CafeChatNoir

I was initially concerned about this snowstorm and it’s ripple effects on travel on Tuesday – US Airways routinely overbooks their flights in the first place and I can only assume multiple flight cancellations would result in even more overbookings as folks try to reschedule, etc, etc, etc.

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.

Him:  We need to find you a boyfriend, because you’re too cool not to have a really good boyfriend.  (This was not meant in a patronizing way, but in a “you should have someone to share the fun with” way.)

Me:  Well, that would kickass, but I have this seriously screwy thing going on with my grandmother, and I can’t realistically expect anyone in their right mind to put up with it, because it’s not their family, and she’s quite off the rails, and she’s still my responsibility.  (Especially given that none of my ex’s could put up w/her in her GOOD days, much less now – I am quite realistic in SOME of my assessments of the current situation!)

Him:  If he’s smart, he has already figured out that her problems are not your fault, and that you’re a really good person for caring and trying to fix it anyway.

Me:  Thank You.  But I’m pretty sure no one on the planet wants to take part in my little radioactive train wreck, but it’s really awesome that you think that someone would.

Granted, these comments tend to come from tethered gentlemen – committed relationships. engaged, married, what-have-you.  But still, as completely locked into the “single because I can’t drag anyone else into my horribly screwed up family dynamics, nor would I trick them into thinking it didn’t exist” status as I am, it really helps me to think that I *CAN* break out of it because there might actually be gentlemen that can see past this ridiculousness and say, “She’s fun, smart and funny, and I’d like to still hang out with her despite her insane relatives.”

I even slept in this morning in an attempt to ensure it.

First it was the discovery that it was 60 degrees in the house.  Then discovering that the assumed problem wasn’t the problem, but instead an airflow issue and we have to have the ducts blown out.  (This does not shock me, there is likely a dead body in the ductwork.)  That right there took up the bulk of the day.

Then my grandmother decided to just go off the rails.  For whatever reason, she is absolutely convinced that she needs a new photo for her ID, and that if she does not get one, she will not be “legal”.  I do not know why she thinks this, what she heard or what someone may have said within earshot of her that has caused her to have this idea so firmly cemented in her head, but it is there.  (And if I ever find out if it was an actual person that said this to her, there will be an epic beatdown.)  That took up the entire night.

Let’s all hope that today is a quiet day.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner!!!

I think it’s pretty much my favorite holiday, and I’ll admit, I like it a lot better when I’m single.  No travel, no pretending to like green bean casserole or that sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top are not an affront to nature.  No getting sucked into someone else’s family dramas.  Did I mention NO TRAVEL?

I get to make up a whole mess of food, eat way more in one day than any healthy person should, and watch a bunch of football.  It’s the ultimate selfish I-get-to-do-it-MY-WAY holiday. :)

And I’m thankful that I’m smart enough to appreciate it.

And now I have to go find a turkey.

So, about mid-way through last year’s Christmas visit to PHX, it was decided that we would stay in a hotel this year.  The condo is just too small, the sleep deprivation is too much for me, and neither one of us can maintain any measure of grace or dignity in dealing with my grandmother if we can’t get out of there for at least a little bit each day.

Now, given how my grandmother is, I told Donald that HE had to tell her that we’d be in a hotel.  I’m just really, really tired of being the bad guy.  Well, she was quite happy to hear we would be in a hotel.  Yup, shocked the hell out of me, since in the past she’d been all about us staying with her.

To be honest, I’m not really sure she’s super keen on us visiting in the first place.  But honestly, I don’t know what the protocol is on that, and I suspect that despite the fact I’d much rather have Christmas here at home, there is some rule that, “You go visit because it’s family regardless of whether or not anyone actually wants it.”  (Stupid rule if you ask me.)

Now, karma is a bitch and my brother & I doing the happy hotel dance in the middle of the living room was countered by a flurry of calls between 2:30 and 3:00 am…  At least she was chipper, and did acknowledge it was a bit late to be calling.  (She has long since ceased even trying to remember what time it is here and admits as much, but this was a record.)

The dull headache that has been plaguing me most of the day is finally dying down.

What kills me about this crap is that as my grandmother’s obsession with her finances took a hard right turn for the insanely paranoid, we at least had the rallying cry of “It’s on autopay” when it came to her bills and that would sort of settle her nerves.  It was completely true and hasn’t posed any problems.  Then this.  (And at least it wasn’t my fault – lord knows my grandmother thinks I’m a moron as it is.)

As it stands right now, I’m fairly certain my grandmother doesn’t even realize what happened other than she got a phone call from someone at some financial institution.  And Sharyn & I aren’t going to tell her any different – it would just send her into another nervous breakdown and accomplish nothing, so we’re going with the stock phrase of, “Everything is fine, we double checked and it’s fine.”

I hate lying to her, but she no longer can stay calm about anything that involves her finances.  It’s not healthy for her, or the people around her – and her checkbook meltdowns tend to make the people around her want to drive her to the Grand Canyon and toss her in.

All I can say is Thank God for online account access and the power of attorney so I can just fix this shit on my end and we can go on with our happy little delusional dance of “Everything is fine” and she will continue to insist that she needs no help living alone.  And yeah, I’ve done nothing but enable that delusion.  (Brilliant, I know.)

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if this was 25 years ago when the internet wasn’t in every house and long distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg…  I suspect someone from her bank would have already called Social Services on her when they realized she was ordering 6 copies of the same cancelled check and they would have done some arm twisting to get her to get real in home assistance.  And sometimes I wonder if that wouldn’t have been better.

***Warning to all gentlemen who may think I am dateable – this may very well change your mind***

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but if I don’t dream, I don’t have a good night’s sleep.  When things are going even marginally well, I dream nearly every night.  (And it doesn’t matter how long I sleep, as long as I dream.  12 hours with no dreams is worse than 6 hours with dreams.)  My dreams are exceptionally vivid, and about 3/4 of the time I remember the details.  (Mainly if I happen to wake up near the end of the dream and make a mental note of it.)  Otherwise, I do at least remember the fact that I had some kind of whacked out dream.

I’ll admit it – my subconscious mind is much smarter than my conscious mind.  I lost count of how many seriously screwed up help desk tickets I figured out because my subconscious mind took over and when I woke up, I had the answer.  Or, when my subconscious mind told me it was time to move on from a job that I kept hanging on to.

Such as the dream I had about physically putting out fires around the office in one job I had.  Mind you, I did have practical experience with it when my boss set his trash can on fire, but still – it was a sign that things simply were not right.

There was the dream about picking up a neighbor’s key after the electrician had come and calling said neighbor to let him know I had the key.  I actually had to call my neighbor the next day and ask if I’d called him in the middle of the night about the key.  (This is also compounded by the fact that I have had people call me in the middle of the night and I was in such a deep sleep that I didn’t remember the conversation.)  Like I said, exceptionally vivid dreams.

