clickmom

tired and mad

Last week when I was at the nursing home rehab visiting the husband I stopped by the physical therapy office to see how he was doing. It was weird that no one was communicating with me, especially since it should be obvious to them that the husband has no idea how he is doing. Anyways, the PT took me to the head PT who said something about they could keep him for wound care (seriously? I was so tempted to show them the year ago photos from the nightmare on the husband's feet which I have been bandaging all along) and I said out loud that he wouldn't tolerate that and today, while I am still recovering from my week spent with Josh the grouch, I walked sweet pea, saw that she had liquid BMs and was just so defeated at the thought of her getting sick from the park near the nursing home/rehab and needing to go out while I was visiting the husband and thinking about bringing her with me, but not if she was going to loose control of her bowels in the facilities .... and it was all too much to handle so I called the husband and told him I wouldn't be coming today. I needed to stay home in case my best friend needed me. And then I just wasted the rest of the day away, but I am mostly okay with that. At this point I am too tired to care. Way too tired. 

I did wander around the yard a few times looking for .. WARNING RANT AHEAD .. the fucking golf balls I saw all over my fucking back yard yesterday when I was mowing the lawn after being charged by the repair guy to take my mower away for a week only to tell me that the service light comes on at random times and you cant reset it the way you'd reset a car's service light. So, even though the dude serviced my mower this spring, the light came on and he needed to pick my mower up and keep it for a week before returning it, with nothing to do for it and charging me over $200. And then to add insult to injury I realize that the dude has been totally radicalized, like to the extent that when I asked if he thought if you know who should go to jail he answered "Do you think the president's son should go to jail?"  like the good little conspiracy theorist cult member he apparently is. Ducking and dodging just like he was trained to do. cuckoo cuckoo. But really, this makes me uncomfortable being a tribe member. Is there a liberal lawn mower repair person out there? Don't know. Anyways, back to the golf balls.  So, I see about 7 freaking golf balls as I'm mowing. I'm getting angrier and angrier with each ball.  I'm being careful not to mow them but I don't want to keep turning the mower on and off so I try to remember where they all are. After I finished mowing, I stood on the back patio, as one does, admiring my straight even mow lines and the invigorating scent of freshly cut grass when I hear the crack of a golf iron hitting a ball and then the thop thop thop of that golf ball bouncing off of trees and then it falls smack right in the middle of my yard. And I was so furious I screamed out something to the golfer, which I can't recall except for thinking at the time it was lame and not specific enough or threatening at all. But then a young male voice shouted SORRY over the fence and I am LIVID and quite sure it is the very same neighbor who trespasses on my lawn and trims the grape vine on my side of the fence, or does temporary fence repair to her shitty DIY fence. The same neighbor whose lawn guys tossed her rocks over the fence. The same shitty neighbor who never said HELLO to me when I moved in and hasn't said a single word to me since. The same shitty neighbor who has overflowing trash cans right up against her shitty DIY fence which feed the neighborhood wild animals who drag her trash under the fence to enjoy it in my backyard. Yeah, that piece of shit neighbor. I'm pretty sure I saw 7 balls while mowing making the one I heard and saw being the 8th golf ball.  Today I managed to locate 5 of them. If I was smart I would have grabbed some old golf clubs from my house and shot them back over the fence towards their windows. This makes my blood boil. I can't even begin to tell you how angry this makes me.

Then the husband calls me fucking screaming and hysterical because they told him he wasn't getting PT because they switched him over to being there for wound care only. I screamed right back at him. YOU CAN NOT SHOUT AT ME  YOU CAN NOT SHOUT AT ME. I wanted to break things. I am so glad there were no human witnesses. So, long story short, looks like he'll be returning any day now. Fuck. I am not happy about having to amp up my level of 24/7 diligence and hyper awareness. I want to cry. This did not feel like a break at all. Where did the last month go? I want to run away from home.

