O is for Overtime—When Work Was Just What You Did

 

A few posts back in this A to Z Blogger’s Challenge, I wrote about my dad working long overtime hours during WWII, and that got me thinking about all the overtime Don and I worked over the years. At no point in my adult life did I ever have a tidy nine-to-five job like Dolly Parton sang about in her 1980 movie song with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

I never “tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen” to pour myself a cup of “ambition” before heading off to a predictable shift. In the floral industry, where I worked for twenty years, there was no such thing as nine to five. We worked when there was work to do. Funerals, holidays, and weddings didn’t care what time the shop or greenhouses closed. Brides often needed evening appointments, and grieving families needed casket sprays and pedestal pieces with gold-foil letters proclaiming labels like “Mother” or “Grandfather.” Those letters are still the same fonts they were sixty years ago. And yes, I still have the same hand-held Clipper #700 stapler I used back then. The letters, however, now come with sticky backs.

Funerals were unpredictable, but weddings guaranteed overtime on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Not ideal for my man‑hunting days. (Girls who met their spouses in high school or college missed the era of wondering where on earth you’d find a decent man.) Most of the guys I worked with were either married or gay. One was deep in the closet, circa the ’60s. With my hours, my default social life became Sunday skiing or after work bar‑hopping with two single co‑workers—a gay girl and a gay guy. None of us ever found what we were looking on those after work bar hops. Surprise, surprise .

We did have some fun after hours, the kind you can only have when management is nowhere in sight. Flowers came in from all over the world, and once in a while cockroaches hitched a ride. One shipment must have included a pregnant one because they multiplied fast. When we told the boss, he said the monthly spraying would take care of it. We didn’t want to wait. So we trapped a dozen in a jar and planted them in his desk drawers. The next morning, he walked into his office with his coffee and came shooting right back out like the hounds of hell were after him. That night the chemical guy was waiting for us to punch out. The boss? We didn’t see him again all day, and he never found out what we’d done.

Holidays were the worst for overtime. My bosses did wholesale as well as retail, so we prepared artificial arrangements by the hundreds to ship to four states before switching to retail fresh flower orders. We also decorated houses—inside and out—for wealthy clients and big parties. Twelve-to fourteen-hour shifts weren’t unusual. I learned early on to finish my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. I also learned that if I wanted a break, I had to learn to drink coffee, because my boss didn’t like the image of someone sitting in the break room “doing nothing.”

When I left that job, I started my own weddings‑only service out of my home. A one‑woman operation with part‑time help from my nieces, my mom and Don. Anyone who’s ever had their own business knows who ends up working the longest hours. After ten years of that—and more than a few Bridezillas—I gave it up and went back to college, which I wrote about in E is for Education. At the same time, I worked part‑time for Don, plowing snow in the winters and doing parking lot maintenance the rest of the year. He had five or six part‑time workers, but it was he and I who worked the most overtime. Exhausted was our default condition during the nineties. Oh, and did I mention he also worked a full time job at GM where, went we first met, they had a lot of mandatory overtime?

Those years blur together now—the late nights, the early mornings, the holidays spent working instead of celebrating. At the time, it all felt ordinary, just the way life was for us. Maybe that’s the thing about overtime—you don’t notice the hours until you finally step outside and see how far they carried you. ©

N is for Nieces and Nephews—The Long Arc of Family

This is probably going to be the hardest post I’ll write for the A to Z blog Challenge. Hard partly because I want to protect their privacy and not reveal details they haven’t shared publicly. And that’s not my natural style. I have a tendency to beat small observations to death.

So I started by asking AI to define nieces, and I laughed out loud when it told me: “Nieces are cherished family members who bring joy, sunshine, and love, often described as angels or little princesses who rule the heart.” My brother’s daughters (and son and step‑son) are cherished family members who have brought joy, sunshine, and love into my life. But “little princesses”? Not even close. Growing up, tomboys probably would have been far more accurate. I’d be shocked if there were any glitter‑covered tiaras or net tutus in their box of memories. I’ll have to ask.

AI had this to say about nephews: They “celebrate the unique bond between aunts/uncles and their nephews, often highlighting joy, mentorship, and unconditional love.” The unconditional love part is certainly true for me, and I’m pretty sure my nephew would agree my husband could claim a spot on the team that mentored him—considering Don taught him how to plow snow, and Jesse went on to start his own lawn‑care and plow service.

But even before Don came into my life, Jesse and the girls brought joy. I didn’t see them as often as my folks did when they were growing up, but when I did, it was always playtime. And yes, I apologized to my sister‑in‑law and my mother’s ghosts for leaving all the cooking and cleanup to them at family dinners and holidays while I played with the kids. I was deep into photography back then, and those years are well documented. There’s no denying I was the fun aunt.

My step‑nephew came into our lives with my brother’s second marriage, and by then the “golden years” of bonding had passed, so I’m not as close to him as the others. But he turned into a solid, caring and productive human being anyone would be proud to call family.

All four of them did, and the bond between them is warm and full of love, once you scratch through the surface-stress left behind from caring for my brother during his dementia years. Those of us who've been through that know there is a period of healing that has to take place after adult kids buries their parent. And they seem to be right on schedule in the healing process.

