HalfAsstic.com

Hi intertubes people!  How’s it hangin?  We’re fine here and intend to be right up until we are washed away by Ike.  No, not really.  I don’t think he’s going to stray this far north, we’re just going to get a good deal of rain.  Oh well, we were behind in that department anyway.  I just hate getting caught up all at once…*sigh*

A few strange things happened today.  Firstly, my 17 year old girl child has gone to a City Council meeting with a friend of hers that is in a  US Government class.  Her friend says she needs, “moral support”.  Yeeeah.  Sure.  Keelan says she is going to have US Government next semester so why not?

John and I are taking bets on how long they are allowed to stay before being thrown out.  Their odds are not good.  Contact your bookie.

I have been sitting here watching The Weather Channel and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a good solid reason for wanting to live in Cuba, year round, except for that pesky Castro not letting anyone leave…  I mean these people get totally flayed by multiple hurricanes every single year.  They wind up to cat 4 and 5 and go tearing across the island, sometimes twice per storm.  These people, for the most part, live in a near poverty situation and are flattened over and over.  Hundreds and hundreds die every year.  And they couldn’t leave if they wanted to.  Not even just for Hurricane season.  And that just seems wrong.  They should all be allowed to leave during the season for, oh, Europe or something…  God knows I wish I could.

Someone should complain.

H has a new caregiver provider person.  YES!  Again!  I know, I know.  I have reported this several times already, and no, I wasn’t lying.  The latest is “Tiffany”.  So far so good.  Please, everybody cross your fingers. She stayed here with H today while we ran frantically around for our allotted three hours.  Got back and she had done all the things I had verbally laid out for her to do.  And for those of you wondering, no, she won’t do taxes or windows.  Henrietta got a “bed bath” and put in the chair and her sheets changed.  Plus she cooked her breakfast and washed and figured out where to put all the dishes up.  All this was amidst her being visited by the nurse and then a very nice little lady from the church that comes by to give her communion.  I didn’t ask her to clean H’s bathroom or clean her room or anything cause we were having such a hard time getting out of here and she’s new, so I would have had to take more time than I already had when I showed her what to cook for her breakfast and how and where it all was.

I swear.  If she starts not showing up, I will scream.  She is very nice and H really likes her and each time she has left, Henrietta says, “Oh thank you so much for everything you did and please come back!”  How sad is that?  I will talk to her about trying to muster up a tear next time…

So far the contest has been hotly debated.  I have given up clues in the comments section, but, I swear, it’s something that is unusual to any mans dress shirt and is the reason John refuses to wear it.  It is an obvious thing at first glance and we should have noticed it except that it’s not that obvious.  Obviously.  I can feel all the obvious evil thoughts you people are sending me, now…  Oh!  There has been one winner so far!  And she’s not even a regular commenter.  I erased her comment immediately as soon as I got it and wondered, just as quickly, why I had set it up this way.  I should have said the first person to get the correct answer.  But I didn’t so if you can figure out what is such an obvious problem with the shirt that John won’t wear it you get a shot at the lovely prize also.

More tomorrow.

Hello again.  This is Krissa, not her brother, Cam.  I have sent a hit man out looking for Cam and will update as needed.

H is home from hospital, though for how long I can’t say.  Her UTI seemed well under control when she left on Sunday and her urine was clear and light colored.  She still feels bad and is very tired and her urine is quite dark again.  They sent us home with a Rx for more antibiotics and she has been taking them as prescribed.  Oh well.  I am betting she will be going back in the next couple of days.  God, I hope not.

On the up side!!!

Kes and Keelan had their first day at college and as senior in high school on Monday.  They both really excited about the upcoming year.  So am I!

