I have been so busy since I arrived here in Miami that I have not had a chance to compose any thoughts. Kirk and Mari invited me to Miami to be an overseer care provider for Mari‘s mother, Justa.
My days are long, often 13 or more hours. No wonder I have no time to write or to be creative. Mari has been taking care of her mother for two years and it must be extraordinarily hard on her.
I am the inexperienced care provider flown in from California to keep an eye on things. I have it easy as my care person, Sam, is mobile and does not need the kind of care and attention that Mari’s mother needs.
The official care providers come in at noon and take care of the larger work, bathing Justa, feeding her lunch, etc. But the buck stops with me. I am one in charge of the house. The majordomo, or majordoma—I make things run smoothly. I make the trains run on time. I am el jefe. Which is a scream, because the latest care provider doesn’t speak a word of English, and she is not the brightest bulb. We muddle along in my broken Spanish, sometimes with Justa, who speaks little English, providing translation.
My Spanish is based on Mexican Spanish which is much easier to understand and people speak slower. Cuban Spanish is another animal entirely. Everything is running together, and there are no Ss, or Rs pronounced. And everything has a lisp to it.
The most recent care provider’s name is Virginia Maria, the Virgin Mary, I kid you not. Justa is offender by both her, and by her name. Virginia Maria’s husband is still in Cuba. She speaks a rough, guttural Cuban Spanish from the Oriente that even Justa has trouble understanding.
We, none of us, like each other very much which makes this whole mess worse. Virginia Maria talks simple to Justa and then shouts at her. But Justa is not deaf, and she is cognizant of what is going on around her. She is trapped in a body that no longer functions. She was once a nurse so she knows how the body works. Justa was born in the westernmost province of Pinar del Río, in Puerta de Golpe, close to Havana, where she studied dentistry. When she came to Miami, after a three-year haitus in Spain, when she fled Cuba, she became a surgical nurse.
Virginia Maria spends most of her time texting on her cellphone or playing bad Cuban music. Poor Justa just wants tranquility and silence. Intelligent conversation. And I cannot tell Virginia Maria anything because I am not fluent in Cuban Spanish, and if I question her, she flies off the handle—probably because she cannot understand me. It is difficult getting care providers and if I lose her, then I am stuck doing everything and I cannot do it all alone. My back hurts. The last care provider walked off the job the day I arrived. They are unbelievable, unprofessional, etc., but then they probably don’t get paid much either.
I arise around 7:45 AM so that I can give Justa her thyroid medicine. I change her pampers and also her nightie, if it is wet. This takes about 15 minutes. I turn on the daily mass for her and leave her to it.
I make my tea in a tiny carafe as there is no teapot large enough. The first time I made tea I used to tapwater and it was atrocious. I have discovered the hot water from the water dispenser makes a passible cup of tea. Not a decent one, but passable. At least I get my 3 cups of water in that way. My mug is the Mona Lisa. She doesn’t know whether to smile, nor do I at this time of the morning. Miami is three hours ahead of California time. So it is really 4 AM, which explains why I stagger down the hall like a drunken sailor. I am not used to being awakened so early in the morning.
I feed the cats, and the raccoon, a laborious process of many steps. The outside cats are not in great shape, nor is the inside cat, Buddy. He is deaf and senile; he is also a yowler, and no matter what I do, I cannot keep him quiet. I think he is looking for Kirk. It is hard to say as he cannot hear himself, let alone, me. I have tried clapping to get his attention but it doesn’t work. However, he can see. Sort of. Poor thing has a chronic eye infection, so his face is a mess. I don’t wipe off his face daily, but I should. He loves it and helps me clean his face.
He is an abandoned flame point Persian with blue eyes. Under ordinary circumstances, he might even be beautiful, but the owners declawed him and so he is permanently an indoor cat because of it. His teeth or not so good either. Now he is meowing that horrid sound outside the back door. Since he cannot hear, I am thinking of sprinkling water on him when he is particularly obnoxious, but he is an old cat and would not understand.
The other feral cats, have abscesses and are real dirtbags. They are starting to figure out that I am the gravy train. So they are cozying up to me for a head skritch. Heaven help me if the raccoon wants a scratch too. She has babies stashed somewhere in the back yard.
Last night it rained, thunder and lightning—and Buddy the cat yowled the entire night outside my window. After his breakfast, he goes into the hall and yells like a banshee. He hits the exact right note to exacerbate my dull-witted morning ears. So I generally toss him out right away. He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t get to hang out in the house, but I can’t stand the noises he makes. I have never heard such volume in a cat.
Then I prepare Justa’s morning pills and rice pudding breakfast, timed for an hour after her thyroid medicine. But before that I need to take her blood sugar. I have been on my own with Justa for three days and still I cannot seem to get the blood sugar monitor to work. Either no needle, no blood, or error. Turns out there are no more needles left in the cartridge. After her bloodwork, Justa gets tiny Cuban cafecito con azucar.
Then I make her breakfast, which really is her elevenses if we were in Hobbitlandia. Cafe con leche y toast Cubano. Somewhere in the midst of all this I give Justa her eyedrops as well. There are so many things to remember I have to constantly refer back to my lists which are not sequential.