A&B

Someone told me that I’m angry and bitter so here it is:

I dropped Josh off at his college apartment on Saturday. It came after him quarantining (essentially in his bedroom) for an entire week. He only came out masked up to get food that we ate outside together at dinner. Or sometimes he would tiptoe around the house and get food when I was out with the dog. He didn’t try to hide his misery. He was snapping at me and rolling his eyes every time I opened my mouth. It was quite miserable. By Friday night I had to remind him that nothing I said or did made it possible for him to be in a room with a rude old man that went to a conference full of people with Covid symptoms, denying he had Covid, until he had managed to cough on everyone for five full days And that he needed to NOT take out his misery, no matter how understandable his miserable situation was, on me because all I was trying to do was support him. He heard me but really struggled to not be nasty. I am concerned. I haven’t been this happy to drop a kid off somewhere since I dropped a very teenage Evan off at college the first time. I didn’t get back from dropping off until 6:30 in the evening and then I made myself some dinner and collapsed on the couch.

Yesterday, after a single night of being on my own, I got up threw on some dog walking clothes, grabbed sweet pea, headed out to the park for a couple of hours of strolling around the park and photographing trees, then we showed up at the Rehab and brought the husband a little homemade picnic lunch before heading back to the house . The husband calls me in the evening and asks me if I am lonely. What? With a tone though. A legit TONE! As if he was enjoying himself thinking how desperate for company I must be in the absence of my miserable kid and his entertaining (haha!) self or something What?? Except it was so freaking weird because it felt like he was confidently anticipating that I was going to say YES I AM SO LONELY I COULD CRY but the truth was that I was nothing except RELIEVED. He was (and I say this in the meanest sounding way possible) preparing to revel in my unhappiness. I swear. I was on the phone and no one could see me but my eyes were popping out of my head and my mouth was hanging open. I heard the tone in his voice loud and clear!! I almost could not believe what I was hearing.*

Some evil thinking crossed that demented mind. But when he asked the question instead of declaring my nonexistent pathetic loneliness I laughed at him and said “Are you kidding? I just got off the lawn mower and now I’m going to make exactly what I want to eat for dinner. NO! Not lonely. I am thrilled to only have to worry about myself!” I can’t pretend to miss him when I’m so happy to let someone else take responsibility for him.

* it’s hard to imagine that someone who has spent the last 3 1/2 years traveling back-and-forth from his bed to a recliner in front of the TV has anything meaningful to contribute to a conversation. Not to mention someone who can barely remember yesterday. And that is the reality that I live in and with. As I walk through the house during a typical day I will regale the husband with stories of every single minute detail of anything I have seen or heard or thought that could potentially turn itself into a story because I feel this responsibility to enrich his time and entertain him. He contributes nothing to the conversation. He never even talks about his personal philosophy or tells stories from his past. Our children have mentioned that they don’t know any stories from his childhood, young adulthood, early adulthood. Nothing! They don’t even know stories from a timeline where they exist that came out of my husband. And it’s fascinating to me that he would assign such a high value to himself merely existing but not contributing - outside of being a person in the room. I wonder how a person can think so highly of themselves, assume their own value to be so limitless, that even in a state of zero contribution and total dependence and without feeling the need to actively be the high value person they want to be seen as still assume that their presence contributes to another’s happiness and well being. Do nothing, be nothing, make zero effort and retain value. Fascinating.

F'ing pissed

During this past month, 

Me: UTI requiring both a course of antibiotics and sulfur drugs

Me: Skin pre-cancer on my nose requiring a chemo cream which (naturally) gave me the rare side effects of nausea and extreme fatigue in addition to the expected effects of turning my nose into a painful piece of dried jerky.

Husband: Falling Falling Falling Broke his back. Hospital. Rehab. Rehab lifts it's mask mandate during this current surge (F everyone. Seriously) so now we play the never fun game of WHO IS GOING TO GET IT NEXT? which hopefully, is not someone on the husband's floor.