So dreams = good sleep.  Unless they’re nightmares of some sort.  And for the last 6 months or so, I’ve either not dreamed at all (which is bad) or had nightmares (not ‘getting shot and killed’ nightmares but just as disturbing in their own way and resulting in no real sleep.)  They have been one of two:  Either I can’t get the damn phone to stop ringing (my grandmother calling every freaking 5 minutes) or, my Mom, Dad, and/or my Grandfather showing up (all deceased) and getting into LARGE arguments about why they aren’t here to take my grandmother onto wherever ones goes when they shuffle off this mortal coil.  Neither one is conducive to a decent night’s sleep, whether it’s 3 hours or 12.  (I stopped asking my brother if I had ignored an early phone calls after a while – I realized he’d ask why I didn’t answer if she’d actually been calling – but that’s how stupidly real they were.)

After this last trip to Phoenix, I knew I’d be seriously wound up for a while (which I was) and adding Mother’s Day and then my parent’s birthdays into the mix (yes, same day, same year, and yes, May is slightly rough, why do you ask?) my poor little brain apparently couldn’t even begin to come up with some good action-adventure stories for me.  So I haven’t even been dreaming at all.  Which sucks.

It sucks on levels beyond just the fact that no dreams = crappy sleep.  When my mind is allowed to really wander, I have some seriously whacked out dreams.  Not scary, just off the wall and entertaining as hell.  Some folks do dinner and a movie – I do sleep and a movie.  I love my whacked out dreams – especially because I also tend to have lucid dreams, which makes it even more fun.  You *know* you’re dreaming, so you’re ten feet tall and bulletproof and can fly and breathe underwater and any number of cool-assed things can happen.

And as I said, it’s been a good 6 months plus since I had that kind of fun at night all by myself.  (And drinks/no drinks doesn’t matter.  I do know if I take anything stronger than Advil before bed to kill a sleep-preventing headache/backache/whatever, I will not dream.  So, I don’t self-medicate to sleep.  I will just stay awake until I think I can sleep.)

When I went to Phoenix, Sharyn* assured me many times over that things weren’t as bad as I thought (I only get the bitchy negative calls from my grandmother, so I know I don’t get the whole picture) and I did get to see how my grandmother instantaneously became calmer (and nicer!) when Sharyn was around.  It just didn’t really sink into the recesses of my mind until the past few days – and I *know* it has sunk in.  Not only am I dreaming again, they are the really fun, cool, whacked out dreams that have nothing to do with family.  (Unless someone randomly enters stage left for no reason – and if they get killed by a ninja, it’s their own damn fault for showing up.)

A quick sample from the past couple nights where it’s back to “sleep and a movie” rather than “sleep at your own risk”:

– I’m in Miami and protecting a 5 year old from a hail of gunfire and explosions.  Sounds like a nightmare, but no – I had kickass ninja skills and we both emerged unscathed.  (I probably should stop watching CSI: Miami, but hey, we escaped the bad guys!  That and a lot of my dreams key off what I’ve seen on TV.  3 seasons of The West Wing in 4 days – I had dreams about working in the White House for 3 weeks.)

– I’m working at my old help desk job and they are cutting people left and right.  Suddenly, Gabriel Byrne shows up as the employee advocate!  (Oh if we’d only had a union and him as our rep back when I actually did tha for a living.)  Telling management that if they force us to stay as pitifully understaffed as we were, we still needed more support and that we needed to have at LEAST one “wizard” on staff for us to all consult.  (Not like a Harry Potter wizard, more like Apple’s “geniuses” – I’m not *that* much of a geek.)  Of course, also a sad note on how my mind works, when I should have been seriously hitting on Mr. Byrne, I was back at the tech manager’s desk offering him a dollar for the soda machine in exchange for my being allowed to punch him.  (Which we actually did when I worked there.)  But, damn, GABRIEL BYRNE advocating for us help desk punks!!  If that’s not a dream, I’m not sure what is.

– I’m sitting in front of a stack of papers, not sure if it’s work or classwork, but get a call from someone I am quite interested in.
“Hey, would you like to do something tonight?”
*Looking at random papers in front of me*
“I’d love to, but I have all this work I need to take care of.”
“Oh, OK.”
Hang up the phone, pause a moment.  I DID NOT JUST DO THAT, DID I????  (I actually double checked my phone in the morning.  I have had phone conversations that I did not remember because they were in the middle of a deep sleep.  Apparently I did NOT turn anyone down by accident at 3AM.)

– I am the stunt double or some close extra for Emily Deschanel in Bones.  I spent the whole time running around shooting things with David Borneaz, and he wanted to go for drinks after the shoot.  Not so bad!  If I can figure out how to get a repeat on that one – I may never wake up again.

So, haven taken a few minutes to analyze my subconscious for the past couple days, I see why I’m far and away more relaxed and less strung out than I was even this time last week.

Let’s all go have some fun and whacked out dreams.

*The freaking angel sent from heaven or Minnesota who looks in on my grandmother every day and keeps her on an even keel.  Something I could never manage in my entire life.

I just saw a piece on the news about mothers that feel guilty for being “bad” (ie, not perfect) Moms.

My Mom wasn’t perfect and had no hang ups about not being perfect.  If she did, I’m quite certain we’d all have been miserable.

I cannot tell you how many time she told us “go play in the traffic”…  And some days I am sure she wasn’t kidding.

With my Dad in the Navy, she got to do a lot of parenting on her own, and did it spectacularly well – I feel like the answers to most any problem can be solved by asking, “OK, how would Mom would have handled this?”

You can’t ask for more than that from a Mom.

And to all my friends with kids who are fretting over getting it all right – it’s OK to tell them to go play in the traffic.  Or say, “I don’t want to hear the word ‘MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM’ unless someone is bleeding.”  Or just deciding that Kraft Mac & Cheese with hot dogs is going to be dinner because everyone likes it and sometimes it’s just easier to make something everyone likes that to try to be culinarily adventurous with toddlers.  They’ll be fine.

They really did.

I’ll fully admit, after dealing with that fairly awful woman last year, I was loaded for bear going in there today.  Told my grandmother before we went in to get her game face on because we were NOT going to leave without getting what we needed and that she should feel free to whack someone with her cane if necessary.  (That got her good and pumped up, and I’m still surprised she didn’t punch me in the face just to show she was ready to take on any branch employee.)

Went in, told them what we needed, filled out one more form and that was that.  CSR Dan was nice, helpful, polite, awesome, and pretty much a complete departure in attitude from the last person I dealt with at this branch.  As it turns out, Grandma did not have to physically be there, which is what I had suspected – seriously, what if she’d done the PoA years ago and broke a hip?  Not like I could drag her into the branch to enact it…

By the time we were done, my hands were pretty much shaking from relief.  I cannot tell you how much better I feel knowing that as things get worse for her (and unfortunately, they will), we can pick up the ball and run with it with a bare minimum of hassle.

