Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

Most of the time, I deal pretty well with my mother having Alzheimer's. If dealing pretty well means living 150 some odd miles away and not having to deal with it every day, and avoiding calling sometimes because we have the same conversation every single time.

Some times, I feel like the worst daughter on the planet, and the worst sister.

Other times, I'm realistic about it. My sisters' kids are all grown up and mostly married with kids of their own, or at least independent. I still have teenagers at home, and though one will be starting college soon, the other still needs a lot of time and attention. I remember very well what it was like to have my mother caring for an elderly relative and babysitting a grandchild. Something had to give, and a lot of times, that thing was me. I won't do that to my son.

Every once in a while, though, it'll hit me, and hit me hard. Talking with my mom is an exercise in patience, because her short term memory is non-existent, so she forgets what she's talking about in the middle of a sentence sometimes. Her memories are compressed, so now, instead of my sisters growing up in the fifties and being teenagers when I was arrived as a surprise, now, we all grew up together and are only a few years apart. Then she sees my kids and corrects, but I can tell it bothers her and she can't reconcile it in her mind. That frustrates her and makes her unreasonably angry.

Well, actually, she does have a reason. She knows something is wrong with her memory, but she's not sure what it is. It frustrates her. And it scares her.

Flaky Sister has told me about times that Mom has attacked her or acted out with her, and I've tried to point out that it isn't personal, because it isn't. Mom will be furious with her and sulk... and three minutes later, she's completely forgotten about it. But Flaky Sister, who still has not dealt with her childhood the way the Blonde Sister and I have, can only see Mom through the lens of those years. So everything Mom does is deliberate and personal.

This worries me.

For now, though, there is nothing we can do about it.

This can't go on, though. We're going to have to put Mom in a home. She is already starting to exceed the Flaky Sister's abilities to take care of her. At first, Flaky wanted me to take Mom and put her in a home here, but I find the fact that our doctor refused to give me any kind of clues about what the home was like to be... ominous, and further research convinced me it wasn't exactly the best place for her. Plus, they don't handle Alzheimer's patients. This fact was confirmed for me when pleas went up on our local discussion board for places that do handle Alz. patients when the local home refused to deal with several patients who had reached the combative stage of their illness and wanted them placed elsewhere.

I have taken Mom for weekends, and I've told my sisters that three days is about my limit (they always want four or five). Three days is my limit, because I can't deal with the demand of taking care of my mom and my kids, and deal with my own issues.

Which my sisters conveniently forget, mostly because they don't see me all that much anymore.

I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disease, and while at first, it just made me really tired all the time, now if I get a little virus or infection, it's like getting slammed with a brick wall. Seriously. Christmas 2013, we got the flu. My husband was up and about in two to three weeks. Me? I was down for nearly six months! I got over it and started getting better, and thought, well, I'm back to normal now, okay, yay, life!

Then I got a flu shot. And had an infection in my gums.

I'm still recovering.

It's like my immune system has turned into this hyper overprotective mother who has to completely overdo things and then turns around and punches my thyroid for reasons.

Where my mom is concerned, you have to be completely on your game. Seriously, her memory may be spotty, but that woman was sharp in her prime, and she still has her moments. The only difference is now, when she's angrily laying down the law or ranting about something, I can nod, and then say, "Look, Mom, DUCKS!" and it completely derails her.

It helps that we actually have ducks.

I once sat and watched I Was A Male War Bride on Netflix with her four times in a row. Why? Because every time the movie ended and the screen returned to the title page, she'd get excited and say, "Oh, let's watch this one! I've never seen this one before!"

The first two times, I tried to remind her we'd just watched it, but she had no memory of it, and I'd gamely start it back up again. After the fourth time, my daughter took pity on me and distracted Grandma with her art.

Oh, and I can't leave her sight. She'll look for me, so this makes going to the bathroom tricky. She's a fall risk now, and my sisters would absolutely kill me if Mom fell while in my custody and broke herself.

