For context to this post, my mom died a couple of weeks ago

Bless him, my dad is still hanging onto his sobriety. Alone. He's not in any kind of program or treatment. But he's very much into Entenmann's chocolate loaf cake, Lay's, and diet Coke.

I had to tell him this morning that the funeral director is coming by his house on Saturday with my mom's ashes in an urn.

He's been waiting for this, but hearing it's actually going to happen on a real calendar date was upsetting. Me saying the word to tell him was upsetting. Upsetting him is upsetting.

He says he's going to put her urn on the wine bar (a huge, monstrous marble and wrought iron cabinet that looks like the Godfather movies threw up in the hallway) so he can talk to her every day when he walks by. He's been planning this since she was alive, but the reality of it actually happening in a couple of days was too much for him and he cried into the phone with me.
One of my mom's friends offered to come by and take my mom's clothes out of the house for him and he didn't realize that he was allowed to tell her no, and say he wasn't ready. I told him that it's completely natural for him to want to wait, and that her friend would 100% understand and respect this.
He cancelled his doctor appointment, and hasn't really been out of the house because the thought of talking to anyone who might ask about my mom is too much for him to bear to have to explain. I told him that's totally fine too. He said that he's only sleeping a couple of hours a night and that his eyes and face hurt from crying.
I had to explain grief to him as if he were a child. He's 84. I said, "a horrible thing has happened to you and it's OK to cry and be upset as long as you want to".
You are normal, you old weirdo.
I told him that grief is natural and no one expects you to carry on like nothing happened. Well, I screamed all of this into the phone because the man has significant hearing loss, and I had to scream it all twice because he also has dementia.

Today I decided is the day that I'm going to make all of the calls I have to make, like telling their bank and the cable company that she is dead. I'm going to have to call the oxygen company and ask them to come and pick up all of the hoses, tanks and equipment that are tucked around all over their house. Stuff like that. I have a headache thinking about it, and looking at the UPS envelope I got in the mail the other day from the funeral home that has all of the copies of her death certificate that I ordered.
Anyhoo... I'm sad to have to do all of these things and the idea of having to be in charge of so much of my dad's life is terrifying, especially long distance.

The News Round Up - This Is (Not) Important So Gather Round

MDH and I got a new bed. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that we were planning to buy one, but I'm too lazy to go back and check for sure, which is interesting because normally nothing pleases me more than rereading my own posts over and over again like a crazy narcassistic gasbag, what was I talking about? Oh yes... MDH and I finally got a new bed. It's fucking amazing. Life changing. Trans formative. I'm a new woman.

Our old bed sucked. It was old. And small. And had begun to sag in the middle when we were both in it. Folded up like a taco. It was also noisy and not in a sexy let's get it on er-ah, er-ah squeaky way, but in a bouncy, jostling each other awake every time you make the slightest movement kind of way. It's was annoying. If you dropped a bowling ball on that bed I'm quite sure it would have knocked over a glass of red wine in the other room.

Dye Hard

I was only able to watch the first 5 minutes of the Oprah show that I had recorded on my DVR because that's all I was able to stand of Oprah's bad dancing and John Travolta's horrible dye job. First of all, Oprah stop moving. Don't dance girl. Just stop.

More importantly, John Travolta, you are an old man, it's time to be gray. You are fooling no one.

The Visitors

So in a couple of weeks my crazy aunt Liz, my sister* and my niece** are all coming to visit us at our new Texas digs. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. They have never come to visit us. Ever.

I think the whole thing started when I told my sister about my surgery, after my recovery was nearly complete mind you. I think that she and Liz thought that they were going to come here and somehow take care of me. Well thank god I foiled that plan by waiting until after I was better before I told anybody about it. Now when they come we can just have fun. Although I can't help but wonder how they thought I'd still need taking care of when they didn't book their flights until 6 weeks after I was officially recovered. Nice try. Let's just party.

I got in big trouble, by the way, for not telling anyone in my family (besides my parents) about my being sick and having surgery until after the fact. I didn't want to make a million phone calls telling the world about my rather personal, crotch related ordeal, so when I was ready for people to know there was only one phone call necessary. My sister***. I knew once she knew then everyone in my family, whether they were interested or not, would know.

