Retro Music Friday.

More about the work situation and why it is currently kicking my ass.........

I have come to realize that there is perhaps little delineation between where my existence and some ( not all ) of my client's existences begin and end. I am so tied into their being-ness that it is as if we are all one in the same. In some instances, where there is little or no family involvement, I am their family. I make sure they have some place to go for Easter and have taken some of them home for holidays. Bought and wrapped their Christmas gifts and pre-planned their funerals with them. Sat in emergency rooms with them and calmed them when they are melting down. Clapped for them and encouraged them when they meet new challenges and picked up the pieces when things fall apart.

Don't misunderstand, I am in no way complaining. I am grateful for the experience of having these people in my life. I have learned many, many, many lessons during my times with them. Things that I would have never had the opportunity to learn anywhere else. I am so profoundly humbled that they place the amount of trust in me that they do.

But as I was saying, I am so tied to some of these folks that when one of them has a really bad week, I have a really bad week.

Like this week for example.........

One of my older clients...ok, who am I kidding here ? She's elderly. She old, old, old. And she has elderly problems. Take it from me, I've seen it up close and personal.....getting old is a bitch.

At any rate, I have been in the habit of taking this client's laundry to yet another client's apartment every week to get washed. She ( my old client ) is in an assisted living facility that has recently been taken over by another company who has decided to now charge for laundry service. And as my client is on a budget this was not a luxury she was going to be able to afford.

Of course I made the executive decision long ago that I would make alternate plans for her dirty laundry as the folks at the assisted living facility were doing a horrid job of it. I was getting really tired of continually tossing clothing that was stained beyond belief. Really, I could not in good conscience let her been seen in such a state. So I was ALWAYS buying her new shirts, pants, etc, etc, etc. So my boss and I decided that we would give another, younger and more independently functioning but largely unmotivated client a job. The younger client felt empowered by her new responsibility and ensuing income, I had clean clothing for my client. A win-win all around.

However I realized this week that the younger, laundry-washing client was in no way prepared, nor should she have been subjected to, the hell-spawn abomination that awaited me when I went to get the dirty clothing from my client's apartment.

Given that her closet was nearly empty, I had precious little time to return the bare necessities back to her. As I was taking an extra day off this week I had no other option but to take the steaming, reeking abomination in a laundry basket to my house to be washed. I really weighed all of my other options, but nothing else would have been feasible or would have fit my schedule.

I pulled into my driveway Tuesday night and The Mister ( because he is so freakin' awesome ) met me in the driveway to help me haul in the laundry - which filled the entire trunk of my Corolla. Upon my lifting of the trunk he stated;

" OH FUCK THAT SMELLS !!! " and then promptly pulled his Bruins hoodie up over his nose.

Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Of course I had been driving around all day with the putrid stench emanating from my trunk and after a while I started to think that it perhaps did not smell as badly as I had initially thought.

I guess I was wrong.

I steadfastly refused to bring the basket into my house. So I there I was Tuesday night in my backyard wading through what ended up being six loads of laundry with blue vinyl gloves on. The Mister was standing by,Bruins hoodie still pulled up over his nose, and now occasionally gagging.

I was suitably annoyed by the situation I found myself in. The Mister would occasionally punctuate my annoyance with;

" Man, they DO. NOT. pay you enough ! "

and

" You have a one-way ticket to heaven hon. "

and

" Christssake that is just WRONG ! "

I ended up tossing yet more clothing and other things. They just could not be saved. Some things had to go through the wash with hot water, Tide and Clorox twice.

Then as I was standing over the dryer at 11 PM that night I realized that if I was annoyed I could probably scarcely imagine what my client must have experienced to have her laundry end up that way.

Kind of an odd lesson in compassion.

But because I can see the humor in almost anything.........

Here is " Take My Breath Away " by Berlin.

I'm sure you all know this went along with the movie Top Gun. Which is one of my Mother's favorite flicks.

1986 - I was ten.

There you have it.

Have a nice weekend all !

XO

Bunny

If I Were Me I'd Kick My Ass.

Late yesterday, after what was quite possibly my 18th hour of being awake ( not just awake but actively awake. I mean, really freakin' busy awake. not the awake but sitting and eating cookies while watching Oprah busy......REALLY freakin' busy. So busy I was finding it difficult to decide when it would be good time to pee...), I decided that Pink ( the singer, not the color ) was in fact, a genius.
More to the point, I felt that THIS song was speaking directly to me.
I actually said to myself last night " OH MY GOD, PINK SO GETS IT !!!! "

I have to say, if you get to the point where you think that Pink ( the singer, not the color ) must have some sort of cosmic connection to you - you are have reached the point where exhaustion has become delirium. Seriously.

