HalfAsstic.com

The stupid “caregiver provider” never showed up today. She made it out here last Friday and did the requisite 3 hour stay, only I was here for most of it. She also gave H her bed-bath and dressed her and pottied her and whatnot. It was very nice. However she is supposed to be here every Tuesday and Friday at 1:00. I called the office at about 2:00 and they called her cell phone and left a voice mail message. About 3:00 she called me and said she had been at the emergency room. She said she is pregnant and had started bleeding. Then she said she is OK they gave her some medicine. She wants to come tomorrow morning and do the whole thing then. How should I feel about someone who supposed to be preggers and having bleeding problems showing up and horsing H around and picking her up and all the job entails? I am betting her employer doesn’t know she’s pregnant. If she really is.

I was looking at Twitter and noticed that Holly over at Anglophile Football Fanatic, commented that the UPS man rang the doorbell and she went into a meltdown of sorts trying to make sure “the boy” didn’t wake up. This got me to thinking about how determined I was that my kids could sleep through anything. I thought I had the perfect plan. I wanted them to be able to sleep through any kind of noise or silence, so, every other night, for a very long time, from day one at home I left the radio on or the tv or something noise making. Not very loud, but loud enough to be heard. And every other night it was off and there was silence. Wanna know how they turned out? Well, I have to say that when they were little it did work. Noise never bothered them, but, they didn’t have to have it to sleep, either. However, now? The older one needs quiet and the younger one, noise. I AM TELLING YOU I DON’T THINK THEY’RE MINE.

Well, I got up this morning and left with elder daughter to go to Walmart to get her a new battery. She wanted me to go with her as she is a pansy and scared to do anything like that by herself. I think she will be able to handle it now. TWO HOURS later they are finished putting it in. I mean “installation” is free, but, my gawd, she could have done it a fraction of the time, I know I could have.

Anyway we came home and I fed H and younger daughter left for work. I knew my SIL was coming today but she told me she had no idea what time when I talked to her on Friday. She usually only comes to visit her mom, once a week for a couple of hours and she only lives about 35 minutes away. So when H rang to get on the pot I put her there and was delighted when SIL showed up with her “significant other”. So it is written that she has to get her off the pot, clean her up, (that’s putting it delicately), dress her, put her in the wheelchair and roll her in. Actually it is not written but that is, by gawd, the understanding. And it’s one that I like. She does this on an average of once every 4 or 5 months because she manages to get here late enough in the day to miss out on all of this kind of activity. And this irks me no end. She is not good with money at all and used to ask for gas money when she was about to leave to go home because she didn’t “have enough to get home”. However when H first moved in with us she would come to see her at least 3 times a week and actually spend time with her. Now? She shows up last thing usually on Sunday night and stays about 2 hours, sometimes 3 and is on the computer almost the whole time.

Today she got here at 2:00, which is good for her, and stayed until 4:50 which is very unusual, but it’s because I put in a movie that I knew she would stay and watch until the end. I told her the computer was “down”. I swear I don’t mind her using it, but she will stay in there on it and not visit with her mom at all if she can. She hasn’t asked us for $ in a long time and she better not, either. She let it slip that she and her “boyfriend” were in Galveston this morning and none of the gift shops were open. (Well, I guess so. It’s SUNDAY!) I said, “Galveston? What did you have to do in Galveston?” She said that they just “…drove all over and then went aaaaaall the way up on the northeast side of Houston and circled around,” (wide arm gestures), “and then came over here.” She spent all day riding around in a car when she could have been here visiting her mom and relieving me from…”care duty”. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know she is going to ask us for gas money sometime in the near future.

When H first started staying with us she would just show up unannounced and walk in like she owned the place and I remember one time she surprised me and I said “Oh, (SIL), I didn’t know you were coming today.” and she said, (I swear this is true), “That’s the whole idea.” She stuck her nose into every little aspect of her mom’s care and talked to her in Spanish right in front of me about what I was doing and if she was getting good care and what not. I could tell enough about what she was saying to know that. Well, as soon as she decided everything was going well and I knew what I was doing, she dropped us like a hot potato.

Well, I have gone on and on about it and it is not a Father’s Day subject at all. BUT IT JUST CHAPS ME ARSE!