So my limit is three days. Three days on a weekend, because let's face it, we have to tag-team Mom. So that means two adults and two teenagers, plus three cats and three ducks, to manage one little old frail 87 year old woman who may not have her memory, but still has no trouble getting in trouble.

I still, however, am determined to find a group of willing bikers for a prank photo op. I want to take a photo of my mom astride a Harley, or some similar huge machine, with a big burly biker sitting behind her, grinning, and the rest of the gang around them, grinning. I want her hands on the handlebars, and maybe a bandanna around her forehead. Maybe a leather jacket on, too. And I'll send it to the Flaky Sister. And wait for the incipient heart attack.

That should pay her back for the four and a half days she left Mom with me nicely!

No, I'm not vindictive at all!

So there I am, supervising the Impossible Son as he cuts butter into flour and salt to make pie crusts when the dulcet tones of Toploader crooning, "Dancing in the Moonlight" alerts me to the fact that someone is calling me. I look at the Caller ID, see my mother's name, and immediately think, "Uh-oh, the Flaky Sister is calling."

Yeah, I know, that's not a normal conclusion to jump to, but see when my mom calls me, she calls me from her landline hone to my landline phone, because that's just the number she's used to, and knows she'll get me eventually.

The Flaky Sister, however, when she calls me, she wants me to answer, dammit! And she knows I always have the mobile on me, so... she calls me from the landline phone she shares with Mom to my mobile. Because she knows I'll always answer (unless I'm at the doctor or in a movie theater).

So, I answer cautiously because lately, when the Flaky Sister calls, it's because something is wrong.

I say, "Hello."

"You and the Blonde Sister are coming here the day before Christmas, and you're staying the day after Christmas, because I. Am not. Doing this. Again. Ever."

Ooookaaaaay...

Apparently, Mom was criticizing her cooking.

*pause to die laughing*

As some of you will remember from past Thanksgiving debacles, the Flaky Sister isn't exactly... the best of cooks. Ouch, I think I just strained a muscle saying that.

She thinks she can cook, but... gods, there just is not enough antacid on the planet, I swear!

Mom wants to be sure the meal is edible so... she's... trying to head Flaky off at the pass, so to speak, but... well, Mom and Flaky get along about as well as oil and water, you know? So, I said mildly, "Mom's micro-managing your cooking?"

"Gaaaaah!" the Flaky Sister said, then she asked in stern tones, "Do you know how to salt and pepper a turkey?" and I had a moment of utter panic, thinking OMG, is she dumping Thanksgiving in MY lap at the last minute, WTF???

Instead, I said mildly, "Yes, I do. Who do you think helped Mom with the turkey after you and Blondie got married?"

The Flaky Sister said, "Yeah, well... so do I! But does Mother think I can salt and pepper a turkey?"

I refrained from saying, "Well, she knows you can salt and pepper a turkey, it's probably the amount of salt, plus the stick of butter you're trying to add that has her concerned..." because, well, I don't know she was trying to add a stick of butter...

Instead, I said, "She probably misses being able to do the turkey herself."

Not the most diplomatic thing I could have said, but... there you are. I won't go into the rest of the conversation, which was short, but... I ended up promising that we would arrive earlier than usual, to help out. And you should be very proud of me, I didn't do anything more than wince when she told me she was making stringbeans with parsley, thyme, oregano, bacon, and oh, I hope, I so hope I misunderstood her, but... possibly basil or was it something that makes me think of lemons... oh, I dunno, but... it was not something that is normally added to stringbeans, and knowing the ingrained habits of my family... no one is going to want to eat it.

I called the Blonde Sister after I'd gotten the pie in the oven, just to find out what the HELL was going on. After asking if she had received a grumpy call from a very cranky sister, I said, "Remind me again, why did we decide the Flaky Sister would be handling Thanksgiving and Christmas?"

"Because she has a bigger house?" The Blonde Sister said cautiously. Then she laughed and said, "Guess I'd better take Christmas after all, huh?"

"Please! I mean, seriously, at least one of our holiday meals should be edible!"

She died laughing and said, "The Brotherly One said the EXACT SAME THING!!!"

