HalfAsstic.com

Some days are just what we need to get us through to the next day without fear of suicide attempts.  SSG, over at Confessions of A (Sometimes) Serendipitious Girl had a day like that on Friday.  It’s when you just stop and think, “Can it get any better?”.  Or, in my case, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?”.

Today is the day of the Murder Mystery Party that John and I are going to next door.  You may, or may not, remember that it is themed to ancient Rome.  When we got our invitations it consisted of two copies of the cast of characters with one highlighted on each copy.  They were:

Harangus Adnauseum- Harangus is the epitome of a  successful senator. He is a multifaceted man- part politician and part philosopher, but all Roman.  As a military tribune, years ago, he stormed the shores of Normandy…and conquered the Normans.  Harangus owns a considerable amount of land in and around Rome, but he does not crave wealth and property.  He holds closely to Stoic philosophy, maintaining complete control over his emotions and eliminating all wants and desires.  If given the opportunity, he will expound on the virtues of Stoicism for days on end, as he did in his now-infamous, three-day oration. “It’s my party and I’ll be Stoic if I want to.”

Rotunda Immaculata- The fate of the Roman empire lies in the able services of Vestal Virgins, such as Rotunda Immaculata.  The Vestals keep the eternal fires burning, thus ensuring the safety of the Roman ships, the strength of Roman legions. and the success of Roman government.  Rotunda comes from a prominent family, as all Vestals do, and she was chosen for her honored position at the tender age of 8.  Now she is a beautiful, but demure young woman looking forward to many, many more years as a humble servant of the empire.

Needless to say, I was unable to help myself.  I did a lot of fast talking and explained to John how funny it would be if I showed up as the Roman senator and he went as the Vestal virgin.  Apparently I am a very persuasive speaker.  Or I guess now it should be orator.  He, (a teeny bit grudgingly), agreed to this and he is going to be all outfitted as a Vestal virgin tonight, and I will be a pompus Roman senator.  Fun, fun, fun!

John was putting up a lame argument against his role and said, “It’s been a long time since I was a virgin… at least five years…”

He’s already having fun with this.

He made me swear, under threat of certain death, that I would not be posting any pictures of him as said virgin.  DO NOT WORRY.  I will simply see to it that he is sufficiently inebriated and extract a promise that I CAN.  cue the evil laughter…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IN OTHER  HAPPY NEWS:

Henrietta got another catheter today!  WOO HOO!  No more wet diapers, just shitty ones!  No more changing her in the middle of the freaking night in a vain attempt to keep her dry and stave off bed sores.  No more going through three times as many diapers and latex gloves and her room smelling like urine all. the. freakin. time.  If even ONE diaper is in the pail with the lid on it and sealed shut, it still smells.  When I ask others if they can smell it, they all say no, BUT I KNOW THEY LIE.  It’s all part of the plot to drive me insane.  I may refer to this from time to time, as it is a long, ongoing, multifaceted, sick scheme and it is, apparently, not something my family and friends can get completely behind or motivated to carry out in a timely manner.

On the downside, it was immediately apparent that she has another UTI.   For those of you who are blessed and don’t know un-knowledgeable about this, it’s a urinary tract infection.  Her urine was all cloudy and had sediment floating in it in the tube leading to the bag.  As the nurse and I were standing there staring at this with crestfallen looks on our faces, a bunch of blood passed by.  Crap.  NO NO!  Not crap!  Crap is everywhere ELSE, but not in the catheter tube.  And THAT? is a good thing.

Anyway, on Monday she’s coming back out to take a urine sample cause the doc won’t let them give her the antibiotics she needs until the analysis comes back.  The quack.

Now, I’ve got to go and cook baklava for the party tonight.  I am in charge of dessert and that’s the only Greek one I could think of.  When googled, there’s not a lot more different things either.

Wish me luck!

OH!  Don’t forget to go here and enter in my contest for the lovely paintings by playing along and doing the unconscious mutterings.

Good luck!

Here’s a little something I cooked up to give away a set of pictures that would look elegant in anyone’s house or even on a porch.  Just play my Unconscious Mutterings “game” and, (to the sound of trumpets blaring), YOU COULD WIN!

