Indy Digest: Sept. 9, 2024
Today, I am going to hand over most of this Digest-intro space to my friend Anita Rufus. She’s a former Independent contributor—she penned our Know Your Neighbors column from 2013-2021—and she has news about the return of the Dementia-Friendly Café.
People diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—or any of the other 40-plus types of dementia—and their family members can feel reluctant to be in social settings where the disability might be evident.
As a result, there have been efforts to provide outlets where a “safe space” is provided for relaxed socializing. Many of these are support groups, where not only patients, but also their family and caregivers, can learn coping skills, share their experiences, and engage with others in activities such as music, exercise, art, etc.
Here in the Coachella Valley, a local group decided to follow the lead of others throughout the world after dementia-friendly cafés (often called memory cafés) reported positive results in providing social experiences for those with dementia, or any other illness that inevitably leads toward dementia. The goal was to create a dementia-friendly community.
With the cooperation of P.F. Chang’s at The River in Rancho Mirage, organizers 10 years ago hoped to attract at least 15-20 locals—and were overwhelmed when more than 50 people showed up. Since that time, the monthly café had operated year-round—until COVID-19 struck, and the café was halted.
Good news: Alzheimer’s Coachella Valley has revived the café and is sponsoring the happy hour get-together on the second Wednesday of each month at 3 p.m., again at P.F. Chang’s.
More than 15 million people in the United States provide unpaid care for dementia patients, and more than 60 percent of those are women. Spouses who act as caregivers will often attend the café by themselves when their loved one cannot participate, just to have a break and socialize with others who understand. Many attendees return numerous times to meet their new friends and socialize in the happy hour environment, without fear of stigma.
The Dementia-Friendly Café will meet next on Wednesday, Sept. 11, from 3 to 5 p.m. at P.F. Chang’s, at 71800 Highway 111, in Rancho Mirage. There is no cost to attend, and individual checks are provided for those who choose to order food or drinks.
Everyone is welcome. Those attending universally echo: “It’s fun!”
Come and join us.
Alzheimer’s Coachella Valley provides charitable services, programs and support groups for persons with impaired cognition and their care partners. ACV also provides free cognitive screening services. For more information, call 760-776-3100 or email info@cvalzheimers.org.
What Anita doesn’t say here is that she was one of the people who helped get the Dementia-Friendly Café off the ground. Here’s a column she wrote back in 2014 about that experience.
As someone who’s had family members and friends who’ve suffered from dementia, I know what a toll it can take on both the people dealing with dementia and their caregivers—and I am very, very happy to learn that the Dementia-Friendly Café is back.
—Jimmy Boegle
From the Independent
This Extreme Place: The Coachella Valley History Museum Looks to Expand as It Tells the Story of Our Unique Locale
By Haleemon Anderson
September 9th, 2024
A 1926 adobe home, a schoolhouse from 1909 and an authentic blacksmith’s shop are just some of the highlights of the Coachella Valley History Museum.
Sloppy Sequel: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Has Fun Moments, but It’s a Frantic, Cluttered Mess
By Bob Grimm
September 9th, 2024
Michael Keaton’s return as the title character offers an initial rush, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice tries to do too much and unravels with an unpleasantly frantic and sloppy pace.
Cultural Comedy: Felipe Esparza, Performing at Fantasy Springs, Talks About How Comedy Heals—Both Himself and Others
By Matt King
September 6th, 2024
Felipe Esparza began his comedy career in 1994—and has selling out shows since winning Last Comic Standing in 2010.
The Indy Endorsement: The Chicken Fettucine Alfredo at Foxy’s Kitchen + Bar
By Jimmy Boegle
September 6th, 2024
Foxy’s Kitchen + Bar keeps the old-school vibes of the former Shame on the Moon alive.
The Lucky 13: Julian Perez, the Brainchild of ju!ian
By Matt King
September 9th, 2024
Local artist Julian Perez, the brainchild behind recording project ju!ian, has been catching the attention of people local and beyond thanks to some fun pop jams.
More News
• Today’s recall news involves … eggs! This is a particularly important recall, because of the number of people getting sick—including a Californian, even though the eggs were apparently not distributed in the state. As explained by NPR: “A salmonella outbreak linked to recalled eggs has sickened 65 people in nine states, U.S. health officials said. As of Friday, 24 people had been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No deaths were reported. The recalled eggs came from Milo’s Poultry Farms and were distributed to Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, the CDC said. Eggs labeled ‘Milo’s Poultry Farms’ and ‘Tony’s Fresh Market’ are subject to the recall, which was announced on Friday, because they may be contaminated with salmonella, a bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, the Food and Drug Administration said. The recall includes all carton sizes and expiration dates. … Most of the illnesses are concentrated in Wisconsin and Illinois. People also reported illnesses in California, Utah, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Virginia. The actual number of sicknesses in the outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and may extend to other states, the CDC said.”