It doesn’t seem like a lot in the big scheme of things, but just being able to take care of these two little accounts for her is going to make EVERYONE’S life so much easier.

(Oh, and Dan, if you’re reading this because you were wondering WTF kind of domain my email address comes from – I saw what you did there with the MM account.  I understand completely – and thanks again.)

But if you need a bodyguard for a little old lady, I’m your gal.

Yesterday at the market, she stopped for a minute, trying to get something out of her purse.  Of course, not in the most convenient place, but that’s life sometimes.  I turned to the person behind us to apologize and got a nasty comment about her stopping before I could even get “I’m sorry” out of my mouth.  This was the wrong thing to say to me.  The VERY wrong thing to say to me.  I might have said something along the lines of, “OH YEAH?  LET’S SEE HOW WELL YOU’RE DOING WHEN YOU’RE 87 AND LEGALLY BLIND AND HAVE A CANE, BITCH.”

Though she drives me insane in every way possible, there is no way in hell I am letting anyone go after her.

He can’t do that to our pledges!
Only we can do that to our pledges.

With all the practice I’ve had of late dealing with my grandmother and her various and sundry issues, you’d think I’d be a little less inept at this.  But not only am I as I still as inept as ever, I’m fairly certain that I’m actually WORSE at this now.  I’m still not very good at just keeping my mouth shut – when I do say something, it’s not only the wrong thing, it’s usually the VERY wrong thing.  I’m really not TRYING to piss her off, I swear, I’m just naturally very good at it.  It seems to be either silence or arguing and very little in between.  (Doubt that will change, as Sharyn is the person she actually likes to talk to, and I am the person that does her taxes.  I’m just happy she likes Sharyn and is nice to her.)

She apparently made comments to Sharyn that she was concerned that I would use the PoA to take away her house.  Wow, if I didn’t feel like a schmuck before, I sure did upon hearing that.  Thankfully saner heads that she trusts more than me prevailed and assured her that was NOT the point of doing the PoA.  (Entirely true.  I’ve long since abandoned any notion that she will be doing anything besides leaving this place feet first.)

So, I’m the anti-christ that wants to take her house away.  Probably why she wasn’t super thrilled to see me when I arrived.  So, that makes things a little more interesting to put it mildly.

However, cue the angels singing, we hauled up to Wells Fargo and had both PoA’s signed, notarized and witnessed.  And I can only thank Sharyn & DJ for that, because without their help, I don’t know how on God’s green earth I would have gotten that done.  (And the lovely lady with the notary stamp at WF, who was pleasant and kind to my grandmother despite her apparently having quite the reputation for being high maintenance.  “Oh, you’re THAT Mrs. H!”  *cringe*)

Tomorrow we take on Wachovia.  (Damn, why couldn’t they have been completely merged with WF by now?)  Get to go in and say, “You told my grandmother she needed to have a PoA from the trust to make me a signer on this account.  Here she is, here is the PoA ‘from the trust’ and here I am.  Now for the love of all that is good and holy, give me a pen.”  (Thankfully they screwed up the money market account and didn’t designate it as a trust account, so we don’t need anything special for me to be a signer on that other than her standing there saying “Do it, dammit!” – I shouldn’t be so grateful for their idiocy, but I am on that one instance.)

Why not do it all at Wachovia today?  Because I’ve yet to have anything better than a mediocre experience with them, and needed something to go right today.

Hopefully they’ll clue into the fact that once we make this happen, my grandmother will never have to set foot in the branch again for anything other than her lockbox, and it will go smoothly.  (She has a bit of a reputation for being high maintenance with that financial institution as well.  Yes, there is a bit of a pattern here.)

Think happy banking thoughts tomorrow.

Arrived at the condo this morning and rang the bell to get the garage door opened.

Now, mind you, from where she was standing and the way the light was, I was completely silhouetted so it didn’t surprise me that she thought I was Sharyn until I was a bit closer. (We’re about the same height and build.)

She started with, “Oh, lordy, I don’t even know where to begin!” and then realized it was me. And in a decidedly flat and disappointed tone said, “Oh, it’s you.”

That just says it all…

Any dealings that involve my grandmother will send my blood pressure sky high.  I realize that sounds unkind, but we have a special relationship – we really don’t like each other at all, and are now forced to deal with each other much more than either of us would ever want.

Today I have been reassuring her that yes, someone WILL contact us should she die, and it’s not like she’ll be sitting dead on the couch for a week before someone discovers it (she has someone pop in multiple times a week) and even if that happened (which it won’t) the cat wouldn’t starve because it would eat her.  (She actually thought the cat comment was funny.  I wasn’t exactly joking.  The cat is not dumb.)  She has an odd obsession with the administrative details of death.  Actual death doesn’t bother her a bit, but the paperwork aspect puts her around the bend.  Granted, she is 87, so I understand that death is more of an issue now, but I can’t quite convince her that once she dies, none of this will be her problem anyway, so why worry?

So, the BP has been a bit on the high side so far today.  Then I had to go deal with Wachovia Bank – I will be lucky if I don’t stroke out before the night is over.

Last year when I was in Phoenix, I made the suggestion of being a signer on her accounts, as the finances were already frustrating her (legal blindness will do that) and might as well do it then rather than wait.  Figured that way whenever I needed to do something for her, I could.  (And I have, so it was a good idea.)  Now, her accounts are in a trust – of which SHE is the trustee – a POS document that seems to have only caused more grief than it has solved in my opinion, but everyone assures me, “Oh, it’s GREAT!”  I remain unconvinced.

Two of these accounts are held with Wells Fargo.  (Thankfully they are her main day-to-day accounts.)  We walked in, my grandmother said, “I want to make her a signer on my accounts.”  They said, “Here’s a pen.”  That was that.  I think the most challenging part was finding a Sharpie to make the signature line extra dark so she could see it.

For the other two accounts, we headed over to Wachovia, who held true to their former identity of First Union, aka, the FU bank.  As it is, they don’t like her that much because she is a high maintenance pain in the ass who doesn’t make them any money.  (True.)  They don’t much like me because I’ve not stuffed her in a nursing home.  While there are days I’d love to do that (at least she’d know someone will call me if she dies) simply being a high maintenance pain in the ass isn’t grounds for checking her into a home.  (Were that the case, most of my clients I had on help desk would have been committed.)  And frankly, if you’re working at a bank in Sun City, Arizona (one of God’s Waiting Rooms, thank you Del Webb) you simply have to know that there is going to be a percentage of your customers that are cranky elderly people who will do their best to drive you insane.

Well, no can do on being a signer, even with the trustee right in front of them.  Must have a Power of Attorney “from the trust”.  My grandmother had a meltdown/hissy fit about having to “get an expensive lawyer” and not much else could be done except hustle her out of there before she started using her cane as a weapon.  (I regret ever telling her to use the cane as a weapon if anyone gave her a hard time – there will come a day where she knocks me unconscious with it.)

