Monday, June 30, 2014

"Entertaining"


I had a dinner party. TOG and DYS and my Christian Nut Job (CNJ) houseguest who I welcomed into my home “for a few weeks” two weeks ago tomorrow and who asked me yesterday if it was ok for her to use this address when she renewed her CA driver's license. Well, let’s just see how the dinner table conversation went.

Me:   CNJ texts that she’s an hour late and still stuck in traffic and I can’t delay dinner because my rice has already cooked itself into risotto and my peas will become pea soup. So, let’s eat.

TOG: (Driving his scooter up to the table without bashing into a single thing) What’s that smell?

DYS:  It smells like cooked meat to me. Lamb?

Me:  Yes, with shallots and pears caramelized in butter and honey. And saffron rice and fresh peas.

Time passes. The rules about conversation are that I have to start any conversation. Yeah, that’s the only rule.  I have to ask somebody something specific about their life because by the time anybody thinks to ask me how I’m doing Boko Haram will have brought our girls home along with their grandchildren. And you know how they were coming for the purpose of seeing the house fixup which has now been completed? Spoiler alert: nope.

Me:  So, how is it going with you?

DYS:  Well I have to return my rental car Sunday so I’m going down my list of survival supplies so I can huddle inside the trailer until my next court date in September.

Me:  You can’t walk to a grocery store?

WISIMH:  Of course you could, but it would involve walking uphill both ways. In fairness, it’s probably a one mile round trip to the WallMart/grocery store/dollar store mall over the hill. In fact it’s downhill almost all the way back to your trailer, except for the final uphill climb into the high-rent trailer row you inhabit at the top of the trailer park with a view overlooking the feed store and crushed gravel and stone yard.

DYS:  No.

More time passes. My dinner is delicious by the way. Amazing and lovely and perfectly seasoned and nobody notices. Pearls before cloven-hoofed fat pink people. 

Me:  So how is it going with you?

TOG:  I’m doing better but did you see that letter I brought from Chase bank with 2 credit cards saying we get 1% back on all purchases? It goes on for pages but I challenge you to find the APR.

Me:  We don’t even have accounts with them do we? I thought I told them to put me on their “Do Not Rape and Plunder” List. Why the hell would I want to play Find the APR with that despicable bank?

WISIMH:  The remainder of my life is too short to read junk mail from banks I hate because ahead of that on my honey-do list is to try to make ends meet and organize fixup and clean up details and get this money pit sold before I hang myself from the rafters. I have bought power tools that would enable me to drill a hole through one of the beams in our lovely open-beam ceilings. Just ahead of reading junk mail from Chase Bank on my to-do list is re-learning how to tie a hangman’s noose.

Me: So, what else is new? Anybody?  How’s the food?

TOG: It’s very good. And I can chew the meat because it’s soft enough. Which is good because I’ve been having some dental problems lately and I’ll now proceed to relate them to you in disgusting detail while you’re trying to eat.

And he does, and DYS embellishes with her own personal dental tragedy experiences, including how when TOG and DYS were kids they both developed pathological fear of dentists because they had permanent teeth extracted at the age of 5 without anesthetic because their permanent teeth were coming in already rotted.

WISIMH:  Pretty sure I remember your permanent teeth don’t begin to come in until you’re about six. Also, pretty sure the (primary) bacteria that causes tooth decay, which is streptococcus mutans, which sticks to teeth by colonizing in the sticky plaque that is formed when sugars in food are not regularly brushed off your teeth and thus break down and stick to your teeth, can't actually stick to your teeth until they emerge from your gums. Therefore, no matter how appalling bad your oral hygiene practices are, if the tooth is not yet erupted from beneath the gum, plaque cannot form on it and thus the bacteria cannot form and attack the tooth enamel and cause decay. Therefore, pretty sure your teeth cannot erupt already decayed. What you’re actually telling me  - besides that you probably never brushed your teeth - is that you must have been put to bed each night with a baby bottle filled with Kool-Aid and your teeth rotted within fifteen minutes of sticking their cusps above the foxhole of your gums.

