MY JOB WITH SUZANNE*

I decided to write this page to fill you in about my relationship with Suzanne from the beginning till she passed away on March 31, 2009.  It will explain how we met and the many ordeals we went through together.  No matter what you read, I want you to know that I mean no disrespect to Suzanne in any way.  She was a great woman and deserves all the respect due to a well educated, well loved, multi-talented, should have.

It all started around April, 2008.

I had been selling on eBay for my brother in Minnesota when I became acquainted with Suzanne.  She had been a buyer of some of his Kutani.  We started emailing one another, then talking on the phone about her move to Mississippi.  She asked me to go to Mississippi and start getting the house ready and start selling some of her items on eBay.  I accepted her offer and we also talked about me getting into my own business there and online.  She said she would help me to get started financially, but I had to sell her stuff so she would have the funds.  We also discussed a salary which was agreeable to both of us.  I had also spoke to her about the possibility of opening a bulk/natural/general store…  After all, that’s the kind of food we gardeners, natural, “green”, holistic, or whatever you prefer to call us, prefer to eat.

In May of 2008, she told me she had fired her employee in California and needed me there instead of going to Mississippi.  So, at the end of May, I flew to California.  By that time, she had already informed me that she was a semi-retired Holistic doctor and that she had previously had several other business ventures.  I knew about her many degrees and certificates, and was picturing quite an elegant lady to say the least.  She also told me about her phobias to freeways and overpasses so I would have to get a cab to meet her somewhere when I arrived in California.  After I arrived at the Los Angeles airport, I found a cab and told him we needed to call Suzanne so we could meet her somewhere.  So we did.  Then the cab driver had no idea where the location was.  I told him to call his dispatcher and have them tell him where it was.  I certainly had no clue because I had never been there before!  SO, after asking some of the other cab drivers and getting nowhere, the driver finally called his dispatcher.  She told him where to go (actually, how to get there), and we were off!

We drove and drove, and met Suzanne in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.  She had previously asked me if she had to get all fixed up to meet me.  I told her that wasn’t necessary, just get there!  Here was this lady, driving an old Ford Crew Cab Dually, wearing sweat pants and a sweat shirt, and thick fuzzy socks.  She never liked wearing shoes, although she must have 200 pairs of heels!  She had also told me that she was a chain smoker and hoped it didn’t bother me.  I also soon realized that she didn’t actually inhale, and only smoked half of the cigarette before putting it out and lighting another.  She smoked Seneca’s, which are made by the Indians and are chemical free.  I got a little sidetracked, didn’t I?  Since she was a Holistic doctor, I thought her home would be neat and clean…  Forget that!  Her home was a complete disaster.  Before we go any further, I want you to know that I mean Suzanne no disrespect whatsoever!  When   She was a very wonderful woman in every respect.  BUT, she was 100% Suzanne in every way!  I figured it must be due to the fact that she was moving, otherwise it would be clean.  That later proved to be untrue.  When we arrived at her home, she asked me if I were hungry…  She whipped something up, and from then on I cooked 99% of all the food

There were a few things I learned about Suzanne right from the start.  For one, she seemed to be someone that was totally worn out with stress.  At that time I didn’t know what all the stress was from, but I soon found out that it was a combination of many things.  Her case with her tenant, a few people owed her money, anxiety from needing to get to Mississippi with all her stuff, her going broke, the list continued.  Some of the stress also seemed to be from the fact that she allowed situations to overwhelm her.  She was a woman that needed to be in control, and when she wasn’t or couldn’t be it caused some problems with her.  She was loved and very well respected by many people.  But if you were one of the unlucky ones that tried taking advantage of her or did something you shouldn’t have in any way…  Let me just say, you would have made an enemy that would not go away until she was justified.  It didn’t matter if you cheated her out of $5.00, she was going to collect no matter what.

Suzanne and I got along very well from the start.  It wasn’t because I knew if crossed her I would be in for it.  It was because I understood her condition, anxiety, stress, and so on.  She needed a good ‘ol Capricorn to keep her calm and focused.  Actually, I was just a year from ending a 20 year marriage, so my state of mind wasn’t 100% all the time either.  So, her and I together seemed to really click.  She complained about allot of people, but it seemed I could do no wrong.  Everything I did was perfect.  I thought that perhaps she was just telling me this to keep me going, but I learned from many people that she never complained to anyone about me.  It does allot for someones self-esteem to have someone compliment what they do for them.

