Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Really?

A good many of my friends, at times it even seems like it amounts to the majority of my friends are democrats. I like them, they are my friends, and nearly all of them believe me to be a democrat also - though I am a republican, granted, I am known in one circle of extremely active democrats as "the most liberal republican (insert name of passionate active democrat here) ever knew" - aka mlrmpek. This is mostly due to a strange phenomenon, I am unbelievably -- really unbelievably diplomatic about politics, [those who know me well, know that I am seldom diplomatic about ANYTHING] and also because I truly am not really either party on many issues - I am pro gun-control (limited); I am pro-choice; I am for limited government involvement and opposed to social programs (mostly); I am supportive of a strong military; and here's a kicker I don't share with friends much, I am pro-capital punishment. I find however that it's quite easy to share my opinions and even when it's about something where I support the opposite viewpoint of my friend, we can have a nice pleasant conversation, frequently without them ever suspecting that my voter registration reads the same as their "obnoxious right-wing bible thumping neighbor".

Alas, the point of this post is not actually to expose my politics so much as it is to wonder, how can I fit in so well among my legions of "liberal" friends and yet when it comes to the simplest thing, like my friends kid just had a super ugly baby -- I have trouble not betraying my true opinion? [in fact, I said something along the lines of "bet you are glad the wait is over"] But I also question, have I ever unwittingly, amongst a group of "conservatives" where I felt comfortable being more passionately open about oh say 'captial punishment' made my "liberal" counterpart feel as though they have managed to conceal their true political identity? -- well that's a digression... back to my point, my 'total' lack of diplomacy.

I was in fact amongst a group of liberals for drinks over the weekend, and as is the usual with folks our age, politics did become part of the discussion - my two friends among the group who know my true political identity shared knowing looks with me and one even patted my leg at one point when she thought I might be feeling a bit overwhelmed with the passion - a sweet gesture moosema - thanks! Strangely, later in the night I blurted out one of my famously non-diplomatic remarks, like 'well she's always been a bitch why would that change' or some other type remark, and they all said "I love how momumo is so blunt, you can always count on her for truth" -- and I am always truthful (unless absolutely prevented by decorum, if point blank asked if I think that the new baby is cute, I will probably be forced to lie - I mean you really can't say something like "wow are you sure that one's done cooking?").

How do I find it so easy to be a diplomat with politics and so unnecessary and near impossible in every other situation?

Monday, December 21, 2009

Parenting Teenagers

hahahaha! If anyone ever presumes to tell you they have the answers to raising teenagers, run before they ask you to drink the koolaid! My darlings have all cost us just about $200 for some random bunch of crap

- Friday night the boy texts me, yes re-read that TEXTS ME "I split my chin open on the gym floor and the trainer thinks I should get stitches" -- ps. he wasn't participating in the sport, he was a fan at the basketball game -- and I was drinking at the casino with hubby - 1. he CHOSE to slide across the gym floor toward a dog pile of kids (with his new Tommy John elbow that is NOT fully recovered, ugh) 2. he texted me, not a call, a freaking text message 3. when I called him to find out the details he asked if he could wait until after the game to go get stitches in his THREE INCH laceration (is actually just over 1 inch, I really was picturing his lip flopping around as if he had gauged it when he said 3 inches) -- So, I informed him (not without a little bit of guilt) that he is 18, has his own insurance card and can drive himself to the ER for stitches (then I called his older sister to meet him there)

- Sunday night, after driving to Wyoming and back, daughter asks at 10:00pm if she can drive back to Wyoming to see boyfriend, we actually allowed this against our better judgment because when we were nineteen, we would have wanted to do it too and would probably have figured out how to get it done. Yeah, so today, she lets us know that she will be later than expected getting home because she got a speeding ticket - for quite a damn bit over the speed limit, needless to say, not happy

- This afternoon, youngest daughter goes to new eye doctor and gets and extended eye appointment because her old contacts (that she wore for TWO years) never did work right, but she didn't want to tell us that because we would make her wear her glasses

Going to post an ad on Gypsy-bay.com that they are all for sale, no returns, ugh

To make the day better, the younger two did not do at all what I asked them to do around the house today and then tried to sell that I underestimated the time required to complete those chores. Really 3.5 hours in the kitchen and it's still not clean -- um yeah, I could practically fuckin remodel the kitchen in 3.5 hours -- and 2 hours cleaning ONE shower and well apparently doing something in the living room, but all I could tell was the mail was on my desk and she moved a small pile of stuff off of a christmas box onto my desk chair -- oh and the job on the shower, the dog coulda licked it cleaner. SO PISSED.

Anyhow, tomorrow is supposed to be baking day, should be glorious I'm sure.

Friday, December 18, 2009

OOOps underestimated the nosiness of oldest daughter

As many of you (all two of you) know, my family is unaware of this blog - so today, one aunt contacted oldest daughter via facebook asking for another aunts address -- the fastest way I could think of to retrieve it was to give her my thumb drive from my old laptop files and tell her to look for it among the documents on there. Well also stored on that thumb drive are some of my posts from this blog -- she is thoroughly enthralled with and enjoying my 'dirtiest stories ever' document, which contains all of those stories as posted here so long ago. Maybe I should have given it a more boring title, I can see how running across 'dirtiest stories ever' would make a 19 year old, or really any aged person, rather curious.

