CafeChatNoir

Everything, and I do mean everything sucks.

and a damn good one. Actually, it was one I had suggested earlier this week, but my brother apparently hadn’t heard me when I said it.

Next year, we’re going to Phoenix. We can get there a day or so before Christmas, leave the day after her birthday, she’s in HER house, her comfort zone, doesn’t have to travel, doesn’t have to worry about ANYTHING, we can drive her all over town, take her out to dinner every night if she wants and everyone will be much less stressed out in general. (And we get New Year’s back. Bonus.)

Sure, traveling so close to the holiday will be a little nuts, but still MUCH easier for us to head out there than for her to come here.

My brother is going to be the one to broach the subject to her – I think it will go over better coming from him than from me. Cause everything goes over better coming from him than from me.*

I am so very, very happy that he brought this up this evening, cause it had been going through my head. (And I swear I said it out loud earlier this week, but it could have also been the voices in my head.)

*Case in point: Her coffee cup is empty. She’ll start to get up (mind you cane + coffee cup = mildly awkward), and my brother will say he will get it and she says, “Yes, I think I’ll let you get this one.” I hop up and tell her I’ll get her a refill and I get, “Oh, you don’t need to be jumping up for me.” I am starting to think that I am making crap coffee for her.

One week to go. Not sure I’ll make it…

Had some Festivus action here yesterday, my brother said the airing of the grievances actually went quite well and I did stay exceptionally calm. Hopefully I’ve gotten across to her that the constant second-guessing has GOT to stop, I am NOT like either of my parents and that she can’t expect me to be like them, and despite the fact that it doesn’t really look like we know what we’re doing, we actually do.

& , the headphone info is much appreciated, sadly, the suggestion would not go over well at all. (Have confirmed this with my brother, and he’s much better with anything regarding my grandmother.) I asked him if he was spending time in the basement popping Valiums off a forged scrip, as calm as he is, but no, he can just tune her out. God, I wish I could do that. But he also agreed that 13 hours a day of very loud TV is quite grating. It also doesn’t help that CourtTV (Her fav!) has the WORST volume control of any cable channel I’ve ever run into.

Tonight’s MO was “get gramma likkered up and to bed early” – well, not really, but it kinda worked out that way. (Note to self: Get more Jamesons tomorrow for more Irish Coffees.) Of course, this means she’ll be up that much earlier in the morning… Dinner was uneventful, with the usual dropping of some extra cash on the table as we left. Grandma tips like a typical senior citizen – not a judgment, just a fact. So, I make sure we make up for it appropriately, especially considering that the servers always seem to recognize the situation and are on top of things accordingly. However, given how she was chomping at the bit to get out to dinner before 5 PM, either a) she feels my cooking sucks, or b) we need to move dinner up earlier. The problem is that eating as early as we did, I managed about 3 bites and I was done – just not hungry. My brother was in the same boat.

I am freakin’ exhausted, and it’s certainly not like I’ve actually been DOING anything this past week. I can only attribute it to the fact that I haven’t slept for shit since she got here, since I am basically always listening to be ready for her to either come barging in my room at 2AM to inform me that there is a light on somewhere in the house, or that she’s up and around in the morning and the remote is basically nothing more than a freakin’ brick to her (not her fault, bad vision + remote she’s never used = worthless piece of plastic, it just is what it is.), so one of us really needs to be up so we can get the TV on, etc. I am very grateful to for the mornings he’s heard her first and gotten up and when I hear him downstairs, I know I can sleep a little longer.

She is usually up between 5:30 & 6 AM when she’s at home. Thank god she’s not adjusted to east coast time yet, cause 7:30 is bad enough. In my degenerate, irresponsible, unemployed student status, I’ve just let my sleep schedule shift a bit to fit where it wants to be – I don’t sleep until noon or anything like that, but I am not bright & shiny at 7:30 either.