The weekend before school started Keelan was at a friends house and a… small herd of boys showed up at the front door to see her.  I was quite busy doing something or another and met them at the door before they could ring the bell and set the obnoxious dog off barking.  They asked if she was here and I said no, she was at Anna’s house.  They left and I called her later when I wasn’t so tied up doing things and told her that some boys were here and did they call her on her cell?  “No, who was it?”  Er, I didn’t know…  “What did they look like?”  Tall, skinny with stringy hair.  (Hint, all the kids she knows look like that.)  “MOM!  What color was their hair?”  I don’t know, brown?  Blondish?  “Mom! was it ____?  Or _____?”  I dunno, Keelan.  They all look pretty much the same to me and I didn’t really pay any attention cause I was in a hurry.  “Gawd, Mom!  What if one of them was my future husband?”  I dunno, what if all of them were your future husbands?  “MOM!”  KEELAN!

Later she let me know who they were and that there were two of them and not three as I thought there was.  Also that one of them had pink streaks died in his hair.  I said something like, Huh?…pink? Really?

I then promised to be sure and ask any boys that come to the door while she is out if they are her future husband.

“GAWD MOM!”

Sometimes you just can’t make people happy…

Hello boys and girls.  I have been spending time doing things other than reading my blog sites and I am so sorry!  I need to get caught up, but I need to do laundry worse.  I haven’t been here much in the past few days as Henrietta got herself in hospital.  OK, really, the ambulance got her there, but still…

About 3:30 Thursday morning she rang the bell and I went in and she was shaking really, really hard.  I felt of her and she had no fever so I thought she was surely having a really bad anxiety attack.  She has before, so I got her an ativan and gave it to her and told her not to worry she’d feel better soon and she did and fell asleep within about 10 to 15 minutes.  I left her bedside table lamp on and went back to bed.  Next morning I went in and looked at her and turned off the lamp and tiptoed out.  The anxiety attacks really take it out of her, though she doesn’t have them often, so I wasn’t surprised when she slept in late.  I went by her room about 11:30 and she was sleeping but the lamp was on.  Strange.  So she had been up, but why had she turned the lamp on, it’s daylight and there was plenty of light in the room.  I walked over and looked at her and fliped off the lamp and opened the blinds a bit and she opened her eyes and looked at me and started trying to talk.  It was like something out of a nightmare.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying at first, her words were slurred and she couldn’t talk loud enough at all either.  I got down and listened and asked her questions and she said things that made no sense at all.  So I started calling people and ended with 911.  They came and got her and while they were here assessing her, the hot, young cutie that was doing most of the talking said that yes, she could be having a stroke, but the fact that I was treating her for yet another UTI, (urinary tract infection), told him that she could possibly be septic and the symptoms mimic those of a stroke very closely.  I, personally, thought it wasn’t possible, just because her previous UTI had gotten much worse than this one.  With this one she didn’t even  have any symptoms.  I would have never known she had one without the urinalysis they did as a follow up from the previous UTI.  In hind site I can see that it was all the same one and the antibiotics from the first one didn’t completely get rid of it.

So H gets hauled off to the hospital and I went with her.  My friend, Lisa followed in her car.  This was about noon and she went straight to an ER room and stayed there for a few hours and was put in a room by about 9:30.  They have, by now run every test under the sun and determined that:

A) She freaks out when in the MRI machine.

B) She did not have a stroke.

C) “She’s a pistol.”

D) When she misses her dose of Miralax she can’t poo.

E) When she gets two doses of Miralax too close together she has diarrhea.

F) When I find out they are running all kinds of stupid tests that don’t make a hill of beans difference, just stress her out,  I get pissed off.

G) When I call and have them leave a note on her chart for the Dr. to call me, I mean it and will call and chew out everybody else in the nurse’s station if he doesn’t.  (He makes rounds at 6:00AM.)

