Maimi Majordomo (Florida journals)

Your assignment seemed simple enough, make sure your friend’s bedridden mother is taken care of. But she speaks limited English, and you speak limited Spanish, and certainly not Cuban Spanish, and then, the care provider quit on the first day, saying that you are too old to be of any use. She thinks I can’t understand her; the next care provider is thick as a stump, and possibly cruel, she let poor Justa crap herself, rather than help her to the bathroom, because I wasn’t there to help out. She told Justa to wait for me. Cruel. I had all of an hour off to shop for food. To make matters worse, I got lost, in a strange car, in a strange city. Google Maps gave me crazy directions, it kept telling me to turn right, into the burbs, before I cottoned on that Google was winging it, it was not talking to its cell tower. The third care provider, an angel albeit with limited time. She is my teacher. She is an angel. She too does not speak English, but I ask questions about cuisine, how to fix the blood sugar lancet, etc., and we make do. Steep learning curves ahead. Somehow we will survive this nightmare.