Got It Maid

It’s probably been over two years since I decided to hire Myrna. It felt so frivolous to hire someone to clean my place but I figured it was important to me, and if I managed my money carefully, I could handle the expense. Besides I don’t have a car payment. My condo was so beautiful and new when I bought it, I didn’t want it to lose its shine. I know there are plenty of blind people who do a great job cleaning, but it just is too much for me when I work full time. I just don’t have the energy to stay on top of the dust. Sometimes when you have a disability it makes sense to spend extra money to make your life easier and more enjoyable. I know a guy who is blind and he likes to splurge on pedicures once a month. I decided to try a house cleaner and hired Myrna.  If it started to feel like a waste of money, I could just tell her I changed my mind. She cleaned the first time and I never looked back. I was delighted with how the place was transformed. My toes would sink into the plush carpet, which had felt thread bare the day before. It seemed like I was in a hotel. She even washes my windows.  Every time she does her magic I am once again singing her praises. In books and articles I’ve read there is sometimes a story of an elderly person who dies and leaves a chunk of money to the maid. It never made any sense to me until I met Myrna! My quality of life has been enriched. Now with Racer in the house it can get pretty hairy. I bought a Dyson and when I first vacuumed after my dog had been with me a few weeks, I couldn’t believe the amount of furriness that was emptied from the vacuum. It was like a mini Racer was compacted inside the Dyson. In between Myrna’s visits I venture to take out the vacuum. Racer watches me like he doesn’t trust me with the contraption. I expect him to run when he sees me with the noisy machine but instead he acts like he needs to supervise or protect me from myself. He stares as I push several levers and buttons and pull out all the extensions. Once I’m finished, I scratch my head about how to put it all back together. Accomplishment washes over me when the endeavor is over. Racer and I, feeling very relieved and worn out from our duties, trot to our respective spots in the living room and take a nap.

“I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.” James Dyson

 

Random Interactions

My Guide Dog and I step off the bus and walk to the corner, and line up at the bump dots that have taken the place of the curb. I hear the roar of the parallel traffic and tell my dog to cross the street. We glide along straight as an arrow and step back onto the sidewalk. Racer tells me he needs to take a leak. I slip off his harness and we step onto some grass. Right in midstream, a guy from out of nowhere says, “Can I pet your dog?” I explain that it isn’t a good time. We then continue up the block and Racer stops at the next curb and I tell him to take a right. We make the turn and a woman asks, “Do you need to cross that street?” I am a little out of patience and reply a firm, “No!” She is wondering why my dog took me right to the curb but then turned instead of crossing. She doesn’t realize that it is the way he is supposed to make his turns. I don’t have time to give this lady a lesson on guide dog training today. I’ve got to get to the office. The woman continues to follow me and she comes up along my side and says, “That building you are passing is the Immigration Building.” I guess she has taken it upon herself to become my tour guide for SLC. I take this route every day and I’m a block from my office. I tell her that I’m aware of that and I keep walking briskly, hoping she doesn’t follow me to the next intersection because I really don’t want to have to have a talkative shadow all the way to work. Apparently she disappears into thin air because I never hear of her again. Finally we cross the last street in our route and we are 35 seconds from my office when a lady approaches with a barking dog. I stop Racer and tell the woman that we will wait while she passes. I’ve decided from previous experience that it’s better to not walk through the distraction because my dog will not be focused until the other dog is gone. The woman walks by all the while yelling at her dog, “No, no, no!” Racer seemed interested but calm.

Before going blind, before getting a Guide Dog, before taking the bus and becoming more of a pedestrian I never had so many interactions before 8 AM. Sometimes these interactions are amusing, interesting, or scary. Today it was just a little annoying.

Friends

I expected that things in my life would change when I received my first Guide Dog, but it is different than what I imagined. Parts of my life that I never dreamed would change did, and things I expected to change stayed the same. One example of this is friendship. I actually have lost friends since getting my Guide. I don’t fully understand it all but how I see it is that I started standing up for myself since Racer arrived. Some of my friends didn’t know how to accommodate that change in me. I don’t blame them because when you form a friendship you usually fall into roles and continue to carry out those roles because it is comfortable and when something changes, it can be hard to readjust. Also I retreated a bit from friends when my dog was bitten by another dog in a store shortly after he arrived here. I’m not always the best communicator so I am sure I share the blame. I don’t want to dwell on the lost friendships because I have also gained many fulfilling friendships because of Racer. Many of these great people are affiliated with Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB). Some are people at work that have reached out to me. Some are people living right in my building but we had never connected until we started chatting about our quirky dogs. I have become friends with a lovely woman at our bus stop. It makes our bus route more interesting and fun when Racer & I exit our first bus and head around the corner to catch the second bus, and as we walk I hear a cheery voice call out, “Hey Jenny! How are you? Guess what happened to me last night?" A smile comes over my face and I know that it was totally worth it to get up at 5:30 for the millionth time and trudge out the door to face my fears and continue the routine. I love my friends!  