The night before she had these problems at home, when I changed her diaper and put her to bed, I noticed she had a strange line of diaper rash kinda down on her thigh a little bit.  I was telling Lisa about it in the hospital after we got her in a room.  I looked down at H and asked her if she’d mind if I showed Lisa her diaper rash. (At this point I should point out that Lisa’s mom died of multiplemyloma and Lisa took care of her up until her death, so she knows at least some, and usually a lot, about every aspect of care giving.)  Immediately after I asked her if she’d mind me showing Lisa her rash, without pausing, she looked at Lisa, pulled a deadpan face, and said, “It’ll cost you $20.00.”  Lightning fast wit, that one.  The nurse came in and she looked at her and said “It’ll cost you 20, too!”  She died laughing and we were all giggling uncontrollably.   She also told us to tell the EMT that she’s single.  My gawd, I’ve got to watch her like a hawk!

H) She charges for a peek at her hooch.

Hello, people.  Greetings to all!  I have had company today and they FINALLY left, not a moment too soon!  My SIL came and brought her son, his…girlfriend and their two children to see Henrietta.  Every time she brings these people they break something big.  The last time they were here the…girlfriend-in-law climbed up on the trampoline with her little boy when she was EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT, and the rusted out frame gave way and it is a thousand wonders little miss dumb ass didn’t give birth right there.  I was inside and didn’t witness the dumb ass wonders taking place in the backyard, otherwise she would have never gotten up there.  You just kinda of assume that not only is she old enough to watch her own children she can make responsible decisions for herself.  Or, at least I did.  Never again, though.

This time the 3 year old hellion that was on the trampoline with his mom last time was running all over the house and being an Unholy Terror.  He went outside with his dad to get something out of the car and ran back to the door ahead of his dad and struck the leaded glass panel with his hands and broke a good sized hole out of the bottom of it.

PLUS, I found out some things about their finances while they were here that really chapped me arse.  I know, I know, what business is it of mine?  Plenty, it turns out.  SIL is forever going on about how poor ____ and _______ are so broke and need money so bad and they need groceries and can we spare some money to help them out?  So I usually fork over a check for $35.00 or $40.00.  Well, SIL said something about how you can get online on her son’s TV set.  I looked at him and said, “Oh?  How do you do that?  Special kind of TV?”  No, it’s with his PlayStation 3.  “Oh, I didn’t know PlayStation 3’s could get online…”  No, not all of them, just a special kind.  “Oh, wow.  How much are they?”  Five hundred dollars.

The little shit can afford to buy the most expensive games out there, yet, apparently, has some difficultly providing for his ever increasing family.  No longer my worry.  The well has dried completely up.  Next time SIL tells me they are near death and starvation, I will tell her to suggest to them hocking the PS3.

Mark My Words inter-tubes, no more free rides for these jokers and I may even cut off my family…er, no, before I could finish this sentence Keelan called and wants to borrow $10.00 to go to the movie.  But, ya know what?  She’ll pay me back,  Without me having to ask for it!

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In…more upbeat news, I have a new blog award!  My brother, Cam, bestowed it on me and while the cute little hiney on the award doesn’t look anything like H’s little shriveled up butt, I appreciate it, none the less.  Actually, I appreciate the fact that it doesn’t look like her at all.  He pinched the pic from this post of Big Hair Envy’s.

In appreciation of this cute little hiney, and because of the many diapers changed while dealing with all other manner of shit, I would like for Angie to have the first Loaded Diaper Award.  Congratulations, Angie!

Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been cooking, baking, and cleaning non-stop for the past few days?  No?  Well, that makes you a smart little cookie, doesn’t it?  If I had a gun to my head and some yo-yo telling me he’d shoot if I didn’t account for my time, I’d be a dead, domestic failure…rather than just a domestic failure.  I guess I’m saying things could always be worse.

I did manage to get a few things done today.  Sweeping the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room and doing my version of mopping to all of those freshly swept areas.  This entails walking around with a spray bottle of one sort of cleaner or another and a handy wipe, bending over spots, squirting, wiping, and moving on to the next spot.  Hey, don’t laugh.  My floor is clean…er.  I put things away left and right that have been slowly piling up for ages and cleaned the kitchen, and did several loads of laundry.

