Adventures in Electricity – Also, Old People’s Foibles

So, if you are not aware of it, it’s been officially hot as balls this week. Gross, can’t-stand-outside-for-two-minutes, swampy, disgusting, “smacked with a wet wool blanket fresh out the microwave,” hot.

Most days this week I’ve thought cheerfully to myself “Today’s a hell of a good day for staying inside!” and with my lifestyle of “Scurry to car, scurry to office, scurry to car, scurry to house, shut door firmly behind me.” This is totally doable. Monday, despite it being hot as balls, I had to get to the grocery store, since last weekend’s death plague had stopped me going anywhere for four days. So after work I headed to the store, stocked up on the foodz, and headed home. I get home and unload my groceries only to notice that my neighbor is standing outside with her phone in her hand. I try not to notice anything out of the ordinary that my neighbors do, in hopes that they will not notice when I stand out on my back porch in my sports bra and nightgown, begging my chihuahua to please, please pee for me? Please?

So I ignored her. But she called out “Power’s out.” Which… fuck. I mean, I was looking forward to cranking the AC down to like 42 degrees and laying on the couch in my underpants. The power being off was not part of this plan. After I chatted with her for a second, I got my food in and stuffed into the still-cold (but for how long!) fridge, and called the power company. They said midnight for restoration. That was too long to escape myself and leave the dogs behind, because the outside temperature was close to 100 degrees. My neighborhood friends were either not home from work yet, or have big dogs of their own which don’t mix well with my little dogs, or both, so that was out. No help for it but to trek out to my parents’ house in North County, in search of some cold.

It wasn’t an awesome way to spend my evening, but I had been owing them a visit, and I had a project I needed my Mom’s help with anyway, so away we went.

The most valuable part of spending time with my parents is a reminder of why, exactly, I started out in life so extremely fucked in the head. This visit was no exception, but two particular anecdotes stood out, on the same theme. My mom was telling me about being at the house of her (elderly) friends that week, and realizing that they had their heat on. She asked the wife of the couple about it, thinking it was a mistake and learned this:

This couple likes a cold house at night, so they turn their AC down to 64. They both sleep with electric blankets to stay warm. Then, since it’s so cold in the house in the morning, they turn the heat on to get the temperature back up to 74.

:-|

I don’t really know how to parse this in my noggin. Like, is this just the privilege of the uber-privileged? Is this annoying more in a financial, ecological or practical/logical way, or everything at once? I don’t know it boggled me.

So then we were working on our project (curtains for my kitchen, my mom has a way better sewing machine than I do.) and my mom needed to go downstairs to the laundry room to iron the hems. “I’m going downstairs to iron the hems…” she whispered at me. “OK” sez I, but why are you whispering? “I don’t want your dad to hear me. He hates when I iron when the AC is on, he says it heats up the house!”

A) What?

B) From the BASEMENT? The heat of the IRON? Serious?

C) Fuck what he thinks, now you have to SNEAK?

D) Tell him he’s a loony-fuck, and even if he wasn’t, you’re STILL gonna iron the fuck you want to iron because you’re a grown-ass woman! For fuck’s sake!

Bleh. I just truly cannot imagine living my life that way, constantly having to adjust my actions to the ravings of someone who cannot grasp what little effect running an iron would have on overall AC efficacy, when they have a damn dog they let in and out of the house 652 times per hour.

(Keep in mind that this is after I was trying to wash my hands at their kitchen sink and the water was sputtering sadly from the faucet and I was like – dudes you need a new faucet – and my dad said no, he’d installed a low-flow adapter on it, so it was meant to sputter. Which made you stay there twice as long hoping to rinse your hands, which I think…)

The saddest part is that it’s easier for her to sneak around to do what she wants to do, rather than just say she’s going to do whatever she wants to do. How awful. I do not enjoy arguing, but I’m also fucked if someone’s going to tell me not to do a thing I want to do, and then I will sneak and do it anyway just to avoid the argument. BLAH.

I say again BLAH.

People! Do not live your life that way! I’d rather eat cold soup under a bridge in the rain, from a rusty can, than live with someone who did not care for my happiness or made me miserable. Being around happy people who enjoy me and also want me to be happy, that’s all I really want out of life. And I was raised with the exact opposite of that. Unhappy people who hate each other, working to make each other more miserable. See, looking at it that way, I think I’ve done OK. Just not reliving that sad family pattern is progress, even when I do my own shit in a weird way. So, that’s why it’s good to visit my parents from time to time, I guess.