The winner is going to be chosen by a random number generator deal AND said winner will receive this wonderful prize! (My legal department urges me strongly to remind you all that the term, “wonderful” is entirely subjective.)

The contest will be over in 7 days.  Next Wednesday, February 4th.

Whatev.

These two, 12″ x 14″ prints are on some sort of  hard, lightweight board that is hollow.  They are one inch thick and have sawtooth hangers on the backs of them.   The “paintings” are lightly textured.  The colors in the following photos is pretty true to life.  Very dusty purples and other muted shades.  They are pretty and lightweight.  Could be hung up on a wall with a straight pin.  Don’t laugh.  When I was a child my mother’s friend across the street let on that every picture in her house was hung with steel straight pins.  Nothing ever fell!

Oops, I digressed.  I’m always doing that!  Wonder if there’s any such thing as a professional digress-er?  Wonder if they feel at all threatened by me?

Now what was I talking about?  OH!  Right!

Here’s the pics.

I was standing on the bed to take these.  Why didn’t I just lay them on the carpet, you ask?  Good question.

And finally here is the back of one of them and don’t be fooled!  My bed is actually NOT made.  Just smoothed out for the sake of the photos.  OH THE SHAME!  DON’T TELL MITHER!

OK, here are the latest from the recesses of my dusty, disturbed, dark, leeetle mind.  As before, I suggest that you copy and paste the words in  the comment box and fill it out before you read anyone else’s, just because it makes it easier to think freely…  Or is that just me?  Probably me.

1. Kate:

2. clock:

3.plaque:

4. dining table:

5. assortment:

6. rubber band:

7. spindle:

8. frog:

9. startled:

10. dragon:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And my answers:

1. Kate: Hepburn

2. clock: Late

3.plaque: Give away

4. dining table: eat

5. assortment: too many

6. rubber band: Man

7. spindle:DVD’s

8. frog: Susan

9. startled: Dumb dog barking

10. dragon: renaissance festival

Now go on!  Do it!

What a day!  I have spent the majority of it on the phone with the state and other people trying to set H up with a new Provider Care company.  Last Friday I FINALLY managed to track down the owner of the company that sent out our little thief that swiped the hundred dollar bill from my purse.  I had left multiple messages throughout the week for her to call me back and she never did.  I finally just managed to get somebody to answer the phone in the office that didn’t know that she wasn’t wanting to talk to me.

She was a bitch.

I was very nice and told her that I just wanted to make sure she had been told what had happened as I would want to know if it was my company and she simply stated that yes, she knew and the aide had denied it and she was made to fill out an incident report.

I said something to the effect of, “Yes, I am sure she did deny it.  I mean if she stole money from me, why would she have a problem with lying?”.

To which she said… nothing.

That’s about all I got.  No apology, nothing.

I told her that I hadn’t heard from anyone to ask me any questions about what had happened and if anyone wanted to contact me to fluff up the incident report with, ooooh, I dunno, MY SIDE OF WHAT HAPPENED, I would be here, 24/7 to answer the phone or door and help them out.  Cause, hey, you know me, HERE TO SERVE!

She actually indicated that that would not be necessary.  NOT NECESSARY.  So the incident report about the employee stealing from me is filled out entirely by… the employee.  Needless to say I decided to move on to the big boys.

So I called the state of Texas, after all this is a state funded agency.  It’s services are paid for by Henrietta’s medicare.  So the Texas Department of Aging and Disability was contacted.  I tried to nail down the case worker that was assigned to her long ago, but she has been moved to another department.  They gave me another very nice little lady that was horrified to hear what had happened to us and, even though I KNOW she probably hears of stuff like this everyday, (I mean she was in the complaint department), she was courteous enough to be understanding.  She looked and said that the agency was supposed to report what had happened to the state as a matter of law and, guess what?, they hadn’t.

Big surprise.  (Can you hear the sarcasm dripping off here?)  I asked if they were gonna get in trouble for it and felt like a little kid that had been wronged and wanted their brother to “get it” for what he’d done.  Vengeful, ugly, spiteful feelings.