I have virtually nothing to post about today. Background info, anyone? H’s poop stories? I gotta tell ya’ the poop stories wear a little thin with me pretty quick, depending on what’s been going on in that department. Sometimes I feel like I am bursting at the seams with valuable information about all things BM. And, hey, deep down inside I just KNOW I must share and keep you, my dear reader informed. But, really. After a while, isn’t it just a crutch? Yes? That’s what I thought, too.

Thankfully, (for you), H is a bit constipated right now. Too much info? Oh well.

How ’bout my situation. You may or may not remember when I first started posting me mentioning that I don’t drive. The reason for this is that I’m partially blind. Actually, half blind. Literally. Now you are thinking that I am blind in one eye because that is the obvious thing to think. But I’m not. I am exactly half blind in each eye. Weird, huh? It is due to a brain injury I had when I was two weeks shy of 15 years old. I was in a car accident while a friend of my cousin’s was driving my little boyfriend and me to a nearby town to go to Sonic. At least that might be the story, as is typical with brain injuries I don’t remember anything about what was happening that night or anytime around there, before or after, for a good while. Apparently he was going very fast and neglected to turn with the road, when he ran up in someones yard and hit a tree. I was reportedly turned around backwards talking to my boyfriend who I had stuck in the backseat. I hit my head against the window, windshield… something and had neurosurgery to remove an “acute subdural hematoma” in Lafayette-stinking-Louisiana. Now, I don’t want anyone living in Louisiana to be offended because of my feelings toward it. The fact is that in the body of the state of Louisiana we lived pretty much in the armpit. Or maybe somewhere between the asshole and balls, take your pick. It was an incredibly tiny little town called Vidrine, just outside of Ville Platte. There were a few very nice people there, but the majority of the population made hillbillies look cosmopolitan.

Anyway, putting aside all my feelings for the Neanderthals that lived there….Oops. I digress. Again.

OK, back on track. I got shipped to Lafayette via ambulance and a super smart guy dressed as a neurosurgeon saved my life in short order.(Yes, brain surgeon. Think Jethro Bodine’s wannabe occupation.) There are all kinds of dramatic things to say about the whole affair. My heart stopped a few times on the way there in the ambulance. Yes, paddles, “CLEAR!”. All that . I was paralyzed on my right side for a while afterwards and had to learn to walk, feed myself, brush teeth, write, control the weird muscle spasms that seemed to be working my body for me. Oh! and control my bladder. I wet the bed a few times after I got home before I regained the use of my right side, which was a long, painstaking process.

The emotional problems that just almost go hand in hand with head trauma were particularly hard for me to handle. I’m not saying harder than they were for anyone else who’s ever had a head injury, but it was, the hardest part of my experience. Well, that and being a bald 15 year old girl was particularly hard. Ya know they shave your head when they do that crap. Not a good look when your extremely skinny anyway. Can you say, “concentration camp prisoner”? That’s what I looked like.

My memory has never fully recovered, although I am able to get by without anyone noticing too much with the aid of lists, lists, lists of the things I need to remember.

But, without a doubt, the single hardest remaining thing that hangs over my head and will never let me forget about that part of my life is my vision loss. The injury wasn’t to my eyes, it was to my optic nerves so you can’t look at me and see that I’m partially blind.

And here is where my report, thesis, docudrama, long-ass boring…post was left after Wordpress deleted at least 2/3 of it.

Now. As I was saying… AGAIN. There is an optic nerve going from the right side of both your eyes to the left side of your brain and one going from the left side of both your eyes to the right side of your brain. Well, the swelling on the right side of my brain, (where they went in and removed the hematoma), caused damage to that optic nerve. And, as we all learned in biology class, nerves don’t regenerate. So, the really bizarre outcome is that from the middle of both eyes to the left, all the way, I have no vision. So in order to see something on my left I have to look directly at it. Well, actually, I have to look at the left side of it to get the entire thing in my view. It is a very precise thing. If I focus on the head of a pin I only see half of it. There is no leeway.