Anyway: moral of the story is that  the curtains got done, the power eventually came back on (and then went out again later, but only briefly) and I was reminded that the freedom to do what you want to do in your own space is a precious one. Living alone. It has its challenges, but dang, no one telling you when to iron or how to wash your god-damn hands. That’s a bonus.

Also, my curtains, they are amazing. :-)

This is the fabric, which the lovely and talented katatomiclabs found online for me, bless her heart.

Mo’ NoCo Mo’ Problems

Yeah so yesterday was my Mom’s birthday. I am a bad person, generally, and a bad daughter, specifically, so I was not too excited to go out there to celebrate it. But I did, because that’s what you do, right? Naturally the whole thing was convoluted and awkward, with my Sunday phone call to my mom starting out like this:

Me: What are we doing for your birthday tomorrow?

Her: We don’t have to do anything, anything at all. Or we can wait and do it another day, because we’re adults and we know that sometimes people are not available on the actual day of your birthday to do things.

Me: I am available though, and planning on doing something with you, on the day of your birthday. What would you like to do?

Her: We can always put it off until later in the week if you want.

Me: What do you want to do tomorrow?

Her: It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, I don’t want you to drive in the rain.

Me: I am going to drive in the rain today, for fun. People do it all the time. What do you want to do tomorrow? How about I come out and take you to dinner?

Her: Well, if you want to, that would be wonderful. Just wonderful. I will call your brother. But if it starts raining and you don’t want to come, I will understand. (Note, my parents live 20 minutes from me, I do not know what kind of torrential downpour would necessitate my canceling a 20 minute drive. Also note: it did not rain.)

So now I am kind of screwed. I picked up a card for her (in fact I accidentally shoplifted it, not realizing that it was stuck down the side of my cart at the grocery store until I was unloading the cart into the car. Oops.) and I planned on taking her to dinner, but she’d made noises that she wanted to stay in and order pizza, so that meant she’d never let me pay. So now I had to get a gift. After work yesterday I stopped by the book store and got her a book that was pretty cool – at least it was one I’d like to have, historic photos of St. Louis. So, shoplifted card and legally acquired book in hand, I was ready to face the specter of a NoCo family dinner.

When I arrived my mother promptly whooshed me into a back bedroom to show me the present that I’d had bought her. Wait, what? Yeah. My mom bought her own present, and wanted me to give it to her, so that “you know who” didn’t know she’d bought it herself. Oh wait, it was also supposed to be from my brother. Nevermind that “you know who” had just seen me walk into the house carrying an entirely different present, now I was supposed to act like this one was from me. *sigh*

Also, my mom was dressed to go out. I was dressed to hang at their house, not that I have anyone in NoCo to impress, by any stretch, but I might have made some kind of effort if I’d known we were going out. “Why are you dressed to go out?” I asked “I thought we were staying in.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if we were staying in or going out. I was going to see what you wanted to do.”

“It’s your birthday, you decide.”

My mom walked to the living room where my brother and dad were discussing sports. Here’s their general conversation. It does not matter who said what, it’s equally annoying any way you read it.

“Do you want to go out, or stay in?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” “We could stay in.” “We could go out.” “What do you prefer?” “I don’t know, I could do either.” “It’s up to you.” “I don’t really care either way.” “Let’s stay in then.” “We could go out.” “Do you want to go out?” “I don’t mind, either way.” “We could call ahead, the food would be ready when we got there.” “We could. Or we could have it delivered. Either way.” “Well which do you want?” “Really, either is fine with me.” “Then let’s stay in.” “OK, but we could also go out.” “DO YOU WANT TO GO OUT?” “No, we can stay in, I will go order the food.”

*sigh*

So we get to present opening time. My mom cries at the card I got her (It was totally passive-aggressive on my part, all about how I needed her just like I did when I was little, I thought it was a nice touch after the whole hospital debacle, but I knew she would not see that. I told you, I am not a nice person.) and then opened the book, by which she was extremely underwhelmed. She flipped to a section about the Cardinals and then read something out loud. My brother said the information was incorrect. She looked at me for confirmation. What? I hate sports, and anyway I didn’t write the fucking book. My dad opined on whether the information was correct or not. My brother insisted it was wrong. My Mom looked at me again. I suggested she write a complaining letter to the publisher if she had an issue. Maybe we could open the other gifts now? She opened her present from me and my brother, to herself. She acted surprised. My Dad noted that it was exactly like the thing she’d bought herself last week. She angrily asked how he knew what she bought herself last week, and he explained that she left it in a bag next to him at the mall while she shopped for other things. She noted that he had a lot of nerve, looking through her shopping bags. He noted that she had a lot of nerve, acting as if she hadn’t bought her own present when he knew she did. I wondered why the fuck everything had to be so motherfucking convoluted, and how much longer I was going to have to stay. Honestly. Was there any reason she couldn’t buy herself a gift and say “I bought myself this, I am a grown ass woman and I have plenty of money and it’s my goddamn birthday?”