After one midnight call too many from her of “I can’t read the Wachovia checkbook and I can’t tell if it’s been balanced” I broached the idea of going with the PoA (expensive lawyer be damned) so I could just take it over, get the mailing address changed, take the checkbooks (1 interest transaction per month – they cause SO much more grief than her day to day checkbook) and she doesn’t have to deal with it ever again.  And I don’t get any calls at midnight when she’s trying in vain to read her own handwriting in the check register.  I may have said something about having a lawyer friend that owed me a favor so it wouldn’t cost anything.  (In her world anything that costs anything is BAD.  I felt it was more important to get the docs done than to have her complaining about the cost and it never happening.)  But, she agreed that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Cue the angels singing.

So, I get the PoA’s drawn up.  One for her as an individual (good for me for getting info on bills and whatnot – I’ve already checked with her various vendors and they all said, “Yep, that will be fine!”) and one “from the trust” which she will sign as trustee.

I am making a special trip to Phoenix to make this happen, for two reasons:  First, I don’t know enough people there to make this easily happen remotely.  Second, when you’re asking someone to essentially give you the ability to loot all their assets, it’s really best done in person.  Because of this, and the issues we’ve had with good ol’ Wachovia, I took the blanks to the local WB branch to make sure they would be honored when signed – no sense in traveling 2000 miles for nothing.  It seemed like a very good idea.  A smart idea.  A proactive idea.

I obviously forgot I was dealing with Wachovia.  Now first, let me say that the lady that I talked to at my local branch about it was VERY nice and was as helpful as she could be considering that Wachovia apparently doesn’t think being proactive is a good idea.  I asked that they look at the PoA and the way her accounts were titled so I would know that they worked, because if I made a special trip to PHX to have these signed and then discovered that they wouldn’t honor it, I would be curled up in the fetal position in the lobby crying.  (Yes, I used those words.  It got the point across.  The gentleman behind me was laughing a lot – he had obviously gone through this song and dance with an elderly relative at some point.  Or, I am simply hilarious.)

Well, first, one of the accounts isn’t even in the trust!  Nope, the money market account they convinced her to open last year is in her plain-jane name only. (Because yes, this woman needed yet another check register to keep track of – whoever sold her on that account owes me several rounds at the local bar and an opportunity to smack them around.)

For the other account, she couldn’t tell me for sure if the PoA would be honored or not.  The legal department doesn’t review unsigned documents.  Nor will they speak directly with customers.  (This mystifies me, I would think it would be in their interest to be able to tell someone that a particular document WON’T be sufficient BEFORE someone goes to the trouble of getting it signed, notarized and witnessed.  The document is going go have to be reviewed one way or another as it is.)  She *thinks* it will work, but we will have to make an in-person trip to her branch after it’s signed to enact it, and then I guess we’ll find out one way or another.  (Cue grandma braining someone with a cane if it doesn’t.)

However – she did say that we could just make it a “non-trust” account and I could immediately be made a signer on it should the PoA not be sufficient.  WTF?  SERIOUSLY???  This option couldn’t be brought forward when we were there last year?  There were a few moments before my grandmother freaked out where they could have said, “Well, here’s another option…”

So, great, I get to go to PHX, AND make a trip to the bank I hate to boot, AND not throw a stapler at anyone while there while ALSO keeping my grandmother from assaulting anyone.  Which also begs the question – had my grandmother done the PoA’s 5 years ago and said, “Just put them away for when all hell breaks loose” and she broke a hip and I had to invoke it – would Wachovia turn me away because I couldn’t present my grandmother at the branch?  Would I have to get her on videoconference from the hospital?  Isn’t the whole point of a Power of Attorney that you DON’T have to have the principal front and center with you giving you permission to do what needs to be done?  Perhaps I missed that day in my business law class.

I have a very bad feeling my return flight will have to be rescheduled as I either have documents re-written or I’m bailing my grandmother out of jail for assault with a mobility aid.

For all the wrong reasons.  (The faithful might want to keep their distance from me today to avoid lightning strikes.)

I’ve been to maybe 3 Easter services in my life, at least 1 when I was dating a Catholic.  Nice service, but I expected it to be in Latin and was somewhat disappointed.  (Much to the amusement of my ex, as he couldn’t fathom why I would care either way.)  Not real big on organized religion and my faith in general is somewhat shaky these days, so short of founding my own religion (there will be keggers as fundraisers,) it might be a while before I find myself in a church on Easter.

Over the years, it’s just become a nice family holiday food-fest, made nicer as it’s just immediate family, no weird cousins or in-laws or any other relatives to deal with.  Just OUR traditions that we’ve developed over the years and no one to look at us like we’ve lost our mind.  Mimosas!!  (It’s one of 3 days where I break my “don’t drink during daylight” rule – the others being Christmas Day and the Kentucky Derby.)  Hashbrown casserole (cheese & potatoes), egg casserole (cheese, egg & bacon), bacon, ham & swiss puffs (new this year, and yes, I do like cheese, why do you ask?) and of course, chocolate.  (I hid an Easter basket for my brother.  Yes, I need children or nieces/nephews, I know.)  A nice, relaxed afternoon of kicking back and eating our favorite bad-for-us foods and watching NHL hockey.  (The hockey part is relatively new, thanks NBC for the Sunday broadcast, even if your commentators kind of suck.)

For those that might raise an eyebrow at the culinary carb-fest on what is a pretty holy day focusing a fair amount on Jesus taking the big hit for the team – here’s how I look at it:  If you’ve been dead for three days and come wandering out, a mimosa and noshes might very well be just what the doctor ordered.  Perhaps a bit like leaving a glass of wine for Elijah – we have an extra plate of brunch casseroles available.  (I warned the faithful – the lightning may strike any moment.)  So, if Jesus happens to show up on my doorstep, he will be well fed.  (Though if he’s actually Jewish, we’re a little screwed, as none of what I have is kosher.  Though I wouldn’t tell anyone if he decided to make an exception based on being dead for 3 days.  But I can whip up a nice cheese omelet on no notice.  Eggs & dairy are kosher, right?)

In short, I love family holidays where it’s not about appeasing anyone, just being family – and this is right up at the top with Thanksgiving for me.  Yes, I have a micro-family, but it’s still MY family and it’s a great day.

Happy Easter and Passover, all.  Here’s to spending it the way you want to.

Really, I think she’d be an excellent asset in the interrogation department.  I’d give away state secrets in exchange for a decent night’s sleep.  Or, why the first words out of my brother’s mouth this morning were, “Next year, we need to stay at a hotel.”

My grandmother has always been an “up at the crack of dawn” person.  I don’t know if it’s the elderly thing, a Phoenix thing, or what.  (I recall a young cousin from the other side of the family once asking my mother, “Does your grandma ever sleep?”  At the time, the answer was “Not really.”)