Got H on the bedpan not once, but two times for a grand total of two poos.  This normally throws her into a tailspin.  As I have discussed here before an unscheduled poo, or U. P. is a force of nature to contend with in this house.  She was reciting some panicky sounding prayers the second time I put her on, but other than that she handled it well.

John worked a “close” today and will be home about 11:00 or midnight.  He is enjoying his new boss and things are going smoothly so far.

Yesterday I asked him if he had chased any shoplifters through the parking lot lately and he replied, “No, I’m too fat and old for that.”  To which I immediately responded, “Your not fat.”  He groaned at me.  Seriously though, he’s getting older everyday, but he has lost a lot of weight lately.  He says he’s getting down to his “fighting weight”.  heh, heh, heh.

Pop is going into the hospital next Tuesday to have a defibrillator implanted just under the skin in his chest.  It is a battery operated thing that has two little wires that will be attached to his heart and if it stops beating or falters it will shock it into rhythm.  I don’t know much more than that about it.  Mom will ask more questions, I am sure.  I am wondering how long the batteries last and what changing them entails.

I guess that is all I’ve got to report at the moment.  I haven’t been doing much of anything or feeling like doing anything.  Very blah.  I haven’t even been Plurking.  I have also been neglecting reading the blogs!  And that is very bad of me, for shame and all that stuff!

I’m gonna try to get my shit together and get back here sooner!  Promise.  And I’ll try to have something to say.

On April 23, 2006 my father-in-law, Marcos, passed away after being on hospice for a few months.  He had lived with us for about a year and seven months.  It all started when Henrietta fell in their home on the way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night.  We got a call from Marcos saying she couldn’t get up and we jumped in the car and raced over there.  Their house is about 30 minutes away.  I called the ambulance on the way there and we made it in about 15 minutes.  This is mainly due to no traffic in the middle of the night! *Mental note: have catastrophes  in the middle of night, ALWAYS.*  So we got there and H had, basically, broken everything.  Well, it seemed like it.  Tibia, hip, humerus, she was in bad shape.  So the little old lady with the severe osteoporosis went off to the hospital and Marcos came home to live with us.  John and I and our two teenage daughters in a three bedroom, one bath house.  With Marcos.  Together.

We got the hell out of that house as soon as we could and moved into a 4 bedroom 3 bath ASAP.  This helped a lot, but Marcos was starting to slide into a depression that he never really came out of.  I fed him an antidepressant everyday and we tried to keep his spirits up.  H stayed in the hospital for months.  Marcos went more and more downhill and his mental state deteriorated.  He couldn’t be left alone for any length of time.  He started falling.  He had a walker and refused to use it for the longest time.  The things that he determined were his duties, such as making coffee or going out to get the newspaper, became impossible for him to master.  He totally screwed up, I don’t know how many coffee makers.  Made HUGE messes in the kitchen attempting to make it multiple times a day and at various odd moments all night long.  He’d get up during the night over and over and attempt to make it outside to “get the paper”.  When I’d point out that it was dark out and night time, he was always very surprised and in the beginning he would voluntarily return to bed.  But, eventually, it became harder and harder to convince him of anything.

I got one of the cowbells that H uses to ring for me and and tied it to his walker with a plastic cable tie wrap.  That way, combined with the baby monitor there was absolutely no way he could make it out of his room with out me knowing at night.  I started jumping out of bed when when I heard him get up and running down the hall and closing the door at the end of it and holding it closed so it would seem locked when he got there after he had used the bathroom and was trying to make it to the front door or kitchen.  I remember him standing there kicking the door and fussing, while I was on the other side just praying for him to go back to bed.  At first he would.  Then it became a matter of he was going to find a way out and do what he wants.  The ruckus became bigger and bigger and John would come and try to convince him to go to bed too.

