Volunteering

I'm grateful to be volunteering regularly again. I have not had a steady gig since my two-year stint as a docent at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park pre-pandemic. My latest volunteer position is at a facility here in the city that specializes in taking care of adults with memory issues. There is one client who is from Germany and with whom I've been spending time when our schedules coincide. This client is a decently spry 98-year-old. She and I speak a mixture of German and English together. In preparing for a visit to the facility last week, I packed up a map of Germany, a children's book by the renowned German author, Janosch, and a book of collected fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. When I arrived at the facility, I was fortunate enough to meet the daughter of the client who was dropping her mom off that day. It was from her that I learned that not only does her mother like to speak in German, but she also likes to be read to in German. Later I would read to her the book by Janosch which she seemed to enjoy. On the map of Germany, the client's daughter also showed me her mother's journey as a Displaced Person from Silesia to Bavaria at the end of WWII. Harrowing does not fully describe the experience of the DPs, mostly women and children, who fled the Russians as they moved west. 

The children's book I read to the client. It's a lovely story.

In other news: My boss was complaining to me yesterday about the new-hire now in charge of her old gig doing social media posts. My boss told me that he'd nicked her idea, passing it off as his own, about showcasing the many dogs that accompany their owners into our shop. Mind you, this was an idea, though not at all novel, that I had shared with her back at the end of last year when she had first taken over social media for our company. I thought better about reminding her of this.