After that I went and sorted out my Dad’s computer, the magical porn bots had re-infested it, he has no idea how that happened, of course. We ate pizza, we ate cake, both were kind of un-tasty, but that might have been my mood. I was sent home with: new garden gloves, new potholders, a new pair of sandals, a spindle of blank CDs, a box of tampons that my mom mail-ordered for me (?!) and leftover pizza.

I went home and watched Spartacus and contemplated my own, sometimes overwhelming, need for simplicity and honesty in my life, and I did not wonder from where that might have originated.

How does this go?

I am not sure what exactly you’re supposed to say to your Dad the evening before he goes in for open-heart surgery. Seriously – what in the world is that conversation supposed to sound like?

Surely not: “Holy shit I am scared to death right now, and trying not to freak out. You could die. You could really die. I don’t want you to die. I don’t even know how to process that version of reality. I can’t think about this right now. I really hope this isn’t the last conversation we ever have. What if it is? How many impossible things would I need to pack into this phone call to make it the right thing to have said?”

Hopefully it’s more like: “Everything’s going to be fine, it will be over with before you know it. I will be by to see you on Tuesday when you’re out of the ICU. I love you.”

Because that’s all I could come up with.

Processing

So my Dad has been feeling “short of breath” for awhile. Translation: he’s barely able to move and constantly exhausted. But like most men his age he’s practically allergic to doctors, so he keeps thinking it’s going to get better on its own. My Mom finally convinced him to go in for a stress test, and the doctor said that they couldn’t do it – something about not being able to get a clear picture. So they scheduled him for an angioplasty this morning. But once they got in there they just stopped – his blockage is so bad that they couldn’t clear it or put in stents and hope for any degree of success. So he’s now scheduled for a triple-bypass on Monday morning. They’re not letting him leave the hospital until the operation either, they said it’s too big of a risk to let him walk around. He’s got to be pissed as hell, since he thinks all doctors are only trying to scam him for his money, and this keeping him the hospital thing is sure to be seen as part of that.

The doctor says that the heart itself is strong and undamaged, so they’re confident that the surgery will go well. But still, triple bypass? WTF. The funny thing is, that staying in the hospital from Friday to Monday – or I guess beyond since they won’t let him leave the same day as his surgery I guess – will be the longest he’s gone without drinking in approximately forever. I don’t even know how his body will react to that.

I don’t really know what to think right now. I mean, this is not entirely unexpected. He’s a 70+ overweight diabetic alcoholic with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He eats like crap, drinks constantly and gets no exercise. Heart trouble isn’t what you’d call a surprise. I don’t know what to think about all this, or how worried to be. I guess I have been trying to brace myself for a long time, it’s inevitable that his health will deteriorate. My Mom is one of five sisters, and all their husbands are dead. Not that I am cavalier about it, just that I don’t want to freak until I have a reason to. This just feels like the next logical step in the sequence, right? Don’t take care of yourself, suffer ill-health, see if our modern medical technology can save you.

Basically I am just refusing to process this until I get more information.

What do you mean, I’m not in charge of that?

So far I have employed a few different  techniques to deal with this foot thing. They differ significantly from last year’s most-used methods (weeping, cursing, throwing various objects at other objects until something breaks.)

The primary coping mechanism so far has been that trusty family standby “pretending it’s not happening.” I can really make this one work only by sitting down and not moving, since the pain of utilizing said appendage is a pretty steady reminder that there’s an issue of some sort.

The next method = painkillers. They seriously aid in the first (dissociation from reality) method but they have a tendency to wear off and also to make me sleepy and confused.

The last method has been denial of facts in ready existence, a.k.a. “If you refuse to wear a corrective device, there can’t be anything wrong with you at all.” Which is why I am not wearing that foot brace.

And a subsidiary to all of these theories is the “not fair” hypothesis – which holds that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, —was doing housework in fact—and was on vacation. It would be karmically implausible to injure myself in this way under those circumstances.

Honestly, I just can’t imagine that the world is this perverse. This can’t be happening, I refuse for it to be happening, therefore it is not happening. See how that one works?