Felt sooo good when she said, Yes”.

She then put me in contact with my new case worker and they are faxing John a list of new agencies at his work for him to bring home and me throw darts at and pick out a new one.

*****************************************************************************

In Poop News today, Henrietta is still without a catheter.

How is this Poop News, Krissa?  A catheter is only a font for urine.

Well, don’t worry, I will tell you, ( read sounding a bit vicious), BECAUSE I KNOW YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW.

We are going through tons of diapers and latex gloves and poor H is usually opting to stay in bed almost all day since she has to be changed so often.  I am getting up well before dawn with John and changing her and then again about 10:00 AM and so on.  Well, after I had fed her breakfast she rang for the bedpan and said she had messed her diaper.  This is not unusual, but the amount of it was something else.   The…. stuff, (trying to be nice here and not offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities), was squirting out the sides of the diaper and covered a good part of the hospital chux that she was lying on.  It also managed to get it on a little pink pillow that I had been using to put between her knobby knees.  I did not see this and picked the pillow up and tossed it over against the wall on the other side of her bed to get it out of the way.  I was a bit frantic and, indeed, was on hold for some agency office or another.

I know my previous little soliloquy about the locating of the proper people to talk to was fairly straight forward, but come on, we’ve all been on the other end of phone trying to do business with a government agency before…  I went through 5 or 6 different people and called tons of numbers, some of which didn’t work, and was on hold all. freakin. day.

So I am trying to get a move on with this diaper so I don’t have to hang up or lose the person I’m waiting on and start all over again.  I have a look of …. shock and awe(?) on my face apparently, as Henrietta repeatedly asks me if she has diarrhea.  I tell her no, she just has… a lot.  Period.

I had thrown on a robe to go in when the bell rang as I was in the process of changing clothes.  Yes, I do multiple things like this while on the phone taking care of business.  Witchypoo, over at Psychicgeek can relate to the whole being-tied-to-the-phone-while-attempting-to-move-about-your-life scenario.  Well, at some point the tie around the waist of my fluffy pink robe had swung forward and drug through the poo.  Henrietta just innocently lay her hand down by her side,  In the poo.  The little pink pillow I threw up against the wall to get it out of the way?  Trail of poo going down the wall.  I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING.  It was gruesome.

I kept thinking, “Oh my gawd.  These are the very last two gloves… what if there’s more of it?”  There is no way there is anymore shit left in that little old lady.  And John is bringing home more gloves.  And diapers.  And,  sadly, Miralax.

I got her dressed and all squared away eventually and she just looked at me and said, “Krissa, I think I’ll just stay in bed for a little while…”

Ya think?

Poor thing.  It wore her out.  All that hauling up her butt and cleaning from the back of her thighs to the middle of her back.  Me too.

Needless to say, I took a long hot bath and read a little bit in my book, About the Author.  It’s the book club book for the present at Holly’s blog, Anglophile Football Fanatic.  Go check it out and read along with us!I

I swear, by my very own little old lady, the next post I am doing is a giveaway.  I have acquired some really pretty darn cool prizes and have a Unconsicous Mutterings coming up.  If you will play, I will pay!  heh heh.

Please stay tuned for further bowel movements developements.

I have been posting less and less lately.  I lie in bed at night and think of two dozen things I could potentially jot in here and discard them all one at a time.  Either while I’m thinking of them or the next day, (when I can never recall a lot of them).  I have either already written about something along the same lines or the subject is something that has gone on and built up so much that I feel like I would have to start a small novel to convey all that’s happening.  And, that?  Has turned into something that is overwhelming.

This never used to be a problem.  There was no shortage of goofy little day to day things going on around here that desperately needed to be told to YOU.  I mean you needed to know.  How you got through your days without knowing every little nuance of Henrietta’s bowel movements before I started blogging is a mystery.

Yeah.  Whatever.

Also, the whole “keeping the house up” thing is… falling down.  Now, don’t get me wrong, we don’t live in a pig sty or anything remotely like it, (I swear to God, I am NOT answering the door if see City Sanitation knocking, so DON’T call.), but the new has worn off of living here, (It’s been four years.), and I’m letting everything slide.  I need to be able to look around and see everything as “Done”, like I used to be able to.  THAT feeling was soooo nice.