Cheesecake

Two of my nieces had a slumber party at my place last weekend. Racer was in heaven. He loved having all the attention from the girls. We were overly stuffed from lunch at Cheesecake Factory so the girls got their cheesecake to go and later they fished it out of the refrigerator for a snack as we watched Confessions of a Shopaholic. Racer was staring longingly at my nieces while they sat on the couch eating the sweet sugarness. He knows that I will never give in to give him a taste but he still was holding out hope for the nieces. The girls decided they had worked on the desserts long enough and were going to return it to the refrigerator when the cheesecake slipped from their hand, and luckily was salvaged, although a large dollop landed on the kitchen tile. It was right in view of Racer but he just calmly sat there watching and didn’t even make a move to sneak a taste. What a good boy! Food isn’t his weakness at all. As I’ve said before, his foibles include sniffing bushes and flowers on our path through the neighborhood. He also loves other dogs and stops to wag his tail and watch them on our route.

The girls slept in the living room with Racer while I retreated to my room. Racer usually wakes me at 6:30 on the weekends but this particular day he didn’t come find me until 7:00 am. Hooray an extra 30 minutes! That has never happened. I can’t wait until the next slumber party!   

Racer's Cigar

Racer has a cylinder blue chew toy that he enjoys positioning so that it protrudes out the side of his mouth. It looks like a cigar and he loves it so every evening at some point I say to Bob “Shall we give Racer his cigar to smoke out on the balcony?” We all three sit out on the balcony with Racer smoking his cigar and watching the neighborhood. Last night Racer saw a cute puppy walking along and he got so happy he dropped his cigar off the balcony onto the concrete below. Bob ran out the front door and down the stairs to retrieve it while Racer and I peered out the balcony railing and when Bob grabbed it he decided to throw it up to us but I didn’t think Racer could catch it. Bob tossed it up and sure enough Racer stuck his face through the bars of the railing and caught it swiftly in his mouth no problem. What a talented boy!   

Bear Lake

My family spent a couple of days at Bear Lake last week. It was fun to take Racer with us this year. The cabin was nice and had a rustic wooden swing on the porch. Racer was excited to go on an adventure and loved running back and forth in the cabin with his bone while we unpacked. In the late afternoons, he enjoyed sitting on the porch and watching passersby while I listened to an audiobook and Bob read the newspaper. Our family doesn’t get together very often so this Bear Lake tradition that my sister started last year has been a good idea. In the evenings we all congregated in front of Carolyn’s cabin around a campfire. Racer didn’t like the smoke very much but I usually sat with him away from it. The day we headed out to the lake it started raining after awhile but we had time for Racer to play in the shallow water before the rain. He had so much fun twirling and prancing and splashing. My family had never seen him act so playful. I’m so protective of Racer that I didn’t feel like I could just leave him with someone in my family while I went into the water. If I don’t have his leash in my hand I’m constantly worrying about how he is doing. He seemed to happily go along with the Bear Lake adventure but when we arrived home he jumped for joy in the living room back with all his toys and comfy bed. The first morning back to work he seemed especially exuberant to head out for the bus. Once on the bus, as we neared our stop he leapt up and ran to the bus door to exit and finish the last leg of our journey. It was so funny to see his enthusiasm for our route and I could see how much he really loves his routine. I’m so happy that he loves his work and loves guiding me. I have heard someone say that there guide dog didn’t like putting on the harness or acted like they didn’t want to do guide work. This week it seemed so clear that Racer loves his role and wants to work.          

     

Introducing Racer

Sorry I haven’t posted anything for awhile. I received my new guide dog in March and his name is Racer. He is a Yellow Labrador Retriever. People tell me he has the most expressive eyes.The kind of eyes that say, “I can get you to do anything for me!” He is my little racecar. It has been a whirlwind. I have been learning so much. We take the bus to work in the morning and he is a great guide. We have our ups and downs and are still learning each others personalities. He is very easy going. Every dog is so different they all have strengths and weaknesses. Although many guide dogs bark when they are not in harness, Racer has never barked EVER. Even when he is playing and off duty. He never tries to chew any of my belongings. He knows the toys that are his and never disrupts my stuff. He never tries to climb on my bed or furniture. He loves to follow his nose though when we are outside and he can get distracted by bushes an flowers growing along our path so I have to give him reminders that we need to catch that bus. Even though he is distracted by flowers I can’t help but think how sweet it is and I tell him he is such a romantic.

My favorite part of the day is in the evening when I know that Racer has been fed, watered, relieved, exercised, and now is just lying on his back with a toy in his mouth making little piggy snorting sounds. Sometimes when he is lying on his back with his paws in the air I take his paws in my hands and play patty cake. I also massage his paws while watching a movie. He loves to be groomed and brushed out on my balcony and it’s a big treat to have his teeth brushed with his poultry flavored toothpaste. He runs in circles around me once he catches a scent of that tube of yumminess.

Bob and I eat out a lot and Racer has perfect restaurant manners. He slides himself right under the table and quietly checks the area for a crumb or two but settles into a comfy position and is very content until it is time to go. Most of the time after the hostess has seated us, the server isn’t even aware that Racer is under the table.