Needless to say, The Mister was not home last night. Had he been here to witness my full-on decent into insanity....well, lets just say he would have pulled me off the 11:30 train to Crazyville before it left the station. I can't be too sure what methods he would have employed to accomplish this, but it could have involved shaking me like a red-headed stepchild.

Why the melt down ? Work has been kicking my ass lately. Kicking. My. Ass. Things are getting added to my To-Do list faster than I can check them off.
It sort of like when you decide to practice your tennis serve with one of those automatic ball machines, only the machine is stuck on high speed. And someone locked you in one of the raquetball rooms at the gym. And you only have a kiddie racket to defend yourself.
Yeah, kicking my ass like that.

I have since revised my opinion about Pink.


Sorry for the lack of posting lately. As I have stated, work has been kicking my ass.

Back to my regularly scheduled nonsense soon enough.
I might actually post a RMF tomorrow.

XO
Bunny

Retro Music Friday - The Deal With The Unicorns.

I should probably put the reference to the Unicorns in the last post in the proper context. I realize that perhaps it seemed a wee bit random.

Ok - get comfy people. This is a long story. Think Homer's Odyssey.

Feel free to hit the bathroom if you need to first...you know....get a drink while you're up. You may want to put your cell over to VM.

Ok. Here goes;

Myself and a co-worker ( " J " )** are co-case managers to a married couple.

Yes, mentally disabled people get married....they are just like you and I. Except they are constitutionally incapable of learning from their mistakes...which is largely why I am employed. If you think about it though, isn't repeating the same sequence of actions and expecting a different outcome every time the clinical definition of insanity ? So really my career entails keeping people from fitting the clinical definition of insanity......does that make me insane by proxy ???? And people wonder why I seem unbalanced at times.

As I was saying....this married couple are moving to a new apartment very soon. So my co-worker and I have been preparing them for their upcoming move. We quickly discovered that this couple are hoarders. Well, maybe not hoarders.....but they seem to be under the impression that you must keep every gift that anyone ever gave you in your lifetime. I have explained to them many,many,many times that it is really OK to part with things. I seem to have the privilege of being the only person they will collectively listen to when it comes to tossing crap. I've found that the best approach with this couple is the " take no prisoners " attitude to tossing stuff. I go through closets / drawers / cabinets like the Tasmanian devil and give them about 2.3 seconds to decided whether or not to keep an item....no time to think in great detail on their part. Seems to be working so far.

At any rate, my client and I had spent about two hours earlier in the week going through bags and boxes they had packed ( Pyrex wrapped in polo shirts ??? ) continuing to toss, reorganize and repack some things. We made pretty good progress too.

As we were getting ready to wrap up the de-crapping party I turned around to spy a HUGE stuffed purple unicorn in the back corner of the room. So I asked my client....

( pointing ) " What is THAT ? "

To which she responded;

" A Unicorn ".

OK, I asked for that one....dumb question, dumb answer.

She continued;

" I have another one in the closet. "

So I said;

" Go and get it. "

She appeared fifteen seconds later with a white version of the purple Unicorn. I'm sure the look on my face as I stood in the presence of two HUGE stuffed unicorns could have most aptly been described as Epic WTF.

Then I thought to myself;

" They DO. NOT. pay me enough to pack up and move two HUGE Unicorns. No. No. No. No. No. "

The look on " J's" face read of ; " Oh. My. God. This is all you girlfriend. " She understanding very well that if anyone was going to convince them that perhaps it was time to part with the Unicorns it was going to be me. We've been calling my weird, Svengali-like influence over these two clients " Jedi Mind Control " .

After much talking and debating and perhaps a little bit of bribing I finally convinced them to give the Unicorns away, " J " and I both realizing that the only appropriate home for them being a dumpster. However I promised to find the Unicorns a good home.

So off I go, down a flight of stairs, trotting out to my car ( although I happened to have Hub's Highlander on this particular day ) with two HUGE Unicorns ( among other things ) under each arm.

Stop and try to get a visual of that for a sec........

I asked " J " if A)I would be eligible for workman's comp if I go ass over teakettle down a flight of stairs carrying two Unicorns and B) what would the internal incident report read if the aforementioned scenario did actually happen.

Fast forward ten minutes or so to " J " and I standing in the parking lot with a massive load of crap we pulled out of our client's apartment. We contemplated putting some of it ( including the Unicorns ) in the dumpster. However these two clients have a habit of spying on the coming and goings in the parking lot. So we knew they were watching us. And as I had promised to give the Uni's a good home I was obligated to drive away with them in the back of The Mister's car. Before I packed them up I started singing.........

" I always feel like.....( client's name) is watching meeeee....."

This is Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell. 1984 - I was eight. Rockwell is Berry Gordy's son. Michael Jackson is doing background vocals if you listen closely.

On with the story......

