To add to the horror and sadness of this weekend a member of my extended family committed suicide yesterday. He was only maybe 35. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.
To add to the horror and sadness of this weekend a member of my extended family committed suicide yesterday. He was only maybe 35. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.
Well… it looks like the crew is almost done. Basically everything is out of the house. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Because of water damage & mold & bugs (etc etc etc) some rooms are down to the studs. Mostly the kitchen. So the cleanup guys think they’ll be done today or tomorrow. Then they’ll be back off to North Carolina. THEN we have to start the process of making the house actually a house again. She needs all new appliances, new cabinets in the kitchen & 2 of the 3 bathrooms & new flooring for the entire first floor. So we do that & pray it takes longer than a month for her to destroy the house all over again.
We’ve actually gone so far as to talk to our family lawyer & try to figure out what we can do (ie: have her declared incompetent or unfit to care for herself & thus force her to get therapy & maybe get on some meds) but apparently the answer is: nothing. There’s nothing we can do. She is just on the able side of things enough that we’d be laughed out of court. We’ve been trying to figure out a plan of action, but other than simply never letting her be alone (in the 4 HOURS she was alone ALL weekend she literally filled her entire truck, cab & bed, with things she pulled out of the dumpster at the house) and/or doing daily walk throughs at the house calling her out on even the earliest HINT of a restart in the behavior. But it’s just not enough. How can it be? We all work full time & have various responsibilities outside of work. We’ve given up and rearranged and tweaked any & everything we possibly can to help….but she just isn’t having it. And now without her “treasures” some of her other issues are becoming more apparent. For example: they had to treat every wall in the house with that Killz paint as well as setting off bug bombs. Between these things & the fact that there is currently zero furniture inside, Lisa took her to stay at a hotel over the weekend. Lisa paid extra to get a room with two double beds. Where does my grandmother sleep? On the couch. She REFUSED to sleep in the bed but could give no explanation why.
Of course the drama & threats surrounding this whole ordeal haven’t diminished. They haven’t gotten any worse thank God, but we had really hoped things might get easier as we progressed. If she isn’t yelling at someone about something or other….Yesterday she got so mad at one of the workers she kissed him. Seriously. She was up in his face screaming & cussing & finally sputtered, “I’m so mad I I I” SMOOCH. Then she stormed off. Still not sure what to think of that one.
We can now see where a certain redneck cousin (by marriage) royally ripped her off a couple years ago. He did a partial replacement of the shingles on her roof for 7k. Both our cleanup guys & an insurance adjuster have said they did MAYBE $500 worth of work. It’s sad that people take advantage like that. Yet my grandmother refuses to see the truth of it. She’ll say he ripped her off, but then want to call the same guy to come do other repairs in the house. Sigh.
This whole thing is just such a strain on all of us.
Trigger warning; also, VERY VERY long
Let’s back things up & just do the majority of the weekend shall we?
Saturday was a great day. We slept until 8:30, got up, Cloe ate some pears I had made her & played for a couple hours before we headed over to my parents’ house. We had lunch & spent the afternoon lazing about outside. Then I ran my errands while mom & dad watched Cloe. You see, I hadn’t intended to put together an Easter basket for her this year. She can’t have any candy, and even if I filled a basket with things she WOULD like, she really isn’t interested in taking things out of other things yet… Case in point: she has a toy basket, that she will happily use to pull up, that she enjoys looking into, but she doesn’t ever bother to pull things out of it. So, like I said, an Easter basket wasn’t on the agenda. But of course, I was talked into it. That is how I found myself at Carters & then Target on the day before Easter trying to hunt down a basket that didn’t look cheap or cheesy or lame & goodies to go inside it. Luckily I was actually able to find one I liked. And thanks to sales & clearance sections I was able to put some cute stuff in it that she can actually use/wear without breaking the bank.
That afternoon we got a call from my Aunt Stacey. Apparently none of the kids or grandkids could get down to my grandparents house Sunday afternoon, so we were going to cook out at my Aunt Jenny’s house that night instead. Mom, Cloe & I then made a quick grocery run (where Cloe got to ride in the basket for the first time which she LOVED) to grab what we needed for dinner & dessert. Then it was back to the house for 45 minutes to get changed, make dessert & get on our way out to Collierville (20 minutes or so from my parents’ house). We ate & talked & laughed & the twins (my cousins, age 15) played with Cloe until it was time for her last bottle & to go down for the night. She went to sleep easily at about 8:30 & slept in her seat until we were ready to head home.
That’s when things went south. We got home & she woke at 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7. At 5 she got a morning bottle & I hoped her full tummy might help her get a couple uninterrupted hours. At 6 I brought her to bed with me. And at 7 I gave up & got up with her, got our stuff together & headed back to my parents’ house hoping one of them would be up & I could catch a nap before we went to brunch. As it happened both of them were still asleep, but I turned on Sesame Street & we played till mom got up at 8:30 & let me go lay down. At 10 I got back up, got myself & Cloe dressed & off we went to brunch with mom’s family. Brunch was delicious. We’ve tried many places over the years but I think this was the best yet.