But hey, we’re eating here and who wants to hear what I learned all those years ago in dental assistant school when we could be talking about other captivating details of your pathetic lives like the stuff Tex left behind in DYS's trailer and which she's holding hostage until he starts paying her some spousal support.

I re-surface to consciousness, returning from my happy place, to realize we’re now talking about DYS’s adult daughter who has Lyme Disease that she treats intermittently with antibiotics.

WISIM: Hey you incogitant idiot! Did you know antibiotics aren’t effective unless you continue the course of meds until the parasites are killed? All you do if you take meds for one week out of three is breed a strain of stronger parasites. Now we’re talking about what it feels like to have those parasites swimming around in your eyeballs and beneath the surface of your skin.

Me: Eating.

Fortunately, CNJ arrives at this moment to save the conversational day. And this is a good thing because CNJ is a sort of black hole sucking up any conversation on any topic that doest happen to be about her and her problems and how every day in every way she’s getting better. So there's no sitting down and being introduced and seeing what conversations might be underway. 

CNJ:  I had an interesting class. I’m going to a peer-counseling class so I can volunteer to be a peer counselor to other people who are as messed up as I am. Today in the class, one of the guys had a seizure. Only me and one other guy knew what to do, which is to leave the guy alone until he comes out and not to surround him and stare at him or to get hysterical and shout we should be doing something which is what everybody else did.

TOG: Yeah, one time when I was a counselor for disabled students a girl who had seizures started to have a seizure and I yelled at her “Stop that!” and she did!

DYS:  Amazing. I didn’t know you could do that.

WISIMH: You can’t do that, you brain-dead blockhead. The only way to stop a seizure is to administer antibiotics intermittently over long periods of time. Duh!

CNJ:  So we couldn’t get people to move away from seizure guy and of course he was so embarrassed when he woke up and we (!) were all (!) standing there surrounding him and looking down at him and he yelled at us to move away. He left before the paramedics arrived.

Me:  Yeah, embarrassed. And probably because they’ll take your driver’s license away if you have a seizure that is documented by paramedics.

WISIMH: And not by a bunch of panicked wackjobs.

After dinner, DYS took her leftovers and her leave and CNJ went to the dollar store to buy more bulk dried food  and five-layer bean dip to leave on my kitchen counters and TOG took his bath, leaving me to do a ton of dishes which I did resentfully and with the grace of a frustrated shrew who feels others are taking advantage of her but sees no point in trying to teach grown adults simple manners. Later, it turns out TOG had trouble in the tub and called out to me but I didn’t come to his rescue to talk him down from his panic attack cliff  because I was making too much noise slamming pots and pans back into cupboards and sweeping up broken wine glasses that I had dropped getting a plastic wine cup to take to TOG at his request when he began his bath. Praise Jesus, he managed not to die and finished up just in time to watch The Big Bang Theory because it was one of his favorite episodes.

When it was time for me to drive him home it was dark.

TOG:  Are you ok driving in the dark?

Me:  No. I have the night vision of a stone covered up by bigger stones.

TOG: Why didn’t you say so? I could have skipped The Big Bang.

Me: I did mention that, actually.

TOG:  Really?

Me:  Yeah, you missed it because you were asking me where the remote was for the fan by the comfy chair and I told you I bought a fan and didn’t realize until I got home that it doesn’t have a remote, and you were too busy telling me I was wrong and I probably threw away the remote in the packaging because surely they don’t make fans without remotes any more and I was saying apparently they do and thanks for managing to insult me without breaking a sweat.

TOG:  I was kidding!      

Me: I may have mentioned I no longer think criticizing me for fun is as funny as it used to be.  

TOG:  Geeze, you’ve got no sense of humor.

Me:  No. No, I do not.

In my head I found peaceful silence. There is a pile of ashes still smoldering in the corner of my head once filled with my respect for TOG. It gives off a soft ghostly flickering glow that illuminates other shelves in my head filled with my sense of humor, joy, compassion and conversational skills, not to mention my flair for cooking, entertaining and hosting dinner parties: long unused around TOG but well-preserved and ready for use should I ever encounter intelligent life again.  

