Henrietta is off her ever lovin’ rocker and John is sick with congestive heart failure and I am sick with something, (bronchitis?), and I want to have myself committed to get away from this nut house. Go ahead and call the men in the white coats to come get me.

Please.

While they’re here they could throw a cursory glance over at H and tell me what the hell they see. She has slipped down the slippery slope of peanut butter enemas and DayQuil eye wash.

She’s done checked out.

I have to say that I sincerely think this new, memory-bank deficit,  recent draft, Henrietta is going to be easier to handle than the one that was just …”on her way out”.  Because, she requires much less assurance and help to understand what is going on. She see’s it only one way and that is the way she see’s it. All you can do is placate her and move on.

A few days ago, Thursday, I believe. We were watching the UT game and The Boyfriend was here as we had invited him over to watch it. Sounds like a fun time,  huh? You would think so. Anyway John and T.B., henceforth known as Gil or Gilly or Gilbert, were sitting in the living room across the room from one another just basically talking about the game so far. Nothing too terribly exciting was happening and they were talking pretty low. John would bust out coughing fairly often, but not any different than it’s been for the past 5 months. At this point in the evening John and I glanced up and saw H rolling through the doorway into the living room.

Announcing to the room in general, “He’s a very sick man!”

Looks were exchanged and John said, “Mom, what’s up?”

“I was cold back in there, John.” Very whiny and pitiful. So I walked up and got behind her wheelchair and propelled her over in front of the fireplace where, Satan Gilbert had built us a very nice fire.  She was so busy casting mean looking sidelong glances at Gilly that she almost didn’t notice what I was doing.

“Oh! Krissa, nooooooo! I have to go back in there and finish writing my letter!” I said, “I thought you were cold?”, and she stuck her two hands straight up in the air to show me her gloves.  Very defiantly. She didn’t say anything, just waved her hands at me. Kinda like jazz hands but not nearly as happy looking. In fact I’m thinking that even standing behind her I could see her rolling her eyes at me. So I asked her if she wanted to sit in front of the fire with the rest of us and warm up there and she she got VERY defensive, stuck her hands up in the air again, (This time I did a quick once over to determine if there were any middle fingers sticking up cause I was getting the message at this point.), and I grabbed her chair and started rolling her back to her room.

I knew what was going to happen, the writing was on the wall, so I pulled her into her parking spot and got in front of her, put my finger under her chin, lifted it and stared deep into her beady little eyes.

“Henrietta, now I want you to listen to me.”

She stared up as wide eyed as she could possibly contrive. “Yeeees, Krissa?”

“There is absolutely nothing bad going on in that room and John and Gilbert are just enjoying the game. You are more than welcome to watch it with us. Once again she said she had to finish writing her letter, however I’m thinking that she may have underestimated how difficult this would be with the gloves on. And while doing periodic jazz hands.

“Henrietta, I know how you are and how you get about Gilbert. I don’t want you making any more wild stories up about John and him or any nonsense like that.”

She is properly appalled at my accusations and let’s me know it. I reiterate that she is all about making up evil, foul-intentioned lies. She is properly outraged, and assures me that NOTHING is further from the truth. I admonish her one more time, by leaning over and enunciating carefully so that there is no room for doubt about what I am saying:

“Remember, everything is fine in there and John and Gilbert are just watching the game. They’re having a good time!”

She told me that she does NOT make up lies, and I shouldn’t say that. Whatever. As I was leaving the room I heard her say very sarcastically, “God bless you, Krissa!” I turned and smiled and said something to the effect of, “May He bless you, too.”

Friday morning I was sick as a dog and thank God good old Tanya was here and takin’ care o’ tings with her. I eventually made it in to where Tanya was and got the scoop from her. H had told her that last night Gilly came over and got Kes and took her and they got married and then he and John were  in a heated argument and John’s boss, that’s right his boss had to come over and, “calm everything down”.

She has never met his boss. Hell, I’ve never met his boss. He’s this guy that lives 45 minutes away in Pearland and does not possess the kind of heartfelt concern for his employees that would cause him to drive from there to here to “calm things down”. He didn’t even visit John while he was in the hospital the  better part of October.

I have no idea where she pulled that from, I suspect straight out of her ass, but it did lend her story a lot of flair.

I’m thinking maybe fiction writer for her new career.

Anyway, I am bound and determined to just wave everything away from here on out, just say, “OK, whatever.”, and be done with it. There’s a small, dim, light on up there, yet it’s not bright enough to vanquish her demons.