Josh: Goes to language conference where there are ZERO covid measures. No testing, no masking. On day FIVE as Josh put it "The old guy who has been coughing the whole time has tested positive for covid." Josh tells me he has been masking but in a classroom with the old POS the whole time. But, I'm not 100% sure he is telling me the truth about masking or telling me what he thinks I want to hear. I know he hasn't been wearing the best masks, because somewhere down the line he switched from N95 masks to surgical masks. NO COMMENT. But Josh tell me that he overheard one of the callous old women at the conference remark to her friend how all the young people were wearing masks. (Sidetrack: I totally wonder how my mom, if she were still among the living, would be behaving during covid. Her social life was precious to her and I am not sure she would be playing it safe) 

So, Josh had to return to the house yesterday, (never before in my life have I wanted a guest house more than I did yesterday) one day after the old coughing guy left with covid, because the Typhoid Tom only left the conference a day early, and I sealed off his bedroom hallway the best I could. But I have no doubt that if Josh tests positive that I am the next to follow. It feels absolutely inevitable. I believe the HVAC air intake is in the ceiling between our two bedrooms and it would be foolish to believe that despite the plastic barrier I put up to seal off the hall where he needs to walk back and forth to the bathroom that if he does get covid it would be contained. The air flows right out of his bedroom and down the stairs to the house. I'd have to turn the A/C in the house and ask him to have a fan blowing out of his window 24/7. I can't go to that extreme. 

I'm just praying I can avoid long covid. And who knows? Maybe Josh's less than ideal surgical mask did the trick? Maybe the old coughing dude had all of his immunizations and was one of those folks that wasn't highly contagious. Who knows? Right? Nothing I can do to make humans care about each other and act accordingly. Now, while I wait to see how this turns out the big question I have is what should I do about myself? Should I go out there in the world and pretend I am not potentially being exposed in this very moment? Should I go expose someone else's kid? Someone else's grandma? I mean, I am already being more thoughtful than 99% of the fuckers I share the planet with by wearing my N95 indoors. I know it does more to protect you from me than it does to protect me from you. Good news for you, but let me point out that it has never before been necessary to protect anyone from me before today.  You're welcome fuckers. I hate you all and hope you get what you deserve. Especially the fucking asshole old man who went to a conference and coughed on everyone for 5 days before admitting he had covid and left. I hope he suffers greatly. 

TISJosh

If I die in my sleep tonight please let everybody know that I ate the leftover feta pasta in the refrigerator because I didn’t realize that it’s like eight or nine days old

not nice

Evan came up to see the husband today. We showed up at noon with takeout for lunch and the husband was in bed out cold fast asleep. He happily got up, I strapped his back brace on, and into the wheelchair, we went out on the patio and sat and ate and chatted for almost 3 hours. The husband was happy, engaged, participating and even attempted to boast that he is the shining star of the rehab, being as young and fit as he is. I could not let that one slide by. May have called him on it. But then the husband was done. Completed. We cleaned the picnic area, brought him back to the room, and he made it clear that he had had enough. Everything changed, his whole demeanor. He went from head of the table merriment to "Okay, you can leave now." So, we left, and that's fine, but I am sitting here feeling quite unnerved at his ability to turn on this charming buddy persona for short periods of time. It's the no longer smooth transitions from one version of him to the other that have clued me in to the extreme differences between them.

It kind of feels as if I married an actor, whose entire personality was not genuine, but a role he was playing. And then as the years wore on he began to tire of playing the role, and slowly, piece by piece he let the assumed identity fall away and be replaced by his true self, a less appealing version of an identical looking man. But he would never commit entirely to either the role or his genuine self and would slide back and forth depending on the occasion. Sometimes he would present himself randomly, substituting his other persona in the same situation where he previously asserted as the opposite. Those events would be especially confusing for one has observant as I think I am. And there I was with the memory of the role he had played so well and not understanding where that man went. And now that he is old and less capable I can see him switching back and forth, phony to true, phony to true,  and it is crystal clear to me. It took me thirty four and a half years to really, deep down understand that he was just pretending to be the person he thought he needed to be. And I bet he would never even believe it today if someone told him that he used to be ... not nice.

better dirt

I am so profoundly tired. I just don't even know how I am slogging through every day. I feel like I am wearing thick absorbent clothes that I have just lifted out of warm buckets of water they are weighing me down. Every step is like walking though pudding while dragging my heavy with water pants along too. It even feels like my shirt is weighing me down. But that might just be my back, which I suspect is in the process of caving in on itself. Hurray for degenerative disc disease! I wonder how short I'll get. Even breathing feels like a bit too much. When I become conscious of it and force myself to take a deep breath it feels quite strange.