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Desideratum*


This is the actual text of what passes for an actual conversation between me and TOG, which I have meticulously not edited for spelling or punctuation.

TOG: Just though id prep you so it wouldnt be a surprise – bloody urine at 7:00 cath. Im going go through two or more cycles before calling urgent care. Might just be a onetime thing   We shall see.   Oh yea. Good morning

Backstory:
Three days earlier, having recently switched to a new blood pressure med that should also control atrial fibrillation, I experienced a-fib after dinner, following modest cardiac exercise working in the back yard garden. With my old meds, I’d take an extra pill and go to bed and it would stop. It didn’t stop when I went to bed, instead waking me up at 3:00 AM with a pulse of 145 and slightly elevated blood pressure.  I drove myself to the ER where I spent the next 12 hours having pointless tests done while the new med was delivered via IV and slowly and eventually brought the a-fib under control. I returned home at 3:00 PM the following day, exhausted from: 1) not eating; 2) not sleeping; 3) having a racing heartbeat for hours that leaves me feeling like I’ve run a very long and strenuous race; and 4) trying to understand what the hell people were saying because I'd forgotten to put in my hearing aid.  And I didn’t call for help or whine to TOG because he has the compassion of a tree stump and about the same capacity to help in an emergency. I took care of it. So, just so you know, that was a life-threatening emergency. Bloody urine is not.

WISIMH:  Blood in your urine is a symptom of a scratch in your plumbing made by the catheter, and it will clear out on its own. Or, as we learned the last time you made a BFD out of it, you can go to urgent care and get them to flush you out. Oh, and I am not your mommy. But I pick my battles these days, and by pick my battles, I mean more of a wu wei kinda thing because the rest of my life is not time enough to teach this guy about boundaries.

Me:  Ok, give me the time of upcoming caths so I’ll be prepared to hear from you,

WISIMH:  And so I won’t plan to actually do any of the chores I might have scheduled or the errands I just might have planned to run while I wait at your convenience, because apparently you can’t dial 911 or have the residential bus take you to urgent care. Or, heaven forbid, be a responsible adult.

TOG: Next is 1 then 7. That’s the sked but my anticipation might move them up a bbit. I wAnt to take into consideration how i feel and react to meals. BTW the Boost is great, Thnx

Me:  Please keep in touch. Don’t want to bug you about other symptoms but let me know what’s going on. Trust your instincts.

TOG: I’m going to edit out the first part of the reply because the details of the color of the water in the toilet and comparisons with past experiences would provide more information than necessary, And plus, details would probably disgust anyone with greater sensibility than a coyote eating road kill, or a weaker stomach than another coyote eating the first coyote who was run over while eating road kill. Which is ironic because the text ended:  … but then im overly sensitive. Maybe its just my time of month

Me:  Don’t trust your instincts.

So, I could get angry here because the difference between TOG’s condition and his reaction and my recent condition and my behavior underline the underlying problem that made me put TOG into an assisted care living situation in the first place. Not to mention that his “completely oblivious” assumption that I’d put aside whatever life I might happen to have to wait around for him to decide whether to co-opt my day taking care of things he should be perfectly able to take care of himself is so typical that it’s not even worth me mentioning some alternative actions he might take; and because they would merely be variations on the theme of “go fuck yourself”. And plus, it’s hardly oblivious. It’s coldly calculated manipulation for sympathy and compassion that has instead has worn my last nerve down to numb disregard of his childless narcissism. In other words, I give zero fucks about it.

Remember how TOG said next cath was 1 pm but might be sooner? Yeah, that.

1:19 PM
Me:  So how did the 1:00 PM cath go?

TOG: In progress. Was napping. DYS cominbg to visit   Let you kniw abt cath in few min.

WISIMH:  Couple of things wrong with this. First, napping?  Must be a pretty desperate situation. I too tend to nap when I’m anxious and might have a life-threatening medical emergency that would require a loved one to drive across town at a moment’s notice and take me to urgent care. Second, your sister is visiting?  Seriously?  And she couldn’t be expected to drive you to urgent care should the need actually arise and it turns out you’re not just messing with me after all?