We had always just kept the front door keys in the door, (on the inside, of course),  and he would just head out anytime he wanted day or night.  So I took the keys out and we started keeping the door locked.  All. the. time.  He searched the house and even went through my purse until he found the keys.  It was like trying to deal with a highly intelligent toddler.  The scariest thing going and SO tiring.

The truly strange thing is he didn’t have Alzheimer’s.  Just old age senility combined with a HUGE overdose of old fashioned Mexican machismo.  That poor little old man had stubbornness in spades.  He was slowly dying and it was just not nearly fast enough for him.  He got to the point that he refused to take a bath and was only doing so about once every 10 days to two weeks under duress.  At some point John was the only one who could convince him.  This wouldn’t have been SO bad except he had become totally inept in the bathroom and would end up with shit everywhere.  Including on him.  He really did try, bless his heart, but he just didn’t have the strength to do anything more than just barely get there.  The commode seat and numerous other things in there were routinely smeared with poo.  I cannot tell you the amount of latex gloves, paper towels and spray bleach I went through.

By the time he died he was a little dried up husk of a man and I could pick him up in my arms like a baby and carry him to bed.  I did this the last time we changed his bed.  H was in the hospital with a broken hip from a totally unrelated incident and the continuous care hospice nurse suggested we put him in her hospital bed.  It was a good idea and we were changing his sheets anyway.  So I just picked him up and put him in her bed.  It was the strangest sensation.  This larger than life man that had always seemed so dominant was no where in there.  I think he died two days later and he had been so ready for so long.

Poor Henrietta was in the hospital and even missed his funeral.  When we told her she took it very well.  She said she knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer, and I’m sure that’s true.  He had a 21 gun salute and honor guard as he was a decorated WWII veteran who was wounded and permanently crippled in the rush on Iwo Jima.  He was someone to contend with…even before things were going downhill.

Hello intertubes!  I am back with a quick update!

Nothing too spectacular has happened since the last time I announced the goings on here at the Nut House.  How bouts a quickie update?  Too bad, here it is:

• John was off yesterday and we ran amuck.  The caregiver provider stayed here with H and we were muckyrunning aaaaall over the place.  For gasoline to be so freakin’ expensive, we were WILD!  heh heh.  We made it to Macy’s to see if there were any good deals to be had and sure enough, John’s ultra sensitive nose for economical spending steered us to a few new ties for him.  His butt cheeks made a squeaking noise as we walked over to where the tie sale rack sits.  He is always needing new neck-wear, as he isn’t that easy on his ties.  We got three $45.00 Donald Trump ties for just $5.63 a piece.  He wore one of them today, but here are the other two.

They look a little pink here.  Actually they are dark red.

Here is the proof!  With tax, $18.28 for three Donald Trump ties.

The trick at Macy’s is to find the stuff that’s on sale and take it over to the price checker thing and start scanning anything that you are remotely interested in because they are really good/bad about either mispricing or just not putting correct signage out for the sale products.  And the prices are SO good that I think they are probably just making mistakes when they are pricing, but it works out great for us almost every time we go.  My sweet little miser husband pulled out his dusty, cobweb covered wallet and paid $18.28 for all three.  Good deal!

• Hurricane Dolly made landfall sometime yesterday evening, I think, and we finally started getting some much needed rain from it.  It is still raining off and on.  Woo-Hoo!

• My brother in Italy isn’t.  In Italy, that is.  He arrived last night at my parents house in Decatur, Tx and I am hoping we will be able to meet up with all of them on Wednesday for a visit.

• Henrietta is still catheter-free and letting her hoo-hoo rest.   I asked her how it was getting on and she pulled a super serious face and replied, “Oh, it’s doing very well, thank you!”, and then burst out laughing.  Last nigh she asked me if I would close the blinds for her in her room and I said sure and was doing so and she said, “Now make sure they’re closed up tight…”.  and I said I thought they were and no one could see in that little slit, and she replied, ” I might be able to get out through there, tho…”.   I said, “You?” To which she looked sly and said, “Krissa, I don’t have any bag to hold me back, now!  You don’t know what I might do!”