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has had a real problem with my getting sleep.  When she visited when I was a kid, she took great delight in “making sure I was up” – usually a couple hours *before* I had to get up.  Sleeping in on the weekends?  Oh HELL no.  Sleeping is for…hell, I don’t know, but certainly not for us.  (It might not have been quite so bad had her visits not lasted a month each time.  That’s a lot of being awakened every morning by a woman who thinks you should be running on her schedule.)

Now, to begin with, I can’t even attempt to go to bed until I’ve had at least an hour of being by myself after she goes to bed.  My grandmother “goes to bed” around 7PM.  What this really means is she gets ready for bed, and might even go to her room and stretch out on the bed for a while.  And then she bounces back to the den a dozen or so times after that.  Which is fine, I know lots of people that can’t get to sleep right away when they try to go to bed.  But, it’s pretty damn late by the time I get to bed, as I usually don’t even try to go to bed unless I am fairly confident I will actually be able to get to sleep in short order.  So, I’m already behind the curve before I even go to sleep.

Then there is the issue of “turning down the thermostat”…  I don’t disagree with the practice at all.  Back when I had a programmable thermostat, it automatically went down at night.  (Don’t do it as much at the current house, as little bro would freeze in the basement.)  However, there seems to be a disconnect on exactly what “turning it down” entails.  As it turns out, her definition of “turning it down” is TURNING THE HEAT OFF.  I thought we had come to a detente for a while where it was turned down (not off) to 70 at night.  (I still think the actual temp was lower than 70 because I have a hard time trusting a 30 year old spring-loaded-thermostat, but it is tolerable and far preferable to no heat at all.)

Until last night.  After I went to bed, I noticed she got up and was mucking with the thermostat.  (She has a magnifier w/a flashlight so she can see the numbers, and I saw the flashlight down the hall and knew what she was up to.)  I thought she was just double checking the temp (she doesn’t trust us to turn it down ourselves) and made a mental note to wait a few minutes and make sure she hadn’t turned it off, but I fell asleep.  (As I said, I don’t go to bed unless I’m ready to actually go to sleep.)

Well, she decided “off” was preferable to 70, which explains why I didn’t sleep for shit again last night because I was freezing, and why the heat had to run full blast for a good 20 minutes straight when she “turned it back up” this morning.  While she was also making as much noise as possible in the kitchen while we were still trying to sleep.  (The kitchen is right next to the room we’re sleeping in and there is no door/noise barrier.)

And to add insult to injury, I got up and came into the den just as she started her usual morning nap.  I certainly don’t begrudge her the nap, but after the furnace and the noisemaking in the kitchen – really??  REALLY???  Fortunately I was the first in the den, preventing Donald from grabbing two saucepans from the kitchen and banging them directly over her head.  (He’s a little sleep deprived, too.)

Sleep.  It’s good for family harmony.  Really.

My grandmother’s house is Dark.  Very Dark.  She keeps the blinds closed pretty much all the time because the glare bothers her eyes.  That I do understand, but it makes for an exceptionally dark, DARK condo.

She also has a thing for keeping every single light turned off.  Which is fine except for the fact that I NEED TO BE ABLE TO SEE.

There is nothing like taking a shower in the master bath and coming out to discover that the bedroom light has been turned off while you were in the bathroom and the room is now pitch black.  So, it’s OK if I break an ankle tripping over the cat while trying to get to the light switch on the other side of the room, because 7 cents hasn’t been spent.

The darkness in this place is also incredibly depressing.  The furniture is dark, there is no natural light, and at the moment there are all of three lights on in the entire place, and the room we’re in still feels like a complete dungeon.

Me, I’m a bright light, curtains open, it shouldn’t feel like midnight at 2PM kind of person.  The last two times my grandmother visited me, we came to blows over it.  To the point where she woke me up at 2 in the morning to inform me that I’d left a light on downstairs.  Because I have this thing about not wanting to break an ankle in the middle of the night.

I swear my grandmother has taken self-deprivation to an art form.  Sure, no one can see, but she can brag about how much money she doesn’t spend.  And ohhh, does she love to talk about the money she doesn’t spend, and make Donald & I feel as horrid as possible for our horrible, wasteful habits in our own home like leaving on lights, and the hot water heater and having the thermostat turned to a reasonable level.  If she ever saw our electric bill, it would kill her.

No, I don’t handle the multiple gaps in generation very well, why do you ask?

*Based on $75/year to run a 75 watt light bulb continuously for a year,  3 bulbs left on for 8 days.  http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/electricbill.htm

1.  Stay awake very late so that your prisoners are up as well.  Get them sufficiently wound up that they cannot possibly sleep for at least another 2 hours after you go to bed.

2.  Have the thermostat turned way down and provide blankets that aren’t warm enough.  Sleeping while cold is exceptionally difficult if it’s not cold enough to induce death by freezing.

3.  Lull the prisoners into a false sense of quiet by having the radio in the other room at a reasonable level.  Even turn it off after a while.  Then turn it up to the threshold of pain in the middle of the night for fun.

4.  When you do get up, be sure to make as much noise as possible!

5.  Have blackout shades in the prisoner’s room so that they have no sense of time and will not wake when the sun comes up.  That way you can call the neighbors and gossip about how they’re “still not up yet” and act like you’ve been up for several hours when in  fact you’ve only been up for an hour.

Just some handy tips for the next time you want visitors in your house to be running on 3 hours of sleep a night.  Trust me, it works!

Up at the crack of dawn for 8 days of sleep deprivation, malnutrition and emotional waterboarding. Also knows as Christmas in Phoenix with my grandmother.

Oh the joy of travel.

I was convinced that we wouldn’t even survive the cab ride to the airport. Despite SatNav, our driver couldn’t find his way out of the neighborhood to get to the metro. Once we got him on the right route, he developed a lead food and penchant for random lane changing. If that didn’t kill us, I was quite certain we’d die of asphyxiation via cologne.

By some miracle we made ti the airport intact. Got checked in and nicked for $30 to check bags. Got frisked by security for not wearing a skin-tight shirt and then yelled at for attempting to fetch my carry on from the wrong side of the conveyor belt.

On to the gate we were are greeted with the announcement that the flight is oversold. Wonderful job of counting, US Airways!! They needed 4 people to volunteer for another flight. Oh how I wanted to jump up and scream, “Me! Me!!! OH PICK ME!!!!” However, knowing this would not go over well with my grandmother, I stayed silent.

Got on the plane with one infant, two crying toddlers and a barking dog.  (The infant, toddlers & dog are not mine.)  I comment to my seatmate that perhaps this is karma for not volunteering to take another flight.  We take off 30 minutes late because we are a “weight restricted” flight and they had to double check the weight of the plane.  Not even sure what makes a flight “weight restricted”, but it’s nice to know they want to make sure we have enough fuel.