This whole fiasco happened in April of 1978. 30 years ago. That is so incredibly hard for me to believe. And after 30 years you would think that I would have stopped running into things and stumping my toes on door facings. Yeah, well you’d be wrong. God knows that I would certainly think that I should have by now. All the toes on my left foot have been broken, usually one at a time. Several of them more than once. My left shin is all dented up and has a good many scars. Yes. Dented. I mean not huge dents, but, in good light, in the summer, (when I’ve shaved), you can see little dents up and down that shin under the skin. I must have incredibility strong bones, cause I’ve never broken anything but my toes. (Knocking on wood right now…)

I had my license for years before I gave up driving. I was a fairly unsuccessful driver and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. I haven’t had it for about 20 years now and I DO miss it tremendously. Cabin fever can run high around here. There are times that I would just love to be able to get up and walk out and go somewhere. Just me. By myself. And take all the time I want and do what I want. I so took that for granted.

I think the very hardest part of all this was raising two little girls and not being able to do the regular mommy stuff with them that all moms do without getting somebody else to haul us around. I could never just pick up and take us to the park or shopping or anywhere unless we were asked to go by someone else. I have cried many, many tears about that. Wrangling rides for them to go to…things, was an occupation in itself.

It’s amazing to me that there is no peripheral vision test at the DMV. Apparently they don’t think it’s important. HA! Shows what they know.

I love shopping with John cause I just put him on my left and we hold hands. I don’t have to be super aware of my surroundings, watching out for displays and people. My friends never want to hold my hand when we go shopping. *sigh*. I gotta get a better group of friends.

I just clicked “save” and it did! It didn’t erase! It doesn’t hate me today! YES! Wordpress now validates my existence. This can’t be a good thing.

Let me just say that I had a LONG riveting post ready to …post, when I hit “save” and roughly half of it disappeared. I wanted to cry. Mostly cause I poured my soul out in it. MY SOUL. POURED OUT. ALL OVER THE PLACE in that stupid disappearing thing. Now you will have to wait to see it until I can collect myself and do it all over again! I am so mad at Wordpress right now! It’s not enough that it’s screwing up all my pictures when I try to put in more than one. AND it won’t even let me type captions between them. It is now eating my posts and laughing at me. I KNOW IT’S LAUGHING AT ME!

I am sorry that I don’t have more than this to put up here today, I need to regroup and stab, er, did I say stab? I meant take a stab, yeah, take a stab, yeah, sure that’s what I meant….. what was I saying? Oh yeah! I’ll knock something out tomorrow. (maniacal laughter fading out…)

Well, it could explode. Things seem to grow so larger than life in there that it’s a distinct possibility. I went in her bedroom to take her breakfast and she said, “Krissa, I wanted to ask you, when you emptied my trash can,” she gestured to it, ” did you find a fork in it?” I said no, was there a fork in it? With the obvious question being WHY was there a fork in it? She said, “Your comic husband! The other night when you went with Kessa to buy her a new dress I was eating my supper and dropped my fork so I rang the bell for John to get me another one. That crazy man, picked up the fork off the floor and threw it in the trash!”

At this point I need to point out that this description sounds EXACTLY like something John would do. He teases everybody and she is no exception.

So I said to H, “Well did he ever get it back out?” To which she replied, “NO! He didn’t and I told him, ‘John don’t throw the fork in the trash!’ and he said, ‘Why not? It’s dirty!’ and I said, ‘Because John, you have a dishwasher! You can just wash it!’ And I don’t think he ever got it out!”

I told her I’d call him and ask. Well, he got totally pissed at her and said something to the effect of “Oh for God’s sake! I didn’t throw the fork in the trash and I told her I didn’t! She had food all over the floor and I threw it in the trash! I never said anything about the fork being dirty! She never said anything about cleaning it or putting it in a dishwasher or anything to indicate she didn’t understand it was FOOD I WAS PUTTING IN THE TRASH!”

This is how stories grow and grow in her little head. And that is nothing, my friends, er, friend. (as readership is down, dismally.) Let me regale you with the twisted evil story of how she attempted to get me committed to an insane asylum. Ok, not really, but she pretty much wants me chained here with her and THAT’S THE SAME THING.