As for the rest of my life, it just feels like it's on hold. No news on mom, not a lot going on with anything else, probably going to try to start some holiday shopping today. Need a great 'small' gift idea for the dh -- he got a new high def flat screen blah blah whatever television earlier this year and has made it clear that it was his father's day/birthday/christmas gift all in one, but I am not gonna sit here and hand him a package of underwear on Christmas morning while the rest of us tear into fun and exciting gifts - besides, he also said he's good on undies this year and doesn't need those either, lol. I feel a little behind the gun on this one gift, would love to have a great idea pop into my head maybe having written it down will motivate the universe to manifest that for me.

Happy Friday -- I'm off to finish cleaning the toilet and shower, oh joy.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Happy Holidays

Yes, Happy Holidays - not because it's politically correct, read a few of my posts, I could give a shit about pc-ness - because we celebrate more than one holiday in our home, we have friends who celebrate different holidays and for YEARS, yes YEARS, I have chosen to wish people Happy Holidays, or actually to be more exact, I usually tell people to "Have a Great Holiday".

I am never offended by being wished Happy Hannukah or Merry Christmas, the person making the wish means to give me a word of cheer. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people meant to give words of cheer more often? No one wishes you a cheerful day and means to insult you, sure you may not celebrate that day, but actually, for those who don't celebrate anything, are we insulting them by wishing them a happy anything? You never hear them complaining (about that... yet).

The intention is to be cheerful and kind, and so, those people who are having a fit about people taking the Christ out of Christmas, they need to think again - that may not be anyone's intention at all. And if they are such devoted Christians, then kindness to others should be much higher on their list and prevent them from being so insulting and rude and judgmental. I'm sure a good many of them haven't even thought of it this way, they are concerned about the twice a year Christians, or those who don't even worship watering down what is to them a religious observance first and a gift giving egg nog drinking party second (or they want to pretend that it is), and they have a right within their own family and home to make sure that the religious observance comes first - they do not have a right to make others feel dirty for trying to be kind to all, including Christians and non Christians who are also celebrating a holiday, and in the case of Hannukah, a religious observance that is thousands of years old and is much more about the celebration of faith than gifts and food (although Latkes are probably as much looked forward to or more than many favorite Christmas treats in our home).

Thursday, December 10, 2009

What? MOMUMO has a blog? Serendipity

Well, not that I think anyone is actually still reading this, but maybe I'm still on someone's feed and they'll discover I've actually posted something. I was reminded this morning that I do have a blog, a friend put a line in his own blog, something along the lines of "wanting to get away from limiting all my online communication to facebook" - yes evil facebook has taken me from this wonderful, fairly anonymous outlet. But... the timing for re-discovery couldn't be better, could really use this outlet right now, and the freedom that it gives me to express myself.

Since we last spoke... oh seriously, that would be too much like a freaking holiday letter, ugh! (which I should really think about writing, haven't written one for years and every year I hear how people miss it)

So, aside from catching up with old friends on Facebook, losing my job (because of the economy... and of course the completely inept woman who threw me and my co-worker under the bus to save her own position, which she ended up losing due to her incompetence), having my oldest daughter away at college, Tommy John surgery for my baseball pitcher son (yes this is his Sr. year, and no he won't be pitching this spring, baseball folks - it is like you imagine) getting two new puppies to replace my dear old friend that we lost this past spring, and of course all the mom stuff that goes with two teenagers in high school, I've pretty much evolved into this strange woman that I don't always know.

I still stay very busy with all my volunteer stuff, and I still try to run my house, but I've never been a super duper Donna Reed about that - in fact as I type this there is a sink full of dishes and a washing machine full of wet towels from yesterday not to mention dog hair EVERYWHERE, I actually found a dog hair in a coffee cup that I was pulling out of the dishwasher that had just finished running! [note to self: remember last week when you said you were going to vacuum more than once a week?].

So why such serendipity at re-discovering my blog, well I'll tell you, for the next while this blog may be more about dealing with the frailty of my parents then about me or my kid stuff... weird huh?