For some reason I can lie awake at night and plan it, heck, think about it endlessly, but then next day I can find dozens of excuses not to do the tons of little things that I know would make me feel better.

I need my self confidence back.  I need to feel like there’s a good enough reason to get up fairly early and take a shower then, (not between 11:00 and midnight), and get dressed in clothes, with a bit of make up.  I KNOW it would make me feel better.  I just don’t seem to think that’s a good enough reason to do it at the time.  (Yes, I know that makes no sense.)  Maybe it’s not as much a self confidence thing as a self esteem thing.

And another thing.  Sleep.  I can’t seem to get enough of it and it’s always pretty crappy.  All the THOUGHTS keep me awake.

I am thinking of maybe seeing about getting some anti-depressants. I’ve been on them before and it was all good.  It’s been a long, long time, but I think I remember feeling somewhat like…this.  I mean before it got so bad the panic attacks set in.  Not looking for that to happen again.  No.  For sure wanting to sidestep that.

I’ve got to get something going on.  This sucks.

John and I have been invited to another murder mystery party.  Last year it was held on New Year’s Eve and the theme was the old west.  I have forgotten what my name was, Adella something, but I was a widow and John was a sheriff or some such law man.  We had quite elaborate costumes and most of the people there did, too.  It was loads of fun.

This year they are having it on the 31st and the theme is ancient Rome.  We received an invitation that had two copies of the same cast of characters in it and on each list there was one name that was highlighted.  One of the characters was a Roman Senator and the other was a Vestal Virgin.  So I kinda took things into my own hands and told John I was going to be the senator and he was going to be a vestal virgin.  I had to explain how funny this was going to be a few times before I got him on board with the whole plan.  After all they didn’t assign us the rolls they just indicated that these were the two that we were supposed to play.

Mither and I went out and bought John some false eyelashes and found an old costume for him to wear and fashioned a veil from some pink organza and a laurel of silk roses.   He already has some leather flip flops that he can wear and I will wrap pink ribbon up his legs to look like Roman sandals.

He will be a real head turner.  I have to stop making remarks about his “virginity”.  He seems quite sensitive about this.  He said something like, “Gosh, it’s been a long time since I was a virgin… at least 5 years…”

I told him that the Romans didn’t wear anything under their toga’s but I really think it would be a good idea if he did cause we wouldn’t want anyone to think he was “easy” or anything since he IS playing the part of a virgin.

My costume is fairly elaborate in that it is about a million miles of white cotton fabric trimmed in purple rope gimp.  We worked long and hard on how to… toga it.  I kinda hate to think about cutting it down smaller since it was originally a valance in my dining room and may have a future as such again.

I have some other fancy stuff to my get-up, but I will take pictures and show you after the party.  I am looking forward to it and John said that there is NO WAY I will be allowed to post a picture of him dressed as a woman.  I will just tell him to put his veil down and no one will see his face.  Heh.

Finally.  And not a moment too soon, I might add, I got one hell of a haircut!  I HATED my hair.  It was constantly falling into my eyes,  took forever to “do”, and always looked like shit no matter how long I worked on it.

The way it is now is how it used to be when I spent more time trying to keep myself looking decent and took the time to escape and get my hair cut from time to time.  To say I am a “low maintainence” gal is an understatement of biblical proportion.  However, I feel so much better about myself, my family and life in general now that I can’t possibly justify letting myself get in that condition again.  I made an appointment to get it cut again in 5 weeks before I left he salon.

Even John, who likes it to be “just a bit longer” than it is now, and used to tease me when I got this cut and tell me to go to the barber shop with him and ask for a “regular boy’s”, cause it’d be much cheaper,  had told me that I needed to go get a haircut.

Yes,THAT bad.

Ideally, I would want to look like the chick on Dirty Sexy Money that is the wife to the main character.  I don’t even know what her name is and this is me, too lazy to do my internet homework and find out for you.