To start off with she had been telling John and I assume my sister-in-law, (who comes to visit an average of once a week for, usually two to four hours), that I was getting drunk every night when John was at work late. The truly astounding thing here is that JOHN is the one that has a, (as in ONE) drink when he comes in from work and she sees him drinking the same looking screwdriver every evening. I guess she thinks he has a real affinity for OJ. He told her repeatedly that NO, I wasn’t even drinking and she was wrong and she would purse her lips and shake her head and tell him that he was just taking up for me and he was refusing to see how bad it was and I had a drinking problem. I have to admit this made me so furious I couldn’t see straight. I didn’t want to confront her with it at first because it would be obvious that John had betrayed her trust and told me something that was told to him in confidence. I kinda went from that, to wanting SO BAD for him to tell her that he believed her and I was going to go into rehab, you know, for my DRINKING PROBLEM, so she was going to have to go to a nursing home for a while, till I got back and could take care of her again.

Anyway she did this from time to time with no apparent reason for doing it or not doing it. Could never figure it out. And then my mither came to see me and we had several projects going around the house. H, presumably, felt…left out? ignored? abandoned? not enough attention was heaped upon her? Keep in mind that she had the bell and when it was rung I was going and doing whatever she needed.

One evening she told John that my mom had been doing all the work and I was drinking the whole time she was here. Doing NOTHING! I guess the first thing that upset me was the fact that I WORKED MY ASS OFF. Secondly, my poor mom is 70 years old and could hardly do EVERYTHING we did. Thirdly, as you may or may not remember, my natural father was an alcoholic and my mother is a big time tea-totaler. If I was going to drink anywhere it would not have been with my mom here and while she was doing “all the work”. Once again John told her that was nuts and once again she didn’t believe him.

The Final Chapter of ridiculousness is when her old hospice nurse, Connie, came by and picked me up to go and eat down the road for a quick, early supper one evening when the girls were here to stay with H and get me the hell out of here. At least for a little while.

H takes her supper anywhere between 7:00 and 7:45. It is almost always at 7:00 and occasionally as late as 8:00. Well, her supper was already done and waiting in the fridge for me to warm up and serve and I knew this, but either of my teenage girls could easily have fed it to her. She KNOWS this. So we ate, drank ICED TEA, and came home. I walked in and picked up the phone as I headed for the kitchen to prepare her food. I called John and told him I was back and asked how his night was going. Told him I was fixing her plate and taking it to her. I hung up to do so. I found her very belligerent and in a very bad mood with me. This has never happened before, it’s usually attacks behind my back. So I asked her what was wrong and she said she was HUNGRY! It was 7:05. I acted like I didn’t know what the problem was and said, “Oh yeah, it’s 7:00. Time to eat! Just like always!” I gave her her food and drink and set everything up and left the room. Later, when I came in and was putting her to bed, she was pissy and I asked her what was the problem and she said, “Krissa, look! When you leave like that nobody here knows if you’re coming back!” I am still astounded by that statement. Of course “nobody here knows”, translates to “I don’t know”, but this really threw me. I told her of course I was coming back and I had never in my life left and not come back. She had her lips pursed and head shaking the whole time. I knew where this was all heading and what she was thinking. That I was out at a bar with her 65 year old hospice nurse getting drunk and I can’t rule out chasing men. Oh, and I would have to assume dancing topless. I mean wouldn’t you?

Well, sure enough, days later she told John that I had gone out “drinking” with Connie and came in very late and didn’t get her fed until very late and I was drunk and rough when I put her to bed. Well, this time John said that no it wasn’t late and he KNEW it wasn’t because I called him when I got home and I was fixing her supper when I called. She let that go and said I was drunk and he said no, I had simply gone to the Mexican restaurant down the road, eaten and come home. She was having none of it. Then when Millie came to visit she told her all about it, too.

This time I wanted a confrontation. I was cool to her for about 24 hours and she finally asked me if she had done something to offend me. I snapped the invite up and said “Yes!” I told her that I was tired of her lying to John and Millie about me and I resent her being so put off by me wanting to leave and do things occasionally with a friend. She said she was sorry for what she did and she was going to pray for forgiveness and started crying. I have to admit that it felt so good to just have it off my chest that forgiveness from me came very easily.

