Big Miracle!
debbymac
we got my mother to go out to dinner for her birthday. She has been
doing the pity party thing and when she calls us she would run the
other one down. The last time she pulled that on me she said "you can
take the niece to Indiana but you can't take me to the doctor," which
is a crock. I told her to wait a minute, I wasn't going there, and
for her to cut that out. She had not even asked me to go to the
doctor with her lately and on the day she did go it was not when I
went to Indiana, so it was all hoohaw! Anyway, we've firmly said
we're not going to go there and she seems to be better off for it.
One of her sisters has told her to get off "the pity pot"!
And on my day off she wants me to take her shopping! (Monday)
Thursday I get to take Mike to Nashville -- for some x-ray thing. We
have six hospitals here and they want us over there. Go figure.
Anyway, I wanted to share the happy news. Anyone else have problems
like this with older relatives. Anne, I know that Mrs. Colonel was
very proper and dignified: surely she did not pull stunts like that.
Danbob
I had an odd deal with my Mom right after my father killed himself.
She'd been swearing for years that if anything happened to him, she
was getting the hell out of Texas toot sweet. So, we began this
endless series of road trips through New Mexico, Colorado, and
Arizona, looking for Iris's new home. No matter where I took her,
there was always something wrong with it.
I remember this one day I'm blasting along about 95 mph through the
desert and she's bitching up a storm about how we haven't seen any
police cars for over two hours and it makes her feel uncomfortable.
I'm looking at the speedometer and thinking, "Oh, yeah, me, too."
Then she starts bitching about how she really needs to go to the
bathroom and I offered to pull over and she says, "I can't do that,
there are no trees to get behind." I pointed out to her that she had
just observed that we hadn't seen anyone in hours and I doubted there
were people hiding under a rock waiting for her to pee.
She absolutely refuses, so I get 45 more minutes of being bitched at
before we pull into this little town and I park in front of the Dairy
Queen. Then she informs me that she absolutely can't use their
bathroom because, "The place is full of Indians." I pointed out to
her that we were in the middle of the Navajo reservation and she was
going to get REAL uncomfortable if she was going to wait for a place
that wasn't full of Indians.
I don't know if the Alzheimer's was already kicking in or if she was
just exercising the god given right of old people to be cantankerous
at will. I miss her a lot, but I sure don't miss those trips.