TOG:  Wow  While I watch carefully nothing during catheterization while urine was flowing    fine then I took the Kath out And a clupke clots came…. (let’s just stop here shall we? I think you can get the color of this conversation and imagine the rest of the detail, and if you can’t then god bless you).

Me:  Sounds like good news. Or at least no ER trip for now. Keep me updated. I won’t have my wine cooler until you tell me I won’t have to drive you the ER.

WISIMH:  Just my little way of letting you know I actually DO have a frickin’ life you selfish man child. I used to make excuses for this kind of thoughtless behavior until it was pointed out to me that it’s anything but thoughtless. It’s intentionally designed to control me and to either piss me off in which case TOG is shocked at my angry reaction that came out of nowhere in his hour of need. Or, I can chose to simply concede and in refusing to call him on his selfish and needy assumptions thereby perpetuate this crap. Heads: he wins; tails: I lose. At least this way, I have something to complain/blog about.

TOGL  Ok. I agree it was odd the wY it worked,. I had never noticed WHEN the blood got into the toilet… clots… dark…thick black… (other disgusting detail that why the hell would anybody really want to know let alone bother to detail in texts) … Drink your heart out   Wrse comes to worse I can wait til tomorrow   I know what its like to go without wine?!!!!!

WISIMH:  I once told TOG that apropos of blood, any female past menarche has had considerable experience with seeing blood in the toilet, and doesn't need to have a Tristram Shandy detailed account of details to get it; but then we got into a bloody pissing contest that finally ended when I admitted that external genitalia are clearly superior to internal genitalia in every particular. In his final text, notice that although he doesn’t have his period after all, he is suffering because he’s pretty much had to give up wine, poor baby, so I should still pat his little head and tell him he’s a good little man. And also notice that while I have been released from being on-call today, I am still on call for tomorrow. Which, as Miss Scarlet once said, is another day. Oh, and good morning to you too.

* Desideratum: something that is wanted.   My desideratum: leave me alone, you callow, puerile, self-absorbed halfwit.

If anybody has any suggestions about what would be a better way for me to interact with TOG, I am always open to any advice that doesn't involve felony mayhem.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

I Am Man. Hear Me Interrupt to Whimper


TOG lives two blocks up a gentle hill from a shopping center with a large grocery store. His scooter easily makes the trip and he has a custom-made (by me, of course) shopping bag that fits over the back of his scooter seat. He has actually gained a few pounds recently by drinking those supplement shakes with added protein and calories. They sell in 12-packs for about $23.

What I say in my head, it has recently occurred to me, is like Luther the President’s anger translator: the guy who takes what Obama says in measured tones and  reasonable language; and expresses what he really means using profanity and what I can agree with myself is straight talk scrubbed of the diplomatic euphemisms. Here’s an example from a snippet of last weeks text conversation:

TOG:  I’m running low on Boost Plus. Will have to make a run to Vons soon.
Me:   Yeah, you don’t want to run out of that stuff.
WISIMH: By which you mean, you’re hoping I’ll offer to drop by with a couple of 12-packs for which you’ll “forget” to reimburse me. Yeah, no.
TOG:  Or, I suppose I could order it online.
Me:  Good idea! You can order it from Amazon when you order your porn or whatever else you order.
WISIMH:  And conveniently forget that it’s my credit card that now covers Paypal and is the default "buy it now" credit card, and offer to reimburse me for whatever useless crap with an electronic remote you buy on Amazon monthly, and then conveniently forget to reimburse me. BTW, did you know that you can order stuff on Amazon and enter your very own credit card?

This week’s text conversation:

TOG:  My Vons is out of my Boost Plus. They said they’ll be getting some soon, but since you and P are coming to dinner Friday, how about each of you bring me a pack of Boost Plus as the price of admission.
Me:  Funny! Too bad you waited until you were out.
WISIMH:  Ok, first of all, you daft bastard, why did you wait until you were out? Oh, right. You’re an indolent sluggard who expects me to rescue you.  And plus, Vons is out?  That’s like WalMart being out of cheesy poofs. No. You’re a lazy lying slug with a smoldering shell.

