The title of this inaugural blog post is the inscription on the Twitter profile picture for @LynndeLoopy.

@LynndeLoopy is an accomplished tweeter with informed views about ageing issues and aged care.  She follows and shares media stories, references other tweeters and knows her way around a few good hashtags.   She engages in conversations, passes on opinions and likes to dragoon others into feisty debates.

@LynndeLoopy has interesting ideas about many things in fact, and she’s not afraid to share them.  With time at her disposal and a devil-may-care disposition, she interacts with everyone from journalists, politicians, advocacy groups and government authorities through to academics, aged care workers and average Joes.  Her interests are eclectic to say the least.  She follows the Dalai Lama, Ita Buttrose, Julian Burnside and Clive Palmer, the latter of whom she enthusiastically supports.

But she is scathing of Tony Abbott, who she calls ‘Phoney Tony’; abhors the Newman government in Queensland, which she refers to as the “Nazi Mafia ruling Queensland now!”; and she is a big fan of Labor’s Penny Wong – “Now, P.W. is one ALP person I admire and respect! She tells it like it is, no added bullshit necessary!”

@LynndeLoopy has a wicked sense of humour and doesn’t mind poking fun at herself while working the twitterverse.  “C’mon you mob in Canberra – I need my “Nana Nap”,” she tweeted amid her commentary on the extensive pomp and ceremony of the formal opening of the 44^th Parliament of Australia this week.

@LynndeLoopy is one to watch and not just because she has plenty to say about ageing and aged care issues.  What makes her really interesting is that, according to her twitter profile, @LynndeLoopy is an “Aged pensioner living in an aged care facility in Cairns” and at a mere 70, she is a harbinger of the future of the politics of ageing – the future that’s right on our doorstep.

I first came across @LynndeLoopy when I was still at Australian Ageing Agenda and she started chiming in on our commentary during the election campaign.

I don’t know her and I suppose there is always the chance that she isn’t who she says she is, but I don’t think that’s the case.  According to her tweets, she has had two heart attacks in the last three years, perhaps resulting in her having some care needs that weren’t able to be met at home.  I really don’t know.

What I do know is that, while a politically active, social media savvy aged care resident might be something of a rare bird today, that won’t be the case for long.  Fortunately for aged care providers – and for whoever operates the aged care facility where @LynndeLoopy lives – she seems reasonably happy with the care and services at her disposal.  She references social activities at the home and latches onto new foods and recipes to talk to the facility’s chef about.

But if she wasn’t happy, I think we would know all about it.

She is in regular tweet-touch with the group, Aged Care Crisis:  “the only way is for a ROYAL COMMISSION into #agedcare! As you say “no-one is listening” – they dump us in 2 hard box,” she tweeted with @agedcarecrisis only today.

Then to another fellow tweeter working in aged care in Ballarat, she tweeted:  “We had a “surprise” visit by 3 Accreditation ladies yesterday! Manager freaked out big-time!”  She copied in @abcnews.

Who needs a complaints handling system when you have a smartphone and a laptop and a few social media accounts? AND you really know how to use them!

I keep reflecting with a smile on what former High Court Chief Justice, Michael Kirby said at the Aged and Community Services Australia 2013 Conference yesterday about the older gay and lesbian people who will take their place in the coming cohort of aged care clients and residents.  This generation, he said, won’t quietly pretend not to be homosexual out of fear and embarrassment. “These are the people who went to San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s with flowers in their hair!”   They will demand acknowledgement, acceptance and respect, he said.

At 70, @LynndeLoopy is just a few years ahead of the first of the baby boomers but this rare bird is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to what to expect from that most influential demographic group in history as they enter their final years.