There were a few things about her that kind of shocked me right off…  The day after I arrived, I had prepared our meal and she came to the kitchen to get her food.  She told me that she always eats in her bedroom and watches a movie while she is eating.  Well, how many people watch TV while they are eating?  Most of us, right?   So,  that was no big deal and I was glad that wasn’t something I had to stop doing!  She had a glass of ice and wanted me to open the cabinet and get her a bottle of Dr. Pepper…  That was a little surprising, considering it isn’t all that healthy…  When I opened the cabinet, I was really shocked to see at least 20 bottles in the cabinet!  That same evening, during another meal, we watched another movie.  When it was finished, she asked me if I would stay to watch another one…  There were stacks of movies to choose from along the wall in the bedroom.  She said if I couldn’t find any there I liked, there were more in the closet…  I opened the closet door and almost passed out!  She had bought over 50 boxes of VHS tapes from various eBay sellers.  It seemed they all bought them from the same liquidator, because they were all from Hollywood Video.  I know there were 50 boxes, because I later had to carry them all to the truck and put them in storage.  There were several hundred besides that stacked on the shelves in the closet.

The next day I also met Bob Smith.  He was a pretty nice older fellow, a retired engineer.  He rented the garage, and that is where he lived!   He drove an old 1950′s Volkswagen Beetle I think he bought new…  He was pretty smart, and he is the one that did allot of her paperwork.  Her paperwork was another story for sure!  She kept every receipt for everything, all mixed up in boxes and drawers with bills, and everything else.  Bob also had boxes in the garage he had allot of her “important” papers neatly filed.  He was also the one that  was getting the papers ready for court so she could sue her tenant for damages.  He had done over $20,000 worth of damage to the bedroom and master bathroom when she asked him to leave.  He had to leave because she was moving from her San Pedro home to the Carson home.  This was long before I came into the picture, though.  Suzanne and Bob got into it a few times over the paperwork and his filing system.  When we worked on paperwork, Suzanne would get really stressed out and was very easily agitated, so she avoided it most of the time.  I would take the bills, etc. out of her file cabinet drawer in her bedroom and put it all on the bed.  After about a half hour to an hour, she was ready to quit, and she would open the cabinet drawer and throw it all back in, just as mixed up as before.  One day, when Bob wasn’t around, she went to the garage and brought in a box on the papers Bob had neatly filed, took them all out of the files, and threw them on the bed.  The folders, all neatly labeled, were thrown in the trash.  The papers then went in to the file cabinet drawer with all the mess…

I was hired, initially, to sell her items.  I had no idea what those items actually consisted of though!  When I went to California instead of Mississippi, I was to finish packing and help her with a court case against one of her previous tenants.  BUT, that was just a tip of the iceberg as far as what I realized I had to do.  Within the first few days, I realized that Suzanne wasn’t as well as everyone thought.  Patients and friends coming over or meeting her somewhere else, or talking by phone didn’t realize the state of her health.  Even her former employee couldn’t see how bad she was because he came in the morning and left in the afternoon.  I realized, from spending nearly 24 hours a day with her, that she needed a lot of help.  From day one, I cooked all the meals unless we ate out.  After all, when we were still talking by phone and emails, she found out I liked to cook.  She had bought 100-200 cookbooks for me by the time I arrived in California!  I did the cleaning, running errands, paying bills, driving Suzanne where ever she wanted to go, mowed her yard and planted a couple of flower beds.  Besides packing what hadn’t been packed yet and loading three storage units full of stuff to be shipped to Mississippi.  There had already been 12-13 truck loads moved to Mississippi by that time.  There were allot of places Suzanne wanted to take me, but she couldn’t because of the overpasses and freeways to get there.  I was amazed at the fact that we could go to her favorite thrift stores and antique shops in Carson, Lomita, Gardena, Compton, San Pedro, and Wilmington ( am sure I missed a few) without getting on a freeway or going on an overpass!  She bought another scooter, two electric wheelchairs, and two wheelchairs that weren’t electric so she could get around.  We normally took her newer scooter, and I would have to pick it up and put it in the back of the pickup if we went somewhere she might need it.   It was very heavy, but I was glad to do it for Suzanne.

