great age and declining health, an instructor is bouncing around and encouraging everyone, "That's right, you guys -- feel the music! We're all Britney Spears at heart!" This was the point where I paused the episode and asked the cats, "Do you think that comment counts as elder abuse?" The class is only there to underscore what kind of community Betty was living in, as Calleigh (mercifully, wearing a t-shirt) and Delko (chronically underbuttoned shirt) walk by with the manager, who's explaining, "Sewell lied on his application, but he didn't lie about the window. Betty had some good days and she had some bad days." Delko says, "Yeah, we heard that she thought she had a boyfriend." And then this alleged elder care professional laughs, "Boyfriend -- try boyfriends. This place is high school with arthritis and Betty is hot stuff." Cut to Calleigh and Delko interviewing Betty's assorted boyfriends. Boyfriend #1 says to Calleigh, "Betty was a lot of fun -- she and I had a very healthy sexual relationship -- she was not afraid to try new things." Betty was also the world's most atypical Alzheimer's patient on the planet. One of the signs of advanced Alzheimer's is a spike in social isolation and disengagement, i.e. a refusal to make eye contact or acknowledge when anyone is speaking. I had a great-aunt die from the disease in the last year, and I've got a great-uncle in the throes of it, and when I visited him and his caretaker in November, he spent the entire time trembling and nodding at nothing in particular, and that, I was told, was one of his good days when he was calm and tractable.













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