Famous Last Words

Just had a 10 minute conversation with my mom about how she wants to buy back her old house. I tried to dodge the question because:

a) she sold the house in 2015 and is using the money

b) it's 40 minutes to an hour away from my house -- me, the ungrateful person who she needs help from

c) nobody sells a house to a 94.5-year-old-lady

d) she can't understand what I am saying to her unless it is the word "yes". When she is in this state, she literally cannot hear or understand words that are not "yes" (and I am not kidding)

Finally I said "Do you want to talk about anything besides the house? I heard you had a nice visit today with my sister." 

Mom: “You can’t help me figure out who owns the house? 

Me: "No, mama"

Mom: "You never were over generous.” 

Click

Are We Ratf*cked? More Laughs From The Fun Factory

There are so many moving parts in the mom saga. We are currently paying one Toyota Corolla a month for rent at two places (current one and memory care), plus caregiving. We don't know what we'll need when we move mom, but we live in fear of all of the things she won't like. We're frozen and haven't done anything besides bleed cash and quake in fear.

Our main caregiver who has worked with my mom for almost 7 years is standing up for herself. We have been waiting to make sure that she is re-fingerprinted, etc. as required for her to work for us at the new place. And today she won't go do the fingerprinting or sign the forms. She's not sure she wants to continue. We'll be effed if she doesn't come with us and help mom through the transition, but if that's what needs to happen that's what we'll do.

And the second elevator at her current residence isn't working and I don't know how we are going to move her out.

I'm expecting that my sisters will be calling me soon. I think I will go buy artisan rum while I still have a chance to leave my domicile.

I just told mrguy -- let's run!

Oprah, You Are Tripping

Apparently Oprah has never clapped eyes on me and Amazon must have a head wound because they are both encouraging me to adopt the Coastal Grandmother look. 

White clothes for white people! 

I'm more of a Coastal Cat Lady whose current favorite color is rainbow.

Tree Mystery Solved!

I have joked with people that the soundtrack to the pandemic lockdown has been the symphony of chainsaws. Hark! It's Sunday morning and what do I hear? And this morning two pine trees across the street are being cut down by professionals. When I got up to check out the scene right now, I noticed two more dead trees on the next street over ready to go.

I love my street. Before we lived here we used to drive around up here back in the day and wonder about the story of the neighborhood. I really loved the wooded feel of it, and how the fog would slip around the giant pine trees at night, break off in pieces and drift off. Well the fog is still here, honey, but the trees have met their maker.

I used to hear about the trees at our neighborhood Christmas party, hosted by our neighbor next door. He resents the trees, which he talks about at every party, even though he has always had a stupendous view. He has mentioned some guy around here who planted them all.

At our block party a few weeks ago I met a longtime resident who had the full story. This part of town was grassland until the 1950s. His house was built in the 50s, and our the houses on our street were built in the 70s. Somewhere in there, when there were few trees and a lot of brown hills to look at, a guy bought hundreds of Monterey Pine saplings for 15c apiece, and sold them to the neighbors. People eagerly bought them up because their new houses sat on naked lots. The tree-seller guy planted the trees on a tiny tongue of city land, as well, that sits between our houses at the top of the hill and the ones on the street below us. Over time, grassland became woodland of sorts.

Turns out that Monterey pines have a lifespan of about 50 years. Thanks, Dude! Had the guy bought redwoods, they would be alive 1000 years from now, but in our particular scenario the trees started falling down about five years ago. One fell on a neighbor's house during a rainstorm. And then they all started turning brown. We had favorites behind our house that the crows and hawks would fight over at twilight. They gradually turned brown and the woodpeckers came and then the chainsaws. Now we have a kick ass view, but we miss the trees. None of the pines are on our property, somehow.

So on this day when I'm home and don't have to see my mom (thanks, big sis!) I get to hear the chainsaws. Must be a sign that I should get moving and do something besides sit here and play with my computer.

Let the day begin.

Ripley's Believe it or Not

OK, I guess this is the second reference to Ripley's in recent times. Last month, there was a stir when Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum lent Marilyn Monroe's iconic "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress to Kim Kardashian to wear at the Met Gala.

I have a few opinions on this, especially as the interwebs blew up with stories about how she wrecked the dress.

First, I find the Met Gala super vulgar. It's for a good cause (the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute), but I do not dig the lead up or the photos or -- I don't know. For whatever reason I shun the coverage.

My ears pricked up, however, when I heard that Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson were planning to attend (yay Pete Davidson!). And then when I read the coverage about her wearing the Marilyn Monroe dress, I had various feelings. First, I felt like nobody besides Marilyn Monroe should ever wear that dress. And then I also felt like that dress should never be seen by humans -- that it should exist only in photographs. And then I realized that Ripley's Believe it or Not is the owner of the dress. And then I realized that the dress is unobtanium, but at the end of the day it's just a dress. Good for you, Kim Kardashian.