By the time I was with Suzanne a couple of weeks, she started telling me about her family…  The fact was, there was NO family!  She was an only child, and her mother was an only child.  No brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles…  NO ONE!   She said she wanted to leave everything to me if she died…  I didn’t really want to talk about that, because I wasn’t there for any of that.  I told her that she wasn’t going to die, and we needed to concentrate on getting to Mississippi so I could start doing what she hired me to do in the first place.  Besides, I figured she surely had family somewhere!  I didn’t question her, however, and tried avoid the issue of her wanting to leave me her estate.  But, she continued talking about her wishes and needing to write a document stating what she wanted…

Then in August, I think, Suzanne leased the home out where we were living, so she decided to buy an old motor home…  Her intention was to park it in the driveway and continue living on the property.  Well, that may have been a good idea in some ways, but it didn’t last for long…  I loaded the motor home with clothes, some of her important paper work, pots and pans, dishes, food, my clothes, etc…  We left one morning to mall to get her old cell phones up-dated.  The mall was kind of down the street and around the corner…  Anyway, not that far.  When we left the mall, we noticed smoke coming from the area near Suzanne’s home.  It turned out to be the motor home!   So much for that idea!  We had just filled the gas tank and the propane tank but luckily they didn’t blow up.  The fire was so hot that the glass from the windows melted to the street. 

So, we moved to a motel in Gardena and stayed there for three weeks.  It had no kitchen and I had to cook on a hot plate or else we ate out.  OH, I forgot to mention, we had both the pickups taken to Mississippi by this time which left us with an old U-Haul!  The truck was basically packed pretty full, even though so much stuff was burned in the motor home.   Most of the stuff in the U-Haul was moved to the motel room!  There seemed to always be so much she couldn’t live without!  Now, living in a motel wasn’t exactly in either of our plans at all.  Going from two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a kitchen, laundry room, etc to a single room with one bed and having to share the bathroom…  Even in the motor home she had her bed at the back and mine was above the front seats in the front.  The motel room was much larger, though!  She slept in the bed and I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.  It was yet another experience for sure, and not our ball of wax.

We were only allowed to stay at any motel for three weeks at a time.  We could leave for one night and then sign up for another three weeks if we wanted.  Well, the motel in Gardena was cockroach infested and hookers were running around all night long.  It was almost humorous watching them!  When out three weeks were up, we found a hotel in Wilmington with a room with a kitchenette… SO, I packed AGAIN and loaded everything back into the U-Haul.

The hotel had no parking lot so we had to park on the street.  I proceeded to carry everything up a flight of stairs to the front door of the hotel, and UP another flight of stairs to get to the main floor where our room was.  I was glad I didn’t have to go up another floor!  I don’t know HOW MANY trips I made!  Up and down the stairs, back and forth!  Suzanne couldn’t move anything because she just couldn’t get around all that well.  I was pretty worried about her climbing up the stairs in her condition…  Still only one bed so I continued sleeping on the floor.  The room was much smaller than the previous one but at least there was a kitchenette…  There was only one very small window which was in the kitchenette and it had an air conditioner in it.  We were lucky to get that, because there were only two rooms in this hotel with air conditioners!  The room was very dark and cramped up, especially with all the stuff I had to bring in!  Suzanne always called it “our cave.”  As with the other motel, we could only stay for three weeks, so I knew right off I would be going through this moving ordeal again very soon. It was also cockroach infested.

By the time out three weeks were up, Suzanne was really tired of “the cave”.  So, we started looking for another hotel with a kitchenette.  Finding one wasn’t that easy for sure!  Instead, we found a hotel with a kitchen on the 2nd floor and in the basement.  There were no bathrooms in any of the rooms, but there were two bathrooms and a shower room on every floor…  At least that’s what we were told.  Well, as it turned out, the only room available was on the THIRD floor!  The rooms did not have AC,  no TV and NO refrigerator…  So, I also had to pack in a TV and Suzanne bought a small refrigerator.  SO, here I go AGAIN!  Moving EVERYTHING up a flight of stairs to the entrance of the hotel, then up two more flights of stairs to our room!  This room was MUCH larger, so I had to carry up even MORE stuff including two book shelves!  Since we had so much more room and a small refrigerator, she could buy allot more food!  By the time I had moved everything in the room, there was hardly any room for my sleeping bag!  There was a pizza shop across the street, a Food-4-Less, and a 99 cent store within a block away.  Now, as far as having a kitchen on the second floor….  It was shared by EVERYONE in the hotel!  The kitchen in the basement, we were told, was not operational.  I later found out that the only reason they didn’t use the kitchen in the basement was because the sink leaked!  The oven in the stove on the second floor didn’t work either.  Finally, after a couple of weeks, we were allowed to use the basement kitchen…  That meant having to go from the third floor all the way to the basement to cook!   The toilets were disgusting and the shower was always dirty.  The manager of the hotel did her best, and she must have put in 12-14 hour days trying to keep them cleaned.  OH, this hotel had more cockroaches than the other two combined!