• Be on the lookout for a catheter free little old lady in a nightgown.

• I just totally told off a lady who called here from Dell Computers asking me if the problem we were having last Sunday was resolved.  I told her no, we still haven’t been able to get it to recognize the disc drive.  She said something like, “Oh.”, and immediately changed the subject a bit by asking me how it was doing otherwise.  I told her, “Actually it’s running slow.  My husband and I were discussing it last night and he and I have both tried all the little tricks that used to make a difference in the past with no luck.”  (Keep in mind that it’s a year old next month.  In other words, THE WARRANTY IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE AND NO MORE “FREE” TECH SUPPORT)  She came back with, “Well, I see here you bought it with only 2GB of memory and that really isn’t enough to support Vista.”

This is where I got ticked off.

“No.  It supports Vista just fine and has for almost a year now.  It only started running slow just lately.”

She proceeded to tell me that if I ever wanted to get it to run well again I needed to purchase some RAM from her.  Now.  On the phone.  Or forever be delegated to computer hell.

“No one told me it was insufficient to support Vista when I bought it.”  She comes back with a snappy, “Oh, uh, well?”

I told her no thank you we’re not sinking any more money into it because we’re getting an Apple.

That got her off the line.  She was originally calling to sell me another warranty.

• I am taking this opportunity to apologize for the lack of substance in this post.  THAT is the state of my life, lately.  Substance free…and applesauce free.

Well, there is more excitement here at the Nut House.  Last night when I put Henrietta to bed, her diaper was wet.  Not just a little, but soaked,   Great.  The catheter had failed during the day sometime.  Just a little bit of pee in the bag.  Sometimes moving her around and repositioning her gets it to start working again so I was keeping my fingers crossed that it would fix itself over night.  No.  This morning she woke up swathed in wet sheets and nightgown.  FREEZING, of course.  Everything was soaking wet including a diaper full of shit.  I ran in and threw a towel in the dryer and got John to call the nurse while I started trying to strip the bed with her in it and get a dry hospital chux under her.  Got the sheets, blanket and mattress protector off the bed and another chux under her, ran and got the towel out of the dryer and put it over her while I went and ran water in a basin and got washcloths and then bathed her off.  I was answering questions from John for him to answer the nurse on the phone.  He hung up and shouted down the hall that she would be coming at 3:00ish.  M’kay, fine.  She showed up and DID NOT BRING A NEW CATHER WITH HER.  This was a new one for me.  She said she thought she’d just wiggle around the old one and see if she could get it to work.  She explained that she would need to go back to the office to get one.  Well, I had already deflated the old one and removed it, I mean it was just in the way and doing nothing whatsoever.  So no way it was going back in.  She went out and rummaged around in her car and finally found a kit.  I happened to have an extra catheter.  So we poked around and never got any urine back and had no more to try with.  She left and I scheduled Paula to come and give it a shot after she left the office at the home health care place.  She brought 4 catheters and several kits for me to have on stock and we used all but one of them and never got any urine back in the tube.  She said it was time to let H have a rest and she’s coming back tomorrow.  woo-hoo…

Aren’t you glad I don’t have pictures with my post today?

John wanted me to call this diaper incident F.L.  Full Load.

Hello, people!  It’s been a while!  I am happy to report that I am still alive, only just barely it seems.  I am having a hard time shaking this funk I’m in and it really makes it hard to post.  Ideas that seem good to me late at night while watching Ferguson or trying to go to sleep, seem ridiculous the next day.  I am being a little depressed and my mind doesn’t want to work fast or freely anymore, just like the rest of me, I suppose!  Haha.