I’ve had varying levels of pain since Tuesday, at times being able to walk with almost no pain at all (see: painkillers) and at other times having pain worse than when I first had my cast off in April. My toes have been alternatingly numb/pain free/painful, and I don’t know what that means. I wish I had a better understanding of foot/bone mechanics so that I could form a more educated guess as to whether this pain signals another break or not. One part of me says “no way – this doesn’t hurt as much as the original break, so it can’t be another break. Right?” The other part of me sasses back with “Well why hasn’t the pain subsided yet, smarty pants? What do you think you have, a toe sprain?” And I don’t really know enough about how feet work to say that toe sprain is/is not a workable theory.

All I know is that this is a gigantic pile of bullshit, and that I should never have told my mother about it at all, since she’s been steady crying and unable to sleep since I did tell her. For the record: she hates to think of me all alone in this big house with no one to help me, so very alone and by myself, isolated, in this state I am in of being without anyone else here, lonely, by myself and so very alone. Which is very thoughful of her to point out.

Although on the bright side she also posits that my state of solitary, hyper-alone, isolated, single, helpless, gaping void of pointless, useless life is nonetheless better than her some people’s state of being aggravated 24/7 by my father some people who will remain nameless. But is is very hard for her to deal with the concept of me all alone and injured in my bleak, empty household. For the record. But she’s really glad I told her about it because trouble shared is trouble halved. And now she has to go lie down and cry for awhile, while she thinks of my bravery here all alone by myself.

Ahem.

Christmas Wrap Up — Part 2 “The Day.”

After dinner and drinks I went home and went to bed, leaving a shower for the morning. As I got undressed though, I noticed that the new red shirt I’d worn (without washing first) had stained my cream-colored bra lightly pink all over, and  bright red around the edges. Balls. I should have washed that shite first. I shrugged, put on a tank top and went to bed. The next morning the dogs woke me at 7:30 and I headed downstairs to feed, water and out-let them. Came back upstairs, made ready to jump in the shower. I took off my white tank top and threw it violently to the ground, as is my habit, and noticed that it was…pink and red? WTF? I examined it more closely and saw that it was all red around the edges, intensely so. My sleep-addled brain could not process this, and as I was showering I was pondering. I had not worn that tank top under the red shirt, so why was it red? Oh my. Must be that *I* had become red in the course of the evening, and this had transferred itself to the white tank. Damn. That sucked. After my shower I walked upstairs and squinted at my white sheets. Why did they look…pink? What the holy fucknuts? Apparently I had so much red dye on my body when I went to bed last night that I could have successfully faked a murder scene, if only I had started sweating at any point in the night. As it was, my sheets and pillows were just covered in pinkness. Goddammit too, because I just changed my sheets a couple of days ago. Luckily it didn’t get the comforter, because I just had to pay $30 to have that effer laundered after Jake puked on it.

So showered, I dressed and wrangled all these dogs and two heavy bags of presents into the car. Drove out to the NoCo. Pretty sure something’s really wrong with the transmission in my car, because I don’t think it’s ever switching to the right gear on the highway. Or it’s at least taking way too long. I was halfway down 70 before it finally smoothed out and felt as if it was driving normally and in the correct gear. This would (I think) explain the 30% reduction in gas mileage I’ve been experiencing for the past month. I really may have to give in and buy a new car before March. God damn it.

Not as cool as his friend Pat's set, apparently.

Get out to the parental homestead and my brother was already there. And he even came out to help me get dogs and packages into the house. What’s up with him and his helpfulness? Went inside, Dad was making Belgian waffles with pecans. That’s worth the drive all on its own. We ate, we ridiculed each other, then we went to open presents. I’d done a crappy job on my Dad’s present (sorry you have no hobbies and hate everything Dad!) and an OK job on my mother’s present, but I thought I had done a stellar job on my brother’s present. I was really excited to give it to him. I found this cool tournament-quality poker set for him, and since he and his friends are all poker fiends, I knew it was perfect. The set was lovely, in this sexy dark wood box with brushed-nickel hardware, it had real clay casino chips and weighed about 35 lbs. Classy. Not like the plastic shit he was currently using.

He was singularly unimpressed. “Oh that’s cool.” and then he put it away to go open other things. I think I looked at it more closely than he did, once it was open. I knew I shouldn’t torture myself, but I had to try to prise some kind of reaction from him, some kind of compliment of my good taste and thoughtful attention to his hobbies and interests. “So, will you have the nicest poker set of any of your friends?” I peered at him hopefully. “Oh, I don’t know. You should see Pat’s set. It came with a table.” he replied, clearly impressed with Pat’s uber-cool, table-having ways.