We were also fairly close to a library, so we would go there just about every day and check our emails and rent movies.   Even though I always kept several boxes of tapes in the room, it was nice to watch something more current and that I hadn’t seen before.  Of all tapes she had, it seemed I had already watch them before!

Here again, we could only stay three weeks then we had to leave for one night and re-check in.  Suzanne really struggled with the stairs, and would have to rest for a while after each flight.  Cooking in the kitchen was a pain, because I had to take all the cooking utensils to the 2nd floor to cook, then take them and the dishes back to the kitchen after we ate to wash them.  I had to take them all in one trip, dry them, and bring them all back to the room.  You didn’t dare leave anything behind or it wouldn’t be there when you went back.  The laundry room was on the first floor, and finding it available was hard!  Only one washer and dryer in the entire hotel.

Even though I cooked the meals and dinner was usually around 8 PM, Suzanne would get hungry later in the evening.  The kitchen was always locked by 10 and sometimes much earlier.  I would either have to fix something for her on the hot plate or go pick something up for her.  The pizza parlor across the street also came in handy.  Needless to say, we didn’t eat a single pizza after we left California.  Somewhere in here, we scheduled a load to be moved to Mississippi.  There were three storage units, and Suzanne thought the movers could get it all in one 45′ truck.  Well, it didn’t happen.  When they were finnished loading their truck there was still allot of stuff left.  Luckily I was able to get everything that was left into one unit. 

During this time, she finally agreed with me to hire an attorney for her court case with the tenant.  We had been working on the papers off and on, and I had to make MANY trips to the LA Court House in Compton to file papers…  Sometimes they would come back and stated we did something wrong or that they weren’t the right papers.  Even though, I always asked to make sure they were the right ones and they were filled out correctly.  Many of the papers, Bob had filled out before.  She didn’t actually hire an attorney, though, she hired a paralegal.  Strangely enough, they filed exactly the same papers, the same way, that Bob and I had already done!

Well, unfortunately, Suzanne had made another decision.  This one was a duzy!  She decided that instead of living in another hotel, we could live in her “gazebo” which was in the front yard on her Carson property!   She said we could sleep in the U-Haul at night…  The gazebo is what she called it, but to me it was just an old storage shed.  It was full of junk because I had already taken the good stuff to storage.  It was not in the best condition, and ABSOLUTELY not a place for a lady like Suzanne.  I didn’t complain, but went to the “gazebo”, cleaned it out, and made it livable for Suzanne.  As with everything I did, she thought it was wonderful!

So, I moved EVERYTHING out of the hotel, down all those stairs, making MANY trips, and loaded the U-Haul once again…  Not everything could fit in the gazebo, so I had to take allot of it to storage.  We slept in the U-Haul at night in various locations.   She had bought an old twin bed which I put in the U-Haul for her to sleep on.  We were also taking her German Shepherd with us at night…  I cooked on a hot-plate most of the meals but we did eat out on occasion.  I washed dishes in a wash tub, in cold water, behind the house.  We used the restroom in the Carson house and used his shower…  GEEZ!  Well, after a week or so, she decided to go ahead and move the bed she bought into the gazebo and she bought me an old rattan chair to sleep in…  Her German Shepherd that was staying at the Carson property the whole time, was now also with us most all the time…

During this time, we had to go to court.  We rented a motel room so Suzanne could get ready the next morning in front of a mirror.  She wanted me to help her pick out her clothes, her wig, etc, so she could get all dolled up.  The next morning, she asked me to leave so she could get ready in private…  She called me on the cell phone when she was about ready, but needed some help.  When I got back to the motel, I was met by an entirely different woman!  She was decked out from head to toe, wig and all!  I was once again SHOCKED!   After she was completely ready, we met her former employee in case he had to testify on her behalf.  He was the one that repaired all of the damage (he had help, too) that tenant had done.  Now, Suzanne was also terrified of elevators, and the court room was on one of the top floors.

The Los Angeles County Courthouse in Compton, CA.

After all that work, the judge was a substitute for the original judge.  He had a few issues with Suzanne’s claim, so he didn’t make a decision.  We had STILL more “homework” to do!  All the pictures she had taken of the damage were on a single page…  The pictures were small and he couldn’t see the damage very well…  So, we had to have individual pictures made.  Then we had to wait for another court date!  Further delaying our move to Mississippi.