So, having learned passive aggression from the master, I got a single 12-pack at my Vons and mentioned to the cashier about the Vons near TOG’s place running out and the cashier did a figurative spit-take and said that would be as likely as the pharmacy running out of insulin. Then I went to dinner with P as planned. Funny story: although DYS was at dinner too, her price of admission was apparently jack shit because it clearly wasn't a frickin’ 12-pack of Boost Plus. Dinner table conversation:

TOG: Did you bring the Boost?
Me:  Hi, Sweetie. It’s good to see you too. It’s in the car. Since I’d texted you that we’d be 5 minutes late and you’d texted back that you and DYS wouldn’t wait to order your meal…
WISIMH: … like a host with decent manners would…
Me: … I thought I’d head right to the dining room and get your present later.

The rest of the dinner conversation was DYS relating the story of her day in divorce court this week with Tex and their respective lawyers. Highlights included the part where Tex denied he had a girlfriend and later said his wife hasn’t lived with him since he and his girlfriend had  been together for the last 8 years;  the part where Tex said DYS’ legal residence was in MO and she whipped out her CA drivers license and CA tax returns; the part where Tex said DYS was on Social Security Disability – which she isn’t and which I'm guessing is pretty easy to establish; the part where Tex’s smug young lawyer was shocked - shocked! – when DYS presented evidence of Tex’s hidden bank accounts and assets. Then:

DYS:  And so now I’m stuck here until our next court date in September and I have to get all this other stuff together because I have the burden of proving that although I moved out in 1999, I’ve returned home at least annually specifically to establish that we’re still married and I legally reside here, and I’m so stressed out and I have all this stuff to do and I’m stuck in the trailer without a car and blah blah poor me blah blah…

WISIMH:  So you flew here on your broom? Excuse me, you have a little stupid stuck to your chin there, let me wipe it off. And no, I’m not picking up that big fat hint to loan you my car. And by the way, good thing you didn’t have to deal with the added stress of taking care of your mother’s legal and medical matters, or with the kind of stress your DOS (Deadbeat Older Sister) is dealing with cleaning up the house and estate of her recently deceased 94-year-old spouse who has taken the last six months to die bedridden of, among other things (like pugilistic dementia, pneumonia and congestive heart failure) gangrene on his latest amputated limb - a process that made the entire house smell so bad even the termites broke out of the wall between the kitchen and the hall. Or for that matter, pretend to give a shit about a husband who can’t bother to eat the 3 squares cooked for him daily and is unable to buy his own Boost supplements.

Later as TOG rode down in the elevator to “walk” me to the car and get his Boost:

Me:  Boy, this has been a busy day for me, I went to the lab, the grocery store, the vet….
TOG:  (Interrupting) Tell me about it…
WISIMH:  Funny, I was trying to do just that when…
TG ... I had to catheterize 3 or 4 times, pick up the remote and change channels 5 or 6 times, go to the front desk to buy meal tickets for my dinner guests, which involves pushing the elevator buttons for two buildings both up and down, and that’s not even counting elevator trips up and down for breakfast and lunch.

WISIMH:  Ok, maybe that’s not what he actually said. I might have heard that his pee-pee hurts; his sister spent the afternoon there making him scan and fax papers for her divorce when he should have been napping; that he had to pop the top on a can of Boost. Wait, no Boost, poor baby. But perhaps just as well because that could have pushed him over the edge.

Me:  (At the car) Here’s your Boost.
WISIMH:  And my check?
TOG:  (Turning to P who is poorer than a homeless church mouse) What only one 12-pack? Where’s yours?
Me: Seriously?  I’m guessing this will hold you until Vons re-stocks. Besides this cost almost $25.
WISIMH:  So? My check?
TOG:  Or, I suppose I could order it online.
WISIMH:  Or, I suppose you could pull it out of your ass. Thank me very much. I’m so very welcome.