I manage to somehow miss the first call for drinks – the cart was there one second and then 5 rows back – I only blinked.  Oh well – $7 for a Bloody Mary is highway robbery anyway.  I’ve already stolen a pillow that they’ll likely try and charge me $10 for anyway.

I doze back off and wake up again about 2/3 of the way through the flight to discover that my knee has seized up and it hurts like hell.  Two of the three kids are crying and the dog is barking again.  The flight attendants are taking drink orders again and suddenly $7 for a Bloody Mary doesn’t seem so bad.  I dull the knee pain a bit with some Mr & Mrs T’s and Finlandia.  The dog stops barking and the kids settle down and I doze off for the rest of the flight.

Off the plane, get the bags and gimp my way to tthe car rental counter.  Everyone is so cheery and I am decidedly not.  My knee hurts and it’s raining and I’m staring down the barrel of 8 days in God’s Waiting Room Sun City.  I try to be nice, but I don’t think I succeeded.

Finally get to the condo and discover that the compact car isn’t quite as compact as I thought and it barely fits in the garage.  My grandmother is still essentially living in a cold water flat as she refuses to leave the hot water heater on, because who needs hot water on demand anyway?  She also still insists that it only takes 20 minutes to get hot water, which is far short of how long it actually takes.

I pre-emptively vetoed going out for dinner.  My knee still hurts and I have no desire to go head to head with blue haired ladies in Lincoln Town Cars in the rain.  We order in pizza and wings.  I veto potential trips to the bank, as they do not need to occur.  I veto washing the dishes with cold water.  (The hot water heater is still in the ON position as I type.)  I suggest on 3 separate occasions that she should see a doctor and am soundly ignored.  Despite the desert supposedly having a great climate, I cannot breathe because I am allergic to something in this condo.  (I wonder if I should make an appointment now for the sinus infection I’ll have when I get home.)

Oh well.  At least we won’t have to go to the bank multiple times for no reason.

I would just like to take a moment to say…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to the best damn little brother on the planet.

DonnieLove, there are not many people in life that you can truly count on to come through in the clutch, or just be there to listen when you need to bitch about stuff, and YOU are one of those people.  I only hope I have done as well for you over the years as you have done for me.

Happy 29th yet again, kiddo.

Not that I don’t RIDICULOUSLY miss my Dad, too, because I do.  But, Mom & I had developed a great ability to talk politics with absolutely NO hurt feelings whatsoever.

I think it is because we both discovered that we had a lot more in common politically than either of us might had thought possible when I was younger.*  That, and she was able to impart a LOT of insight as how the exec branch affected her job**, which was more telling than any press conference could be as to how any administration would be doing things to affect the country.

While I do have a small handful of people that I feel mildly comfortable talking politics with, it’s just not the same.  Maybe part of it was knowing that even if I joined up with the Anarchists, Mom would be happy that I found a party I could identify with and support and she wouldn’t give me shit about it.  That, and she’s probably nicely quiz me on their platform, if nothing else if to see if perhaps they were a good fit for her as well. ;)

At least little bro & I seem to be running on the same wavelength, so I have someone I can rant to about various political things without worrying about upsetting anyone.  But it was always fun to have a partner in righteous indignation on Friday-night-pizza&beer&ranting-with-Mom night.  (She always won on the “whose employer is more screwed up” game every week.)

I think she’d be tickled as hell that Obama is a viable candidate.  She moved from CA to GA as a little kid and discovered segregation – and being a little one, didn’t understand it one bit.  (And regularly drank from the “colored” fountains because there was no line and couldn’t understand why it made a damn bit of difference.)  I think she would have liked to see the progression from separate fountains, schools, and everything else to candidate for the Presidency of the United States.  Hell, all I know is what she told me over the years and *I* think it’s cool as shit that we’ve managed to come this far in a relatively short period of time.

I still wish she was around so we could crack a couple Guinnesses and split a pizza and solve the problems of the world on Fridays.

*  She genuinely wondered where the hell I could go politically, given that folks tend to get more conservative as they get older, and as a senior in HS, she described me as “one step right of Attila the Hun” – it was delivered with love, but also accurate as I was leaning fairly right at the time.  I think she’d like the fact that I discovered and have lovingly embraced my inner hippie.
**The most basic description of her job:  Government HR rules and regs.  Fine line between fairness to employees, screwing employees and protecting the gov’t from it’s employees.

When I initially announced to my friends that my brother & I would be living under the same roof, the reaction was pretty much the same:  “I know you two get on very well, but you’ve lived alone for 5+ years – won’t it drive you crazy?!”

I did fully admit the possibility of insanity arising from the arrangement, but knowing that my brother had the same hermit-ish tendencies as I did, I figured we could make it all work.  And we have – quite well, since our paths only cross once a day at best in the house.

Everyone assumes that because we live together that we have these awesome, deep conversations.  Well, yeah, not so much, LOL.  Our “in-house” conversations are usually along the lines of, “I’m going for lunch, would you like something?” (D-love) or,  “I’m hitting the store, what do we need besides Coke?” (Me.)

Our very deep conversations over sports or pop culture take place up at the pub.  Honestly, for the most part we might as well live quite far apart and have the same pub.  (That and he helps when my cable box decides to go Linda Blair on me like it has done this evening.)

That all being said, the bugger has been out of town since Thursday, and I miss having the little git about.  It’s not quite the same to text him about how I’m sorry that MNF turned out the way it did vs. being able to holler down the basement stairs.

He’s back tomorrow, and the next lunch is on me.  (Or tomorrow night at the pub, whichever situation presents itself first.)

Amazing how you get used to having someone about, even if they’re the perfect “invisible” roommate.

Oh, and in his absence, I have become the SUPER-PROVIDER of biscuits to the pup.  The morning biscuits (99.9% me), the “heading to the pub” biscuit (70% me), and the, “I just got home from the pub and you go out and be done by the time I am done going to the loo and getting a drink” biscuit (95% little bro) – I AM THE QUEEN! ;)

*To be sung to the melody of “Come home Snoopy, Come home!”

Well, sort of.

Looks like Wachovia Bank is next on the chopping block.  Of course, my grandmother has 2 accounts there…

Given that her FAVORITE activity is to actively seek out things to worry about and to then expect me to have all the answers, this should be fun.

Hopefully a few things will happen:

1.  She’s not paying any attention to the news.

2.  That it is just a matter of the name changing on the bank – trust me, having her deposits liquidated and sent to her will cause more heartburn than I even care to imagine.

Tickets have been acquired for Christmas in Phoenix…

It’ll be nice to at least be able to take my grandmother out for dinner and not have to worry about her slipping on the ice, though.

That are about 2 hours late, but hey, that’s how I roll.

To be perfectly honest, I have found the easiest way to deal with family holidays with both my folks being gone is to just ignore them. Healthy? I don’t know, but it works for me. We all have our ways of coping.