And damned if the fucking phone didn't start ringing less then 30 minutes after my initial call with her ended. This is exactly what I had tried to avoid - talking about my uterus and having multiple conversations involving the words "cervix" and "ovaries" to a million different people who, although technically family, are not necessarily the people I'd like to discuss this shit with.

Thankfully, I was mostly healed and recovered and better able to handle such discussions than I was prior to the surgery when I was quite irritable (to put it mildly) and ill.

Crazy aunt Liz is my dad's sister and the one that came down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast in her housecoat and slippers at the last family reunion MDH and I attended. She didn't have her teeth in either. Other members of my family also came down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant unwashed and uncombed wearing sweats, pajama pants and t-shirts and flip-flops. Somehow though that doesn't seem quite as shocking as a housecoat and slippers because you often (sadly) see people**** in public wearing sweats and pajama pants with t-shirts and flip-flops. A housecoat and slippers seems a bit intimate of attire for public airings.

Anyhoo... my family all think I'm a huge prig because I give a shit about such things as whether or not I shower and appear fully dressed in public and that's totally OK with me.

I know that many people in my family also think that I'm a prig because I read a lot, I sometimes use big fancy words and make an effort to use correct grammar when I speak (or write***** (I fail sometimes, but they probably wouldn't know that)). I don't watch Dog the Bounty Hunter, follow NASCAR, go to church or listen to country music. I know they all love me, as I love them, but I'm not one of them.

As a result of this most of my adult life, with a few exceptions here and there, I have chosen to keep my family at arms length, so it'll be weird to have so many of them here all at once.

*She's actually my cousin, but when we were children I lived with her family for about a year or so, until my dad could get his shit together after my mom left us. Even after I went to live with my dad again I continued to spend a great deal of time at her family's house throughout my life. I went on family vacations with them and spent several weekend with them throughout the year. and we have always felt like sisters. We made a pact when we were teenagers and decided that because we were really sisters in our hearts we would always refer to each other thusly. At this stage in our lives it's weird to keep doing it, but we continue to do it because we have always done it. It's awkward however when I talk about her to other people who don't know her and I have recently taken to referring to her as my cousin rather than feeling like a liar and having to explain about how she's my sister, but not really my sister. I assume she's doing the same, but it has never come up.

**Her kids have always called me "Aunt Lady".

***Fifteen years ago she would have been one of the first to know, before the fact even, but we aren't as close as we once. I really don't like her husband very much and the feeling is mutual I think. I used to hang around and do stuff with them anyway and just put up with his bullshit, but as the kids got older and busier and I got older and busier I had less time and patience. Also, it was always a one way street in that I always had to go to their house (about an hour away) and they rarely seemed able to make the effort to come to me, and that shit gets old after awhile, especially if her husband was going to act like a total asshat the whole time I was there. I wish I liked him. I've tried to like him. But there it is.

****People who are not me.

*****It's all I can do not to have an embolism when I read some of my family members posts on Facebook.

A Tale of Two Cities - Part 1

It's been an interesting coupla years in Ladyland. We live about an hour from the Gulf of Mexico now, which has been an adjustment, to say the least. In Dallas we lived in a dry, moisture sucking, pizza oven, where we live now has moisture, vegetation, and steady tropical rains that are more akin to a sousvide water oven (look it up, kids). 

In other words, my skin looks amazing and hydrated, but my hair is a bit on the unruly side, and I'm in a constant battle with swamp ass. These days most of my outfits could easily be mistaken for swim suit cover ups, and I do not for the life of me, honest to John, remember the last time I wore socks.

This past year has dealt our family serious blows in the form of the deaths of two of my brothers in law. The good* ones too, Las Vegas and Syracuse. So I'm left with the two scarier ones, Miami and Knucklehead. Obviously this has been extremely stressful for MDH, who in the case of Las Vegas was left responsible for cleaning up after his god damned mess.