WTF ever. OK, any poker set that comes with a table is strictly Play-Skool territory. Nothing classy comes with a table, ffs. So that present was a total, unappreciated bust. Why do I even bother, when I could just give him $50 in a card, like he does me, and have it done with?

My Mom’s present was, like I said, not that great. I got her two things, and one of them was even sports-related. Again, I should know better than to bother. She opens my stuff and is politely unimpressed. “Oh that’s nice.” She opens the present from my brother, which is an envelope, and immediately starts sobbing about how perfect it is. It’s a donation to the god damned Humane Society. For fuck’s sake, you can’t top that shit. So she’s bawling, and then HE starts crying too. Because he’s so fucking thoughtful and awesome and knows her so goddamned well. I swear to fucking god, any time those two cross the street together it’s a mother-fucking Hallmark fucking monent. What the HELL? So then my Dad starts to pretend he’s crying too, louder than both of them. And I am just sitting in the corner of the couch, disgusted with the whole farking thing, and wanting to cry for a whole different reason. I don’t know why I bother. You cannot compete with someone who could sneeze into a Kleenex, hand it to my Mom and have that be a better gift than whatever I spent a million dollars and two months of effort trying to dream up.

So, gift-giving completed, I hung out for a few more hours. Then my family was driving out to St. Peters to spend the rest of the afternoon with my racist Republican extended family, and my dogs were not invited. So rather than drive from NoCo back to SSL to drop off the dogs then to StP to party like a racist asshole, then back to SSL, I just came home. And on the way home my check engine light came on. Joy. Got home OK though, and the rest of the day was TV watching, dog-cuddling, candle-burning relaxation. Didn’t even get myself stirred out of the house to go out for some drinks in the p.m., though I had considered going to the The Royale. But there wasn’t going to be any MyTodd™ there, so I wasn’t sure what the point was going to be.

So that concludes this year’s xmas adventures. I survived, was able to laugh at the nonsense and have a good, non-depressing, non-chemically induced holiday. Yay for me!

Water Heater Saga, Part #Whine

The guy came again to fix the water heater. Well, a guy came. Not the same guy. After a week with no hot water I had to get this shit fixed, but I couldn’t have another day out of the office to wait for the repair people.

So my parents came out here. No wait, first they went to UPS at 7:30 a.m. to pick up the spare part, then they came out here and waited at my house from 8-3:30 for the guy to actually come, just so I wouldn’t have to miss work. I am so suffused with guilt at that that I kind of want to vomit up part of my brain. Of course the guilt is combined with loving them and a sort of horrified gratitude for their doing something so tedious in order to help me.

When have I ever been able to accept help gracefully?

Never, that’s when.

Heater was fixed and running when the guy left, then my parents stayed around for about 45 minutes after I got home from work to make sure it kept running. Since then I haven’t checked it. I am so sick of that thing that I just can’t bring myself to care about it anymore.

Because I was anxious and upset and guilty about my parents, I had an anxious and upset day. Work was the same level of nonsensical bullshit as ever, but I hadn’t any sanity reserve with which to tolerate it today, so I had a minor freak out. And now I am depressed and don’t know what to do with myself. Everything I look at is freaking me out, everything I think about is upsetting me. I should just go take some tranquilizers and forget about it.

I should be happy and satisfied and grateful. I should feel blessed and lucky and content. Instead I want to rip off my skin and throw it in the backyard, just to rid myself of whatever it is about me that makes me feel this way.

I just think I am the wrong sort of person. I got beamed down into the wrong world, at the wrong time, and nothing is ever going to fit.

Tranquilizers ho.

Protected: It’s Free-Floating Anxiety Day

Math and My Brother

My brother gets -1 for sending my birthday card three weeks late.

My brother gets +1 for sending money in the card.

My brother gets -1 for it now being a week until his birthday, so I have to use the cash to buy him something.

Unfortunately, This Sounds Familiar

Grandpa’s So Inconsiderate
Hipster boy: I came home, and his shit was all open on my computer.
Hipster girl: He was on it again?!
Hipster boy: Yeah, and it was, like, rape videos he had downloaded. I sit down and it’s like rape, rape, rape. I don’t care if he uses my computer, but I don’t need to see that shit!
Hipster girl: For real.

–S 1st & Bedford

Overheard by: redshift
via Overheard in New York, Feb 25, 2008

Register Wars

After a brief cessation of hostilities (due to my closing the vent off and leaving it closed accidentally) we’ve had another flare-up in the 07-08 Register Wars. Curiously, Chelsea is winning at the moment. Jake outweighs her, but she out-growls him.