Their growing up years: My heart still smiles at the memories of building forts, swimming, walking in the woods, and doing crafts with my “three musketeers.” In their teen years the girls even worked for me. I had a business making flowers for weddings, and in the summers—when I was busiest—they each spent week days with me in the city. As we sat making corsages and bouquets, I introduced them to Young and the Restless. Or was it As the World Turns? I’m too old to recall the details of long-ago habits and secret pleasures.

If nothing else, I taught the girls that when you have a clean house, you treat yourself to fresh flowers. Both have mentioned that to me recently. I need to revise that directive for myself, though, to: Anytime I go to the store, buy flowers, because my opportunities to do so are getting farther apart as I age.

I’ve watched my brother’s kids grow, learn and weather hard times when their parents divorced. I’ve watched them settle down, raise children of their own, and become productive human beings anyone would be proud to have in their family tree. And I’m pretty sure they’d agree that in addition to being kin, we’ve made the transition to being friends on equal footing. They grew up, and so did I, in all the best ways.

To paraphrase a Hallmark card, “I may not be their mom, but I’m definitely their biggest fan and cheerleader.” 

 

M is for Manuals—Notes for Whoever Draws the Short Straw

 “Manuals?” you ask. How does that word fit my theme for the April A to Z Blog Challenge? At first glance it might seem like a stretch, considering I’m supposed to be writing about the humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world. But this post is my attempt to write a manual for my own care—just in case, near the end of my days, I can’t communicate with the caregivers and family around me.

Yes, I know none of us can orchestrate how others will treat us when good health leaves the building. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

This isn’t my first rodeo with manuals. After my husband’s stroke, I volunteered at a large website for stroke survivors and caregivers. It didn’t take long to work my way up to the management team, even had a seat on the board. With so many people trying to navigate chat rooms, blogs and forums—many of them brand‑new to computers—I asked my boss if I could write a how‑to manual.

And I did. Clear, step‑by‑step directions for people who were overwhelmed, grieving, hopeful and learning to double‑click all at the same time.

Meanwhile, on the home front, I wrote another manual—this one for how to care for Don and the dog if something happened to me. Neither of them could talk, and someone needed to know things like, “Don’t feed them spinach unless you enjoy cleaning up vomit.”

Some might say it was busywork, a way to feel in control while life spun wildly out of it. Maybe. But it was definitely true that I hated the way people made assumptions about disabled people like Don. Too often those assumptions included a belief that a lower IQ comes bundled with a wheelchair and a limited vocabulary.

Depending on where in the head the stroke occurs, that might be true. But my husband’s stroke was smack dab in the middle of the left frontal lobe which is where speech sentences and grammatical structure is produced, causing what is known as non-fluent aphasia aka difficulty getting words out. It’s akin to having a car where the motor and wheels work fine (Don’s brain and lips) but the transmission that makes the wheels turn (or the words to come out) is broken. He knew exactly what he wanted to say but in the 12 ½ years after his stroke and after six years of speech therapy his vocabulary never increased beyond a core of 25 hard earned words.

But his intelligence was untouched, and his desire to communicate never dimmed. He was a born storyteller and he found a way to still be one. That way was to put me in a position where I had no choice but to explain what was on Don’s mind. Like the day he parked his wheelchair right in front of the door to a cigars and cigarettes store and he wouldn’t let anyone in or out. In a militant way only an x-smoker on a mission could do, he held up three fingers while repeating the word “three!” over and over again. This forced me to tell Don’s story to the gathering crowd about how he used to smoke three to six packs of cigarettes a day and he blamed the habit for earning him heart by-pass and a stroke.

 His special shorthand for all he'd gone through since the stroke was to hold up two fingers and say the word, "two then look up me which was my cue to explain that two neurologists had told the family he’d be a vegetable for the rest of his life. The universe response was usually the same: “You sure fooled them!” And it was true.

To friends and family who spent time with Don after the stroke, it was clear that despite his disabilities he was still the same, intelligent and caring person he’d always been. Before the stroke, we used to tease him that we should number his stories because we all knew the by heart. After the stroke that's exactly what he did.

Only someone who knows you deeply can speak for you when you can’t. I don’t have that person in my life, which is why the idea of a manual keeps tugging at me.

It’s embarrassing to admit I’ve already written a 'manual' for what to do after I die—complete with pictures of who gets what—so why not take it a step further and write one for any future caregivers who might cross my path before I kick the proverbial bucket?

A few sample entries:

• Don’t call me sweetie or dear.

• You can never feed me too much ice cream, but never—ever—try to feed me liver unless you enjoy having it spit right back at you.

• Don’t talk religion at me. You take care of my body; I’ll take care of my soul.

• If you set the TV to an old‑people black-and-white channel, sports, or a game show, I’ll consider it waterboarding. If you must leave me with a fictional character as a distraction when you leave, choose the Hallmark Channel so I can binge on happily‑ever‑afters. (I’ll explain why when we get to the letter R.)

So that’s the starting bones of my manual—I’ll finish while I can still boss people around. And if it also reveals a few of the humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world, then I’d say M for Manuals earned its place in the alphabet. ©