*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.

And in mystery bag number 2 . . . .

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,  . . .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 at 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.

Ouch.

Isn't this pretty?
I got it for my college graduation.

Yet I can not look at it without a sharp stab of pain to my heart.

I made my mother cry.

When I was almost 15 my extended family stepped into our situation and offered me the opportunity to live and finish high school with them.  Since I was "on the wrong path" at home, my mom reluctantly agreed.  It was something that I wanted  more than anything.  My mother always saw the move as temporary - one that she would put an end to when she moved closer to where I was and the school I was attending.

Her plan did not go well and at 17 - with a year left until I would be a legal adult my extended family fought for me and won legal guardianship.  And my mother, unable to see where she did anything different, take any responsibility, she just couldn't  understand.  It was about this time that the quote for the blog happened.

She was sure that everyone was against her and I was brainwashed.  Our extended family had turned me against her.  And would begin a bitter and acerbic tirade.  It continues to this day if you tap that root.

Graduation and College later, she is still bitter and family encounters are tense and sparse.  But my guardians would be at graduation and I want it to be a fun and celebratory day - so when my mom called about making plans to come to it, I quite plainly told her I didn't want her there.

And she cried like I had just ripped her heart out.

And I caved in.  All throughout this life we, and extended family too, have never set out to hurt her - she is loved by her siblings, I would wager, more than loved by us, her kids.  It's an odd definition of "love" when your dealing with an "off" parent.

Anyway - she came.  She pouted at the table where we all sat, but she didn't tirade (I don't remember one anyway) and she gave me this music box as a graduation gift.

You know what the song is?

"Wind Beneath My Wings" because I was her hero.

*sigh*

PUT IT DOWN: how she can't pass anything by

I took my mom out the other day.  She keeps picking things up.  Paper, labels, cans, and watch 
out places with free brochures!  She stockpiles.


I don't think anyone else wold find it unusual - but it is embarrassing to me and then we end up with all this paper junk - that she is NOT willing for us to toss because she is "interested to read it" even though that point never really manifest itself.


So walking from store to car she stops to see what some misc paper on the ground is and I have to say "Leave it there, you don't have to take it with you!"  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 


*sigh*  

Animals in the House

A situation came up where my mother's assistance was appreciated.  So she stayed with me for most of the week.  Went home once to take care of things at her house,  and came back later that day.

It's been hot lately - as is common for summer - and 5 days into her second stay she said she should be getting back, since she didn't leave that much water for her cat.

Her Cat.  I had forgotten that lately she had acquired a kitten, and I hate it.  My mother can become an animal hoarder - and the conditions of her animals aways just kills me.  Every memory that links my mother to an animal makes me cringe.

So, I know her cat is locked in her house.  I *hope* it is free to roam around, and isn't locked in an non-working, stinking, hot bathroom, like her last cat that died there.  I *hope* it can get water and food and all these days my mother has been away it hasn't been enduring this heat without.  But I can only hope.

This brings me to another point.  Mom doesn't keep a litter box.  Never has, never will.  She may *may* have a box or something filled with dirt or maybe she actually did purchase some kitty litter.  But it is NEVER maintained.  I speak from YEARS of experience.  Just trust me on this.

Then my mom gets peeved when the cat starts going in other places that are not the litter box.  But that by no means means that these other cat messes are cleaned up or dealt with.  By no means.

I really CAN. NOT. think about this cat at all.  Beyond this post I'll spend energy trying to not think about it.

Because it physically hurts my heart.

Dinner Chez Moi

I've got the potato chip crusted salmon in the oven for my spouse, hamburgers on the grill for the kids and I was just thinking about my journey as a cook for my family.

Lately, I've been using E-mealz to help me plan and prepare my meals . . it's been GREAT!

Anyway - it works for me, easy and usually has a variety with pork, beef, chicken and fish.

So - serving up these fairly easy meals, my mom has been lately raving about how WELL I cook, "Just like a restaurant!" and RAVING.

I admit it's been nice on the ego, and at the same time it bother's me a tad that she's so *amazed* when I do produce something palatable.

Today mother is not here - and with dinner almost done, and my wondering if I should use frozen vegs with rice or just skip the rice . . . I thought how she would once again be raving, were she here.

But in all honesty - these are not extravagant meals.  My mother would be awed at the put together meal at Dennys.  She would!  It's just not at all what we *ever* had at home.  *Ever* . . .

SO - any cooked meat with some colorful vegetables on the side and a starch of some sort is kinda amazing to her.

In my childhood, I can not remember a single put together meal from her.  Not. a. one.

I do remember some mixed up something in an electrical pan . . . but not regularly.  I remember getting the free lunch offered at the park.  I remember passing Burger King and wondering  hedging a bet that I could probably find food in the dumpster behind there, if I dared to look.  I remember longing for peoples scraps at public places.  I was about 7 or 8 at the time.  I remember being hungry.

We used to receive government help too - the government issue cheese, government issue powdered milk- *heh* I don't remember what else, but I know one of the things we got were the powdered eggs.

My brother tells a story about this hunger, he was about 9 or 10 years old at the time.  He too was hungry and looked for something, but there was nothing edible except this bag of powdered eggs.  So - what's a boy to do?  He added water, cooked them up and ate them all down.  It made a lot.  But he ate them all.

He tells me they vaguely tasted like eggs.

Soon after he ate them he started to feel sick.  He is traumatized by the experience to this day.  And it took him, he says, about 2 years before he could eat real scrambled eggs at all.

The crazy thing is that if my mother could have budgeted, we would have been fine.  Something that even as a child I released.  I knew, young as I was, that the reason we didn't have anything to eat is because mother would spend what little we did get from social security on junk.  Like coloring books and doll clothes.  Stuff she wouldn't let us use because they were for "gifts" or stuff that we didn't want, definitely didn't need.

Craziness.

So, I didn't grow up knowing how to cook, but I can follow a recipe.  And my spouse LOVED the potato crusted salmon today.  Even if the kid didn't.

:-)