My parents suddenly became old on me a few years ago, I've sort of pulled an ostrich act about the whole thing, refusing to entirely accept that they can't just jump in a raft and float through some white water rapids with me any old time I please. My mom had a bypass surgery, 5 grafts, 4+ years ago, it pretty much sucked. She had a stroke (or maybe several) during surgery/recovery - the doctors always say it happened during the procedure, but we are pretty certain it happened during recovery. Anyhow, strokes really suck, if you haven't experienced someone close who has gone through it, I don't have a good analogy, so just read on and maybe it will become apparent. Strokes suck for many reasons, but the one that has probably sucked the most for ME (yes me, this is my blog, not my mom's) is that they affect personality. My mom is still in there, and she makes appearances fairly frequently, but there are days when the woman that lives inside of my mom's body is a stranger to me, and she's mean, and she's not very funny, and frankly, I don't like her very much because I like my mom, and she's an intruder. You know that mouthy Uncle that comes to family dinners, either uninvited, or invited because it's a fucking holiday and you're obligated? -- and he hogs the whole conversation with shit that is super boring and he bitches about everything and he goes on and on and on about himself (yes, I recognize the irony) - well apparently his doppleganger has somehow body-snatched my mom. Also, the woman who freely let her daughters (and possibly my brothers to some degree) know that there were things about dad that she didn't always like that much, but she loved him and couldn't imagine a life without him, seems to have left the building altogether when it comes to Dad. He's a freaking saint, I have not heard her say a tender loving word to him in over 4 years, and he still just does whatever she asks and cares for her as best as he can. They are that generation where she cared for him and he never much had to make those decisions, he's not as helpless as some of his peers, he can cook, he can keep house (his way), he can shop, etc. Laundry mystifies him a bit, and deciding on stuff like what to shop for or what doctor to go to, those are out of his league, but it's okay she still manages to do that. I never saw my father as a saint like that before, of course I loved him, and all that daddy/daughter stuff, and he was fun, took us camping and to parades and to the rodeo and concerts and the symphony and out to eat -- my dad is awesome about eating out, never bats an eye if my mother wants to eat out and loves taking any of us to lunch, breakfast, brunch whatever. We were really quite spoiled, which I never knew and totally took for granted - I doubt anyone else did as many things and with as great a variety as we did -- seriously everything from the Ballet to the Demolition Derby, and breakfast at a hole in the wall to gourmet dinners at the new trendy Haute Cuisine hot spot (on a side note, with a couple of exceptions, the Haute Cuisine hot spots seldom became favorites, the hole in the wall dumps almost always did!)

So Mom, my mom, who I love dearly and who has ALWAYS been in total denial about any health issue -- not just that whole, "I'm the mom I don't have time to be sick" but total and complete denial that she disguised as a combination between "I don't have time" and "I like to take a more holistic, homeopathic approach to things" - ps. I really do believe in homeopathy and you can not be homeopathic and not holistic also. Alas, my mother for some strange reason that has never been identified, is terrified of clergy, and apparently all western medicine doctors fall into that category as well. She doesn't trust them, will not follow their treatement protocols, and hates anything that has Rx on the label. So of course this is all oh so compatible with recovery from Bypass surgery, stroke and the deteriorating kidney function that accompanies high blood pressure and bypass surgery.

*** side note (and still no expert here) - deteriorating kidney function accompanies almost every other health problem and treating it is bad for everything else and treating everything else is bad for the kidneys ***

Alas, fast forward to last Monday, oh did I mention she also refuses to believe that smoking has anything to do with anything and hasn't quit. She didn't sleep all night Monday night because of "Angina" - which Tuesday morning she told me was her hiatal hernia and that she was on her way to the chiropractor to have an adjustment. She knew it was angina and was just doing the whole ostrich thing. It continued to bother her all the rest of the day Tuesday and somehow through some grace of the Universe my brother was able to talk her into seeing her doctor - they of course sent her to the hospital in an ambulance and then proceeded over the next 5 days to reveal that she had a heart attack, her bypassed vessels were mostly occluded, two completely closed, two partially closed and one that was fairly open, severe kidney disfunction, and an abdominal aortic aneurysm. They also determined that her meds that she was on (not that she was following instructions anyhow) were all messed up and should not have been being given in conjunction with each other,etc. Oh and, with all those occluded vessels around the heart, the blood isn't getting nearly enough oxygen and so she needs additional oxygen - which she refuses to use. So they sent her home to "heal" before they address the kidneys and the aneurysm - with oxygen and all these new pills. She claims one minute to be doing exactly what they say and the next she claims she doesn't need oxygen at all she's fine.

Wow... my husband said to me the other day that as I get older I add more and more detail to my stories and it isn't necessary -- hmmmmm....

So the point of my post, maybe, is this... One of the doctors pretty much told her she needs to make the decision to live or die, and if she makes the decision to live, it may result in a long, miserable, painful, slow, death - and if she decides to just wait for the aneurysm or another heart attack to kill her it would be quick and painless (remind me to send him a cheery note - fucker!). I AM NOT READY FOR THAT TO HAPPEN - does my logic brain say, wow, I could see her choosing the quick painless route, you betcha. I have three children and some nieces and nephews who really truly need her, I can't even begin to describe how much some of them NEED her,and I can't imagine telling them "she chose this". I am vascillating between pissed at the Universe, pissed at her, depressed, feeling amazingly selfish, and nevermind all that I'm gonna stay upbeat and flood this situation with prayer and positive energy and get the outcome that I desire.

I plan to vent here a lot, it could get rather boring, like that asshole uncle at thanksgiving dinner - or it could be filled with bizarre and interesting facts about how a huge family deals with a crazy matriarch who won't conform, time will tell.