HalfAsstic.com

Well, it’s all over and I am glad that life is going back to semi-normal.  John is back at work and that store is TORE UP.  At least it was when we had to go up there twice yesterday to check on it.

That’s how weird his employer’s are.  This is a huge national chain that, for the most part has all their stores staying open 24/7.  They close at 4:00pm on Thanksgiving day and are closed on Christmas day.

And that’s it.

They apparently don’t remember what it’s like to just close every night like regular folk do and are completely freaked out paranoid at the thought of any of their stores being left uninhabited for an entire day and night.  So all the stores have to have a manager go up there twice during the day of Christmas and walk through the entire thing, checking all the coolers to see if for some bizarre reason they have stopped working and go through all the bathrooms and backrooms and storage closets and walk-in freezers and coolers and behind all the counters of this 88,000 sq. ft. store looking for… I don’t know what.  It’s ridiculous.

Did I mention they’re paranoid?

He’s gotten it all back in shape by now and he’s off tomorrow, so… YEAAA!

Yesterday was a success.  I decided that I was scaling back a lot and not breaking out every single specialty  Kes and I could whip out.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie (1), dressing, gravy, and I think that’s it. It was bare minimum.

On Christmas Eve I finally heard from SIL late in the day and I asked her to bring the green vegetables.  She told me that H had asked her to make a roast the day before and she was going to bring that, too.

OK, fine.

She showed up and had a piece of meat that she later admitted having got at some Mexican meat market and she had no idea what cut it was, but it was NOT a roast.  Tough. As. Shoe. Leather.

She also just said, “I didn’t bring the vegetables.”

That was the only thing I asked her for.

We had her, and her “friend” that she didn’t tell me was coming, her 4 grown kids, along with one of the kids boyfriend, (also didn’t know was coming), and her two grandkids.   So an extra 11 people for supper.

It was interesting.

Anyway, things went along fairly well and it was all over almost as soon as it had begun.  The two nieces of John’s that have 5 and 6 kids a piece didn’t call or show, (thank you God), so it could have been much worse and much more crowded.

Last night we were taking bets on how the “roast” was going to affect H’s “delicate digestive system”.  She went with indigestion and saying that “…it was that roast…it was greasy… she should have boiled it longer.”  There was nothing greasy about that dried up hunk of ass meat.  But I won’t be telling Henrietta that.   Some nasty stuff, that.

Well, here it is.  Sunday.  About twice a month my SIL sees fit to come and visit her mother for an average of about an hour and a half.  NORMALLY she shows up long after the “poop-time-frame”.  Today, however, she miscalculated and appeared before H was off the bedpan.  So, by default, (and CAUSE I SAY SO), the bedpan duty and diapering and dressing of H falls to her.

I was sitting in here doing bloggy stuff and I realized that she was running the water in the tub in the guest bath.

Well, this is odd.

Normally, you just go in and dump the, ahem, contents of the bedpan into the potty and run water in it from the sink and dump again and wipe out whatever… stuck, with a bit of toilet paper.  You also dump the plastic, Folger’s coffee can full of urine from the catheter bag into the potty, fill with water and repeat.  All of this while wearing latex gloves and then following up behind yourself spraying the facet handles and bedpan handles and coffee can handles with spray bleach.  Not to mention the interior of the receptacles.

Well, cuorisity got the better of me when I heard her spraying something over and over and the bathtub running.

Crap, the only thing in there that sprays right now is the spray bleach and last time she used it she ruined the bathmats… somehow, both of them.

So I go in there and she has the toilet brush in one hand and the urine bucket in the other and she is “cleaning” the thing out and dumping the contents into the bathtub.

“Millie!  You don’t do that in the bathtub!”

“Oh, I didn’t dump the pee in there!”  As she sticks the toilet brush under the tap.

I just left.  It really doesn’t matter at this point what I say, cause it all has to be cleaned anyway.  People really do bathe in that tub.

Does anyone want to come and visit me?

Hello gang!

I would like to report that on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, my SIL called me and said that she had gotten the ham she had agreed to bring and it was a nice big spiral cut.  She made a point of saying that it was already cooked and mentioned it a couple of times.  Ok, great.  I’ve gotten spiral cut hams before and yes, that’s the way they come.  Cooked.

I guess I wasn’t too worried since I was doing a huge turkey and I was sure there was going to be enough for everyone.

The following morning, Thanksgiving Day, she called to say that she was going to bring it over to my house to heat up.  OK, fine.  She then told me that she was going over to her ex-husbands house for a meal at noon with her kids since we were going to eat in the evening when John got home.  I told her to be sure and bring a pan to heat the ham in since all my sheet cake pans were being used for cakes and casseroles and what not.  She said she’d buy one and I told her not to bother, I’d wash it, just use a pan from her house.  She told me that she doesn’t own a sheet cake pan, or any other pan other than a skillet and pot.

She is 55 years old.  How can this be?

It gets better.  I asked her what time she was coming over and she indicated not until shortly before we were going to eat.  I told her the ham would have to heat for longer than that and asked her to read the directions on it.  She insisted that the ham only needed about 20 minutes to heat and went over to it and told me it was 10 lbs, would only require about 20 minutes to heat.

I said “Millie, read the directions to me.”

Millie: deep sigh, “Heat for 15 minutes per pound…  hum…”

“That’s two and a half hours, Millie.”

She said she’d take care of it and I assumed she was going to heat it at her ex-husband’s house, at least partially.  No.  She showed up with a cold ham and we hacked off a bunch of slices, put them in the microwave with a little bit of water and heated them up.  It worked out fine, but, man! how could anyone grow to be 55 years old and know so little about something so simple?

And the question of the day is, what made her so sure it only took 20 minutes to heat the ten pound ham?