Written by Panorama residents, Mary Jo Shaw. May 2021
As teenagers, we dreaded popping those irritating pimples, days before attending a birthday party. On arrival, I remember a mouth full of bubble gum. At the event, I remember the bags of popcorn or poppycock we devoured while chatting with our school buddies. Often that led to a bubble gum blowing contest, bubbles popped and . . . what a mess! Seems invariably that the boys formed their own “contest” to get laughs from the girls by blowing frantically into their tall glass of root beer. The tiny layered bubbles foaming over his hand onto the outside of the container grow bigger before popping.
As the finale, we’d pop the many balloons around the room or backyard before our parents arrived.
Now decades later, I experience our Panorama campus overflowing with botanical buds on the verge of popping out. Individual flowers, bushes, vines and trees abound. Others have already given us pleasure and are popping off their stems onto the ground. Thank you Jody Sangder for the TLC that you and your Grounds Team give to our campus.
Before COVID, each year Panorama offered an Activity Fair for prospective or new residents, as well as for veteran residents who may want to explore possible activities. Booths with photos and a representative to answer questions about their activity occupied every available space within a perimeter of walking space for ease of participants. Every Wednesday for one hour in April, we had Activity Fair Reimagined on Zoom, organized by residents Carolyn Odio, Chair, and Linda Crabtree, Co-Chair. The event offered a set of 15 different activities in one hour each week and was offered virtually for residents and prospective residents this year. We could pop in or out of any activity room as long or as often as we wanted, to listen, or to ask questions. Between the staff and/or residents, (and at least a wee prayer!) the fun, learning, and opportunities are always able to happen! That’s Panorama for us.
Another April event we enjoyed before COVID was gathering for Volunteer Day in our Seventeen51 Restaurant for recognition, lovely table of goodies, and employees and staff serving and waiting on us. This year, what fun to wave while watching the special Volunteer Parade weaving through our 140-acre campus! Dedicated Panorama staff with busses, cars, vans, trucks decorated with balloons, Thank You signs, banners, pompoms, teddy bears, and streamers, popped their horns or rang bells on their bicycles!
This time of year, my do-list always reminds me to pop outside with my walker to visit with other residents soaking in some Vitamin D. But this day I was in an area and alone smiling at all of the huge, opened flowers, and whispering to the numerous flowers’ buds on our campus, “Oh, you’re trying so hard to pop out. Won’t be long! The lovely rains we have in Washington are on the weather report for tomorrow. I’m going to take your picture. SMILE!”
I smiled, too, and took an alternate route back to the Quinault . . . to talk to more opened blossoms, and to whisper to the buds. All this because I recalled popping pimples for the birthday parties . . .
Anyway, thank you once again, Panorama, for the care of our Gardens of Paradise!
Our yards sported a special look as the 4-5 inches continued to fall.
And the ambient night light made things magical.
We walked around in this just to enjoy the quiet you get with this type of event. The best place to view this, if you couldn’t walk and crunch around on the new wet snow, was like our little buddy Mirka….
There were also whimsical animals out and frosted with fresh snow. Perhaps a resting rabbit????
We’ve not gotten into the real 20 degrees freezing nights yet, but they are due. The Panorama crew was out with snow shovels, making paths to our mailboxes. The back hoe from grounds was out snow-plowing small loops and courts with a grinning operator. The bigger plow was out for our main roads/streets, commandeered by our wonderful trash collecting man.
From the get go he had us in laughter and intrigue. His charismatic and humorous presentation focused on how to have a beautiful garden with less maintenance and fewer chemicals. 
You can catch 
