FIVE

No further commentary is needed, is there?

FOUR

See also: Post-Paschal Post.

Out of the blue I received a text from my aunt (aka mom's flying monkey) asking ABOUT THOSE FUCKING BOOKS.

So, on top of leaving me THREE voicemails about these fucking books she's demanding I find for her, she's now recruited my aunt to reach out to me.

I kept my replies super brief to my aunt and didn't add anything else to it. 

For someone who thinks she's so self-aware, she certainly makes herself available to be manipulated by my mother.

FUCK THEM ALL.

PS: I have been reading up on Reactive Attachment Disorder--and my god. Maybe I have it? Maybe my mother, and me and my siblings have certain stripes of this disorder? 

Almost Forgot

Audrey's house still isn't sold yet, we're now waiting for the C.O.

By the time the deed is finally transferred, Shady Pines will have absorbed it all. And with her pension and Social Security now in a trust account, that's the end of the line. 

She's still demanding and bossing everyone around, not realizing very soon, she will become what I will call "indigent adjacent." Sure, her basic needs of a roof and sustenance will be met, but beyond that, there isn't a quality of life. And if she's got to suffer, then the rest of us will, too, in one form or another.

Fuck her.

Post-Paschal Post

I sent Audrey a card on Wednesday, which she received either Good Friday or Saturday. 

Easter came and went and she didn't bother to call me.

The following week, I started my spring cleaning and found three bags of sugar free candy, so I mailed them off to her. THAT, of course, elicited a call of thanks. Of course, because I DID SOMETHING FOR HER.

Last week was about the fourth week after Easter, and it took her THAT long to get around to calling me, and not to say she missed me or that she was worried (as normal mothers would), but that she wanted me to DO SOMETHING FOR HER. See? I only exist when she wants me to exist. 

Anyway, she left a voicemail on my phone at work, slurred speech and all, and I somehow deciphered the books she wanted me to get from paperback swap, and I ordered them, and I thought my participation here was done. OH NO! It's never that easy.

The next day I got YET ANOTHER voicemail asking if I got the first message (YES DUMB ASS).  And the following day I got ONE MORE voicemail, this time on the house phone. All of these calls I have not managed to call her back, because, well, FUCK HER.

And here we are, about two weeks away from my least favorite holiday, and I had a fucking epiphany yesterday. I decided when I go out to find my pink unicorn, in this case, the most neutral, most impersonal mother's day card I can find, I will buy about 5 of them, so then for subsequent years, I don't have to go through this bullshit anymore. 

There's no way to figure out the correct # of cards to buy. If I buy 5, she'll probably die next year, and if I buy 10, she'll die 11 years from now. So I can't win for losing. But I am tired of this bullshit holiday. Resent it, even! But I think buying the cards in bulk is a brilliant idea, and one I am embarrassed to say that it's taken me THIS LONG to figure this out.

Shady Pines: A Screed on Food

So the very same weekend as "Who Flung Poo," Audrey ends up in the hospital too, this time with YET ANOTHER raging cellulitis infection. She manages to call me and leave a voicemail about my brother, and never mentioned anything about HER being in the hospital--not that it matters to me really. She has gone WEEKS without calling me, and there she is, calling me to convey that my brother was in the hospital, and I have no doubt she wanted to gossip about what got him there. I wasn't having any of that, and let the call go to voicemail. She called again this past weekend, and again, I let it go to voicemail, as her birthday is on 3/1, and there is no way in hell I am going to call her twice in less than five days. Fuck that noise.

Before I get ahead of myself, here is a photo of what her dinner on Sunday was, at Shady Pines. Now mind you, she is on "self pay," and we're still waiting for the sale of her house to go through. 

The above is a photo of what you get served for dinner at a nursing home. Mom is on self-pay to the tune of $11,000 (and as of current writing, she has racked up close to $55-66,000, which is more than half of the value of her house). I have absolutely no doubt that they have it on file that mom is a diabetic who has diverticulitis. Look at that "welfare dog," plus TWO different forms of cabbage. 

Now I'm not a tube steak snob. I've been known to have a hotdog (on an actual hot dog bun!) and some cole slaw for dinner; however, if I paid someone $11,000 a MONTH for my room and board (et al), I'd expect more than this. And yet, there's a bit of irony, knowing how mom worked for 25 years in the kitchen of a nursing home--oh those poor souls! As if they didn't have enough troubles, landing them in a nursing home, but to eat mom's cooking on top of that? Surely it's one of the inner rings of Dante's hell.

