I've been looking forward to writing this post for some time now.
As most of you know, I work for
Jeanne. Boy is she one interesting person! Not a dull moment with her!
If you're not familiar with my job well then here it is. I work for this lady named Jeanne. It's actually a pretty cool job. Cameron and I live in her 4 bedroom guest house above her garage for free with an awesome beach view. Cameron and I both work for her, Cameron part time and me full time or close to it. Cameron does maintenance on her place. I on the other hand am a "friend". Jeanne is 75 years old and likes to have a companion. She calls me her babysitter but lets stick with "companion". :)
This is what I do with her:
Organize her stuff, get her smoothie and pills, make her bed (there are other girls that do cleaning), make phone calls for her, do her laundry, cook/bake for her, redecorate her bedroom once a week, watch Project Runway/Top Design/Design Star with her, go out to lunch twice a week with her, do her grocery shopping, etc. etc. etc..
It's a pretty easy job. Jeanne herself has her crazy days, her good days, and oh boy her bad days.
But it's nice because it's a regular 9-5 job and she pays me for an hour and a half lunch. Sweeeet. And she gives me Wednesdays off.
I don't have to:Work weekends, change diapers, shower/bathe her, help her get dressed etc. She's fully capable of most things. She doesn't walk so she cruises in a electric scooter and when we go out on the town, I push her in a wheel chair.
Okay so this is all fine and dandy. But there are some really strange things I encounter on the job.
Funny Stories with Jeanne:Cheap PerfumeWhen Jeanne and I go to Wal-Mart or Kmart, Jeanne loves to look for cheap perfumes. We were in Kmart and Jeanne cannot seem to find the cheap perfumes anywhere! We are going back and forth through the isles and she says, "There it is!" She points and I push her chair in that direction not noticing what she is pointing to. Jeanne says, "This has to be it, look at the fancy bottles!" Jeanne picks up what she thinks is perfume and I look down to see what she has... bottles of KY something... haha you get the idea. I told her it was NOT perfume and she didn't seem to understand. I told her to put it back, she did, and we went on our way.
The BathroomWhen out with Jeanne, we usually have to make visits to the lady's room quite often. This time, Jeanne brought her book in with her and that usually means she's gonna be in there for a while. So I waited with her wheelchair outside of the stall. I hear grunting noises and "Oh gosh!" and all sorts of things coming from her stall, including some awful smells. Other women are looking at the stall strangely, then at me with the empty chair, I smile like
I'm sorry you have to hear this, they smile back. A while later, Jeanne says, "Ok!!". That means she's done. :) She opens the stall and I bring in the wheel chair to catch her from her couple of steps. While I roll her over to the sink, she says, "Gosh, I just had the
worst time with that toilet paper! It was so thin and narrow and horrible!" I'm kind of grossed out by her comment and pull her up to the sink. She reaches for the soap dispenser and can't reach it.
Oh no I thought. I knew what was coming next. "Lindsay, will you get me some soap?" So I quickly formulate a plan. I will put a mass amount of liquid soap on my hand and then have it drip off onto her's. Perfect. I get the soap and before I can even start the dripping, Jeanne's contaminated hand swipes my hand with full contact.
Gross. I washed my hands after for several minutes and then as many times as I could that day.
Costco (not for the weak)
With old age comes many complications. One major one is the lack of getting to a bathroom fast enough. When I was working with Rachele during spring, Jeanne would never wet her pants. Well actually Jeanne wears moo-moo's, not pants. But in the last couple of months, it's been pretty often. So last week while on our adventures downtown, we decided to stop at Costco. Jeanne sits in the front seat of the car and I come around and bring the wheel chair. Well while she's getting out of the car, I notice a big brown spot on the back of her nice lavender and white moo-moo. I thought
should I tell her? Naw... and onto Costco we went. She didn't even notice the rest of the day. Poor thing.
Thank You Flower
Jeanne and I had to get some paint for a room she's redecorating. We ate at Haliewa Joe's and then we headed to Home Depot
, used the bathrooms, and purchased th
e paint. I brought the car up to the front and had Jeanne get in. As she got in she said, "I think the great clouds are following me!" I didn't know what she meant and then looked down to see pieces of toilet paper coming from out of her moo-moo! I didn't know what to do so I just pretended like I didn't hear her. She looked around and couldn't find them. Side note: Jeanne prefers to wear nothin' under her moo-moo's, so how could it be stuck? Oh, gosh. We finished our day and I forgot about it. We arrived home, Jeanne got in her scooter, and I unloaded and put away the groceries. I'm telling Jeanne goodbye and thank you, we walk out into her entry way and she say, "Wait! There's trash floating across the floor! Can you pick that up? What is that?" I look at the piece of white "trash" on the floor and what is it... the great clouds, the toilet paper that was stuck hanging from out of her moo-moo. I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to embarrass her. She was waiting there for me to pick it up... and then I thought of the flower that I had behind my ear. We ate at Haliewa Joe's and they always serve a flower with your meal. I had put the flower behind my ear and worn it all day. I grabbed the flower and used it as a tool to pick up the used piece of toilet paper. As I walked by Jeanne to throw it away, she realized what it was. "Oh,... you might want to wash your hands after that." Like I didn't know what it was. And indeed I washed my hands... like twenty times.
I've always been kind of disgusted by baby poo, spit up, snot, etc. My mom says that motherhood will be bliss after this job.
More stories to come. If you can handle it.
I have always disliked it. In elementary school, in Junior High, High school and now. I quit soccer when I was 5 because I had to run and it made me sweaty. In Junior High I ran a Junior Olympics relay race and hated it the whole time. At Byu-Idaho, I was on the cheer team for 2 practices and then when they told me we had a half an hour of running time at the end of practice, well I ran straight to the locker room and quit. No way was I going to run. That's just too much to ask for.