• As of this writing, hours before the Monday Night Football season opener, the squabbles between DirecTV and Disney continue. The Los Angeles Times says: “Millions of DirecTV customers could miss ESPN’s kickoff of “Monday Night Football”—a highly anticipated game between the San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets—as the Walt Disney Co. channel blackout stretched into its ninth day on Monday. DirecTV and U-Verse customers have become increasingly frustrated as the dispute drags on. … The Disney-DirecTV tussle turned testy over the weekend after DirecTV filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission alleging Disney has not been negotiating in good faith and its tactics were anticompetitive. DirecTV rolled out an ad campaign featuring Mickey Mouse from ‘Steamboat Willie,’ including one image of the rodent blithely navigating a wooden vessel over a water cliff.”
• But, hey, if you’re an affected DirecTV customer, you can at least get $20! Are they giving it to you automatically? Of course not. That would make too much sense! CBS News explains how to get that $20: “DirecTV says that its subscribers should go to https://www.directv.com/tvpromise/ for the credit. … You’ll have to enter your TV service, such as DirecTV, DirecTV Stream or U-verse, and your zip code. Next, the site will prompt you to ‘Explore Bill Credits.’ Customers will need to click on whether they subscribe via ‘DirecTV via satellite’ or ‘DirecTV via Internet.’ You’ll then be taken to another page where you can enter the email address on file for your account. The $20 credit will be applied in up to two billing cycles, according to the website.”
• A history professor, writing for The Conversation, says that Democrats are making a huge mistake by ignoring rural America: “As the owner of MLB Research Associates, Matt Barron specializes in rural Democratic races and is considered one of the nation’s leading political strategists on the rural vote. Beyond the policy debates, Barron said the blame falls on the Democrats. ‘They don’t even try to compete in rural America,’ he told me. (Rickey) Cole, the former Mississippi state Democratic Party chair, agrees. In rural America, he explained, Democrats have stopped grassroots organizing and party-building.”
• From the “this may mean nothing but, yikes” file comes this NPR piece: “Health officials have identified a person in Missouri sick with bird flu despite having no known contact with animals—marking the first case of the virus in the U.S. this year not linked to farm work. Bird flu has been slowly spreading across the nation’s farms since the beginning of spring. So far, there have been 14 human cases of the virus. All the patients—except the one from Missouri—had been linked to sick dairy cows or poultry. … Aside from Missouri, human cases have been reported in Texas, Michigan and Colorado. At least 196 dairy cattle herds as well as 56 commercial and backyard poultry flocks have been infected nationwide, according to the CDC.”
• The discovery of one—yes, just one—fruit fly in Northern California has caused a huge quarantine of produce. CBS News says: “A large swath of Alameda County is now under a quarantine for the invasive Mediterranean fruit fly after agriculture officials recently discovered one mated female in Fremont. The quarantine area is 71 square miles and defined by state Highway 84 in the north, the Alameda-Santa Clara county border in the south, the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in the west and on the east by Calaveras Creek. During the quarantine, produce grown in the area should stay in the area—this applies to farmers, wholesalers, retailers and home gardeners, according to officials from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. … In order to eradicate the pest, sterile male medflies will be released in the area at the rate of 250,000 males per square mile per week in a 39-square-mile area around the infestation. … The last medfly quarantine in Alameda County was in 1981. Medflies will infest more than 250 types of fruits and vegetables and people who think they might have an infestation can call the state’s Pest Hotline at 800-491-1899 or email reportapest@cdfa.ca.gov.”
• And finally … the individual words in this CNN headline all make sense to me, but them all being together makes no sense at all: “Robot controlled by a king oyster mushroom blends living organisms and machines.” Huh? The story says: “A wheeled bot rolls across the floor. A soft-bodied robotic star bends its five legs, moving with an awkward shuffle. Powered by conventional electricity via plug or battery, these simple robotic creations would be unremarkable, but what sets these two robots apart is that they are controlled by a living entity: a king oyster mushroom. By growing the mushroom’s mycelium, or rootlike threads, into the robot’s hardware, a team led by Cornell University researchers has engineered two types of robots that sense and respond to the environment by harnessing electrical signals made by the fungus and its sensitivity to light. The robots are the latest accomplishment of scientists in a field known as biohybrid robotics who seek to combine biological, living materials such as plant and animal cells or insects with synthetic components to make partly living and partly engineered entities. Biohybrid robots have yet to venture beyond the lab, but researchers hope one day robot jellyfish may explore oceans, sperm-powered bots may be able to deliver fertility treatments and cyborg cockroaches could search for survivors in the wake of an earthquake.” Great. Now I am gonna have nightmares about cyborg cockroaches …
Support the Independent!
Thanks for reading! Please, if you can, support our award-winning, impactful local journalism by clicking the button below and becoming a Supporter of the Independent.