Food has always been a continual theme in mom's life--food controlled her, and by extension, she controlled us with food. 

Years ago, I worked with a friend whose mom was from Ireland, and she boiled everything. She and I would go toe-to-toe, story by story, inventorying particular dishes each of our moms made that we were forced to choke back. I don't remember which of my mom's particular dishes won that contest, whether it was her grease-laden Meatball Stroganoff or her Bluefish Marinara. I am starting to dry heave a bit just thinking about this.

Then there's the matter of mom's Killer Meatloaf, which my sister and I are CONVINCED mom never actually cooked, but instead, she'd mix up the meatloaf and leave it out on the counter, unrefrigerated, until the sad, murky meat-slab turned brown and serve it up to us. It IS plausible, especially given how every time we'd eat her meatloaf, we'd all get sick. Every last one of the 5 of us, 6 if you include this one friend who was like a stray cat at dinner time, every last one of us sick, with a solitary toilet for us to all compete. TMI: Trust me. Nearly everything can be used as a toilet if you are desperate enough. 

Then there's the matter of birthdays, and how she'd use food to control the tone of our "special day." And this isn't something unique to me, everyone has a story. Every year for nearly 30 years, mom would make a German Chocolate Cake for my brother as she got it in her head that was his favorite--no dice, his favorite is an Italian rum cake!

The very last birthday I decided to give her access to me was the year I turned 31. Before the visit, she asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner and birthday cake. "Sirloin salad and red velvet cake" was my reply. This was the first and last of my birthdays where the Maharajah attended. And I guess mom changed the menu up thinking "he's Indian, Indians like HOT food" and she made roasted chicken parts and then promptly dumped an entire jar of Italian style pickled peppers on top (the dish was damn near inedible). And my birthday cake? Entenmann's crumb. And in keeping with her lack of Give a Fuck, she didn't even invest in a small box of birthday candles, and instead, jammed a 12 inch taper candle in the cake. The whole thing was so regrettable.

The only thing that could even come close to the birthday meal fuckery is mom's birthday gift bestowment. This was done so regularly, it almost is a trademark: she'd wait until the last possible moment to run to the supermarket or pharmacy and buy the first random piece of crap she could. She would hand the gift recipient the bag from the supermarket or pharmacy--and inside it would be: an unsigned birthday card, a roll of tape, a new Bic pen, a packet of gift wrap, and the shitty gift, unwrapped. She couldn't give a shit enough to wrap the gift or sign the card.  

The last birthday gift she ever got me was when I was 30 and was in the throes of leaving my exhusband. She went to the supermarket and bought some random clown marionette, making some claim that I should hang it above my bed, given the bed is probably seeing a lot of action with all the CLOWNS I date.

March 1st is her birthday. And I will get her the same thing I get her every year: a box of assorted sugar free chocolates. On the surface at least, it looks like a nice gift. My gift is passive-aggressive as all fuck, given mom has ZERO impulse control, and will eat the entire box pretty much all in ONE GO, shoveling each piece into her gaping maw before the previous piece is done being chewed or swallowed. She does this without fail, without exception, despite the box having a warning on it that "excess consumption causes diarrhea." 

IMHO, a "thank you" or other acknowledgment is the gift you give in return when someone does something nice for you. She "thanks" me the next day, in the form of a voicemail where she snarls into the phone about how my gift made her so sick/shit her pants--never once thinking that the chocolate didn't make her sick, but her LACK OF CONTROL was what made her sick. But whatever. 

So, to know the consistent diet of regrettable foods she'd serve us, and now know she's a captive audience at Shady Pines and they are serving HER regrettable food, it is karma in action, imho.

I have gone most of my life with the awareness that, in all probability, I wasn't going to get an inheritance, when I cast my gaze upon that welfare dog with the double dose of cabbage, I cannot help but think for at least a petty hot second, "that's where my inheritance is being spent." On a tiny, tiny level, I did have a hope of a consolation prize for the assortment of abuse and fuckery I received from my mother.

More: Merde Maelstrom

So, mom has been in Shady Pines since around August. She wasted precious time "deciding" to stay (Hobson's Choice was in October), when we all could have used that time to empty out her house in a more casual manner.