In other news, I’ve mostly recovered from my parent’s visit to “help me out” yesterday – which exhausted, befuddled and exasperated me. Highlights include my dad turning my water heater down (which I only figured out when I had to take a very NOT hot shower this morning) and then putting some nail-studded pieces of wood through the basement staircase – sticking out precariously where I need to walk. Now, I hate that staircase anyway (I have always been paranoid that I would fall down it and no one would miss me for 6 months and I would be all covered in cobwebs by then) because it’s rickety, open-backed, ends in a hard concrete floor at the bottom and oh yeah, I HAVE A BROKEN FUCKING FOOT. So impediments to my navigating the staircase (such as nail-studded pieces of wood) are a FINE idea. Quote from him: “Your foot will never even come near there”. Yeah, but my face might. What part about my having a propensity for falling down stairs does he not understand? Fuckit. Turn the water heater off while you’re at it – who needs hot water?

Got my errands run with MyTodd™ this afternoon and we met another friend for dinner, which was fun. But it’s so stupid how much I have to plan everything in advance. Like, making sure that our friend didn’t get there ahead of us and get a table in the basement, since my gimp ass couldn’t walk down there. Anyway, I have the day off tomorrow and it’s a good thing, because I have to go and have another cast put on. This one is rubbing my heel raw in the back, I can totally feel it. Plus, it smells funny. I have no idea if it’s my foot that’s smelly (though it doesn’t smell like stinky shoe smell, it’s just… weird smelling) or just the material the thing is made of, but I seriously can’t take it anymore. I have enough going on in my life that I don’t need to worry about smelling funny. I am already feeling like a big old dorky needy awkward klutz-chick, all it takes is thinking I smell funny to tip me totally into “don’t fucking touch me, and also don’t look at me” land.

I really think that impatient asshole cast-applicator guy didn’t let my foot dry enough last time, and that’s what’s making it all effed up now. But I don’t care if I have to go in there once week for a new cast from now until fucking July – I am not walking around with a smelly fucking leg, FFS. I mean, they can’t have invented an anti-microbial cast lining fabric by now? Ugh.

Now, back to my glamorous and exciting life (AKA going to change the laundry over and turn my water heater back up.) If you never hear from me again I am dead on the floor of my basement with a nail-studded board embedded in my forehead. Thanks Dad.

Guess who?

Guess who feeds the dogs from the table? It’s not me, and it’s not my Mom. If you want to see some Mexican-jumping-bean dogs, you should see these chihuahuas when my Dad comes around and eats something. Oh, and check out the ‘tocks on Jake (far right)

And here’s their dog, Cricket, who is the right color but the wrong shape and size to fit into the superBadPack. In fact, he matches the texture of that rug quite well, now that I look at it.

As you can see, Chelsea is what we like to call “highly food-motivated” in that she flees from all humans unless they have food – then she tries to crawl up their leg into their lap to get it away from them.

My Competitive Cousin

My cousin is SO trying to be me – or just steal my mother – and has acquired another chihuahua.

I have to admit, three chis is the magical number for cuteness!  Observe:

I am Red Fraggle

So I had to go get a new cast today. Yes, Susan’s Wet-n-Soapy Showertime Adventures, rather than leading to a lucrative 5-film Skinemax contract, led to a trip back out to the doctor’s office to have the old cast sawn off and a new one put on. And yes, my foot looked like something the Crypt Keeper would forcefully order from his presence, while hollering ‘EW! Gross! Get it Away!’

Anyway, cast was reapplied by the same sense-of-humor-amputee guy who did the first one. Holy crap, guy cannot be made to laugh. If he hadn’t been so dour the first time I would have assumed he was cheesed off at me ruining his masterwork, but he was just like that the first time, too. Guy gets to sugar-string people’s limbs all day, what’s not fun in that? Geez. And I am so starved for human contact that I was chatting up, like, everyone in that office. I learned all about the one lady’s dogs, which was fun, we swapped pictures and Stories of Intense Cuteness. Then I got to spend $37 on a latex DryPro cast cover which is so ridiculous looking that it needs its own special category of RetardWear™ or something. Putting it on and taking it off is going to extend each of my showers from 30 to about 96 minutes, but driving out to Chesterfield for a new cast every day is at least 2 hours, so I guess I will live with it.

Side note: I have just discovered the answer to the multi-week riddle “Why is it so fecking cold in this office?” which apparently had much to do with my closing the vent in here a few weeks back to stop the dog’s squabbling over who got to sit on it and then forgetting I had done so. Commence toe-toasting.

