Wells Fargo vs BECU and Fainting Goat vs Molly Moon

Yesterday my cousins Joanne and Gordon came to visit. We showed them how much progress we have made in unpacking and setting up our house. They acted impressed. We sat down for a visit. Joanne and I, of course, had to talk about the murder at the Edison Apartments. The Edison was part of her life, too, since our grandmother and great aunt lived there. I have some compassion for the murderer. He obviously was mentally ill--a paranoid schizophrenic. I'm guessing he really did not have control over his actions and needs to be institutionalized again. He did attack another landlady many years ago and attacked a man after that. He was on medications and appeared stable according to recent evaluations. It's hard to say if anybody is to blame in this tragedy. Sometimes the system just doesn't work. With the loss of such a good person, the urge is to blame someone. I don't know if there will be any actions taken against social services in this case. I'll be looking for follow-up, though. The landlady herself sounded like a person I would like to know. She was devoted to her family and friends and was kind and helpful to many people. She will be missed for a long time.

As a side note, this poor, troubled soul who murdered his landlady was not the only paranoid schizophrenic who lived at the Edison. My aunt Eva also lived there, where my mother patiently looked after her as best as she could. Eva wasn't diagnosed until I was in high school. We all knew that she wasn't playing with a full deck for most of her life. She married a man who ended up sexually abusing her daughter and she was not able to care for her two sons when they reached adolescence. They both ended up living in foster care on farms in the area. At any rate, she started thinking that the Russians were after her and would be afraid to stay in her apartment at times. She was mugged when she went to Clark Park to get away. She then went to a nursing home, where she died not too long afterward.

My parents also helped care for another schizophrenic--a next door neighbor who became ill after childbirth. She lived with her mother and would become violent at times. My father would restrain her to prevent her from harming her mother until the police came. He did that several times, as I recall. Maybe seeing my parents care for the mentally ill with kindness, but also with confusion, led me to study psychology.

This is turning in to a long post. Joanne told me that she read my blog recently, so I wanted to be sure to write about something. Today I had some thoughts on what is in the neighborhood. I have started really appreciating my new neighborhood bank, Wells Fargo. In Bellevue, Larry and I needed to deposit a large amount of cash and first tried doing that a BECU. The staff, who are very nice, said that they couldn't take the cash deposits themselves, but could help us use the cash machine on the premises. Larry had just had a bad experience with a cash machine eating a check he deposited and didn't relish feeding money to a machine. We rememebered that he had a joint account with his deceased aunt at Wells Fargo, which was close by. We went there, where a friendly manager was delighted to update accounts for us and took our cash, no funny business. It turns out that our nearest Wells Fargo branch in Wallingford is a block away. I don't bother using the cash machines there. I just walk in and have a friendly teller take my deposits. It's great. I have nothing against the people who work at BECU. I just don't like always having to use a machine. I'm becoming a Wells Fargo fan and am getting to know several of the tellers by sight.

Another comment on Wallingford institutions. There are two hot places to get cool ice cream/sorbet: Molly Moon's and Fainting Goat. Molly Moon's is more famous and almost always has a line of 20-30 people at the door on a summer evening. Fainting Goat also typically has lines, but not as long. Larry and I tried Fainting Goat the other night. I had sorbet and thought it was good. Larry had gelato and liked it also. Tonight we went to Molly Moon's at 5:45, thinking it would be too early for a lineup. I was right. At my age I can eat dessert first, or only, if I feel like it. Larry agreed to my plan. There was no line. He had chocolate ice cream and I had strawberry coconut milk ice cream, or is it sorbet? We thought it was pretty good, but may actually prefer Fainting Goat. Actually, I like the vice cream (vegan, made with cashews) that I make at home. It's easy and fast and no line. I'm sure we'll try both places again. Maybe my opinions will change. I should have mentioned that we had a very nice vegan coconut milk frozen dessert at Sutra, just across the street from MM. They don't do just desserts only. You have to get it with the whole meal. Still, Sutra does well!

I just found my camera and battery charger, so I will be able to take photos again.