BUT, it IS me and I won’t let you down completely.  Here is a picture of her and her on screen husband.  He looks , like crap, I don’t know why, but, she is adorable as ever.  If anyone can get away with a really, really short haircut, it’s her.  (If ONLY I were that skinny and adorable!)

So here it is… a quick shot I took of myself in my bathroom, no less.   No matter what anyone thinks of it, this hair is so much more workable than the previous mop as far as the person underneath it goes, there is no comparison.

Hello intertubes!  I don’t have TOO terribly much to say, and it’s probably a good thing as I’m pretty much all typed talked out.

There are these nagging pics on my camera that I took and want to keep, but am not really sure why and they are a bit…leftoverish.

DISCLAIMER:

You will now be subjected to them.

John, New Year’s Eve at our friend’s house with a blanket wrapped around him cause he was freezing to death as he didn’t wear a jacket like his smart, intelligent, always right wife told him to.  It looks a bit grainy, I guess cause I took it on ISO with and he is illuminated by distant fireworks/streetlamp.  Oh hell, I dunno.  This new camera is still a bit of a mystery to me.

My guilty secret, hidden in my freezer.  No, not the bottle of vodka.  Next to it.  The bag of minty good Three Musketeers bite size wonders.   My reason for living through Christmas.

John is such a BIG boy!  He concentrates carefully on getting two cups of coffee back to us at, yet another date at La Madeleine’s.  Maybe next time we could dress up a little for our date?

More evidence of our lunch date while playing with my new camera and trying to see how clear I could get a close up shot.   Well, we can clearly see that the table needs re-varnishing and a cup of coffee is $2.00! Ridiculous.

This just makes me laugh.  Tell me the truth.  If this didn’t have “Media Mail” stamped all over it, wouldn’t it look just like one of those packages of cocaine, or weed you see on TV that the cops are always finding in door panels of cars coming over the border?  I left it sitting in the car seat while we were eating breakfast at afore mentioned restaurant and half expected to see a cop peering in at it when we came out.

Just to prove what a good, kind, loving, adequate pet owner I am I have given our ancient cat her own heat lamp.  It shines on nothing but her 13 year old body.  She loves me best.

Gratuitous cat pic.  Again, I love that ISO setting!  She looks as if she’s deciding between a nap and a long hot bath with one of those books… Oh, wait a minute, that was me.

Her other favorite place to hang out.  As long as there’s a jacket or something to curl up in…

I’ve been trying to get a good shot of the wall treatment I recently finished in my bathroom.  The wall paper was HORRIBLE, straight out of the mid ’80’s.  I took some drywall compound and textured right over it with a wide putty knife and then, when it dried, (just a few hours), I held up a stencil of a fleur di lis and swiped more compound over it.  Then, just lifting the stencil off leaves a raised fleur di lis.

After that Mither came to visit and we painted it light lavender and finished it off with a dark purple glaze for that aged look I don’t want on my face but, for some reason, think is good on the walls.  Oh and then I silver leafed the fleur di lis.  AND if all that fleur di lis stuff wasn’t enough pretentious French talk, I then said, “VOILA!”

Here’s a close up of a…fleur.  heh

And here is my guilty secret.  The strip of wall paper that I didn’t get done, below the mirrored cabinet and above the backsplash.  I didn’t notice it until I sat down on the… well, you know… where you sit when you go into a bathroom…  I don’t go in there much as it’s the guest bath.  Anyway, the wallpaper looks like someone got drunk and threw up many, many different colors of paint all over the walls.  It was BAD.  I sat down on that same, er, receptacle to take the pic and you can se the top of my head in the mirror.

OK, where I was just sitting to take that last shot.

HEY, MY PANTS WERE UP!

Hello people!  Well, Nana and Pop have gone home and should actually be there shortly.  We had all kinds of fun during the short amount of time they were here.

We also did some sleuthing!

Now I bet you are all wondering what happened with Henrietta’s aide/thief that we suspect swiped the $100 out of my purse.  Well, we set up the camera that Lisa had loaned me that is motion activated.   Got it all set up on top of the fridge and John and Pop left and then Mither announced, (loudly), that we needed to run over to Lisa’s house to see what was going on with her.  So I told the aide and H that we’d be back later and we left.