Last October, when my DH was in Austin with friends getting together and preparing to attend a music festival he got a call from someone from the Las Vegas police, to tell him that his oldest (and most seemingly normal) brother had taken an upscale suite with comped points from one of the swankier hotel casinos, where he stayed for 2 weeks before carefully laying out plastic lawn and garden bags on the sumptuous, king sized bed and blowing his brains out with a pistol.

Apparently his body laid there for 5 full days before the cleaning staff alerted hotel management. Apparently his head was, for lack of a better way to describe it, gone.

MDH upon getting the call immediately alerted Miami and Syracuse and it was decided that Miami would get on the next flight to Las Vegas to be with MDH and do things like identify the body, and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out, which turned out to be a fucking lot, and Syracuse would drive immediately to Boston so that the news of Las Vegas' death could be given to my MIL in person by someone she trusts.

So that happened.

Fast forward to November. Thanksgiving weekend to be exact, when I never wanted to run away and join the circus more in my life because Miami demanded that the absolute best time ever to have a memorial service for Las Vegas would be THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING. Of course the absolute worst time of year for traveling. Of course the absolute worst time for someone who lives in the tropics and doesn't even own a coat anymore to travel to FUCKING BOSTON, where it's freezing fucking cold. Not to mention that frankly I really didn't feel like memorializing Las Vegas. I went because it was important to MDH, and that was the end of it. 

Syracuse had pneumonia and couldn't make it, which made me jealous, (why can't I get pneumonia and skip this stupid thing?) and infuriated Miami so deeply that he declared it unforgivable and that Syracuse was "dead to me", and refused to take his calls anymore.

Anyhoo... somehow I survived that ordeal, and it WAS an ordeal, because anything involving MDH's family is never without dramas, death threats, ridiculous unnecessary complications and drunken brawls. Somehow we also always end up footing the bill for all of this shit, which only makes me more angry. If anything, I was glad to get to spend some time with my MIL, and hug her, and cry together, and reassure her that she didn't have to ever do anything that she didn't want to do, like go to this insane memorial service.

Fast forward to late December, when we learn that Syracuse does not only not have pneumonia, he as been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and has about 6 months to live. He died** the 2nd week in March.

In between the 2 deaths, MIL came down and spent almost 8 weeks with us in Texas. She had been home for just slightly more than a week when Syracuse died. MDH was with Syracuse when he died, and had been there for about a week and a half prior. He had flown home with his mother from Texas, because she can no longer fly by herself, and then rented a car and drove to Syracuse to be with his brother in his final days.

Then he drove back to Boston. Knucklehead had been given the responsibility this time of telling my MIL about the death of her son, but when he arrived at her apartment he found her barely conscious on the floor next to the couch. Apparently she'd had a stroke the previous day, but just chose to lay there, her cell phone in her robe pocket, because she, "didn't want to bother anybody". 

This is the part where I scream.

And I've pretty much been screaming ever since. Starting with finding out that she had out right LIED to me while she was visiting about what medications she was supposed to be taking. Medications which included pills to lower her cholesterol, which she told her doctor in the hospital after the stroke that SHE decided she didn't need anymore.

It's now almost August, and she's still in a rehab facility in Boston. We're not sure what is going to happen next.

In Part 2 of this story, which I will try and write tomorrow, I will explain to you the evil, conniving nature of Knucklehead, and the various ways that he has been nothing but a piece of shit since all of this has gone down.


*Tolerable and mostly polite to me, but still misogynistic and unpleasant to be around for longer than a few hours.

*People die. They are dead. They don't pass, pass away, cease to exist, or whatever other sugar coated phrases people like to use. They die and they are fucking dead.

It's Time to Unfurl the Blog Again

Life has handed me enough lately, and it's time to get real. I need to express my true self, which is something that simply cannot be done on Facebook (without consequences, like my elderly aunts trying to pipe in and help, or people expressing genuine and loving feelings of condolence, and/or sympathy, or my aunt Pauline responding uncomprehendingly in all caps to my sarcastic post a year and a half later and thereby opening the floodgates of unwanted responses all over again.)

