As for today, the actual 24th on which I am writing this, I have been doing jack shit except for watching Hallmark movies and making crocheted foods for Jackie’s very late Christmas gifting--I finished a hot dog, sushi rolls and a BLT.

I should probably clarify that from the 26th-30th, we were supposed to be visiting (English) Pat*, who we used to dogsit for during the holidays** and has moved to the San Diego area. However, we got a phone call from Pat’s daughter today, saying that her mother is having a whopping ton of back problems that require surgery in 2019, she’s been to the emergency room recently and is now doped to the gills. Mom asked if we should still come and/or leave early/late and/or get a hotel room and got the “no, no, she’s looking forward to having you over” response. We had been warned that she wasn’t doing a lot of activity these days anyway, but this is concerning and I suspected we wouldn't be doing too much under the circumstances.

* My mother knows waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many Pats. This one is from England, hence the name.
** Rest in peace, Lili the adorable water-obsessed corgi.

Added fun bonuses: English Pat and her husband Tony have been having difficulties for I think over a year because she was hell bent on moving to San Diego to be nearer to her children and he was hell bent on not leaving his job. As in, living in the motorhome, not telling them he was technically moving level of hell bent. Well, this has finally ended because he got a Christmas layoff. Damn. Also, he probably has the flu. “And the dog is insane.” Did I mention Pat got a new puppy named Charlie a few months ago? Who I was looking forward to seeing....

In other news, why am I always around when someone starts saying that they are coming down with a cold? I can’t figure out if this means I’m next or if I’m Typhoid Mary. My coworkers were all going down, then Jackie yesterday, now my mom. Now Mom has the death flu, so vacation is now canceled. She was fine this morning, fine in the early afternoon, ran around doing errands for a few hours and was miserable by late afternoon. So much for well, any plans. I had to cancel our flights and presumably I will be getting horribly sick as well because there is literally no way for me to avoid her germs. Also, you know what’s awesome about a hoarder house? When she wants me to find her an empty trash can or a plastic bag or well, anything, I can’t find it. This is gonna be GREAT. How the hell I'm going to cook her food when there's no room and I don't know where anything is, I do not know.

So on December 24 I am sitting around in a hoarder house on a rainy night with a sick mom being yelled at every 15 minutes because she’s a real peach when sick and expects me to read her mind, and will soon be unable to do anything else except watch other people’s Christmasses.

The sad thing is that this may be a worst Christmas on a technicality (though the last year when Dad was home was about this bad), but I just don’t even give a shit any more about the holiday except that I don’t know how I am going to get her food on Christmas Day. It's not like we can really celebrate it anyway at this point, this just makes it rather worse. Good thing I just wrote a bunch of Hallmark reviews to post for the rest of the week.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry