I was talking to Sharyn on a completely unrelated matter and she mentioned,

“If you see a check for Costco, it’s because I have to get new sheets for her.”
Me: “Wait, didn’t you find the sheets in the cabinet after Christmas?”
Her: “Yes, but they were white.”
Me: *Thinking, thinking, thinking…* “Well, yes, I guess they were white…” (I thought her old sheets were white as well, but perhaps not!)
Her: “Apparently white sheets make her think of the lining of a coffin.”
Me: “WTF??!?? I just got white, cause I thought she had them, and because white goes with everything!!!!!!”
Her: “I know, I know.”
Me: “Christ, now she doesn’t only think that I want to ’stuff her in a nursing home’, she thinks I want to put her in a coffin!!!”
Her: “Nah, I told her that I bought them – she doesn’t think you want to kill her.”
Me: “Thank you for taking that bullet for me, cause, well, I already have many strikes against me.”
Her: “You’re doing the best you can, and I am not going to give her any unwarranted ammunition.”

I swear, I am the only person that could go out and buy nice super-high thread count sheets and my grandmother would interpret it as a sign of death. And to top it all off, I sent purple/blue irises for Mother’s Day. (Which I sent to all my ‘Moms’ – cause they were REALLY PRETTY!!!) and now that I think about it – back in the day – purple flowers were funeral flowers. Yeah, I’m the only idiot on the planet that sends ‘funeral flowers’ to an 87 year old woman. I REALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE PRETTY!!!!!

I really cannot fathom how I could be any worse at this endeavor of taking care of my grandmother.

My brother knows of these lofty yet tenuous plans. Tonight he tells me that he has realized that six months after my grandmother dies, he’ll be watching Pawn Stars and I’ll show up in the shop selling all of grandma’s stuff.

Mind you, should I ever find myself in Vegas, I will have to stop by Rick Harrison’s shop if for no other reason than to see if I can catch a glimpse of the Old Man or Chumlee. But I doubt I’ll be trying to sell my grandmother’s old school radio/turntable that doubles as a sideboard. (One year when we were out there she told us we could stack the Christmas presents “on the radio” – it wasn’t until halfway through the trip that we realized “the radio” was the 5 foot long cabinet with a receiver, turntable and speakers where I had put things anyway. I had been expecting her to yell at me for putting the stuff in the wrong place.)

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

– Carmen is about 91% back to normal. She still looks at the ceiling fans with a suspicious eye, but is back to hanging out in the living room, and decided food was the winner in the fear of ceiling fan vs. eating in the bedroom. It may seem silly that it worried me as much as it did, but it’s just a tiny bit heartbreaking to not be able to explain that the ceiling fan is not a predator. Lily still looks at the ceiling fans and then looks at me with an expression of, “Seriously, I don’t get the issue here.” Or it’s, “WTF, why is the fan off?” I’m not quite sure which it is.

– Is it wrong that when I come in and want to know where the kittens are I say, “Where are my single ladies?!” and then sing a few bars from Beyonce’s Single Ladies song? They do show up when I sing it. (And I use the term “singing” loosely.)

– Sharyn* called today, and I’ll admit my first thought when seeing her number on the Caller ID was, “WTF has my grandmother done???” Yes, I know I’m going to hell for that. But, it was just an update. First being that the hot water heater is ON – and to expect some calls about that. (I couldn’t even get her to voluntarily leave it on when we stayed with her. So I just turned it on and didn’t tell her.) But, she’s not been super great about showering of late, for several understandable reasons that I am completely speculating upon because she won’t actually tell anyone:

a) Afraid she’ll fall & hurt herself
b) Not like she’s out running a marathon
c) Doesn’t give a rat’s ass, cause she’s 87 years old
d) Hot water costs money

But Sharyn is getting her a shower seat (the shower has a built in bench, but she could quite easily slide right off it it – hell, *I* could slide off it were I not paying attention) and will be there so my grandmother knows if she has any issues, help is immediately there. (And as Sharyn said, “Hell, if she wants me to get naked too, I’ll do it.” God bless this woman.)

Additionally, we’d previously talked about Meals on Wheels for more hot food options**, but they’re kind of insistent on “coming in & helping” and my grandmother just is NOT comfortable having strangers about (which I think is a good thing) and Sharyn did a little more poking around and one of the local hospitals does a pretty kick ass meal plan that can be picked up, which is better for all helping out. Given my grandmother’s good financial situation***, it will cost……$4 a meal. Christ, our Chinese takeout tonight cost way more than that. And she was reading one of the menus to me – Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad & milk. Hell, where do *I* sign up for that?

I’m very glad she found this, cause she has been cooking up things to take over to my grandmother, which is awesome, but I’m really glad to have this off her plate (so to speak) because I do worry that she’s doing too much already, despite her protestations to the contrary.

* The angel sent from heaven to Sun City to prevent me from tossing my grandmother into the middle of traffic on Bell Road.
** My grandmother would live on sandwiches & ice cream if left to her own devices. I am at the point of “Whatever the hell she wants” but I am outvoted, LOL. She will eat *anything* you put in front of her, but will never admit that she’d like anything beyond sandwiches & ice cream. As I have said before, she’s taken self deprivation to an art form.
*** I have told my grandmother on more than a few occasions that if I had her resources at her age, I’d be ordering Lobster Thermador & a Cabana Boy every night. I will be getting the contact info for this hospital meal plan and a nice donation will be made so they can help a few more people who *can’t* afford it, because frankly, she’s being ridiculously undercharged for this service.

I will say I am greatly tiring of my grandmother’s attitude.  I completely sympathize with her situation and frustrations and it is why I am completely hellbent on getting her more help to make things easier in any and every way possible for her and allow her to continue to stay in her home for as long as humanly possible.  I am really not that much of a bastard, despite what she may think – I don’t want her to have to go into a nursing home unless it’s an absolute 100% necessity.

But her attitude still sucks – and it’s not the Alzheimer’s/dementia/mad cow/whatever the hell it is, it’s been this way for a very, very long time.

She’s perfectly content to use us for errands and taxes and whatever else that will keep someone from calling social services on her, but other than that, we’re just cluttering up her life.  She does it to others as well, but it’s always been family that has taken the brunt of it.  (I still do not know how my mother managed to never shove her down the stairs.)  After a while, I cannot help but find myself thinking, “I left my home, my pets, and my friends at Christmas for this?” I can only hear that we’re throwing her day into disarray so many times before I am tempted to say, “We can fix that, we’re outta here.”  But I have not.  Not sure if it because I am nice or an idiot.  (Idiot is probably the right answer.)

I have still managed NOT to get into any fights with her – it’s been a record length of time for any visit with her in my entire life.  So I’ve got that going for me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take a hell of a lot of credit for it.

She actually decided that eating in was preferable to standing in line for over an hour for the exact same food.  However, we did near come to blows over the microwave…  She doesn’t use it, and has decided it is broken, which must be why she doesn’t use it.  No, she doesn’t use it because she can’t even begin to read any of the buttons and can’t remember what order to hit them in.*  Then even if it did work, she was sure I wouldn’t know how to use it, because it’s not the same model as mine.

But, we finally got past all that and had a relatively pleasant dinner.

The Snuggie seemed to be a hit, (yes, we got her a Snuggie, no I am not proud of it) though I wish I had remembered how damn big those things are (it’s pretty obvious from the ads that they’re huge) and had I been smart I would have opened it up before we left and hemmed it up, but hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?

Despite feeling like death, and it greatly affecting my mood to the negative side, I am happy to say there have been no knock down-drag out fights yet, and even today when she was getting a touch on the bitchy side, I did not take the bait.

*Thankfully others bring her home cooked stuff so it’s not like she lives 100% on cold food.  But would certainly do so if left to her own devices.

I made an executive decision this year, and it was that we would NOT be going to JB’s for Christmas dinner.  It is a perfectly fine place, but it is the only place that is open on Christmas day in Sun City, and as such, it is a madhouse.  Unless you get there the minute they open for the morning brunch, you can count on a minimum of a 1 hour wait.  There are not enough places to sit when waiting, and given that it is Sun City, about 2/3 of the guests NEED to sit while waiting.  Finally, it is a buffet, which is near impossible for my grandmother to navigate with the cane & balance issues.

Yet, she has made noises about doing it again this year.  (I suspect she has forgotten the buffet/insane asylum aspect of it.)  Rather than even argue it, we are just going to surprise her.

With the help of Safeway’s deli & prepared foods department, we’re heading over with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pasta salad and rolls.  Everything we could get at JB’s without the wait or standing in line to get it, and without the noise and insanity of being stuffed in a small restaurant with 120 other people.  (I also fully admit this may be nothing more subconscious revenge for the year she arrived and simply announced we would be having ham for Christmas dinner and that was that.  I beleive that was also the year I banned her from my kitchen.)

This one really could go either way.

Of course, now I am just using the laptop because my god, no offense to my grandmother, it is so incredibly boring here, cause we don’t talk about anything besides her checkbook, taxes, or death.  And I can certainly talk about her checkbook and surf the internet all at the same time – I am quite the multitasker.  I also need to keep track of where Santa is, dammit.  I think keeping my sanity intact is very important, lest I start saying what I’m thinking out loud.

Today’s conversations have been split between the checkbook and the fact that our presence has thrown her day into disarray.  Her nose is also out of joint because Sharyn isn’t coming over today.  Sharyn isn’t coming over because a) we are here and can help out and b) Sharyn’s grandchildren are here and she wants to spend time with them.  Though given that Sharyn is the only thing keeping her out of a nursing home, it’s a good thing she likes her.

We made it.  Grandma is still grandma, if flakier and more frail.  Nothing unexpected – she’ll be 87 in a week and has never had a healthy habit in her life.  The fact that she is still alive is amazing, though I would have to say that one good fall with a broken bone, and she’d be toast.  In talking w/Sharyn it’s agreed all around that the “caregiving crew that can’t be called caregivers” needs to be expanded and we’ll be working on that.  The biggest problem is when she is alone, no one gets any peace.  Whenever something pops into her head, she goes to the phone – it’s a pure reflex at this point for her, not a conscious decision, which results in her making everyone else crazy.

This is probably also the last Christmas she’ll have any clue who we are.  Kinda sad, but again, hardly unexpected.  I’d say it could be her last Christmas here on earth, but we’ve been saying that for the last 10 years.

The calendar says it’s Christmas Eve, but you couldn’t prove it by me – the biggest downer of being here at Christmas is that it has never, ever felt anything like Christmas.  Everything that makes Christmas what it is to me is back home, not here.  So, that part fairly well sucks, but it is what it is.  (And though I have fears to the contrary, my grandmother will not live forever and I’ll have many years of finally doing Christmas my way.  Just not this year.)

On the upside, we have made a few brilliant decisions this trip.  The first being the hotel.  (Mad props to my brother for coming up with this idea in the first place.)  We’re at the Renaissance Grand over in Glendale, and it’s really nice.  It’s right next to the town center which has a bucketload of restaurants, the hockey arena and a movie theater – and people under the age of 60.  And given that it doesn’t seem that Phoenix is a big Christmas destination, we got a really good deal on the room to boot.

The second brilliant decision was in making the travel days separate from any interaction with my grandmother.  (This comes from my last trip out here.)  It may sound harsh, but I can deal with US Airways, or my grandmother, but not both in the same day.  Just isn’t going to work.

Last but not least – deciding to fly out of Dulles instead of National.  Amazing how when you decide you will take flights that are convienent for YOU and not anyone else, things are a lot easier.  I hadn’t flown out of Dulles in 10 years and I was blown away at how much better it is than National.  Between having many hours in the morning to get the pets to the kennel (*sob*) and not having to take a death cab to the metro and fight with that ridiculousness (and I’m not even sure our metro station was open) and deal with the service impaired folks at National – it was actually a stress free travel day.

I’m still kicking myself a bit for the length of this trip – we could probably leave day after tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a difference at all in my grandmother’s mind.  But her shrieks of “you won’t be here long enough to get everything done!” from years past kept ringing in my ears as I made the reservations…  Ah well, lessons learned.  (I think I’ll have it all figured out about a week after she dies.  If she ever dies.)

And then I talked to my grandmother earlier this evening and realized, so what?  Now, lest you think I am making fun of my grandmother, I am not.  However, I am laughing at the situation, because if I can’t laugh about it, I’ll have to check myself into the insane asylum.

First, she’s not real keen on this visit to begin with.  (This after two years of her complaining that we didn’t visit for long enough or often enough.  This is my 5th trip there in 24 months.)   I know for a fact that she knows she’s getting worse and doesn’t want us to see it, because I want to take her home away from her and stuff her in a nursing home.  (Her words.  Thank you Sharyn for convincing her that was NOT the end game of the Power of Attorney.)  I also just don’t know how much visiting she’s up for – bless her, she is ancient and I know this year will be more tiring for her than others.  (We may find ourselves with more time to explore Phoenix than we expected.)  So, if our flight is canceled or we’re bumped and it takes another day off the trip, I think she’d be letting out a large sigh of relief.

While she isn’t living her life in 1958 or anything, time distortion is a real issue for her.  When every day is the same, and you don’t have anything going on that distinguishes weekdays from weekends and your brain is essentially turning to cement, the days do tend to run together.  That being said, we could probably be there for 3 days in the middle of February, tell her it’s Christmas and she’d think we’d been there a month, so once again, I’m not so worried if we are delayed getting out there.

So, bring on the snow.