I drove home with the Uni's ( among other things ) in the back of The Mister's car. He too saw the absurdity in my current situation and had himself quite a hearty laugh or two at my expense. I told him I was going to put them on the front lawn with a sign that read Free To A Good Home. To which The Mister responded " No. No you're not. " He doesn't want to be Those People, remember ?

Ok, so Plan A was out the window.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was still driving around with these freakin' Unicorns in the back of The Mister's car. I tried to donate them to THREE different charities with no luck. Apparently charities are no longer allowed to accept stuffed animals - you know - mites and shit. I also made way too many phone calls regarding this matter. Really. Occupying the top slot on my To-Do list yesterday was Rid Thyself of Unicorns.

Anywho.....I still had custody of these damn things at 2 PM yesterday. Yep. I spent nearly an entire day trying to rid myself of these things.

At one point I had loaded up The Mister's car with so much crap that the Uni's were now sitting high up in the back of the Highlander. Every time I drove over a bump their demonic looking faces bobbed up and down in the rear view mirror as if to mock me. It was really starting to creep me out after a while.

Then as I was picking up yet more stuff yesterday I had all the doors and the hatch to the Highlander open while I was in the parking lot of an assisted living facility. I had so much athematic junk in my car.....including the damn Uni's....that I started to talk to myself out loud about how my life has become an exercise in ridiculousness. I realized now that it may have appeared to some that I was a crazy homeless person who had been living out of my car.

Ok, wrapping this up.

I finally found a kind individual who let me put the Uni's in their dumpster.

But if asked I will disavow any knowledge of the Uni's whereabouts.

My God that was a long story.

In the back of my mind I am seeing Therese sitting at her kitchen table, reading this post on my blog, laughing her ass off ( so much so that she's probably trying to call Todd over so he can read along, but she can't quite get the words out due to iced caramel macchiato spewing from her nose....) at the visual of me trotting down a flight of stairs with two HUGE Unicorns under each of my arms.

Xooo

Bunny

**There are many reasons that I am quite fond of " J ". Perhaps number One being that she and I had gone to Building 19 to buy furniture for the same two clients ( dudes.....if you've not been to Building 19...you're really not missing much. ). As we entered the building she had accidentally walked in through the out door. To which I remarked " Gee..all you really need now is raspberry beret. " To which she reached in her bag, whipped out a raspberry colored knitted beret and slapped it oh-so-jauntily on her head. Not only did she get the reference ( I can be somewhat obscure at times...) but she had a RASPBERRY BERET IN HER BAG !

An Affliction For Which There Is No Cure.

Today as I was leaving a client's apartment I uttered words I'm pretty sure that I will never utter ( in this particular combination ) ever again for the rest of my natural life.

The complete absurdity of the statement I had made eluded me until a co-worker pointed it out.

This is what my life has been reduced to. Pay close attention people. These are the warning signs that " The Crazy " is about to mercilessly infiltrate your existence.

Ready ?

Here it is;

" Hey Guys, it's been real. Now give me those Unicorns so I can get out of here. "

Needless to say it is a very, very long story as to why these words came out of my mouth in this combination. And if I tried to explain it to you....well.....you'd all be infected with " The Crazy " by mere association.

XO
Bunny

My Funny Valentine.

So it seems The Mister has a few admirers of the geriatric, female persuasion.

So we're all on the same page here....The Mister is the executive chef at a very shi-shi, country club-esque assisted living facility ( read: old people with $$ ). Lets just say he's not in the habit of making mac n' cheese on a regular basis for these people.

First there was " Mrs. M. ". As he tells it, Mrs. M was was " sauced " in the dining room one evening and very displeased with her meal selection. As most of the dining room staff are H.S. kids they lacked the sophistication to handle one plastered little old lady...they had to call in the big guns. The Mister had to go out and speak with her - you know...smooth things over with her. Ever since that evening he's been sexually harassed by her on a consistent basis.
By his own admission this behavior is both cute and revolting at the same time.

Today it seems that The Mister has picked up yet another groupie - lets call her "Mrs. A ".

The Mister had gone to work today and had been informed by a co-worker that he had a heart-shaped note in his inner-office mailbox. Thinking this co-worker was yanking his chain he went to investigate the heart-shaped note.
Sure enough said note was indeed in his mailbox.

The exterior of the note read something to the effect of;

" To ( The Mister ) - from your admiring friend. "

He also told me that this note " reeked like hell " from a significant distance. At first he thought the note had perhaps been spritzed with Jean Nate or something......but no....turns out the interior of the note contained a Yankee Candle Sage & Citrus car freshener.

The interior of the note went on to read something to the effect of how fantastic a chef he is and so on and so forth.
I guess Hubs got a pretty good ribbing from some of his co-workers today.

So yeah....that's that.
I can't say I'm really threatened or anything.
In fact I think these little old ladies ( although I've never met any of them ) are painfully cute.


Coo Coo Ka Choo.
XO
Bunny