Pull the Plug

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I have been wallowing. Since I don’t have to get up to go to work, once I got sick on Monday or Tuesday (I don’t really remember as the days are running together) I have been doing nothing except taking naps. My sinuses are clogged and that makes me cranky and I can’t think.

It must have been Monday, because I copped out on the ending of the mini story I wrote for Trifecta. I took the easy way and ended it with wishful thinking instead of a proper ending. The story with the correct ending will follow this journal post. I think it’s more realistic and more heroic.

Wednesday was the last of the doctor’s appointments for my father’s prostate procedure. It looks like we are all good. He’s running around like a spring chicken. Out getting his daily fresh rolls and lunchmeat for their lunches. I think he’s having flashbacks to living in Austria. Shopping was done every day.

I had to take my father to an appointment at 08.00 which meant I had to get up by 06.00 so I set my alarm for 05.00 and I slept like crap all night. I am truly a sick person. How is it normal for someone to have high anxiety of such rediciulously mundane circumstances. We got done in ten minutes (the nurse took out the catheter.) I went home and took a nap until 13.00 when it was time to take him back to see the urologist. I dropped him off as they surprised me by telling me I had to take my mother to Boscov’s to get Tag-Away. Boscov’s sells all of the As Seen On TV items. Mt mother and I had the “Why don’t you like shopping?” talk, AGAIN. I hate shopping. I don’t like to browse. Stores are like torture chambers to me. I am a grave disappointment to my mother.

But guess what? She told me she loved me the other day. I didn’t say it to her first and it wasn’t a High Holy Holiday or my birthday or anything. I still don’t know what to make of it. First and only time so far in my life. You like that little bit of hope there on the end of that last sentence? I am always full of hope, though it is quite guarded. Certain things just can’t be expected. I’m 55. The odds of her saying “I love you.” to me first again in either of our lifetimes is slim. That’s ok. I’m used to doing things first, or for myself, or even alone. I have decided to hear her voice telling me she loves me in my head from now on instead of all of the other stuff she usually says. I think I will be happier. I gave up my grudge against my mother years twenty years ago when I realized I wanted her in my life but I could not change her. This may seem a meager reward to you but I think it was worth it. I was re-reading this papagraph and the first few sentences remind me of the joke men tell about their birthdays and blow jobs. It’s funny because it’s true.

I struggle so hard to build and maintain a routine and it just doesn’t go well. QV went to work, last night. the project he’s on is all night work. I am way way happy he’s working but now there’s another change to my routine. I’m thinking it was a mistake to take the butterfly (and the constant change it represents) as my avatar, sigil, sign, totem - way of life.

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Good Deeds, Punished

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I got yelled at in the grocery store yesterday. I took my mother shopping in between visiting my father in the hospital. I offered to take her list and do the shopping for her but she wanted to do it herself. Apparently, only she can pick out a proper head of cauliflower. I was allowed to track down the wax paper that was on sale. It appears my mother was right to question my abilities because I couldn’t find the damn stuff. I stopped at the customer service desk. The store employee was already waiting on someone so I waited patiently. I hate when people just walk up and think it’s ok to “just ask one question” while a person is busy. I waited my turn. But then the employee asked me if she could help me, so I asked her about the wax paper. the man she was helping first YELLED at me that she was already helping him. Not one to be outdone, I immediately YELLED back at him that I was answering the question I was asked. I did not butt in. The employee said she could do two things at once to him. He said he was in a hurry, all snotty like. The employee never paused in doing the task for him. I kept staring at him until he left. He wouldn’t look at me. Score a major victory for me!

Going into the store, I had to remove a long piece of toilet paper that was hanging out of the back of my mother’s pants.

My father insisted he was going home yesterday. He did not. The fluid in his bag was still too pink. He was so sure he was going home, he cancelled his dinner. He refused to call the kitchen and reorder it, so I did it for him. All of the information he told my mother was wrong. First I thought it might be a mix up during the translation process through my mother but when I got to the hospital he told me the same information. He insisted he had no catheter currently and that they would put it in Friday in the doctor’s office. The reverse is true. There was improvement in his fluid function yesterday just not enough. Since he’s 82, the urologist just wants to be sure the danger of blood clots has passed before releasing him. I think he’ll be able to come home today.

I lost my mother in the hospital. I dropped her off at the door so she wouldn’t have to walk so far. She decided to go up to my father’s room without me. I get to the room and she’s not there. Off I go looking for her. She had gotten in an elevator with front and back doors and gone out the back which takes you to the labs. Her sense of direction was never really that good but now she really gets turned around.

One of the vendors I used at work called my house and left a message asking me to call him. I wonder what that’s about. As pathetic as it sounds, not knowing kept me awake last night.

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