After brunch as we were walking to the car we saw a mama duck with THIRTEEN babies! I know there were 13 because she tried to take them up some steps, but when she got to the top & looked back none of them were with her because they were too short to make the jump. Now, I won’t lie, watching them hop over & over tying to get up that first step was TOO funny, but I couldn’t just let them be stuck so I took of my shoes (didn’t want to make any loud clacking sounds with my heels) & went over to help. I had to do one step at a time helping all the babies up. At first mama duck quacked at me like, “What do you think you’re doing?!?” Then she pooped, then sat in a bush next to the steps & watched me. But after a few minutes all the babies were at the top with mama & all of them left on their merry way to wherever they were headed. Helping baby ducks on Easter….yeah I think it may have been the highlight of my day hahah.
We went back to mom & dad’s house for a quick photo shoot, then home with my brother to play some Mario Party 8 (we’re REALLY disappointed in 9 :( ). We had a quick dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant & then mom & dad went home & Jonathan left to spend some time with his girlfriend & her family. Ben (my gbf) came over to hang out with me since he wasn’t able to make it home to FL to see his family. We had originally planned to go see American Reunion Saturday night, but when my family’s plans changed that didn’t work out so we thought we’d rent a movie but we couldn’t find a single thing neither of us had seen (or both of us wanted to see) so we ended up just watching Criminal Minds & the 2 new episodes of GCB. Cloe had passed out HARD at 6:30 from not napping more than 30 minutes at a time throughout the day, so of course when Ben left at 10:30 she woke up ready to go. I finally got her back to sleep & in bed myself just after midnight, making for a long, busy, exhausting Easter weekend, full of food, family & friends.
Sadly, the church service we usually go to moved locations & times so we didn’t make the big family trip (most weeks I’m too tired to go :-/ & my parents & brother go to different churches at different times). If Cloe hadn’t had such a rough night Saturday night I would have considered going with Jonathan & his girlfriend to the sunrise service at the Botanic Gardens, he said it was beautiful. Oh well, maybe next year. Hope you all had a lovely weekend in some form or other!!
SO COLD GRANDMOTHER, AND GRANDFATHER HAVE NOW APPARENTLY BEEN GOING AFTER MY DAD & MY SWEET AUNT JENNY. THIS LEADS TO JENNY GOING AFTER DAD AS WELL. ALL ABOUT ME GIVING UP MY ADDAM’S FAMILY TICKETS. DAD WENT SO FAR AS TO OFFER TO BUY US SATURDAY TICKETS & SELL OUR FRIDAY, BUT WE’D BE MOVED BACK MANY MANY ROWS. TO SEATS THAT COST ABOUT 50$ LESS EACH. I’M SORRY BUT NO! THEN WHEN I TELL MY DAD HE GETS MAD AT ME BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN GETTING MAD AT HIM. AND IF YOU KNOW ME AT ALL I AM A DADDY’S GIRL THROUGH & THROUGH & I DO NOT DEAL WELL WITH MY DAD BEING MAD AT ME SO NOW I’M CRYING. AT THIS POINT IT ISN’T EVEN POSSIBLE FOR ME TO BE MORE ANGRY WITH MY GRANDPARENTS THAN I ALREADY AM. IT’S NOT THE ACTUAL DAY OF YOUR ANNIVERSARY! YOU COULD HAVE HAD IT ON A SATURDAY! YOU COULD HAVE ASKED THE FAMILY ABOUT CONFLICTS BEFORE PLANNING THIS THING INSTEAD OF JUST TELLING US! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
2 grandmothers, one’s madder than a hatter & the other is a selfish, manipulative bitch….but I’ll take crazy over cold any day.
Anyway, cold grandma is my paternal grandma, we’ll call her M. She & my grandfather are having a vow renewal for their anniversary this year. That’s great wonderful even. Here’s the problem though. Not only is it at 5pm on a Friday, but it’s a day I have theater tickets. Tickets I’ve had since March of last year. Tickets that a my aunt on my mom’s side gave me because she’s going with me. And she would be DEVASTATED if I ditched her this late in the game. And in all honesty, I don’t WANT to ditch her because I’ve been looking forward to this play for over a year now. So my dad told M that I wasn’t going to be able to make it. That was 2 weeks ago & since I hadn’t heard anything I assumed that it was being begrudgingly accepted. Well…we know what happens when you assume. Yesterday while I was at the movie I received this message on my fb:
Kirby, Your Daddy told me that you were not coming to our Anniversary Party on April 27th and I haven’t told Papaw yet because I’m hoping you’ll change your mind. I know how you love your theater but you know this is a once in a lifetime event.Please reconsider and sell your tickets to someone so you and Cloe can be here as part of our family.
I’m fuming. There are SO many things I wish I could say to this woman.
I’m livid. I was up half the night angry about that & that in itself made me MORE angry because I don’t like going to bed angry. Maybe I am a bad grandchild for not wanting to give up my time to go to this. But it’s not even that. I actually DID want to go. I was SAD I have a conflict. But I was raised to KEEP my commitments & that’s what I intend to do.
Delightful.
And by that I mean, annoying as hell.