My brother is also aware of the fact that we’re at each other’s throats and it’s because she’s here and we’re pretty much constantly spending time in the same room, which we don’t ever normally do. I told him I couldn’t wait to be alone in the house (even if he was here) – as he said, “Even when I’m here, I’m not really here.” – he’s quite good at arriving and just disappearing. :)

OMFG, now I am the very bad granddaughter AGAIN. Apparently there was a window open in her room and I never noticed it (hell, it was the same temp outside as inside when we got the room ready!) – I’m sure she thinks I’m trying to freeze her out or give her pneumonia.

Well, it’s been an interesting day, and we’ll just leave it at that.

My grandmother has this great habit of, “Here let me fix what you cleaned wrong” thing – she used to do it to my mother constantly and it always infuriated me when she pulled that crap. It’s not your house, so sit down and shut up and do whatever the hell you want in your OWN house.

Today is was, “Oh, I am going to fix this countertop, it’s sticky.”
Whatever, it’s where we make coffee, it’s wiped down at least once a day and gets sticky again within minutes, it just works that way – I don’t fret about it, cause it’s gonna get cleaned up again soon, it always does.
So, I hold my tongue and she suddenly is going, “Oh, this is AWFUL!!!” and I can’t tell exactly what she’s doing but I can hear that whatever it is, it’s scratching the holy hell out of the countertop.

That was when I threw her out of the kitchen.

I swear, if she tells me one more time not to “put myself out” doing things like making coffee or dinner, she’s gonna get her wish, cause I’ll be spending the remainder of the holidays in a very nice hotel, preferably in another state. I can only think she truly believes I live on nothing but frozen dinners when she’s not here.

My brother & I are also on the verge of killing each other as well.

So yeah, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I just really, truly couldn’t give a shit either way.

The carport has a 2 light/bulb fixture. went to great lengths (or heights I suppose) to replace the one bulb that had gone out last week.

Tonight, I went out to turn off the Christmas lights and turned the carport light on and…yes, of course, the other bulb blew out.

Of course.

Now is so NOT, NOT, NOT the time for the deep sink in the basement to overflow.

NOT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

& I got it running again, but NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THAT SHIT.

Fortunately the backup was from linty pet goodness from dumping the dog & cat-hair-filled gunk from the carpet cleaner vs. nasty sewage backup or anything truly gross, so anything that got wet can just be washed again with no worries, but SERIOUSLY, NOT NOW.

1. Any semi-decent voice recognition software out there that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Doesn’t have to be perfect by any means, just something along the lines of dictation software with a crappy transcriptionist will be OK, I can edit later. I’m not looking for super cheap, just not insanely expensive.)

2. Are there are any “good” headphone/mike combos out there that would work for a laptop? (I’m hoping the networked gamers that read can help me.) Really looking for something that will eliminate or at least minimize feedback issues. (Again, basically looking for middle of the road priced products.)

3. When the hell did the Daleks come back on Dr. Who??!? I thought they offed the last one last season! (Guess what is on TV at the moment?) Nevermind, I watched the rest of it and I get it now. :)

Somehow my brother is convinced that “everything is going fine!!”

I want to know what fucking drugs he has and why the hell he is not sharing them with me.

She’s convinced we’re within days of being destitute and in the gutter. No clean washcloths last night. (Any other linen you could possibly want…) Her pajamas weren’t in her room and I had to go hunt them down. Pair of socks she apparently left behind last year – whereabouts unknown. Dinner tonight – “oh, no need to put yourself out” – WTF? It’s dinner, not remodeling the kitchen, and I DO cook on a regular basis when she is not here. Oh, and there is something wrong with the radio in her room. (Something w/the switch on it – it works, but little bro knows the details of the issue, I don’t.)

She’s got this incredible talent at making me feel like a complete and total fuckup. I really don’t need help with that, thankyouverymuch, I can do that on my own. But, it’s quite literally been this way FOREVER. I have tried and TRIED to get to the point where I can blow it off, but just still haven’t mastered it and frankly, I probably never will.

I just downed an entire See’s Bordeaux Bar and it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.

They really need to start selling Valium over the counter.