John got home first and found the camera lying on it’s back on top of the extremely tall refrigerator.  It was lying in a manner that it was incapable of “falling” into.   It was incapable of falling in the first place.  He took the card out and he and Keelan were looking at the pictures when we got home.  There are a lot of them simply because it snapped one every time the light went on or off or anyone left or came in, but here are a few showing what happened and in the order it happened.

Here is John leaving.  My purse is on the counter on the right.  You can see the top of the faucet in the sink in the wet bar.  My purse is the blob to the left of it.  Right beneath the “10″.

Here is Mither leaving and I am right behind her.  I guess the light was on in the kitchen since the wall is now green, (as it really is), and it looks turquoise in the first one…

And here is the last one it took.  You can see the fingers and the double exposure from the movement.  It happened 8 minutes after we left.  Undoubtedly she saw the camera on top of the fridge and turned it over.  I hadn’t left any cash or credit cards in my purse but she didn’t know that until she looked.  Henrietta said that she stood “behind the counter” to watch the soap opera with her and she didn’t know why she didn’t sit down like she usually did. She said she kept going and looking out the window and then going back to stand at the counter.  The widow is to the left outside the frame of the picture.

I do.

Henrietta doesn’t know that we suspect the aide of anything.  She doesn’t know about the missing money, or the camera or any of it.  She has such a negative view of the world and all it’s inhabitants anyway, we all just think it’s better that she not feel like she was duped.  The sad part is that she really likes this aide a lot.  They spoke Spanish to each other and H was thrilled with this as her Spanish was really rusty and getting to be more and more of a second language all the time.  She did an excellent job with her and they really got along well.

I will just tell her that the company had to send her to another area or something and she has to have a new aide.  Oh, I don’t know.. I’ll have to think it through.  I have to have a better story than that, I guess…

John asked H where the aide was and where all she went while we were gone and then I did too, separately. and she then got the idea that something was wrong and when she asked if something was missing and I lied and said, “No.”, she got a bit defensive for her.  She told me that she was a good person and there was no reason to “look into her”.   I feel really bad, but I have enough to go on and I called the company and told them not to send her back and that I wasn’t accusing her of anything, (after all I don’t have any hard evidence), but that I didn’t want her back because I couldn’t risk trusting her.  I asked to talk to the owner but she was out of town for a “few days” so I told the lady what had happened and she was nice, but I can tell there was no way they could afford to lose any employees so I feel sure they won’t fire her even if they have reports of this kind of thing happening before.

I hope to talk to the owner when she gets back in town.

This post will be quite short for a variety of reasons:

The last one was uncharacteristically long.  More than, probably anyone wanted to hear from me.   I was full of angst. (That’s my excuse, in case you didn’t know.)

Mither and Pop are coming to see me and they are on their way here RIGHT NOW.  I gots to get this dump cleaned up!  Change the sheets on their bed!  Start a grocery list for supper tonight!  Clean the bathtub!  Finish the laundry!  Locate all obscene graffiti written in the dust on my furniture and add or subtract letters to make it more grandparent friendly.

FIND MY DAMN GLASSES.  They are gone, people!  I have looked everywhere!  Remember, I just got them a short while back and I cannot function for very long without having to actually READ something.  I took them off when John got home yesterday and they have been gone ever since.  I cannot remember where I was!

Oh crap!  I gotta get going!  Before I do I will share with you that I have a new look coming for HalfAsstic and am excited about it.  Cam is working on it as I type.  Well, actually, that’s not true as he’s in Italy and is seven hours ahead of us, (he’s asleep), but he’s already done some things that I really like.

Anyway, stay tuned!

Free Toes, everybody!

Well, people this just sucks.  No.  Not the poop of yesterday.  It is still here today and has happened twice so far.  H clearly has a stomach bug of some sort.  Bless her heart, no one else in the family has had one but, being so old she is more susceptible to catching things, I guess.

But that is not what I was talking about sucking.  No.  There is a thief amongst us.  It could be your neighbor, friend or YOU.  Well, OK, so maybe none of that is even remotely close to likely.  STILL!

