Put On A Happy Face

ARRGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My mother is driving me crazy!!! What else is new? I thought we had this move to Florida all sewn up. But deep down I thought it was all too easy, and it was. My mother seems to have decided she couldn't bear to live with my sister because she thinks she would be used by my niece and nephew as a free babysitter. This came about after she'd invited both of them to visit her at the same time with their lively little girls. If you're not used to having young children around, four of them under the age of 7 at the same time is a bit much.

How much my niece and nephew have used her as a babysitter is up for debate. I emailed my sister to give her the heads-up on what's happening. She emailed back to say she'd warned my mother about having the girls all at the same time, and that apparently my mother had only been left with one of them once. Also, my mother has apparently been talking to her twin sister, who doesn't want my mother to move closer to her own children. No, my aunt wants my mother to live with HER children. I don't know why.

But this is my mother. She is such a Gemini (and I don't mean to offend Geminis. I love Geminis. My son is a Gemini). But they change their minds so often. She has, through the years, gotten us all riled up about whatever and then backs down when we try to get her to take action. It's very frustrating. Presumably, she's done this with her sister as well. Last year when my mother was visiting my sister, she had not quite a heart attack, but the beginnings of congestive heart failure. She was extremely swollen and bloated and couldn't breathe properly. My sister got her to a dr. who took her off the statins she'd been prescribed off-license for her tremor. The statins weren't for cholesterol; she doesn't have high cholesterol. They caused the wheezing and breathing problems. She had to stay longer than planned. Her sister phoned my nephew and said if they didn't let my mother go, she was going to get the sheriff to come and set her free. Yes, really. Now, what sort of conversation prompted that response?

So she's gotten all of us upset on her behalf and trying to come up with a plan of action to improve her living conditions. And she doesn't want it. I'm tempted to just leave her to it. The bottom line is she moved away from us all those years ago. She had the mental breakdown and got addicted to the sterazine which made her a zombie. She moved closer to her sister. She wants to be near her sister more than she wants to be near us. She puts barriers up to prevent us from getting too close. We are not perfect children, but we aren't awful children either. When she put out the call for help, we responded. I think it's very generous of my sister to want to open her home to my mother. However, two of my (grown) nephews and one of their children live with my sister. It's not a perfect situation. My nephew's little girl has problems because her mom (from whom my nephew is divorced) took drugs and drank while she was pregnant with her.

While I'm out there, I will try once more to get my mom to see a lawyer, assess her financial situation, do what I can. And then I will try no more, and they can take her out of that house in a box if that's what she wants. I am weary of all this. I hope my children never feel the frustration, anger, disappointment, betrayal, and rejection that my parents have caused me (because my dad is whole other kettle of fish).

Summertime, and the livin' is easy (this one's for the ladies)

We have had two WHOLE days of sunshine. What's up? Still not warm enough for my liking, but who's complaining?

I say not warm enough, but a mere two weeks ago I was dying of heat. Hot flushes, to be specific. I had been suffering from them for months, night sweats for a year or two. Silly me didn't put it all together till this year. I thought I was depressed because that's me. I thought I had no energy because that's me. I thought the half stone in weight I put on that would not shift was because of my drinking habits. I never dreamed I'd be going through The Change at 46/47. No, I thought it would be more like 52 because that's when my mom's twin sister went through it. My mother had a hysterectomy at 49 because of endometriosis.

So I went through denial first. Not me. I'm too young. Everyone tells me how much younger I look than my real age. Then anger. Why me? How come I have to go through it now? Then depression. I'll never be a real woman again, boo-hoo. Then, finally, acceptance. Maybe there's some good news about this.

I always meant to read up on menopause, but thought I'd have plenty of time to do it. Suddenly, I had to read as much as I could in a short period of time because I decided I needed to see the dr. I couldn't take sleepless nights for much longer. And so I looked at my options. Natural remedies or HRT. I read a lot about HRT. I took a breast cancer risk assessment test. I took another, then another. All three had different risk assessments, surprise, surprise. The bottom line is that the risk for me goes up dramatically after 50. But not before. And the research on HRT shows that before the age of 50 it doesn't have an effect on breast cancer rates.

So I've been on it for two weeks. And I sleep like a baby and hubby is a happy man again. I will take it till I'm 50, then reassess my options.

A side note: A friend of mine who is younger than me was told by her dr. that she also is menopausal and that she needed to go on HRT. She had none of my symptoms, which were more than just night sweats and hot flushes. The HRT made her feel terrible. She would have horrible temper fits, etc. I've had none of this. I reckon her doc was wrong to put her on HRT if she wasn't symptomatic. He told her it was to protect her bones, but there are other ways to do that.