I knew there was a reason I liked him so much!!

We chatted a while longer, laughing and venting a bit and shaking our heads over our sister. I didn't know until tonight that the Blonde Sister had no idea that the Flaky Sister thinks of herself as the "Good Daughter."

"What, is she trying to say that you and I are the BAD ones here?" the Blonde Sister asked with an amused snort.

"Well, I'm the Black Sheep, I don't know what the heck you're supposed to be," I replied.

"You're not a black sheep," she said, laughing, "We're both black sheep!"

"Own it, Sister!" was about the only thing I could say at that point.

Funny thing is, I only just realized lately how little my sisters have really talked with our mom. Well... let me rephrase that. How little my sisters have listened to our mom. Both of my sisters have complained over and over about how Mom refuses to open the curtains in the living room. Or raise the blinds over the kitchen sink. I pointed out that both sets of windows are on the side of the house, facing into the side yard which looks like an alley. And Mom has issues with that.

The Blonde Sister had no idea what I was talking about, so I had to explain yet again about when Mom and her family lived in downtown Houston next to an Italian restaurant called "Delmonico's." And that there was no restroom in the restaurant (it was 1930's Houston, what can I say?), so male patrons would go into the alley between Delmonico's and the house Mom was living in to relieve themselves, and because they didn't want to piss against the wall of the restaurant, they'd face the house.

They had no air conditioning, so the windows in Mom's family's house were always open, night and day, and so when Mom would go into her bedroom, it wasn't unusual to see two or three men's heads right at the window sill, peering in while they relieved themselves. And sometimes, they'd try to talk to Mom and her brothers, and it always, always freaked her out (can't blame her at all, either).

The Blonde Sister had no idea. "Mom wasn't like that about our house!" she said in surprise.

"Yes, she was," I said calmly. "That's why Daddy planted rose bushes by all the side windows of the house. It was the only way he could get her to open those windows. The rose bushes made her feel safe."

"How do you know all this?" the Blonde Sister demanded.

"I asked her!" I said, exasperated. "Good grief, Blondie, Mom has all these great stories, and you'll never hear them if you don't ask her about them. Try asking her what Houston was like when she was a little girl. Or ask her about how Aunt Dee Dee handled ice deliveries. Ask how Aunt Dee Dee kept the mockingbirds and blue jays from picking the paper caps off the milk bottles when they were delivered in the mornings! Or about how her brothers embarrassed her by putting boobs on the snowman she built."

Sometimes, my sisters annoy the heck out of me. Whenever Mom gets onto one of her fussing jags, all you have to do to distract her and get her onto another groove is ask about her childhood, or about the war years, or the summers she spent on the family farm in Louisiana, or how she managed to date our Marine dad despite three extremely over-protective Navy brothers who had no love for Jar-heads.

Well, the cookies are baked, the pies are done, the tarts turned out fine... and I am ready for bed.

And I promise not to kill the Flaky Sister. I don't look very good in orange, anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Just for the record... my oldest sister?

Yeah. She's an IDIOT!!

That is all.

The Blonde Sister is the biggest wuss on the planet!!!!

... just in case you didn't know....

Oooooo, I'm so mad, I want to SCREAM!!! I've been waiting most of the day for the Blonde Sister to call and let me know how Dad was doing, since he was going in for surgery to have a feeding tube put in. I talked to her last night and the plan was to have the parents go to her house after the surgery. She had wavered, saying, "Daddy will get pissed, and he won't want to do it," and I had given her several suggestions of how to get around him, finally saying,"Look, if worst comes to worst, just tell him that Mom looks peaked and exhausted, and could probably do with a bit of a rest. He'll do things for Mom that he would never do for himself."

"I'll try," she said dubiously.

"Don't try," I said firmly. "Do it. You know it won't be good for him to go back to that house right now!"

"Okay," she said more confidently. "I'll do it."

*sigh*

I don't know why I expected her to grow a spine overnight.

