Crazy Talk

When I was out of state to visit my Grandmother (GM) I visited with my NM not only that night I described in my last post but after a good day with the kids and I doing some fun things and a visit with GM we stopped by my NM’s so she could see the kids once more before I drove back home the next day.  I really had the guilts from my GM being happy that I was getting together with my NM.

Now I see that she played the more polite role the first night when the kids were swimming in her community pool, sticking to topics of polite chit-chat such as how am I liking my job (I was surprised as she never asks).  I think she was intending to find out how much traveling I was doing.

We ended up going to a deli nearby and at this meal the kids and I were quickly “over” her conversation.  Once again she droned on to them about how they could excel at a sport if they really wanted to.  She kept talking this usual way without engaging them and none of us had anything to say to her. 

After hardly speaking for two years, my NM had these interesting moments:

When we saw each other the first night she said, “Oh, you cut off all your hair.”  Ummm, it is on my shoulders, and only a few inches shorter than I used to wear it.  Then the 2^nd night she asks me how I am liking the shorter hair.  I thought she was referring to herself.  I said I liked it.  She said, Oh you do?  I realized she meant my hair.

During our deli meal when she kept talking she says to the kids, “Your mother was so cute when she was little.  She had long blond hair…..big blue eyes.  She was so cute”  We all ignored her.

After dinner back at her place we didn’t go inside but took a quick walk to look at a fountain and I was really anxious to get to our hotel and I was walking in front of her, heading toward my car in the parking lot.  The kids are behind her.  She says, “You never used to have a butt before and now you are all filled out.”  I turned around and gave her a look to convey that was an asinine thing to say.  I turned back around.  She continued, “Oh, not that it looks bad—it looks good.”

 Put a fork in me, I was done.

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But here’s the latest insanity.

My GM is in a nice rehab/skilled nursing center and receives physical therapy every day except Sunday.  She will most likely be there for another 6 weeks.  She is doing as well as can be expected from voluntary hip surgery, but her upper body is weak.  Once she is released she will have a home health care aid come to her house for 5 hours a day, maybe longer, and she had this service before.  She will need to be stronger as she will not have a full time aid.

For the past few years my NM has lived in a winter home that is near GM from November to April and a summer home from May – October (because GM helped her buy the summer home—remember, my NM told GM she would not be able to visit her unless she forked over thousands of cash to put down).

Well, guess who has left for summer home and left GM at rehab with no one else she knows around.   All I have heard  now in every conversation from GM is how wonderful my NM has been since her surgery on March 1^st, bringing her food and treats and doing her laundry. 

NM has left for summer house because she always intended to leave last week of April so that she could plant her garden by May 1^st.

Her vegetable garden.  At her summer home.

So, if a worker at the rehab center asks my GM where her daughter has gone, does my GM say, "Oh, she drove several states away to go to her summer home so that she can plant her garden by May 1st like she has wanted to." ??

Have I mentioned she is retired?  When we had a frank conversation in March and I stated that she had many opportunities to visit the kids but never did my NM defended herself, “But I was working then.  Now I’m retired!”

She is retired.  She has no where she needs to be.  Except she had to be at summer house to plant vegetable garden by May 1^st.

I work outside the home.  I get a set number of vacation days a year.  I cook every day when I get home for 5 of us.  Three kids in three different schools—Readers, you get my life but NM and GM (now) does not.  My NM planted the seed to GM that after NM leaves for her summer house, I can come visit.

And since she is still in the nice skilled nursing/rehab center, why does GM ask me to drive 10 hours each way or spend hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket???  She is asking for me to bring her over to her own place for some Chinese take-out food (or bring some take-out and hot coffee to her, and to do her laundry in her machines because the nice skilled nursing home would wash her clothes with other people’s at the same time and she does not want that.  GM was telling me this (like I said I thought she needed help if she was getting discharged) and I said, “Do your laundry?” and she said, “Yes, it is very easy—you just put a load in the washer and then the dryer.”  I was silent but what I wanted to say is that I know, I do about 10 loads a week at my house.

I vented to DH about the insanity.  My BFF lives in the same town and had visited GM and could pick up her laundry and take her Chinese food if I asked her to.  DH said he could drive there and knock everyone’s socks off about how spouses do things for each other……but frankly I feel a few days, hundreds of dollars in gasoline or a plane ticket to do a load of laundry is a bit much.

GM has a nephew visiting there on business in 11 days from now and she has asked him to do these things too. 

I don’t know.  I think everyone has gone crazy.