After a few weeks of living in the gazebo, Suzanne decided to move back in the hotel in Wilmington.  We went to the hotel and talked with the manager and she had a room on the second floor this time.  The manager also said they didn’t really approve of us having so much stuff in the room!  Well, that was kind of a relief for me.  I still had almost a half a truck load to move into the room.  I think by this time, the only vehicle we had left in California was the old U-Haul.  This hotel did have a parking lot, but they wouldn’t allow the U-Haul to be parked in it.  I had to park it along the street.  She also decided that the dog should stay with us.  She wasn’t allowed in the hotel, so she had to stay in the front of the U-Haul.  Another problem was that the street cleaners came on certain days and cleaned one side of the street and the other side on other days.  I had to make sure I was always parked on the right side.  Sometimes I had to park on the street by Food-4-Less! 

Eventually, we made it back to court again, and won the case…  She won, even though she knew she would never get a cent…  We scheduled another truck with a different company to move the remaining items in the storage unit.  This proved to be a nightmare, as they quoted us one price, and the bill came out to be twice as much.  They did an inventory, then took the truck to be weighed…  I don’t remember the exact weight, but it was MUCH more than they calculated which greatly increased the bill.  The other movers, who had moved 12 loads for her, never had the truck weighed.  They just gave her a good deal because they were from Florida and had brought a load to California.  They made her good deals so they wouldn’t be going back empty.  Anyway, Suzanne was very upset with the bill with these new movers.  It was pretty late at night by now, and the movers took the truck to their warehouse.  After several days of arguing back and forth, with the company, they finally agreed with me to charge us their original quote.  SO, Suzanne bought plane tickets, and we flew to Mississippi at the same time the truck was en-route to Mississippi.

Flying from Los Angeles to Memphis, TN wasn’t a real big ordeal.  Suzanne was a bit nervous (a slight understatement).  When we arrived in Memphis, we had a several hour lay over.  Suzanne had a few more drinks but wouldn’t allow me to drink at all because she wanted me to stay alert.  Then we went to are area where we would be boarding a plane to Greenville…  The sight of the planes we would be flying in made me wish I had a couple of drinks myself!   When we boarded the plane, Suzannewas a nervous wreck.  She had her head between her legs the entire flight.  When we arrived at the airport in Greenville it was around 8 P.M. I think.  It was basically deserted!  The two men that were working there asked how we were going to get home.  I told him I was going to call a taxi.  The two guys looked at each other with a blank look on their face.  I looked at Suzanne with a blank look on my face…  Now, I had checked the phone book and there was a taxi listed but apparently that didn’t mean much.  The guys called someone that “worked” for the cab company and he came and picked us up to take us to our new home.

When we got to the right town, the driver had no idea where the street was.  He went to the police station and we followed the officer to the mansion.  I had been told that the house was completely full and was kind of suprised to see the breakfast room was empty except for a table with keys on it.  To the left was a door that went into the kitchen. 

We then opened the door that led to the den…  From this point on, we used a flashlight the driver had.  When we entered the door to the den and saw what was in front of us, we almost passed out.  By this time, I had been working my tail off in California everyday…  I had heard stories of the house being full, but I thought surely allot of what I heard was exaggeration.  In fact, I think I hoped it was exaggeration.  Well, no such luck!  It was ALL true!  I am not one to exaggerate, and I am stating fact that the den was full from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.  There is an 8 foot ceiling in the den, but the rest of the house has at least 12 foot ceilings.  Fortunately, the rest of the house wasn’t stacked all the way to the ceiling.  Every room except two bedrooms on the second floor was stacked and packed so full not even one thing else could have beed added.  I never witnessed such a thing in my life.  Imagine packing a moving truck to move and barely being able to get the door closed…  That’s what every room was like!  Even the attic was FULL of storage boxes, mostly the 30-gallon size, but some were the larger 50 gallon size, and some were smaller ones.  After we started moving furniture, boxes, etc, from the house, and I started working in the attic, I thought it would never end!  I would drag boxes down two flights of stairs, we would go through them, put the ones full of what she wanted to sell on the front porch and ulonad and unwrap what she wanted to keep.  I kept taking stuff and putting them on the floor in the rooms where she wanted them.  She kept telling me not to tell her we were running out of room…  So, I never told her.  Sometimes she would go to the attic and look through the boxes herself and so I would know which ones were going to the store and shich ones were going to stay before I drug them down the stairs.

I am not sure how many loads of boxes and furniture we moved out of the house, or even how many boxes were in the attic.  It doesn’t matter, I just know there were allot! 

I have much more to add…  Sometimes I just have to get up and stretch my legs!  So, just be patient!