The husband is beginning to tire of the rehab. I, on the other hand, am impressed by the care he is getting there. No complaints from me. Josh took off for a week long language thing today and I am super beyond happy for the solitude.  I like being alone. I think that if I can get the whole week alone it'll do me some good. They're already talking about at home physical therapy after the rehab and I dread that. It just feels so gross. I don't want to have to witness the husband's bad attitude with some nice person who comes to the house. I'd much rather just gift his physical therapists cookies and give them that "Sorry" expression, as I flee from the building. "He's your problem today!"

I did go to the woods with my camera twice in the last few days. The second time I went I was attacked by mosquitoes- I am talking DOZENS of bites all over the back of my shoulders where the shirt lies flat on my skin. They didn't bite me on any part that got sprayed, but my back was like open for the taking. Now I am just waiting for the next news report to start scaring me about encephalitis or something. I got some inspiration though!  And hopefully some good shots. They felt more inspired the second day (the mosquito day) than they did the first day back in the saddle. I really need to be in the right head space when I shoot, so, not surprised I needed a day to warm back up in to it.

My step sister came up with a great idea to name the backyard deer. I am going to name them after my dad and the husband's dad. It's two very chewy old man names, and I kind of love it for the boys. Also, their antlers are coming in differently, so for now I can tell them apart by their antlers. The one named after my dad, I, has antlers that look kind of slicked back, and the one named after my father in law, H, has antlers that grow straight up. I set the trail camera up today. I just think I might need to do this from a different angle than how I watched all of the deer for the one year of deer watching. Maybe I will combine trail camera photos with actual photos. I'm still figuring this one out. 

It's going to rain overnight and into tomorrow morning. I love rain. I always feel like the rain waters my plants better than the hose, even though the plants are all in containers. My garden is fantastic this summer. My peppers are growing like crazy. Same thing with my tomatoes and eggplants. My ground cherry plants are bigger than ever before, and even the zucchini that I started way too late has been giving me a couple of good zucchs. I think it's because I put a different kind of fertilizer on them- tomato fertilizer! Also, no more cheap big box store dirt for my plants. Next summer I am going to go with quality.

TISMF

OMG. I took the day off from visiting the husband today. And I ended up doing exactly what I said I was going to do. I got up early, headed to the dog park with Sweet pea, brought my camera ended up bumping into a huge bunch of the friends and characters that I love from there. Alternating walking and chatting with taking some photos. Came back, ate something, mowed the lawn (2/3 of it anyway) took a long shower, got into my clean sheeted bed freshly showered and took a hard 2 hour nap, slipped into some clean pajamas, made my favorite salmon dinner (with veggies and marinade in a parchment pouch over rice) and now I’m just trying to decide if I’m going to stay awake for the meteor shower tonight.

How was your day?

two little 1 year old bucks

So, I've become a wee bit obsessive about looking out for these two 1 year old bucks that come through the backyard together just about every day. Some days they just lounge on the edge of the grass for hours while the setting sun sends yellow light slices across their backs and the grass around them.I think they have claimed our yard as their yard because I see them often and also because that would answer the question of what exactly keeps huffing at sweet pea from behind the trees so much so that now she seems a bit leery of walking around to the far reaches of the backyard.

And, in what has to be a "Hey you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" level type coincidence, I went in search of some mouse traps I bought last summer (and should have set up because now I really need to) I spotted the open box that held the game cameras  that I used to do the year long backyard project. I found myself staring at them longingly feeling quite melancholy for the days of downloading thousands of photos from the night before and watching the unseen backyard nightlife world from my very own backyard come to life.

HEY! YOU GOT YOUR PEANUT BUTTER ON MY CHOCOLATE! 

Hell to the mother fucking YES I am planning on dusting off and setting up the old trail cameras to watch these two little clowns. Now I just need to find them a good nickname. Initially I called them Yin and Yang a few times but that felt like it could be offensive to people so I am trying some new male buddy name combinations out. I am leaning towards Frick and Frack, but I do recognize the meaninglessness of that name combo to anyone younger than me. Josh eye rolled so hard I thought he might never see daylight again at that brilliant suggestion. I also have to double check and make sure it doesn't have a meaning that I am unaware of. Josh also did not know who Spanky and Alfalfa were. Pardon me, while I prepare my Efferdent.