I still don’t go do things with friends very often, but it’s not and has never been because of her disapproval, I just don’t get the chance when there’s someone here to sit with her and there’s something for me to do at the same time. I know some day she is going to be gone and I will miss her when she is, but sometime I just wish I could get up and leave like everybody else can. When John is working crazy hours and is exhausted day after day when he comes home, 4 or 5 days can go by with me not going anywhere but to the mailbox and straight back. And that gets old. Older than H.

This is by far the longest post I have ever done and I am wondering if I should put it up since it is all bitchy and sooooo long. I guess I will and we will see if readership drops off to nothing…..AN EXPERIMENT!

The word today is all is well. This morning when Kes went into the office after a class and was told that Mr. Fox, (the jerk with the detention slips), had been straightened out and she had no more detention. Then she over heard several people talking about it and they were all offended for her. I am sure that made her feel better. It did me. And Mr. Fox can relax and not have to keep looking over his shoulder for a wild-eyed, crazy, bitch looking for blood. The dirty bastard.

Kessa called me today from work all a dither because she got a DETENTION SLIP today. You would have to know what a consummate perfectionist/conformist this child is to truly understand what a completely surreal experience this makes. In her entire academic career she has never EVEN been told to be quiet, sit down or even turned in an assignment late.

She is a senior and is in all AP classes and taking dual credit classes with the collage. The dual credit classes are over now as school will be here shortly so she doesn’t have to get to class until later in the morning than a lot of the other kids. But not all of them. So she had to be at school at 8:00 for an AP final. School starts for regular classes at 7:30. Today, for some unknown reason, there was a little man sitting out in front of the building writing detention slips for everyone who went in after 7:30. She, true to her nature arrived for an 8:00 class at 7:31. He stopped her and asked her for her name and wrote her a detention slip because it was ONE minute after 7:30. She is not good with confrontation with people in authority positions, (with me being the obvious exception to that rule), so she just took the stupid slip of paper and went inside and took her final, (and aced it!), and when she went to the office to do her office aide stuff she showed it to a lady there and she laughed and said she will take care of it.

If I don’t’ have WRITTEN PROOF, TOMORROW that this is taken care of and there is nothing on her spotless record, I will go down there and find that stupid little man and he will be searching for detention slips via his ass for a long, long time.

Yes. There have been exciting developments on the poop front. At 2:45pm H rang the bell for me to get her off the bedpan. I went in there and she said she hadn’t been able to do anything and she thinks she just needs to lay on her side for a while and then try again. So, rather than get frustrated that the whole day is slipping away and she isn’t even out of bed yet, I am hopping that in about 20 or 30 minutes she will decide she can shit and we will be done with that. Then I will get her cleaned up, dressed, hauled into the wheelchair and rolled into the living room where she will sit happily in front of the tv the remainder of the day. Then I will go out and frantically weed, weed, weed! Just waiting for that bell to ring. Could be aaaany minute……

At 3:17 I was finally rolling her into the living room and she announced that she wants to make some phone calls. So I snatched the phone up and dialed the number she handed me. Disconnected. Henrietta-”Oh, that’s so sad!” Me-”Why’s it sad?”. H-”Well, she’s dead or in a nursing home!” (like, you ninny, anybody can see that!). Me-”Or she moved in with someone else.” H-(acting like she didn’t hear me), “Yes, she’s in a nursing home.”

Next number on her list. Me-”That’s the wrong number, Henrietta.” H-”No, I copied it down!” Me-”Yeah, well, it’s wrong. I got another family.” H- “Do they know Thelma?”

Me, right now-God, please let me just get outside.

3:33pm.

I am in a cranky mood and everything is getting to me today. Stuff that I usually just ignore. I took H in to use the bedpan and when I was leaving the room she said, “I’ve got my bell here, I’ll call you when I’m done.” I felt like yelling, “Of course you’ve got your bell! I have never hidden you bell! That is where your bell lives and it is always there! Yes, I know the drill because for three and a half years I have been depositing you on the bed pan and getting you off when you ring the bell. I KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO RING THE BELL WHEN YOU ARE DONE! WHY MUST YOU ANNOUNCE IT AS IF I DON’T KNOW THE RULES TO THE GAME AND HAVE NEVER PLAYED BEFORE. ARE YOU AFRAID I AM GOING TO RUN IN HERE AND YANK YOU OFF THE POT MID-SHIT? CAUSE, HEY LADY, I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THAT IS THE EXACT KIND OF MESS THAT I HATE TO CLEAN UP AND I WILL DO WHATEVER I CAN TO KEEP IT FROM HAPPENING! YOU COULD MAKE THE GAME SOOOO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE BY RESPECTING THE FACT THAT I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING AND AM NOT A COMPLETE MORON. not completely.