When things looked like they were organized and on their way to get the house ready for sale, our brother's life pretty much imploded, as was indicated mid-month in December.

So in the meanwhile, my sister's boss has decided to buy the house. Initially with the intent to "flip" it, but also has made an arrangement to allow our brother to live there (pay rent, utilities and property tax, too), and at some time in the future, the house will be sold to our brother, assuming he doesn't fuck things up.

One of my super powers is to see problems before others. And even though I voiced my concern to my sister, the plan continued. I thought SURELY if something were to go sideways it would be AFTER the sale of the house. And to date, no, the sale has not been finalized yet. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. I envisioned the brother working on his car, outside, loudly drinking beer with a few of his asshole buddies, and someone contacting the HoA on him. But no. That would be an IDEAL situation.

The weekend before last, a collection of absurdities occurred. First, he was stalking the YentaBeast on FB, and when she said she was going to do a number of things, one of which was see her therapist, he blasted her back with, "Liar. He's in Jamaica."  

Then, despite being advised by our sister to NOT have the YB drop his kid off at the house, he did precisely that. Prior to the YB arriving, he was outside walking his dog. This detail amuses me, given that the dog shits so much IN THE HOUSE that I bet the dog is pretty much empty while he's out on his walk.

And the YB shows up with the kid in tow. And a screaming match ensued, culminating in him tossing the sack of still warm dogshit in the car WHERE HIS KID IS. The neighbors called the cops, and while the cops were en route to respond to a domestic dispute, with Fred Sanford-like timing (ELIZABETH! I'M COMIN' TA GET YA!), the brother's defibrillator starts zapping him. And upon arriving and making a report (see? a paper trail is being established--and will no doubt work well to support a restraining order), they then took him to the ER.

Six hours after getting out of the hospital, he then, cluelessly, calls his daughter to see if she wants to go out to dinner with him. And no-shit-Sherlock! She doesn't want to go out to dinner with him, after he terrorized her with a bag of dogshit. When our sister informed him how this is going to play out, and how he'll be lucky if after the divorce he'll be able to see his kid with SUPERVISED visits, his response was, "What's the big deal? The shit was still in a bag."

What he fails to realize is that divorce is an act of war. Every action has to be calculated. And well, he's given YB the upper hand, and if "I" were the YB, I'd sure as shit get a restraining order on him and have grounds to do so, given he terrorized their kid. 

The mind reels, and the question everyone comes to initially is, "What kind of father would throw dogshit on their kid?" And this is usually met with me saying, "The same kind of father who would throw (like a spear or javelin) the front fork of a bicycle at their kid." Yep. My dear-old-dad did that very thing TO ME (I was about 11 or 12--close to the age his daughter is right now). And luckily I am a supreme clutz and the grass was wet and I slipped and it was a near-miss. He threw it with such force, the bike fork stuck in the side of our wooden shed. I have no doubt in my mind he could have killed me, and just because I did NOT die that time, doesn't make what he did to me any LESS awful. 

So my brother has the worst characteristics of both parents: dad's seething resentment/emasculinity/hostility, and mom's lack of impulse control. All of this is going to lead to him not only losing ANY kind of contact with his kid, but no doubt, if he doesn't get a grip on reality, and start paying bills and quit half-assing things, he's going to totally sabotage having a roof over his head.

Topic For Next Week's Session With My Therapist

Where we left off:

My sister's boss is buying mom's house and will be renting the house to our brother, who will rent with option to buy until he reaches the age whereby he can own the house (retirement village).

Sis went to the house with someone who was there to give an estimate of the fair market value of the home. Sis walked in and the place was riddled with dog shit, and in the dining room were four truck tires stacked up (why not the garage? see previous posts about his hoarding). They then walked through the kitchen where, hanging on the pantry door, was what I will refer to as a "titty calendar" (the type mechanics get as promotionals from vendors they buy from regularly). They then went into his 10'x10' bedroom which is pretty much overwhelmed by the California King sized bed, and on each of the four walls is plastered enormous posters of JOAN COLLINS. (Now let that marinate in your membrane for half a beat--my brother flicks his bean to the image of Joan Collins.)  And of course, strewn about are DVDs of porn.

I feel confident the porn and titty calendar all remain out in the open when my 12 year old niece is there on the weekends.