Saturday evening I was out with the boys, and a round of Sambuca showed up and a toast was made to the Dads. All I could do was look skyward and say, “Dad, I hope you’re proud of me.”

It’s been over 10 years since my Dad died, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of him in some way or another. Honestly, I think he’d be tickled with all the strange turns my career and life has taken, as he did the same. (Well, career wise at least.) 20+ years in the Navy, a stockbroker stint and then found a place in banking that fit him just right. For me, it was accounting & finance, some day trading thrown in that I loved, more accounting & finance, then software support, and suddenly I find myself with actual trading capital. So, stock trading is how I pay the bills and the bar tab now. And considering Saturday’s Den Mother evening, it seems to be working. :)

I really think he’d love the fact that I’ve turned what I’ve got into trading capital. (And am ahead of the game, to boot!) He was the one that introduced me to the stock market in the first place. I remember back in 7th grade we had some chick from EDS come into our Civics class and we had a stock trading competition. Dad & I pored over the stock pages looking for stocks for me. (This was back in the day when it wasn’t unusual or unacceptable for parents to help kids with homework, because it was actually “help” and not “doing it for you” or complaining to the teacher that the assignment interfered with soccer practice.) I went back to class with a request to go short on Alaska Airlines. Sadly, shorting stocks wasn’t allowed, but Dad & I kept track of it anyway. If I recall correctly, Alaska Air tanked, as we had thought it would.

I remember when he was working in the city with Shearson Lehman (which has since morphed into Citigroup Smith Barney.) He had access to a QuoTron!!![1] Holy crap, Batman!! We both thought it was the coolest thing EVAR. Today, I have real time charts and quotes right here on my laptop. I think his head would explode if he could see that. I’m also fairly sure he wouldn’t even bat an eye at the fact that I will head up to the bar with a handful of stock charts to sit and review over a Guinness and SportsCenter. (He’d probably be happy at my multitasking abilities.)

He was a workaholic, no two ways about it. (I got that from him, too.) But somehow, he managed to do that and always be there for us whenever he could (US Navy not always conducive for “being there”, but when he was a civvie, it was never a question.) I remember when he died and his boss brought back the things from his desk (a task I would not wish on my worst enemy) he seemed very upset/concerned/something about the fact that there weren’t a ton of super-personal things. First, he wasn’t in his office *that* much, he spent a lot of time running around town for the job. Second, it’s hard to explain to a civilian that hey, he gets to come home every night – the personal items that some folks may have on their desks to remind them of their family, well, his family was only a few miles away at that point instead of on the other side of the world. I remember telling his boss, “Yep, he was a workaholic and still managed to be a kickass Dad all at the same time.”

He instituted what came to be known as the First Friday Club. Once I was out in the big wide working world, the first Friday of every month we would meet up for lunch. Working in Old Town at the time, we always had plenty of options. I will always remember when we hit SouthSide for lunch (about a block from my office) and I told him we would be eating at the bar (cause that’s where I always ate when I was there) and I got the freakin’ Norm treatment when we walked in. He went to the men’s room and the bartender asked about him (OK, I was showing up with someone who was quite literally old enough to be my father and they’ve never seen him before with me) and I explained it was my Dad. Dad returned from the men’s room and the bartender looked at him and said something along the lines of “I’ve never seen your daughter before in my life.”

I think as far as the running & tris go, he’d shake his head and say, “You’re nuts,” but be right up front at every race. He proved his worth as the best jockstrapper ever when I decided that I was going to do the July 4th 5K on the base in Japan many, many years ago. I’m quite sure I was the only racer that had a support crew – he biked the entire course with wet towels for me whenever I needed them. I think if he had been able to be at MCM, he would have figured out a way to be at every damn mile marker with a cooler full of whatever I needed or wanted at the time, including the steak in peppercorn sauce I so desperately wanted after running through G-town with every damn restaurant kicking off the kitchens for the day.

I wish he could see what a red wine fiend I’ve become! He loved red wines, and it just took me a while to really get into them. He would LOVE Il Vino, and I think be pretty happy with the fact that I can walk in there and if I haven’t been around in a while, Massimo asks, “And where have you been??” I realize now that I also got a lot of my foodie tendencies from him – though he wasn’t a heavy duty cook (but did love cooking with fire, as every Dad should [2]) he did truly appreciate good food and wine. I think he would have loved the cooking school weekend I did down at the beach, and would be exceptionally proud of the fact that I had absolutely no problems with dealing with prepping live softshell crabs for lunch. (Where do you think my first thought of “we should have races to decide which crabs become lunch!” came from?)

I wish he could have been around longer, but the time he was here, he really was a kickass Dad. Not perfect by any means, but kickass nonetheless. I still miss him terribly, even after all these years – there is so much I wish he could have seen, but I just hope somehow he knows I’ve managed to accomplish, and can see how much I am really enjoying life right now.

[1] At the time, the only way to get real time quotes, not available unless you were working at a brokerage. The little people had to either look at the closing prices in the paper or be updated by their brokers as things progressed during the day.
[2] I will never forget the evening that we looked out on the deck to see my father doing a spectacular imitation of the Statue of Liberty. It would have been absolutely spot on had Lady Liberty’s torch been fueled by flaming kielbasa.

So yesterday I spent somewhere between 30-45 minutes trying to get the ice off my car (with the car running), and managed to get about 1/4 of it off. My brother said he’d work on it today – since he’s a fair amount taller than I am, he can reach the roof of it much easier (which had a 2 inch thick sheet of ice on it that I couldn’t get to budge.)

Well, he was out there and the car is now ice free. How long did it take him? 5 freakin’ minutes.

I will be so damn happy when this estate is settled. (, I am sure you can relate.) Told the Credit Union to make the checks out directly to my brother, and then they made them out to both of us. Nothing that can’t be overcome, but freakin’ annoying – why ask who to make it out to if you aren’t going to follow the directions I give you?

Didn’t get me the mortgage payoff amount either. We really would like to pay that off, thankyouverymuch.

The savings account apparently had an little automatic life insurance thing associated with it, so there was a little extra there, so that’s nice, but I still need that mortgage payoff amount…

And of course, I don’t have access to Quicken cause the laptop is still in the shop, so I can’t compare what they sent to the records I have, and that is going to make me exceptionally twitchy until I can take care of that.

Came home from the airport and crashed out for 4 hours. I may go sleep some more after this is posted. Like I told my brother, the level of tired is like having a massive hangover without the physical pain, but you still feel like you’ve been run over by a steamroller. 2 weeks of sleep deprivation is not pretty.

I’m really happy to have my house back. And I can get up at my normal time tomorrow. And I can go workout, or hell, go anywhere and not have to worry about getting back quickly. I can leave the house after dark! I don’t have to keep track of where is in the house. I don’t care where he is, he’s just not in the same room, WOOT! (I know he’s happy to not be looking at me for 12-14 hours a day as well.)