I haven't told a lot of people I'm on HRT because I don't want the naturalmaniacs baying for blood. The truth is there's a lot more scientific research done on HRT than there is on natural remedies. Also, I have to take my particular circumstances into account, as everyone should.

Thoughtful Blogger II

For those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping others bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.



That's what the Thoughtful Blogger award is about. So I'd like to nominate in no particular order Kelly, Debio, Laurie, Stay at Home Dad, and marymaryquite contrary. You all are very good about responding to each and every blog comment and making visitors like me feel like having a cuppa and a chat. Go to the Writer's Review website/http://www.writersreviews.com/2007/07/writers-reviews-blogger-awards.html to pick up your award. And do please spread the cheer to five other bloggers.

Thoughtful Blogger

I only have a few minutes before Son takes over the computer. I want to thank DJ Kirkby for bestowing the Thoughtful Blogger honour upon me. I need to nominate five people to receive this but it will have to wait till Son finishes what he wants to do.

I have been BUSY! Keeping two tween-agers occupied isn't as easy as it looks. And with them around, there's more cooking and cleaning to do or else we spend the day going out and spending money. Oh how I long for the days when a trip to the park or the beach or a bike ride was sufficient. Not anymore.

Of course, I didn't see much of them in the first few days after school let out. Son had his bezzie mates round for a sleepover, then he went to another sleepover at one of the mate's. Then he spent half a day at home. Then another friend came over and spent the night. Daughter went to a friend's on Saturday night, was home Sunday, went shopping with another friend Monday and a sleepover that night at a schoolfriend's. Then Tuesday I took them and two friends shopping and to the cinema to see Harry Potter (fantastic!).

Here's the difference between boys and girls. At my son's sleepover and the one he went to, the boys played games and swam in his friend's pool. At the sleepover my daughter went to, the girls sat around telling each other their worst faults.

Maybe it's a 12-year-old thing. I seem to recall doing that too, with disastrous results for the friendship. Daughter's school friends did this at the last sleepover they went to as well. That resulted in some hurt feelings on the part of one girl. I know that because I am friends with the mother of that girl. I took the mother to lunch for her birthday last week, and she proceeded to tell me all about her daughter crying and feeling left out, etc. If I don't sound very sympathetic, it's because I'm not. This particular girl dumped my daughter two weeks into the school year. I didn't repeat anything my daughter had told me about the girl. I did say 12-year-old girls can be incredibly bitchy. I did say my daughter had also gone through a rough patch earlier in the year when nobody was calling her. I am fairly confident that information was passed on.

At this week's sleepover, Daughter asked the girl why she had quit calling her. Now here's where I get really pissed off. The girl's reply was that she thought Daughter had started acting bigheaded and she wanted to teach her a lesson so she quit having much to do with her! This from the child who boasts about her father's Porsche, her expensive new bedroom, the expensive holidays her family goes on. So Daughter tells me what the girl said and my voice starts to get really loud and indignant and Daughter starts to get defensive and won't tell me anymore. So I calm down and ask her if she thinks that was fair of the girl to say. She said she thought it was, and that maybe she hadn't been such a good friend to the girl.

I said no more and have not brought it up since. But I am incensed! I think Daughter is afraid of losing friends and so will put up this little madam for the sake of peace. The only thing that consoles me is that I doubt this relationship will last much longer than another school year, if that. I wish I could tell Daughter that women don't do this sort of thing to each other, that they grow out of it. But we all know that isn't true, don't we. Women are each other's best friends and worst enemies. I have wished many a time that I had a man's emotional makeup. I sometimes envy men their ease in keeping conversation on a surface level. Still, they have their problems too, don't they. There are still the Wannabe Alpha Males jostling for superiority in sport, cars, and women. And the men who will not show one iota of emotion. And the ones who are from Mars and other planets.

I'd put a 12-year-old girl up against them anyday. I know who would win.

Leaving Wyoming

I just got back from my son's Year Six Leavers Assembly. You know the sort. They all do skits and sing songs and thank everyone. I cried last year at my daughter's, but this year I was dry-eyed. Until I looked at the notice board and saw pictures of my son in Reception. Oh, he was a gorgeous little chappie. Still is. Back then he had these lovely chipmunk cheeks which he's inherited from me, though hubby's family like to claim his looks. I'll never have him like that again, and I feel somewhat melancholy about it. Still, he has grammar school to look forward to, and I think that will be the making of him. I think he will come out from under his bushel and shine the way I always knew he could. At least I hope he will.