Then I remembered this blog, like a beacon of hope. THIS IS WHY I CREATED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!! 

And now it fills me with joy and a slight bit of disgust to tell you this:

Apparently I post too many things about cats on the Book of Face because someone that I know, or used to know a long time ago, but am a barely acquainted with now online, posted what you see below on my timeline.

What the living fuck is this piece of shit? She kinda sorta thought I might like it. Jesus fucking christ what have I become?

I'm hoping to recover from this blow to my self image, and apparently my public image in which I have become seriously uncool. I have become a crazy cat lady. I have become the kind of person who would kinda might like that bag. I refuse to believe this, and yet I also vowed when I saw it to stop posting anything about cats for a very long time, or perhaps never again.

I'm also hoping to start posting here more. I'm thinking I need it. I'm thinking that it would be a really good thing for me to start converting the ugly poisoned thoughts in my head into something sort of funny, and thus turning negatives into positives, or at the very least neutralizing the situation.

Oh my god. That fucking bag. What the shit, dudes?

Stop Making Sense

The same person* who takes great pride in eating directly out of cans (because it saves him having to wash dishes), and boastfully uses the same coffee mug, for a multitude of beverages from morning until bedtime, coffee (obviously), orange juice, soda, milk, beer (what have you), without ever rinsing it, is somehow also the same person who sparked out yesterday with an emotional decree:

"You shouldn't open the blinds during the day!!!  Eventually the carpet will fade."

Um, what? 

Hey, fuck you Heloise.  I'm opening the blinds.

What am I Howard Hughes?  If you suggest that I start wearing slippers made from tissue boxes because it helps prevent scuffs on hardwood flooring I am just as likely to tell you to go piss up a rope.  On second thought, don't do that.  There's a distinct line between fading and piss, let's not cross it.

To be fair there have been a lot of emotional decrees lately.  I get it, it's a new house, and we are filling it almost daily with new furnishings and bits and bobs.  We want it to stay nice.

1.  There will be no eating or drinking of beverages, other than ice or water, or any combination of the two, while in the living room or while sitting upon or near any of the new furniture.  (This is my rule, but I often find myself watching the new giant TV while standing just on the other side of the back of the sofa, feet firmly planted on the tile in the breakfast nook**, munching on a snack and thinking about how fucking stupid my new rule is and, if MDH isn't home, eventually breaking this rule by planting my snacky ass right on the new sofa and munching away.)

2.  The bed will be made daily by the person who remains in it the longest.  (Or in other words, last one up is a rotten egg.  This is also my rule.  What the hell is wrong with me?)

3.  The kitchen counter and bar will no longer be a repository for mail and crap from the bottom of a purse or pockets or any combination of these items.  (Yep.  Also my rule.  The rest of the rule should say: All mail and crap, etc., is to be shoveled haphazardly into the black hole next to the sink hereby referred to as "the menu drawer" before MDH arrives home from work.)

I suppose the theme of this post, if there has to be one is that I project my crazy shit onto MDH, make my own rules, promptly break them, and then hide it. 

Seriously though, not opening the blinds to keep the carpet from fading?  

Since I'm no longer allowed to enjoy sunshine in my own home, why don't we just never walk on it either.  In fact, let's just kill ourselves (neatly, over plastic in the garage, don't get nutty, concrete absorbs stains) so that we can hover over the new furniture and finishes, enjoying the glory of it all as ghostly spirits, so that it can all remain perfect and pristine forever and ever.

Maybe we can compromise and just wear sheets around the house in order to minimize the dust particles we shed.

No.  Fuck the carpet.  I want to live.  Preferably in my new home which, by the way, gets excellent light all day, which, by the way, is one of the reasons we moved here.

Right.  Now, please shut up, turn the sofa cushion over and pass me the popcorn. 

It's fine.

*In hindsight I'm not sure that I made it perfectly clear that it's MDH I'm referring to as the person who eats directly out of cans and uses the same mug all day without rinsing it.

**We don't have a table in there yet, so I will probably feel less stupid when I don't have to stand up while I'm snacking.  Probably.