Yesterday when I was in here, in the boudoir, hacking out carefully constructing the poop post for yesterday, Kes came in and told me that the next day, (today), she was going to go up to U of H and purchase a text book that she has to have for school.  Those dirty bastards are requiring her to buy a $250.00 book with some sort of electronic gizmo that has to go with it, that you can only get at UH. Her dad and I had discussed it and we were going to help her with that book so I gave her a little stash of cash that had been lying on the desk for a few days waiting to go to the bank.  It was $190.00 even.  A hundred bill on the outside, four $20.00’s and a $10.00 on the inside.  She said no, she would pay for it, she knew we were having a hard enough time with bills and why not spend the money she has been saving for her education now while we are strapped, blah, blah, blah.  She was being very sweet and understanding and trying to pick up some responsibility.  But I insisted and pushed it on her and she took it eventually and went her way.

Today she came and found me and asked me if I had taken money out of my purse.  I said,…. no?  And she raced away looking for her sister.  She came back in a bit of a panic and said that she doesn’t know what happened to the $100.00 dollar bill in my purse.  I must have looked a bit blank and told her I don’t have a $100 in my purse.  She explained that yesterday when she left my room she just walked straight in and put the $190.00 in my purse in my little coin purse thing where I keep my cash and cards and zipped it up and dropped back in the middle section where I always keep it.

Today she was looking for change for a $100 dollar bill of hers and remembered the money in my purse she had put there last night.  Nobody knew about it but her at this point. So she looked in there to see if she could scare up another $10.00 to make an even 100 out of the smaller bills and the $100. bill was missing from the outside of the folded cash.  She called her dad at work and asked him if he had gotten it out of my purse this morning and he said, no, he knew nothing about it.

Oh crap.

There was a complete scouring of the area and searching on hands and knees and looking so far deep down into my purse I found traces of Jimmy Hoffa.  Every single item came out and was examined closely to see if it had ever even tried to look like a $100.

Next she went and looked for her sister and was frantically asking about the missing money.

Keelan was clueless as well and responded with something like, “Money?  In Mom’s purse? No, I didn’t even know Mom had money in her purse…”  Neither one one of them have ever even thought of taking money from us without asking and so that wasn’t really a valid way to go, but Kes was trying to exhaust all avenues because the money had to be somewhere.

About this time we started backtracking who all had been here between last night and this afternoon.  I mean it’s the only place left to “look” cause, people we have seen things in this house now that make YOUR dustbunnies look like pansy assed wimps.

The small group of friends Keelan had come over with her just popped their heads in to say hello over from the foyer.  They never even came through the living room and went to the other side of the wet bar, where I stash my purse so it’s easy to grab on the way out the back door.

HOWEVER, this is Friday and the Caregiver Provider Aide was here from 11:00am to 2:00pm.  About noon I went in and ran a nice hot bath for myself like I always do when she comes and John is not able to be off work.  So she knew I was in the bath and my purse is there sitting on the wet bar right by the door where she goes to put the dirty linens in with the laundry.  H is turned in her chair with her back to that general area and there is no one else in the house.

My first thought was why would she wait and do this when I am home with them instead of when I am gone with John when he is off?  And then I heard that little intelligent voice I rarely hear from say,  “Because my purse is gone with me then.”  And the dumb ass in me replied, “Oh.”

So now, we are starving to death and don’t have the money required to pay attention, we are trying to figure out what to do next.  I consult with my dear Mither and Pop and then, of course, Lisa is called into the loop.  Kessa’s  boyfriend suggested we get a camera and set her up and record it.  I feel it would cost much more than the lost $100. to buy the equipment for that and she is here for three hours, so it would have to be a motion sensor kind that would come on when she walks in front of it.  I guess?

Well, I was telling Lisa about this and she said that they have a camera that does that.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I asked, Why? And she said that they put them up on deer trails and what not in Colorado on their vacation property and see all kinds of wildlife.

Whatever.  How cool is this?  I swear if I catch her, (and I will cause I am stealthy like that), I will show you guys the video footage.

After I get finished beating her to death with H’s bedpan.