I can have CNBC on TV as background noise all day. The TiVo is hooked up again.

All I have to say, is if you find yourself facing an elder care/companion situation on your own that is going to last more than 4 or 5 days – DON’T. Not saying don’t do it, just don’t do it on your own. Get help. Make sure you get REAL breaks, not just running off to tend to other things. Call in all your favors and have friends/family/neighbors pop over so there is a new face in the place for a little while. Trust me on this one. The biggest mistake that and I made was thinking, “Pfft, this is only 2 weeks and we did a month last year” so we didn’t set out ahead of time, “This is your afternoon/night out,” etc. Yeah, well, last year we were also spending 40+ hours a week working, and this year we weren’t. HUGE difference.

Tomorrow it’s off to the races with life again.

My Lord, Sir Edmund Hillary headed off to the top of the damn mountain with less drama. Granted, he had better sherpas than my brother & myself, but still…

The wake up. Last night she repeatedly asked my brother to make sure she was up w/plenty of time to spare. Totally reasonable request, but he’s really not the one to ask. I assured her we’d get her up at 6. Well, this morning, my alarm goes off at 5:45 (I knew I’d want at least one whack at the snooze button) and she must have heard it, cause at 6 she was up and dressed. Cool, better than last year where she was *so* asleep, I thought she was dead for a couple seconds. First comment I get when we get downstairs, “Well, good thing we didn’t count on .” Well, YOU were the one that kept asking HIM to handle it, and you’ve known him for 30 years. Told her he would be getting up shortly, and that I had told him I would handle the whole up at the crack of dawn thing. Next thing I know, it’s 6:30 and she’s thinking he’s just not going to come to the airport. Like hell he isn’t. So, I go kick him out of bed, even though he really doesn’t need to be up til 6:55, cause I am not dealing with the drama on my own.

Then she’s worried she doesn’t have enough $1s for the skycaps, etc. Yes, she does. Her ticket! THERE ARE NO FUCKING TICKETS ANYMORE!! ALL YOU HAVE IS A CONFIRMATION NUMBER! AND YOU HAVE IT! AND DON’T REALLY EVEN NEED IT! “It’s all there, Grandma, no worries.” Her housekeys… “Give me a minute, I’ll find them in your purse.”

In the car. At 7. To be there by 8:12 for the “2 hour deadline” which really is 1 1/2-2 hours and NOT a deadline, it’s not like they’ll refuse you access to the plane if you arrive only 1 hour and 58 minutes before takeoff. Now, I figured this would give us enough time and a few minutes to spare, even with traffic. At 7:25 she is fretting that we won’t get there in time. WE STILL HAVE 50 MINUTES! AND THEN SOME! “Oh, we still have plenty of time.” Well, there was damn near no traffic this morning so we were there before 8…

Dropped them at the curb so could handle check in, get his gate pass, et al, while I parked the car. I’ll admit, the trip from the parking lot to the terminal was a leisurely stroll. Get to the terminal and can tell from the look on my brothers face that she is getting twirled up. Apparently no one was at the ticket counter yet and they had to wait a few minutes (gosh, I wonder why), Grandma thought they were being ignored when they took her ID and stuff and had to go to another computer terminal to get that taken care of, and come to find out, they will NOT let you take a wheelchair on your own – you MUST have an escort. OK, fine.

Off to security. This is where my brother almost assaulted a TSA person as he took forever staring at my grandmother’s boarding pass & ID like he’d never seen anything like it before. Now, this is where the escort did come in handy, cause I had told my brother to NOT let my grandmother out of his sight, after the year where security took her to a room and LEFT HER THERE. The escort assured him she’d be with her the whole time and she wouldn’t get abandoned so he could wait on the other side of security.

An hour and a half later of wandering around the airport, she’s on the plane. It’s been a very, very long 2 weeks.

I get OCD when I travel, so while I *am* sympathetic, I’m also going a bit batshit crazy right now, cause I usually try to keep my OCDness to myself. So far tonight we’re obsessing on…

– Waking up on time. (I told her we would not leave for the airport without her.)
– Will her smokes fit in the suitcase (yes)
– My helping her w/her hair tomorrow. (No clue WTF she’s talking about there, it looks fine and I’ve never helped w/it before)
– Her being able to locate her “I’ve fallen & I can’t get up” button thing when she gets home. (It’s apparently either on her bedpost or in the nightstand. Hell, it’s all within a 3 foot radius.)

OMG, Cops is on (OK, I’ll admit, I enjoy it, cause it’s funny as hell most of the time) and they’re hauling off some screaming woman and my grandmother says, “I bet there is nothing worse than trying to calm a hysterical woman.”

I had to get up and leave the room cause there was no way in hell I was going to even begin to explain why I was trying so hard not to laugh. Nope, can’t even begin to imagine…

My brother is broaching the “Christmas in Phoenix” idea… Her reaction isn’t exactly enthusiastic. Shit. Shit. Shit. We simply CANNOT do this again next year. (We focused on the whole “it’s easier for us to travel than it is for you”, but ah well…)

Grandma heads home tomorrow and all will be right with everyone’s world – she’s got stuff she’s chomping at the bit to take care of at home (and has been obsessing about for the past week) and I’m sure she’ll be more relaxed when she’s back in her own house. (Yet another reason we’ll go there next year. When she starts getting antsy about her checkbook or whatever, we can just walk over to the desk and get it for her.) She makes me positively insane, and it’s in no small part due to the fact that she simply can’t relax while she’s here, so she’s constantly on edge, so I’m constantly on edge and all hell breaks loose. At the moment, she’s getting all twirled up about getting her suitcase packed and wants my brother to help her…except that he’s taking a nap cause she woke him up at the crack of dawn cause the dog didn’t want to come inside this morning. (Funny how she never wants my help with anything – she wants his help, she can wait for it. If I offer, I’ll get, “Oh, you shouldn’t bother” – I’m learning.)

I’ve run out of ways to tell her that it will take all of 5 minutes to accomplish so it doesn’t really matter WHEN she gets it packed.

Thank god, he woke up and they can handle the suitcase. There is some suit she wants that belonged to my mother (I haven’t ditched those things yet exactly for this reason cause she has mentioned it before), but I have no idea which one she’s talking about so hopefully she can give me a color and I can see if I can find it. I’m sure she’ll fret even more about it fitting in the suitcase. At least after this, the rest can go and we’ll have some more space around here. (Found it. Woot.)

We’ve also confirmed her flight to the extent that yes, it still shows on US Airways schedule. She’s still a bit stuck in the days of having to call the day before and actually tell the airline that yes, you’re still planning on traveling. Yay for online schedules, cause every time I’ve talked to a US Airways rep, they’ve been less than helpful.

I’ve made an executive decision for this evening. We’re ordering Chinese. I am so incredibly, stupid tired at this point, I don’t want to cook, do dishes, or do much of anything.