Anyway, this whole episode has led me to examine closely (yet again with the introspection) my own attitudes about self-reliance and independence. Namely that I am proudly, stubbornly independent as well as self-reliant to the point of absurdity – which gets me into trouble more often than I will admit. (if you don’t get the Red Fraggle reference then you should have watched more Fraggle Rock, growing up) Generally I find that the less reliant I am on other people, the simpler and easier my life is. That’s because I am pretty fucking competent, usually, and my INTJness means that if I’ve thought about something for very long I have figured out the most efficient way to do it, and watching or participating in any other way of doing it will drive me totally, completely, batshit crazy-insane.

That drive toward self-sufficiency has perks. For instance I have a large and ever-expanding skill set, because I’d rather learn to do it myself than ask for help. That’s why I am how I am with computers, and why I learned Dutch, and why I can fix toilets and a million other things. The down side is that by always doing things on my own I reject chances to create and strengthen bonds with other people, and learn from their knowledge and experience. I also have no support network when it turns out that I really do need help, and I am terrible at recognizing the need for (and then accepting) that necessary help.

This isn’t news to me – finding ways to increase my ability to forge meaningful interpersonal relationships has been my Human Homework for almost a year now. I give myself a B-minus so far, for the record.

What’s interesting (to me, if to no one else – which, I presume you’ve all stopped reading my now?) is WHY exactly I have the attitudes I have about self-reliance. Nature or nurture? (hint: it’s 89.67% nurture). So when something like this happens, it’s educational to sit back and see some of the family stuff that occurs through my new adult eyes.

For instance the previously-mentioned inability of my parental units to not turn everything into a Huge Freaking Deal. When changing a lightbulb becomes a multi-day event with pursuant emotional arousal, needing my managing it to make it all better, then that’s something that’s been made into a Huge Freaking Deal for no reason. So obviously (not being a fan of HFDs) I would rather try almost anything on my own rather than asking for help and having it become a HFD. Like the 90-minute trip to the doctor’s office on Tuesday that became a torturous 5-hour odyssey due to my Dad having to drive me.

“I don’t see how they’re going to call this South Outer Forty Drive. Where do you think that road over there goes? Will you have a LOOK at this guy cutting in over here? Sure buddy – just cut on in. That guy. Oh! Here’s another one. Sure, just cut on in here. The rest of us have been waiting for an hour – just you go ahead and cut in here. Asshole. <insert racist tirade and various conspiracy theories related to same> We are just sitting here burning gas in this traffic. You know, I read on the Internet that the price of gas is going to be $4 a gallon this summer. And with the way the market’s going we’re going to be broke by then anyway. Did you see the Dow Jones this morning? Yeah, well that’s the Democrats for you. How in the HELL is this supposed to be South Outer Forty Drive? Where do you think that road there goes? Will you get a look at THIS guy?”

This morning when I needed to go back? I skipped my “don’t drive on these” pain meds and dragged my own crippled ass out there. Are you kidding me?

I think the phrase that most often comes out of my mouth when I talk to my family is “Just… just, nevermind.” My Mom, while she was here, would ask me what I wanted for lunch and I would just say “Nothing” rather than deal with the HFD it was going to become. For example:

“No you can’t have granola cereal. What kind of lunch is that? You can have soup. <later> Here’s your soup. It was too hot, so I added some water, and then it was too cold so I reheated it, and then it boiled over, and then I couldn’t find your dishcloths – where are those? OK, I will take care of it. Now, eat this – I will feel a lot better if you have something in your system. Do you want crackers? OK. Let me go back down and get those. Wow, your stairs are steep. No, no, I am fine. It’s good for me, it’s just hurting my back. No, I am fine, I don’t need to take anything for it. I am going to eat my lunch in a minute, after I’ve cleaned up the microwave and washed the rest of the dishes and put some more clothes in the washer. Do you ever sweep your basement floor? It wouldn’t hurt. I went down there barefoot and stepped on something hard. It hurt. Well, I am just saying it wouldn’t hurt to sweep once in a while, even if you don’t ever go down there barefoot. Do you want a drink? Tea? No. I don’t want you having any caffeine this close to bedtime (1 p.m.) Do you want some iced water? You need to drink more water. You know how they say your urine should be clear? Yours isn’t clear. I want you to drink more water. Is that soup hot enough? Too hot? Do you want more crackers? OK I am just going to go back downstairs and sit down for five minutes. I am officially off duty! No! Not really! You call if you need a thing. Don’t move from there. Seriously. Don’t you move from there. I mean it. I am putting your crutches here across the room, so you can’t reach them. Don’t you get up and hop over to them, I don’t want you moving. I mean it. Here, drink that water now. OK, I am going downstairs. Call when you’re done. What do you think you’re going to want for dinner?”

