monkeymom's Diaryland Diary

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How to be cheap.

It was a long weekend, starting with the Celtic Woman show on Thursday. I am not a fan, but Rich is, so we went, and I endured without (much) complaining. I had my knitting, and some amusing people-watching, although not too amusing, since the average age of the crowd was about 65.

Diana told me to watch the percussionists, and they were pretty entertaining, but I kept getting distracted by colored lights and swirling fog and then when I got tired of watching the singers, I would remember to look at the percussionists again.

So the concert actually went better than I thought, and I was surprised when it ended! Except then there was an announcement that it was a 20 minute interval, and I said, "What? There's more?" and Rich laughed at my anguish. The second half started with twinkly lights ("Oooh, shiny!") but went downhill from there and I was knitting furiously and almost weeping from impatience and frustration by the time it finally ended for real. People kept standing and clapping and I said, "Stop, it just makes them keep singing!" but no one heard me over the applause. The bastards.

We finally got out of there after the third encore, and it was snowing outside! We waited forever in the parking structure while cars full of elderly fans drove out past us, but Rich couldn't see to back up around the giant SUV parked next to us, and I urged him to just start backing up, telling him that people would see his backup lights and they would brake for him, but he didn't listen because he's not aggressive enough, which I guess is a good quality except when I have to sit forever for twenty minutes in a cold parking garage.

Friday was just a boring day at home, except that I napped in the evening, because I was so sleepy and I usually take a nap at that time before I go to work, but I didn't have to work, and when Kim texted me at two in the morning to ask me a question for the paper she was writing for her art history class, it woke me up and I stayed up until morning.

I didn't mind being awake, it was peaceful, with the dog snoring on the floor and Rich snoring in the bed, and I knitted and read City of Ashes, the second book in the series by Cassandra Claire, who wrote brilliant Harry Potter fan fiction and is now writing (and selling) real books!

So I was all cozy in bed, and knitting the first of the Anastasia socks in white Kroy yarn - yes, another pair of nurse socks. The socks were making me so happy and the book was so good, and then the dog woke up and stretched, and went to the bathroom, where we keep a bowl of water for the animals to drink at night. She came back after a drink and wandered around our room, looking at Rich to see if he was awake, and looking at me to see if I was still alive (she was disappointed to see that I was breathing), and then instead of laying back down, she circled the room again, checking Rich, checking me, looking hopefully at the door, and then I caught a little whiff of dog fart, and realized she needed to go out to potty. At 4 in the morning. Sigh.

So I put on a sweatshirt over my nightgown, and took her outside. I didn't put on shoes because usually if I just walk out onto the front porch and say, "Go potty," Buffy will go down the steps and pee on the front lawn and then come back into the house. Well, she would have done that, but she needed to poop (don't be jealous of my glamorous life), and for that she needs to go to the back yard! And so do I, because she is afraid of the dark. So I followed her down the cold cement driveway to the backyard, where she walked around and found a good spot, while I stood there and waited (Cement! Very cold!) and when she was done, we hurried back into the house and I limped back upstairs on frozen feet and also, my painful strained knee! I grabbed a pair of wool socks from my sock drawer and put those on in bed, cursing softly, because Rich was still asleep!

I went to sleep around six in the morning, and didn't get up until 11, so that was pleasant. I did some shopping, and folded several baskets of clean laundry, but by late afternoon my knee was really hurting, so I got back in bed, took some Advil and read the rest of my book. I watched a movie from Netflix, too. It was Matchstick Men, which started out funny because OCD amuses me, and then got more exciting but the end was a bit too sweet.

On Sunday I decided to cowboy up and call Planet Crazy, to talk to Shirley about when would be a good time to go and pick up Grandma's boxes of stuff that have been stored in the garage at their house. I knew what would happen, and I was ready for it, but still, it was painful to listen to Shirley rant and fume and tell me over and over about her suffering, and her hurt feelings after the way Grandma's children acted during the whole ordeal, and every time she started to run down (and I was just mostly clucking sympathetically), then she would rev back up and get going on it all again. I have a lot of sympathy for the situation, I do think that Some People acted in a tacky and thoughtless way, but by the third time through the tale, I was pretty tired of hearing it. I told her that I had to go because Rich was calling me - as if that would make me get off the phone if I didn't want to! Hah!

I immediately called Diana because I needed her to talk me off the ledge! The thing is, we've heard everyone's version of what happened the week Grandma died, and of course everyone puts their own spin on it, so we've had to try to put it all together and weigh what we know about the behaviors of everyone involved to get the most truth we can. I really do think that once Grandma's children got there, they brushed aside Shirley and Dwight and took over. In the least tactful way possible. They did everything without regard for the feelings of S&D, who had been taking care of Grandma for five years, when no one else was able to, or wanted to.

So of course S&D are feeling hurt and resentful. Not to mention that they are appalled at the miserly way the burial was handled, with Aunt Em on the phone in their own living room, asking the funeral home and the cemetary if the family could provide their own cardboard box for the ashes, and could they dig the hole themselves and could they make a headstone out of a bag of cement? OMG, I could cry just thinking about it.

Which led to this conversation today with Diana-

One of the things Shirley said to me was that they are going to make a memorial garden for Grandma in their backyard, and that each of Shirley's kids is planning to buy a flowering shrub to plant, and they're going to put a plaque there in Grandma's memory. I think that is a great idea, because I know how much Grandma loved sitting on the deck looking down on the flowers in that yard. She loved watching Dwight plant flowers, and directing him as to where things should be planted.

I sent a box of chocolates (from the Freaky Candy Store) and a sympathy card to S&D today, but later I talked to Sarah, and she wanted to do something, too, and we decided to send some money to Planet Crazy for them to use on making the memorial garden space. I hope it helps with the healing.

11:37 p.m. - 2008-03-31
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