My house - the one room wonder.

Maybe it's not just children of mental illness, maybe it's families too or maybe it's just me - but ever in the back of my mind I find myself trying to figure out the why the how of this . . this . . whatever it is.

At least the hoarding. I can put a finger on the hoarding.  I can positively identify it -

I think for each hoarder it is a number of things that build up and add into the hoarding.  One of the things, maybe, is dyslexia. Which runs through my family.  My mom has it, I have it to a degree and my daughter is very dyslexic.  While researching about dyslexia I found out that one of the weaknesses dyslexics can have is with organization.

Huh - imagine that.

I know I struggle to maintain my home.  A real battle, and I feel like I can only get one room "done" at a time.

True that at any one time, if you happened to come over, I'd have only one room nice while the others are . . well, strewn.  I do have kids, after all.

Then is it another thing of children of hoarders to be ever nagged by the thought "It could be me?" - so in my one room wonder I often pat myself on the back when I put something away, pick something up, toss something out with the thought "My mother wouldn't have done that." And I feel GREAT having a place to put, say, my hair brush.  I know where my kids tooth brushes should be, and the toys have a home, even if they most often are not there.

That feels SO GOOD, but not good enough so that my living room floor is clear right now.

Yeah. Nope.

Just so you know, my living room, kitchen, dinning room and my bedroom are messy right now, BUT my bathroom and the kids bathroom looks great.

Please cover your sneezes.

I am beyond the point of trying to change or "fix" my mother.  I have accepted that I can't.  So life now mostly consist of keeping mom's crazy out of my own.

But this is crazy.

My mother swings between a germaphobe to it's opposite.  And no matter where she may be swinging on the pendulum - she considers all she does as "normal".

She's concerned about germs so much that if were driving in a car and someone sneezes anywhere.in.the.car even into a kleenex, she will roll down her window for a couple of minutes to get some "clean air".  No matter the weather.

She's obsessive about the cleanliness of my kid's hands if we go anywhere, and several times has gotten into an argument with one kid or another about using the "stinky gel" on their hands when they certainly don't want to.

But she lives in filth.  She lives in cat urine and feces, food rot and mold.  But as long as she has her hand gel she all good.

And no one sneezes.

So about a week ago, as is common when we go to pick her up so she can visit and shower here at our place, she brought a "mystery bag".  These mystery bags usually contain some sort of rotting food, or nasty concoction that she thinks in her visit with us would go bad before she got back to her house.  She has a point, because what she is trying to eat is usually already half spoilt.

When she gets here she will quickly stick whatever mystery bag she has into my fridge.  Aaaannd sometimes she doesn't, which is worse.  I've ranted asked her not to bring any foods or mystery bags because they usually get forgotten for me to find and toss later and they stink and I hate it.  But to no avail.

Anyway - back to a couple of weeks ago and mystery bag #1.  This one is black.  As I was picking up my mom she handed me the bag to put in the car while she turned around to go get her dirty laundry (also done at my place) I peek into the bag and among other things I see a musk mellon that is starting to rot - it has it's green/blue patch and white fuzz all started and progressing.

I roll my eyes and  place it in the car.  It's useless to ask her not to bring that nastiness into my home because I can almost verbatim tell you how the argument would go - and it would all boil down to her saying that the melon will go completely bad if she leaves it one.more.day. and that the spoilt spot is just that - a spot -and she will cut off the bad part and eat the rest which is "perfectly good" and we will all live happily ever after. But with a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, *a lot* more words and frustration.

Except I know she will not.  She will not pull the musk mellon out, she will not cut out the spot and she will not eat any "good parts".  She will carry around that rotting musk mellon until it has liquified, and there is truly no spot left to salvage.  My goal now is to just make sure that melon doesn't get left behind in my house after we've taken her home.  *That* goal I achieve.

Then this last week - I turn a corner in my house and I smell something horrible.  It's different than stink I'm familiar with.  It's not mold, it's not poop, it's not rotting oranges, those are all smells I recognize, not . . .it's kinda like fart that doesn't fade . . So I go around saying "What is that *smell*???" and start enlisting the kids to locate the offending object . . . problem is the smell is bad and fierce and has taken up residence in the whole living room.

My mother is located and questioned and she admits to another mystery bag.  It might be it, she says, because some of the food in the bag is starting to go bad and (prep yourself for the implication here) I am hypersensitive to rotting citrus.

Yes, yet again, she is "normal", having some citrus that is starting to be on the bad side, but still "good" and I am the abnormal one overreacting to a minor smell.

I assure you, this was not the case.  By witness of my family, it was no minor smell.

Mother is firmly instructed to take said mystery bag to the OUTSIDE trash immediately.  And yes, I will even let her blame my "hypersensitivity" for the *irrational* request I am making.  And that is when mystery bag comes to light.

It is the same bag from about a week ago.  The mellon one, remember?  THE MELLON ONE!  The same one that had a spoiling musk mellon among other things?  SO WHO KNOWS WHAT THE SMELL MIX IS but this is BAD BAD BAD!!!