Lenny and Squiggy sounds good to me, as does Tommy and Chuckie, but I really do think I like Frick and Frack best of all. I'll do my research now, thank you.

In case anyone is wondering, the husband is in a nursing home rehab. They make him move some part of him every day and he is exhausted and I am very thankful. The place is pretty spartan looking- despite their calendar art sunset, beach scene, macro flower photography on the walls, but the people are super nice and seem to be very on top of his care. So, I feel much better about things. 

TISMF in response to how am I and how is the husband.

Took sweet pea out for an hour before heading over to the nursing home this morning. My dog park friend called me. She needs someone to talk to. I just don’t have the emotional capacity right this second for other people’s stuff though and managed to get her off pretty quick. She just got back from three weeks of vacation and only wanted to complain about the bed and breakfasts being dingy and the food being expensive… to me! Literally the entire time she has been gone I have been battling a UTI, smearing chemo cream on my nose while supporting my medically fragile husband through his hospitalization and transfer to the nursing home. No one better whine to me about their vacations.

Anyways, then I headed over to the nursing home. So much closer than the hospital! And I can even take back roads most of the way there and avoid the highway. Much more pleasant.

PT actually saw him before I got there and apparently his BP did not plummet as drastically when he stood up and they had him walking up and down the hallway. He was in good spirits. I told the doctor that he has body dysmorphia and he pinched the loose skin around his waist and screamed that he was fat right in front her. SWEET VALIDATION! Can not tell you how perfect his “demonstration” was- demonstrating my accurate diagnosis! He is down to 217 pounds. He is scrawny. He thinks he should weigh less than 200. I told him that if weighed less than 200 the state would step in and remove him from my custody.

But he was less unhappy about being there as he was on the first day. I think because going home seemed like a possibility. I still suspect the nutritional supplement had something to do with this drop in BP. I just can’t bring myself to start him up on it again. Everything in my gut is screaming that it is the cause. We’ll see how he does this week when they can work with him every day.

I stayed for a couple of hours, stopped for groceries on the way back. Not my usual store, I hit a different TJ’s. My cashier was this sweet young kid, who was wearing a mask (which I appreciate) and when I got into the car I called the store to say something nice about him to the manager. So, they answer and I say “Hello, I just checked out of your store and Isaac was my cashier. I felt like I needed to call you…” (And at that point I heard exactly why my children are always shocked when I say nice things because I realized that between my neutral tone and my neutral voice this could 100% go in either direction) “and tell you what a sweet and charming young man (yes, I said “young man” like I’m 85 or something) Isaac is. He is such a lovely representative for your store. I just wanted to recognize him.” Or something like that. Then I hoped that they keep score or something so they can tell the kid he did good today. I’m just sitting here smiling remembering how cute he was talking about how much he loves summer fruit.

Anyways, then I came back, finished mowing the lawn because yesterday I was about 20 minutes from done when the Chinese takeout arrived so I just took a hard left, parked the mower by the back door and called it a day. No overgrown lawn was going to stand between me and my garlic eggplant with fried rice. And it was super good so I was happy to be eating it fresh and hot.

Then, after the lawn, I tried to print some photos but had to admit defeat when my 10 year old software wouldn’t open anything up and now tonight I’m going to have to hook up the new computer I bought last summer and start paying monthly for an updated photoshop package. I hate that fucking recurring monthly payment. What a Fucking scam!

So, I was trying to challenge myself with some word games and puzzles (How freaking creepy is it to use FETAL and SEMEN in the first place let alone in the same game?) because as long as I can do those swiftly I know the head gears are still turning. And now I’m probably going to put the phone down and make some dinner for me and Josh. Today I’m making lemon rice (Greek) and shrimp scampi with some arugula with a Nice lemon vinaigrette and of course assorted tomatoes I grew on the Patio.

Maybe after dinner I will get Josh to help me with the computer. I’ll ask, we’ll see how grouchy he is about it.

Until I wrote this all out I would have said I didn’t get anything accomplished today.