Happy Mother's Day

This has not been a good day, well, weekend. TAFH came in Friday night. Cool beans, right? I had to work and had a pretty good time, actually. Then, Saturday morning Mom and I took off for breakfast downtown. We had a nice meal. She left to work a bake sale and I went to the library to research. While there the author of I Heard You Paint Houses gave a talk on his book and the various mob connections in the area. After that I went to see Iron Man again. Sounds pretty good, right? It was. Friday night and Saturday morning were the best part of my weekend.

Right after the bus pulled out of downtown to go to the mall so I could get to work, I got a phone call. Mom was being driven to Mercy Hospital from Honesdale because her leg wasn't working right. I just stayed on the bus and rode it right back to where I'd gotten on, making a number of phone calls the whole trip. It's a damn good thing I finally put minutes on the silly cell phone Friday night! I had been down to 10 cents. My brother and I stayed at the hospital until it was clear she was being admitted. They ran the usual gamut of tests minus the MRI. That is scheduled for tomorrow. It turns out the neurologists believe she has complex migraines. She has a history of migraines, so this really isn't too much of a shocker. We found this out this morning.

Mom's Mother's Day hospital stay isn't really the bad part and as I'm typing this I'm calming down even more because the whole weekend could have been so much worse. The problem stems from TAFH's OCD anal-retentive fucking attitude. Obviously, I had a disagreement (to be polite) with the woman today.

It was all about the house. She insists on cleaning, or re-cleaning, the house every time she comes in because we don't do things to her exacting standards. She calls it "a pig-sty." I am "lazy" because I don't clean it from top to bottom, just the way she likes it, every day. I will freely admit I don't clean as much as I could or even should. I refuse to run the vaccuum and do the dishes only when I absolutely have no other choice. I'll do anything else, though. The house may not always be immaculate, but it's always at least neat.

Now, in her defense (sort of, since she was only using it as an excuse for her normal behavior), she kept insisting that the cleaning we had to do was all for Mom's benefit, because Mom shouldn't have to come home to it. Well, after an hour of being pecked at I decided to leave the house. Without doing what she wanted me to do. I did some of it, gathered my things and told Grandma I was going for a walk. She followed me out the door and tried to tell me off. I am proud of the fact that her face is all still in one piece. If I could have, she'd be sharing Mom's room due to extreme bodily trauma and I'd be sitting in jail right now, happy as a clam for finally tearing her smug, superior face and attitude to shreds.

My only regret right now is that I broke down and told Mom what happened. Mom's in the hospital with migraines brought on by stress and work and I had to add to it. Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I'm sorry. My brother, who was told by TAFH what happened, asked me not to say anything a bit too late. He was surprisingly restrained in what he said to me. Other than telling me I have no common sense, as usual, the ass, he told me I had to control my emotions. I told him I control them a heck of a lot more than he thinks I do. I need to use better judgement, though in when to control them according to him. Usually he just comes solidly down on TAFH's side, so as annoying as his "advice" was I was proud of him for not just jumping on me totally.

I told Mom as I was walking to the crick. There's a spot there that I can sit and relax. Today I cried a bit with Mom on the phone and then by myself. Then a wind came up as I was sitting there with my eyes closed. It dried my tears and kept going until I felt some of the pain lift away. Between it and the sound of the water, I was able to calm down. I'm still upset. I will be for a while, but not nearly so much as I was. I may not be the most devout Pagan, but every once in a while They make Their presence known and I'm grateful for it.

I wrote a lot more than this while I was sitting at the hospital with Mom and my brother. I'm much calmer now, though and don't need it all written out.

TAFH is giving me the silent treatment and she and Grandma have gone to visit Mom. I warned Mom and told her to be nice. She said it'll be difficult, but the pain and drugs will mask any distant behavior, I think. She's more upset with TAFH than me. I just have to get through a few more hours and TAFH will be gone and all will be back to normal. Well, as normal as this household gets. I imagine Grandma will have words for me.