The care provider arrives late. My job is to make a salad and sort out the lunch, her job is to feed Justa, etc., but she needs help with dressing, bathing, etc. She is supposed to also do housework, but she does as little as possible. She is constantly on the phone talking to her husband, daughter, friends and relatives in Cuba—which is very strange for me.
By the time Virginia Maria leaves, I am supposed to feed the cats again, but sometimes I sit down in a coma and just stare at the wall, or the iPad. I am so tired. The idea is that I should also be feeding myself by then, and sometimes I have to force myself to eat. Luckily there is lots of soup and take-out meals in the refrigerator.
The first two days I spent re-organizing and cleaning the house. Everyone saves every bit of paper possible, every time something is bought, so everything is kept and nothing is thrown out. I must’ve tossed five or six big bags of recycle debris, not to mention, garbage. Nearly every chair is filled with something, and all tables are covered with stuff. It’s frustrating because there’s no place to get comfortable. Even the couches have hundreds of pillows on them them, so many but there’s no place left to sit.
I found what I thought was a dead cockroach snoozing in the middle of the dining room floor. I went to scoop him up with a large post-it, and he scurried off. don’t know if it was a native palmetto bug or an unAmerican cockroach. Just didn’t have the heart to step on it. Besides I was barefoot, and I haven’t yet had my morning tea.
So, a little sucker came out from under the bar for another visit. This time I was prepared. Flyswatter in hand. Whap! That’s one dead cockroach. How many more million to go? I feel queasy, oh, so queasy am I. Urg. So much depends upon my weapon of mass destruction, a red fly swatter on the table, next to the fruit bowl.
I am gaining so many new skills. When I went outside to feed the cats—I mean, it’s bad enough to have to face dirty cat bowls, or cans of cat food in the morning on an empty stomach before having my cup of tea—I was greeted by cat barf. My stomach is winning the queasy battle. Bilious stomach score 3, equilibrium score, zero.
I think I need to lie down with Buddy the cat who comes over for a little scratch and a head butt, he is scent marking my iPad with his goopy eye, and he wants to snuggle, this is a first. I guess I am finally being accepted. Even the gris-gris cat outside wanted a scratch. If only my stomach would settle down. An opossum came during the night, leaving strange little starfish paw marks on the patio tiles. At least the raccoon cleaned her bowl. Small mercies. I think I may need to resort to a PeptoAbysmal chaser.
Ana the good care provider who comes on the weekend, brought me dozens of bananas from her garden. I think they’re bananas, but they could be platanos. Yesterday I bought what I thought were small bananas, they turned out to be tiny platanos.
Today’s agency care provider was an absolute joke. she came a half an hour late, she apparently had almost no skills and was definitely not a nurse, she looked like she was ready to go to a rock concert, or the mall—not even dressed for the job and then she expected me to do the work, missing the point entirely that she was being hired to do the work. I was torn between wanting to be gracious and polite in another culture to this new person and wanting to rip her a new one. The latter won out.
What blows my mind is how no one actually speaks English at all. And yet they live here in America you’d think that by osmosis they would have picked up some rudimentary language skills, but, no. I have found that when I attempt to speak someone else’s language they equally reach out and attempt to speak my language. And between the two languages, we are able to communicate. Not with this one. She simultaneously quit and was fired at the same time. She lasted all of three hours on the job.
Despite everything going wrong, Justa and I have many laughs. She is teaching me to swear. She has discovered Alexa. And she is plowing her way through all the big band music Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, etc. We make up silly new lyrics to all the old songs. Who knew that Alexa would be an excellent eldersitter? I told Alexa Cállete! to shut up in Spanish, and Justa giggled and giggled and giggled. We are easily amused.
I am gaining odd new skills daily. Survival equals one nostril above water. Or, snorkel. But for some reason I have trouble taking Justa’s blood sugar readings. I don’t get enough blood and then I get an error signal and then I feel so bad that I have to stab her finger again and again. There must be a knack to this but I don’t seem to have.
The raccoon is upset because I’m not giving her enough cat food. I give her table scraps as she has babies, so a varied diet would be a good thing, but she shows her displeasure by throwing food all over the back porch. Or maybe it’s pleasure, it’s hard to say. However she did scoop out the rest of the papaya and leave a hollow shell. Her water dish is atrocious.
The opossum stole what was left of the Halloween candy. There are little silver wrappers glittering all over the porch. There have only been three outside cats the past few days. I think the orange one is dead. He was very sick.
Buddy the inside cat continues his yelling and sings all night long. I have taken to cuddling with him on the couch in the afternoon for a siesta which seems to calm his raging heart. He misses his beloved. But that cat has the howl from hell. I keep trying to record it but every time I sneak up on him he twigs me and stop yelling.The stairwell gives him maximum volume. He is positively a Pavarotti with laryngitis on those high notes.
OK so I fed Buddy the cat his second breakfast, his elevenses, and then he yelled again. I told him to be quiet in several languages. Nada. So I waterred the cat—he has been amazingly silent. I think he knows that he is not supposed to howl.
The food that the agency sends is atrocious for anyone who is a diabetic. Toto carbs. However, the opossum and raccoon are eating very well indeed. Fine porchlight dining and impromptu howling cat serenades. I’m still suffering from jetlag, and fall asleep practically in my dinner plate, and I’m still not done with my chores.
Florida Journals:
Old Florida blogposts.