But the farewell to primary school isn't quite so wrenching for me as the farewell to Wyoming will be this summer. That is where my mother lives. That is the state we visited every summer when I was growing up to see the grandparents. My mother moved back there in 1977. I've gone back most years ever since. My mother's parents moved there from Missouri when they were young adults, my grandmother to be a teacher, my grandfather to escape his abusive brother. My grandfather went on to be a cowboy for a few years. Yep, a real, live cowboy, though not nearly as romantic as in the movies. They met when they were in their 30s. He was ready to settle down and have a family. She was thankful to meet a man who wanted to settle down with her. They took a train to a town called Thermopolis, built over natural hot springs, and married there. They then lived on a homestead for a few years till the loneliness and the rattle snakes got to my grandmother. My grandpa, as I called him, then built a house that my mother and her twin sister were born in . The house is still in the family, occupied by one of my cousins and his wife and son.

I wrote earlier about my mother needing to move out of my stepfather's house. She is 82 and growing more infirm. He is 85, deaf, incontinent, prone to accidents of all sorts. I finally heard back from my sister, who is ready to have my mother move in with her. I broached the subject with my mother. She is ready to move in with my sister. We just need to tell my stepfather and his daughters and consult a lawyer, I think. Not necessarily for a divorce, but just to tie up any loose ends. Then my nephews will come with a U-Haul truck and take her back to Florida.

So this will probably be the last time I visit Wyoming for a very long time. I will savour the view of the mountains when we take our annual hike to clear our jet-lagged heads. I will dip my toes in the icy cold water of the mountain spring we visit. I will remember my brother, my cousins and I, as reckless teen-agers, drinking beer all the way down the mountain, and me having to stop at each and every rest stop. I will drive past Grandma and Grandpa's house and remember their vegetable patch, Grandma's flowers, the soft grass that I loved to walk barefoot in. It looks different now because my aunt built a house on part of the land. I will shut that out and remember playing croquet on that soft grass, the smell of Grandpa's garage where he kept all his old license plates, the green shed my brother and cousin called the sleephouse because that's where they slept when we visited. Where are those license plates now? Probably claimed by some relation. I think the sleephouse was taken down some years ago.

I will walk down the streets of my mother's town, as I do every year with my husband, peering at the vegetables and flowers that people somehow coax to life from a sometimes less-than-willing environment. We will point out to our children the house one occupant painted red, white, and blue the summer after 9/11. We will visit the hot springs of Thermopolis where my children will go down the various water slides and jump off the high diving board, as I did as a child. Perhaps we will coax them into the teepees for some photographs. I will try to get to Montana, which I try to do every year yet fail for one reason or another. Maybe one last visit to Yellowstone (though I hope not as I have yet to stay in the Old Faithful Inn, one of my goals in life). So much to fit in, so little time.

Leaving primary school is bittersweet. Leaving Wyoming will be much, much sadder.

Well, I went for my manicure, but the beauty salon was locked up tight. Seems no one had bothered to enter my appointment in the computer. I was quite annoyed, but when I finally got hold of someone, she was so apologetic, I couldn't stay mad. And it meant I got to work in the garden for most of our day of sun.

So much needs doing after all the rain. The shrubs have loved the moisture and have burst beyond their boundaries so I had to cut some back quite hard. Probably the wrong time of year but oh well. I inspected my project at the back to see what further changes I can make. We used to have a gigantic leylandii hedge that was dead at the bottom and was starting to look hideous. Two years ago while I was visiting my family, hubby had it chopped down. No problem. We still had some huge trees -- a pine and a willow. Well, the storm in January nearly uprooted the pine so it had to go and the willow was rotten in the middle so it had to go. Which left a lot of roots and not a lot of privacy. We planted a cherry tree, a magnolia, and a huge rhododendron last year, but it's still quite bare and I can still see the lady at the back in her bathroom. But in the bareness, I can see what I want to do with the border. A couple more trees, possibly birch or rowan. More rhododendrons, some ferns, some Japanese anemones. Just have to get rid of the tree roots and these lily-type things that must be from prehistoric times because they have such huge bulbs.

I also inspected the blackcurrent bushes. They are bursting with fruit and need to picked NOW. But what do I do with all the blackcurrants? In the past I've made jam (quite runny but good) and cassis, but I never drink enough cassis. Does anyone have any ideas? My lettuce is also loving the rain and cool weather, but other vegetables aren't looking so good, like the courgettes (zucchini). The tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse are progressing slowly.

I love being in the sun and tending to my garden. I could spend the entire day doing it but can't. And I must watch it because I did my back in a couple of weeks ago trying to dig out the lily-type things.

And isn't it a good thing I didn't have the manicure, which no doubt would have been ruined by all the work in the garden? Sometimes things work out for the best.