People are now schvitzing over the fact that she wore the dress. That it might have been damaged by her wearing it. And to them I say a hearty "tough toenails". The owner of the dress may do whatever the owner of the dress wants to do with it. And if a real museum belonging to the AAM had been willing to pony up 4.8 million clams to own the dress, only a mannequin would have ever worn it.

But no museum would spend that much money, I imagine, to buy a dress whose story reveals the public besmirching of the presidency by a sitting president. It has been one of the most famous dresses of all time, to be sure. And it was worn by one of the most famous tragic beauties of the 20th Century. And the story behind it, that she and her voluptuous body had to be sewn into it at the side of the stage, is captivating. Over time, and even right now, how does the scenario of her affair with the sitting president, and singing to JFK, who was POTUS and her lover, much to the chagrin of the First Lady, sit with us? The dress is borne of a stunt and continues with a stunt... 

I didn't post this post at the time I wrote it, for some reason. I think it was because I decided to watch some Kardashian show, for the first time. I had judged without actually knowing anything about it. The jury is still out on that for me.

Anyhoo, I hear from a friend that since the Kardashianing of the dress at the Met Gala Ripleys Believe it or Not has draped the dress on a Kim-proportioned dress form. Instead of returning it to the Marilyn-shaped dress form. The story of the dress continues. It is probably worth less now, but that also remains to be seen.

Stuck

I am stuck. I can't continue with mrsguy if I don't get this out of my head. Some of my male friends are moving politically and socially to the right and worse, and it is making me uncomfortable. A friend referred to Kamala Harris on Facebook as a c--- and worse. Another visiting friend debated us about whether police violence against Black people is always racist, and said that Derek Chauvin was not convicted of a hate crime (while also decrying his murder of George Floyd). And that the Democrats are going down because of people like Hillary Clinton are scolding them. When was the last time you heard about Hillary Clinton, by the way? Right, when Tucker Carlson just made the same claim.

My men, what is with you? 

A Day Off

So good.

Coffee and newspaper with my man on the sofa.

Last-minute walk in the park with someone I barely have known but like. Super cool! Thank you for sharing your day!

Of course that made me feel like I'd achieved something, which is great.

The hammer asked if I was still up for a call today and I said that after yesterday I would like a mom-free day. She did not press it. So I had a mom-free day. 

I did some sleuthing, putting together someone's family history. I made pesto with some basil that was begging to be dispatched. And then I got in my bed and sleuthed some more. Eventually I got a little boy time with the boy kitten. Ahhhh.

Mrguy was out this afternoon, listening to old friends rehearse prior to recording them in a few weeks. Nice to have him out there doing his thing. He hasn't recorded a band from basic tracks up, in a studio and not our house for decades. They will all have a good time, and maybe some challenges.

In the meantime, mrguy is writing up his notes from this afternoon, and there is a very pale sunset and the fog isn't too bad. We *might* even see some fireworks tonight, if we get lucky. There is no fog between us and the port that puts on its July 3rd display.

Fingers crossed.

Every Moment

I have spent almost every moment of this day doing or thinking something about my mom or another member of my family. Except for the 13 minutes it took to look at a video of Lizzo and James Corden singing in a car.

9:00 hour long phone convo with the hammer about mom, caregivers

10:30 pick up sandwiches at Mr Pickles and drive to Mom's

11:00 drive mom and her caregiver to mom's and my favorite lookout spot to eat sandwiches and look at the fog. Discuss Mom's move to memory care with our caregiver, and let her know that we would still love to work with her. I shared this news before the next part.

Drive mom and caregiver on my favorite 6 miles of windy road. Try to drive while mom reads every word on every road sign out loud and caregiver recounts the horrific accident that happened in her family, to the nephew of one of our other caregivers. The gist of it is that two rookie cops chased a sideshow driver through city streets at speeds of up to 100mph. Our caregiver's nephew was celebrating a friend's college graduation at a taco truck, along with his disabled mother and members of a Tongan motorcycle club who had just finished escorting a Tongan singer to a concert. The sideshow driver lost control of his car, smashing cars and flipping parked motorcycles. One of the bikes landed on the nephew, killing him. The motorcycle belonged to his friend, who is heartbroken. 

2pm: home. Let sisters know that I have broken the news to caregiver #1 that we are moving mom to memory care. 

2:30: Paying mom's hospital bill

2:40: Call with hammer in which she says that caregiver #3 would like to borrow some money because of the family tragedy. We would love to *give* her that money, so I'll be writing a check.

4:00 Researching the accident

4:20: Printing out forms for memory care (caregiver application forms, pharmacy forms -- two, because they are changing pharmacies mid-month. Why make this shit easy?)

4:45: Researching original lease for the place where my mom lives now.

7:00: Home from delivering additional rent, two pharmacy forms and an emergency care release form to the new place. For some reason I had shorted them by $30.30. Wonder why. Not like I have anything going on.

A couple of highlights in the day. First, it was grey and blowing like stink and misting like crazy this morning. Second, my mom was nice. Third, tomorrow I only have to talk to my sister once.