When faced with that, hunger begins to be a viable alternative. (And yes, I do realize I am going to Bad Daughter Hell for being such an ungrateful bitch when they did so much for me when I needed it. Yes I do appreciate their help, and am profoundly grateful that I had them to help me when I was so royally fucked. This is just, observation, like I said. Recorded here for scientific and sociological purposes.)

OK so the anti-HFD principle is part of it. There’s another part of it though, which is when you ask other people for help – sometimes they refuse to give it to you. They place themselves in a position to judge whether you “really” need what you’ve asked for, and then decide that you don’t. This infuriating point is where my asstard brother comes in. Now, while I responded to my upbringing by becoming hyper-capable, he responded by becoming hyper-incapable. Everything is NOT a HFD to him because it’s just impossible. He just won’t do it. He ignores it unless it’s on fire, basically. If he doesn’t do it, it can’t be a HFD. At least, it can’t be his HFD, it will be someone else’s. So, he came to pick up my Mom while he was downtown on Wednesday. In response to my Mom’s “Did you see your sister’s broken foot?” he said, literally “Big Whoop.” and made a finger-twirling gesture. Seriously. (He’s 38 years old, not 17. Or 7.) He seriously said “Big Whoop.”

While he was there I asked him to please go by Walgreen’s and fill my prescription – if he had time. He did NOT have time. Nope, no time at all. (He so did, too.) Asshole. So I called another friend, all anxious about imposing – perhaps he could run me over to Walgreen’s to fill my prescription? No he could not. No time. OK. So for me this was like having all the skin peeled off the back of my skull, as far as discomfort goes. I mean, to make myself ASK is already insanely uncomfortable, but to ask, twice, and be refused, twice, makes me… drag my crippled ass out in the snow and do it my own fucking self, for fuck’s sake.

I would rather do it on my own, the way I want it done, with minimum of fuss, than put myself in the position of asking for help and being turned down. That’s just awful. So I won’t do it anymore, even if I have to kill myself to do whatever it is. Well, I will try to do it again, for Human Homework, later. But not now. I am asked-out for now. I am telling you, dealing with Other People is fucking complicated.

Which, I realize, is perhaps my own version of turning a thing into a HFD for no reason, huh?

Ironical.

Random Christmas Story

This story (even though it involved me) made me get very “awwww…” this Christmas (Though to be fair, pretty much everything has been doing that lately.) In any case, I share it with you here so you too can go “awwww…” if you so choose.

Now, where to begin?

Ah, at the beginning, with my mother. Now, my Mom loves to buy me things. Wait, let’s edit that. My Mom loves to buy things – full stop. For me, f0r others she knows, for others she doesn’t know – if fact, if there’s something you’re looking for, let me know and my Mom will find it for you.

I will not pretend I don’t benefit from that particular quirk of hers, because I do. But I am also quite cognizant of the fact that my Mom finds it well-nigh impossible to pass up anything which she considers to be a bargain, even if she knows no one who actually needs/wants/can use said thing. And since she doesn’t like to admit that she’s buying things for no reason she sometimes tries to fit a square gift into a round hole, as it were.

This led, some years ago, to her purchasing for me a set of “Christmas” dishes. Now – there are women who find it amusing, and perhaps necessary, to have several sets of dishes for various purposes and change those out through the year. Christmas dishes, spring dishes, company dishes, summer dishes, etc. I am not such a woman. ROI for my dragging boxes of dishes out of the basement and up the stairs, then unpacking, washing and stowing them in cabinets while I wash, pack and haul the current set downstairs – well it’s non-existent. Concept baffles me. My Mom is one of the dish-changing women. She gets a lot of pleasure from it, I’ve seen her work all day to change over the dishes and she really loves it. She also changes her flatware and glasses, FWIW.

So five or six years ago when I unwrapped the first of the Christmas dishes (They have a cartoon tree and a little doll on them. I think they also have a teddy bear – they’re about as un-Susan as a dish can be.) I was somewhat taken aback, then pasted on a bright smile and said “Great!” because I knew they were probably expensive and yet she’d found them somewhere inexpensively and really really really wanted someone around her to need them, so she could buy and give them. I Get That about her. So I told her they were awesome and IF ONLY I had room in the apartment I would SO take them home right this minute and install them in my cabinets. Unfortunately I did not have that kind of room. She suggested I store them at her house until one day when I had the space. I agreed to this most sensible course of action. Dishes were stowed and subsequently forgotten by me. Continue reading »