I waited, and waited, and finally, after the Husbandly One got home, he asked how Dad was, and I said, "No idea, no one's called yet, and I'm not sure if I should call the Blonde's house, or my mom. Of course, if I call Mom and she answers, I'm going to be really, really angry."

He nodded, said, "I know," and then, "Well, may as well get it over with."

So... I called Mom because... I just knew. I just knew. I had a brief surge of hope when the phone rang four times with no answer (she usually picks it up on the second ring), but then, just as I was about to hang up after the sixth ring... she picked up.

When I asked why she wasn't at my sister's house, she said, "Well, after you get your daddy in bed, you know you can't get him out again."

I blinked, then said, "You mean, he's still at the hospital?"

She said, "No, he's in bed here at home."

I said, "Wait... you were supposed to go to the Blonde Sister's straight from the hospital."

And it all went downhill from there. And I admit, I blew up, though I didn't yell, because Mom really doesn't deserve that from me. But I did let her know how unhappy I was and why I was so unhappy. And all the excuses, "He didn't want to go to your sister's," "I would have had to pack up all his paperwork, all his medications, clothes for both of us," just made me even angrier. I simply could not make her understand why it was so bad for them to have gone back to their house. And it was proven out, because he's down to 140 pounds, and he's so weak, he can barely stand now. He's in a great deal of pain, to the point that it's affecting his heart, and he won't sit up, which he has to do to eat, and to take his medication. Even with the feeding tube, he has to sit up to eat.

When I had finally had my say, Mom said, "You know how he gets. We weren't going to stand up to him. Are you telling me you would?"

"Yes, I would! And I have! You know that! When it's this important, you bet I would stand up to him!" I almost shouted. Gosh, I was furious.

I will tell you right now, my dad is the only person on this planet who scared me, and could set my knees knocking. Other people could make me nervous, but no one could genuinely terrify me like my dad. But even with that, I am the only one in my family who has ever stood up to him... successfully. I don't do it all the time. You could say that I pick my battles, and I was always the most successful when I knew I was right. He didn't like it, but he would back down. And it sounds like I may have to go to Houston after all and be the one to do this after all. If he doesn't die on us first.

Yeah. It's that bad.

See, he's diabetic on top of all these other problems, and he hasn't really eaten since last night. She said she almost called 911 a couple of hours ago, because of his pain but he "wouldn't let her."

Don't even ask.

I'll be calling her in an hour to check up on them, and to urge her to call 911 if his blood sugar drops any lower than it was when I called her earlier. I'm resisting calling the Blonde Sister right now until I'm calmer, because if I do call her now, I'm going to just start yelling, and that would actually be counterproductive. She'd tune me out, and I want her to hear every single word I say. So, I will wait until I am calmer, and can talk in that sweet, light, unaffected tone that those who know me best know means I am about to go in for the kill. And no, she doesn't know that, by the way.

The fact that she hasn't called me yet tells me she knows she screwed up big time, knows I'm going to haul her onto the mat, and is wanting to avoid it. She's expecting it. Therefore, I shall do what she doesn't expect, and nail her when she least expects it!

I was counting on her, dammit!!

*wanders off to snarl, growl, and tear things to pieces*

I know in some ways, I make a bit of a joke about being a domestic engineer, but really, that is what I am. Yeah, I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I am not a "home-maker" nor am I a "housewife." Because, seriously, I am not married to my house.

I probably mentioned before, too, that my dad really, really wanted me to go into engineering when I went to college. And because, at that time, the last thing I wanted to do was anything my dad wanted me to do... I didn't. I majored in communications and music. At first. Then I decided to work for a bachelor in fine arts in graphic design. That's about as far from engineering as you can get, unless you want to go for underwater basketweaving.

But in a lot of ways, I have an engineer's brain. I see a problem, I want to solve it. Not only do I want to solve it, I want to fix it and make it easier for whoever follows me to solve it. And that has made its way into my daily life. I think it was four years into our marriage when it finally dawned on me that I was a domestic engineer, because I kept trying to do things to make things more efficient around our home.

I have done things over the years to adjust things. When I noticed that the Husbandly One was wearing the same four tshirts, I thought at first it was because they were his favorites. Then I sat back to watch him as he got dressed in the mornings, and he did the Typical Guy thing. He opened the drawer and grabbed the first shirt that was on top and put it on. Which just happened to be one of the four shirts he always wore. Because... they were always on top, because he always wore them, I'd wash them, fold them, and put them back in the drawer. So... I started folding the shirts flat, and set them in his drawer so that they looked like little files, all on their sides. He could see his shirts, he didn't have to dig for them, and for a long time, I'd hear, "Wow, I haven't seen this shirt in years! Where'd you find it?"

*rolls eyes*

Because of the kids, I discovered one can write with a dry erase marker on those disposable plastic storage containers made by Glad and Ziplock, etc. This has greatly reduced the amount of biology experiments in the fridge. No longer do we dig in the fridge, going, "What is this?" or "How long has this spaghetti sauce been in here?" Because now Auntie keeps a dry erase marker in the cabinet above the storage containers, and when we put leftovers away, we write the date, and what the hell it is before we stick it in the fridge. Bye-bye food poisoning!

THO likes to rag me about it being anal, but he won't touch food in a container that doesn't have writing on it. Even if he's the one who put it away!!

But the main thing for me, is making things easier for people. That's sort of what prompted tonight's entry. I talked to the Blonde Sister tonight, making arrangements for our family dinner this month. Well, don't know if I mentioned it, but the Blonde Sister has a stress fracture in her left foot. She's a nurse, working in a doctor's office, and on her feet all day. You know, with as many nursing seminars as she's been to, and just about all of them have a mandatory workshop or two about taking care of your feet, you think she'd know better. She had no idea that people who work on their feet all day should change out their shoes every six months. Yes. If you are on your feet all day, even if you wear sneakers, you should get new ones every six months. Even less if you are working on a hard surface like concrete. How do you know if you need new shoes? Easy. If you can't wait to take them off when you get home? It's time for new sneakers.

Anyhow, the Blonde Sister had been wearing her sneakers for TWO YEARS!!! No freaking wonder she got a stress fracture! And she's been wearing a boot for nearly six weeks while it tries to heal. This has made day to day things very hard for her, as you can imagine. Her husband has had to take over the housework and daily maintenance stuff, which makes her a little crazy. She was telling me, "I can't even do laundry, really. I mean, I can put things in the washer, and then in the dryer, but, I can't carry the basket to and from the garage, because of my foot."

Auntie frowns thoughtfully as her brain starts ticking. "Um... don't you have a kid's wagon still in the garage? I could have sworn I saw one when we were there a couple of weeks ago."

"Um... yeah, I think so. Why?"

I sighed, thinking it was so obvious and then said, "Well, you can put the basket in the wagon and... pull it in and out of the garage, right?"

She was quiet for a very long moment, and then she said, "Wow, Auntie... that's... that's really smart."

O_o?

I just said, "Hello? Domestic Engineer?"

"No, really. That's just... wow. I never thought of that."

Obviously.

"You can even use a skateboard if the wagon is too wide to fit through the door," I said, still pondering. "You might get the Brotherly One to tape some sandpaper to the top, or get some of that rubbery shelf liner to put on it, to keep the basket from sliding off. Actually, the shelf liner is probably a better idea..."

She was quiet again and then she said, "You're really actually thinking about this... aren't you?"

"Well... yeah. I mean, you came to me with a problem, you know I'm going to try and solve it, right?"

I didn't know you could hear someone's mouth falling open over the phone.

"You know, Auntie, I don't think I realized until this moment how really smart you are. I mean... I know you're book smart, you know all sorts of stuff that just blows my mind, but... I never really thought about how... practical you are, and... I'm really, really... blown away by this."

o_O??

I think I really, really completely understand in a totally visceral way precisely what the term "gobsmacked" means now.

We talked a little longer, but I could tell she was really freaked out. I don't know whether to be amused, or cranky. Think I'll lean toward amused. Less ulcers that way. And much more entertaining.