John was only off one day this week and it was yesterday.  We frantically ran around for three hours while the caregiver provider person was here and managed to take in lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant, which I felt like was splurging because everything is so expensive now.  And I don’t just mean at the Chinese Restaurant, I mean everything.  At this point I am thinking the only way we can help pay for college is if we rent out the daughter in servitude.  I know what you’re thinking.  If she is in servitude, how will she go to school that is getting paid for?  Vicious circle.  I guess we could sell the younger daughter into servitude and she could support her sister’s need for knowledge, but I am thinking that would create a good deal of resentment and bitterness.  Just guessing.

That leaves us with Henrietta and I just can’t see anyone paying me for taking her off my hands.  Correct me if you know something I don’t.

I was soooo gonna do a post on Wednesday.  Things stewing around in my little head, fingers itching to type them out… whatev.  H. woke up that morning distressed that she was having stomach cramps, “all night”.

me: Why didn’t you ring the bell?

H: Oh, I didn’t want to bother you!

me: (teasing) Well, when you need to use the potty you have to tell me.  I can’t read your mind….!

H: (Smiling) Oh I don’t want to bother you at night, Krissa.

So all this happened BEFORE breakfast.  This is important because it is an UNSCHEDULED POOP, or a “U.P.”  This set the tone for the day.  She ate half her oatmeal very slowly and did the characteristic whiny and sing-song voice.  I knew she wouldn’t eat all of her food just because that is what she automatically does if anything is amiss in her life.  Unscheduled Poo, hangnail, cramp in her calf, cold chill while getting a bed-bath, coughing due to allergies/sinus drainage, whatever.  But, when I brought her the egg and little piece of sausage with a roll and jelly she, ate everything but about a bite and a half of the egg and a little tiny piece of the bread.  It’s like she was thinking, “I have to leave something on the plate, I’m sick!”

So when I picked up the tray and saw she hadn’t finished everything I knew it was going to be a day of pitifullness and staying in bed.  Which really does suit me fine.  She discovered other problems during the day and had a bout with indigestion and we did Malox and Sprite and a teaspoon of baking soda in water and everything we could think of, I don’t know how bad it really was, she was teary eyed all day and acting ready to cash in her chips cause he couldn’t burp.

Thursday she decided she needed to stay in bed because, “Maybe I had better just stay here… you know, to make sure.”  Make sure of what, I have no idea.  Make sure she can burp?  Make sure she only poops between the hours of 1:00 and 2:00PM?  Make sure I can still run up and down that long ass hall, (and getting longer all the time), 400 times a day?  Make sure the clapper on the cowbell she rings isn’t worn out from the day before?  These are questions I now wish I’d asked her.

So that’s it people.  That’s all I got.  Sorry I don’t feel the least bit like trying to produce anything remotely amusing.  I am hoping this will eventually pass.  I am sure it will.

Henrietta has been completely consumed with the death of legendary doctor, Michael DeBakey.  She has launched into gushing praise of him, in apparently mid thought, a number of times and caught me completely off guard.

While putting her to bed last night…

H: He was 99 years old!  And he did SO MUCH for Houston!

Me: …Who?

H: 99!

Me: WHO?- (I was unaware this was going to be an ongoing thing at this point.)

H: Yes!  He was!

Me: HENRIETTA, WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

H: Oooh, Dr. DeBakey!

This happened over and over with her out of the blue announcing things like, “Did you know he’s a Catholic?!”.

Just a few minutes ago I looked in the living room and she was sitting there watching the news, bawling.  I just left it and later she started going on about how “sad it is that he died…” I finally told her that was crazy and he was a 99 year old man living in a broken down little old 99 year old body and he had done enough for the world to warrant an excuse to leave and go on to better things.  Her response?

“Ooooh, (sob), Yeeeeees!”

To be such a devout Catholic, she has consistently missed the entire message about death and heaven and rewards in the afterlife, all that.  This has happened over and over with other people who have died and her attitude is always that it must be the worst thing ever.  I really don’t think she believes in heaven.  And like I said, she is a super-duper Catholic, not just your run-or-the-mill kind.  Weird.