I feel confident that he makes no point of hiding any of these objectifying images, given that when dad was in the hospital for his mitral valve replacement, and the surgical liaison came out to let us know dad was taken off the heart-lung machine, our brother proceeded to show the surgical liaison, A FUCKING STRANGER TO US ALL, porn clips on his phone.

I do not have an open and communicative relationship with our brother. He doesn't reply to my texts when I send him something absurd (this is almost always a juicy, well-baited hook to get him to reply). He is fully ensconced in the denial stage he is in, in denial about his own contributions to how or why his marriage is in the shitter, and the how or why his daughter hates him.

I think of how hostile he is to every female--especially our sister who has valiantly gone above and beyond what would be expected to help him (see also: HER BOSS IS BUYING MOM'S HOUSE, thereby helping mom who is in a nursing home; and HER BOSS WILL BE RENTING THE HOUSE to our brother). 

He thinks he's hit rock bottom. But he hasn't.

I suspect he might be mentally handicapped to the point where he cannot live on his own and cannot handle mundane yet simple tasks like writing checks, bill paying, as well as basic/minimal follow through regarding his divorce. 

While I don't wish it to happen, as I know it'd IMMEDIATELY AND NEGATIVELY impact our sister's standing with her boss, but I JUST KNOW in my bones that our brother is not going to pay his rent or his taxes on time. I just know it. And I'll crack that up to our brother being mentally handicapped (or developmentally stunted, due to a lifetime of being coddled, or BOTH). 

Also, in light of the whole #MeToo public discussion, it would be interesting for me to witness, and devastating for him to experience, if his daughter mentioned directly (or a friend mentioned indirectly) to a teacher or guidance counselor about feeling uncomfortable being surrounded by sexually objectifying imagery when she visits her father on the weekends. There's a zero tolerance for stuff like this, and teachers and guidance counselors are considered First Responders, and pretty much would have to report this to the authorities. It would be interesting to see how he'd respond to an impromptu home inspection by social workers.

I have spent nearly 17 years wishing the YentaBeast would just go away. And I hope she sticks to her guns and does just that. And takes their kid to Florida to be with her mom. While this is not perfect, as the YentaBeast is a hot mess unto herself, but at least their daughter won't be surrounded by PORN at her mother's or grandmother's house.

Yet, there's this persistent worry we have, that he will cave, and find some way to beg the YentaBeast not to leave. He still communicates with her and tags her on photos on FB. He's in denial. And he thinks he's still in love with her. And despite our sister informing him if he goes back to YentaBeast "that's it," sis will be done with our brother.

I'd be interested to see what happens next--to see who will cave first/next.

Then there's the analysis of these rather intense behaviors, and realizing, "holy shit, that's 100% dad." And seeing how sis spent years taking care of dad, and now mom, and holy crap, taking care of our brother who is truly living a parallel or extended narrative of our father's. The answer to "how did this even happen?" I cannot help but connect the dots back to our parents. My brother truly possesses ALL the negative traits of both of our parents. He's living the "what if dad left mom" scenario that I play out in my head--and what he's going through right now is exactly what dad wanted to avoid, and that's why he did absolutely nothing to extricate himself from his own unhappy marriage. 

In the meantime, I've been home from my trip two weeks (as of tomorrow), and I have left two voicemails for mom, of which, I doubt she could fat finger her way through her cell phone buttons and HEAR THAT, YES AUDREY--I CALLED YOU TWICE!" She's left me several voicemails "I haven't heard from you... blah blah blah."  When I was away and unable to call or email at will, it was inconvenient, yet, being totally candid here--I could really appreciate NOT continuing in this cycle of telephonic stupidity. Would it be cruel for me to just want her to bork out? I mean, hey, for years she stopped going to other people's homes, then she structured a lifestyle where everyone and everything had to COME TO HER (9-almost-10 years of this), and inconveniently she decided (despite it being an obvious Hobson's Choice) to stay in the nursing home, and has essentially warehoused herself. I have nothing left to give on this topic. I feel guilt as I know I shouldn't wish it, but here we are.  

Will he blow his head off and/or take someone else out in the process?
Will he have a fatal heart attack?
Will our sister?
Will he take YentaBeast back?
If he does, will our sister find the fortitude to cut him off completely?

And in the meantime, at Shady Pines, Audrey has been hoarding slices of bread in her dresser, and basically is a human equivalent of a compost heap. 

I take no glee in this. And this is craziness. But at least it's not a craziness of my own design. And even that's not enough to placate me. This is all just sad.