Mom disappears for a while.  Because finally after receiving the ultimatum, and completely unable to let ANY 'good' food go to waste, I catch sight of her eating from the nasty mystery bag on my steps outside.

If you are not thoroughly disgusted by that, I am a failure of descriptive writing.

And let me just add a note here.  When mom is here with us, we feed her, and we feed her well . . . there is no.logical.need for any of this . . .

This visit with mother doesn't end here.  On her way out she noticed the grilled cheese sandwich that my son didn't eat and had sat on the table overnight.  This sandwich had been set out for the dog days ago.  And even the dog wasn't interested.  My mom was, though.  And she picked it up, got a ziplock bag and took it with her for her trip.  I explained that it had sat by the dog dish outside for days already, but she insisted it was still "perfectly good".  And had every intention of eating it.

But, never you fear, she most assuredly used some sanitizing gel beforehand.

You never know.

I've had a reprieve from my mother's constant needy-ness since she lived in a different state where her siblings met her needs.

Past Tense.

She has found a senior apartments that have accepted her in my small little town.

So today on the drive there to her new apartment we pass by a garage sale.  

MUST. STOP. AT. GARAGE. SALES!

And she bought 3 of those VHS/TV things.  Yes. 3

Why? Because they were 1 dollar each, and one might not work - so at that price might as well get them all.

*sigh*

A short blurb

Today, while getting ready I sought out my deodorant from my hair misc drawer.  You know, that spot where all my ties, scrunchies, headbands, brushes and combs are.

I started keeping my deodorant there because I got tired of my mom using it.

She never asks.  But when she's here, she just helps herself.  And for me, sharing my deodorant is just not one of those things I like to do.

After suspecting it for a long time, it was confirmed when she couldn't find it once and asked me where it was.

So now I have a deodorant (roll on, which I hate) that I put out on my bathroom counter when she is here and keep my deodorant in my hair misc drawer.

Because my mom doesn't do anything with her hair, much less brush it, until she's in the car and it's time to get out.

Argh~

Mother is visiting us in our new home.

My sibling just had their first born and mom was hurrying from her state to theirs and thought to stop here along the way.

I do believe she was hoping/thinking we would be going down ourselves to see the new baby and she'd just ride along.  Nevermind that it's about 600 miles away and I already- before she left her state -clarified that we wouldn't.

I will only touch upon now how her arrival was scheduled for mid December at a convenient 8pm that got moved to the 5th at 2am, to 6th at 4am, which actually ended up being at 4PM.  And we are about 1 hour from the bus station (small town) and it is it's own form of crazy to try to accommodate all these changes when mom doesn't have a cell phone.

Grumble here about total disregard to our own family's schedule.

Mom's MO is to announce her plans and what you need to do for her.

So - come she has, looked around at the senior apartments, fallen in love with our town and people (they really are great) and she is talking about leaving after the new year.

*sigh*

But that is not why I'm motivated - compelled - to write, even though all that info is related in this: Rationality.

So - very typical to her she brings along food, tucked in bags, filling at least one of her suitcases (large) and such.  And generally not in your typical food containers - she has a predilection for containers that leak, like old shopping bags, used plastic containers that should have just been tossed out.  You get the idea.

Today I'm cleaning up the boys room, what mom is using while here, and I come across a leaking bag that has (again) mysterious items inside.

I set up a place for her at the breakfast bar with the trashcan handy and instruct  er, ask her to go through the bag and take out what's good and throw the rest away.

It took some *cough* encouragement on my part but she actually did eventually sit down to address the bag.

Two of the items she pulled out was a container of peeled bananas and a large bag of pre-baked frozen potatoes from Olive Garden that she received from the senior center.  (Are those donated food fresh anyway?) So lets just assume that the bananas and potatoes are fresh on . . say Dec 3 when she left her state . . . she kept them in the suitcase that I just found today. That is unrefrigerated perishables at least, at least, 2 weeks old.

She is unwilling/unable to just toss them.  Olive Garden potatoes are *SO* good, you know. And the weather temperature is cool and all . . . even in our home.

So I set her up to boil the potatoes . . . questioning the whole time WHY she was doing this, why she felt she needed to keep the potatoes and bananas, why she felt she needed to bring them along anyway?  Why why why  . . . and her thinking is that if no one can eat her (smelling rotten) potatoes then she will keep them for her dog.  About 600 miles away.

It's a lot of potatoes.

And as we've seen before - she will force herself to eat some nasty stuff.

There is no reason for this.

At least not in our reality.

And the bananas?

I just have one word of warning - beware banana bread as gifts . . .

*snort*

Mice in my belly

I remember sitting as a little girl hearing my belly rumbling.

The only other sound I knew like that, and knew well, was the sound of mice running in the walls.

So - obviously - I concluded that I had mice running around in my belly.

The amazing adaptability of kids - nothing registered in that memory of being unacceptable.  Only now as an adult does the situation appall me.  That hunger was familiar, accepted and just thought of like a state of being. That mice in the walls was familiar and "norm".  And the idea that I had mice in my belly was just as accepted in a more of a "huh, well, waddayaknow" type of way.

Amazing.