Then I went upstairs and…eh, “picked up” my 17 year olds room. I took out a metric ton of trash and threw the duvet up on the bed and piled up all the clothes she needs to sort through to determine clean/dirty. Some stuff was still carefully folded, (by ME), and other stuff was obviously worn. Not my problem. But I basically got the room ready to be organized. I might point out that she has had another little girl living here with her for a couple of weeks and that has significantly added to the mess problem. This chick is not going to be here for that much longer and the room had better not ever get in this condition again.

But, anyway, she and same girl came flouncing in after school and trotted their happy asses up stairs to change clothes for work and trotted back down and left and NEVER SAID ONE WORD TO ME. NOT “HI.” NOT, “BYE.” NOT, “KISS MY ASS.” NOTHING.

Today is my birthday and the little brat didn’t even wish me happy birthday. I may kill her, clean up her room, and take it over for…something, for me. Yes. That’s the new plan.

Today, I was becoming a bet worried because Cam still hadn’t gotten his crutch pads that I had ordered back on the 19th of April. So I called up the company that I had placed the phone order with because they never sent me any kind of email confirmation, just took the money out of the account and that was all I knew was done for sure. The guy that answered the phone the first time was fairly nice. His name was Jeff. He was helping me and looking up the info and we got disconnected. So I called back. I thought it was the same guy, but, maybe not. Anyway he said he had the tracking number and he gave it to me. I hung up and went to the USPS on line tracking thingy, entered all 2 million digits to find out where the package was and it told me that it was delivered this morning at 10:33. OK, so I dashed off an email to Cam to see if he got it and he said he did and he is gonna call in a bit. However! Before I emailed Cam I called the place back because I had placed the order on the 19th and it showed that it shipped it on the 29th. The SOB’s waited 10 days to mail it. So I was pretty steamed. I was polite and pointed out to the guy that it was 10 days before it left and he said that he didn’t think that was what that meant. That the 29th was the date it arrived at the site in NY to go overseas. It said “Electronic shipping info received, April 29, 2008. I explained how it works and that when you ship something you immediately get a tracking number and that is when they get the “electronic shipping info”. RIGHT THEN. Anyway, I could practically hear the gears grinding in the guys little brain as he processed this, and changed his tune from mildly irritated that I was using his time on a question that he didn’t want to have anything to do with, to defensive, (and oh lets just dispense with the niceties), an asshole. I told him I can’t believe you people waited for 10 days to ship them, especially when I told the lady I placed the order with that they were for a soldier over seas. I said, “I am not happy at all about this.” No shouting or arm waving. ( I suspect that he would have known if I waved my arms because in the next few sentences he proved to be extremely sensitive and one can only conclude that he MUST BE somewhat psychic. Apparently my declaration of…unhappiness threw him right on over into battle mode. He said, “Well, you can just be unhappy.” Needless to say I was thrilled to have permission, cause hey, at that point it was all I was waiting for. I said something like, “Oh. Good.” Then I questioned him about the policies there about shipping or something and he was increasingly defensive. Then he said he could see that they had shipped it USPS and it had been sent back to them and it was resent on the 29th. I said OK, why was it sent back. He didn’t know, it just was. I said OK, this was good to know and I wish he had told me earlier and he said he couldn’t because I was “yelling and screaming”. Did I mention that he, (IN ADDITION TO BEING PSYCHIC), has an extremely active imagination. This is a very good thing. Most of the time. However, one should never, I repeat, NEVER take it out and play with it at work. Not in a customer service capacity, anyway.

I just reread this and see that it is one loooong paragraph. Well, having dealt with a class A jerk has made me irritable so TOO BAD! NOW I’M YELLING AND SCREAMING AND YOU CAN BET I’M NOT GONNA FIX, WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A TERRIBLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR. GO AHEAD AND CALL MY SUPERVISOR! I DARE YA!