I was talking to my sister Tricia, the other day about living at 608. She was explaining the craziness that happens everyday, especially dealing with Mom. I counter with the what happened one day while visiting there about four years ago. I went back to Sacramento for my son's high school graduation. I had to stay at 608 to help with packing all of Adam's stuff.
On the third night home I fell down the stairs like a Jamaican bobsledder in 20 feet of snow without brakes. My skin was rug burned in several places along with open flesh wounds on my hands and arms. I was bruised pretty badly on my behind, legs, arms and face. I laughed while getting up and only Alexander checked to make sure I was fine. When I go into the kitchen ask for Band-Aids my mother asked why. I tell her what happened and wondered if she heard it. She says no and says that she falls down those stairs all the time which is why she has never been upstairs in 4 years. I rolled my eyes wondering how the hell she keeps falling down the stairs if she never goes up them? So I went for a walk hoping to feel better but instead ended up very weak. My knee starts to swells and eventually gives out forcing me to forgo my walk. My face and arm goes into the sleep mode, fading in and out and prickly. I realized that my usual clumsiness has decided to show itself on this particular day, which explains the stair slide earlier in the day. It is only 8am, and I have time to kill, but I decide to head back home to shower and relax for the rest of the day.
As soon as I get there, my mother announces she needs to go to Auntie Barb’s to drop some things off. She has to go today because she already promised she would and Auntie Barb is waiting, but she cannot go until after 11am because Auntie Barb does not get up until then. I have no idea how come Auntie Barb called her before 11 while still asleep. Maybe they have some kind of witchcraft sleeping communication thing going on. I really don't know, I just want to lay back down but instead, I take a shower and get ready for Auntie Barb’s and painfully give up any thought of resting for the day.
My mother gathers things to put into the car and as we pile into the car Mom brings out several garbage bags full of clothes and whatnots then proceeds to have me grab two boxes of canned goods to put into the car. Visually limping and bruised my mother says I am over-exploiting my injuries and I should just “chill out".
At 10am my mother, with exorbitant joy she skips down the eight poach steps to the car. She loads the trunk with various plants and grocery’s she supposedly can ill afford to give away, but none-the-less, she continues to bring bag after bag of clothing and such to give to Auntie Barb. She jumps into the car as if she is 25 not 73 and smiles happily as I finally pull away from the curb.
Along the way she chit chats about various family members and comments on how great cousin Phyllis treat her mother Barb and how Phyllis daughter is just wonderful even through she gave her two kids to their grandmother and mother so she could party like its 1999. We head to her sister’s house as she continues her tirade of her ungrateful children who never pay her any attention or give her what she needs. Then tells me I need to make her an doctor's appointment before I leave so she can get checked again for heart failure. As I roll my eyes again, I wonder if there is anyway I can push her out of the car and get away with it.
I finally pull up to Auntie Barb’s house a full 20 minutes later and proceed to get out of the car pop the trunk and pull the various bags out. Now mind you I always disliked this aunt. She would call us "dirty little niggers" when I was child and she always thought she was better than my mother. But here we are bringing her groceries and clothes. Go figure.
Halfway up the driveway Auntie Barb opens the front door and says “Dede how is Seattle? I’ve always hated going there. I used to go every year to see my in-laws and found it too cold and rainy”. I say nothing. Instead, I turned to look for my mother whom I just knew was right behind me, she wasn’t. She was still in the car. I frowned and wondered what the hell she was doing. There was Mom, who only minutes ago skipped to get into the car hollering “Dede! Come help me I cannot get out of the car. You know my heart is bad”! I was momentarily confused, how did her heart get bad in 20 minutes in the sitting position? Did she have heart attack while I was driving and I just completely ignored her? Somehow, she miraculously managed to get out the car and very slowly walk up the sidewalk limping horribly, with a cane. Where in the hell did that cane come from? Damn! she sure is a good actress!
By the third unloading trip to the car, my mother managed to get inside Auntie Barb’s kitchen and start with the usual gab of who takes the most medicine and the best names of them. My mother pulls out her gallon sized freezer bag with a bunch of medicine bottles in them. She makes sure to show Auntie Barb each and every one of them and tells her what they are for. Barb shares all of hers while walking hunched over, back and forth in her tiny kitchen. I don't understand why she doesn't just sit if she is not feeling well, but whatever. They discuss who has the worse diseases and symptoms and why their various doctors are idiots. they both argue that their own diabetes is worse than the other. This discussion goes on for about 30 minutes then it on to the who has the worse children routine.
My mother never misses an opportunity to complain about how ungrateful her children are. She has 10 living children who are all neurotics and need professional counseling by the time we all got to be about 20 years old because she was always so unsatisfied. Auntie Barb fusses at me, the one daughter that always gives mother whatever and takes her wherever she wants about being nicer to my mother. Mind you they have all this energy to complain but not enough to stay well.
After the first hour of sheer boredom and neurosis to which I was called ungrateful and uncaring at least a million times, I received a welcome call from a sales representative on my cell phone. This gave me out to leave the house and go outside. After getting rid of the overzealous Sales rep I called my niece, Angela. I had to apologized for not listening to her about Grandma Peggy craziness while she was living there. My bad, I almost forgotten how my mother could be.
I forced myself to go back inside for more self-torture for another hour. Auntie Barb shoves six bags of varies clothing plants and can food towards my way to “Put these in the car for your mother because she really needs them” I could swear that this is the same exact stuff I took out of the earlier but ok.
After 40 minutes of goodbye and happiness at the thought of actually to being able to drop this mother of mine off she announces, “I need to stop off at Raley’s to pick up something for dinner”. It is now 2 o’clock and no one normal thinks of dinner at this time. But me the ungrateful daughter proceeds to prolong my journey to Raley’s.
I think of how I am going to get my mother out of the car this time. I wonder if she going to be pulling on my arm as I try to help her up out of the seat. By the time I get out of the car my mother is already in the store pulling out a shopping cart and looking at the pasties. I bravely walk into the store and push the cart allowing her to stick whatever she wants into the cart. Everything is sweet and dessert like and for the life of me I cannot figure out what happened to her diabetes she had earlier.
At the checkout counter my mother complains to anyone who will listen that her Mother’s Day will be bust because her ungrateful children will not be giving her a $100 each, so she will not be broke. What really pissed me off is that I was standing right next to her. Finally after loaded car and traffic we are back in the driveway of home and my mother bounds up the eight stairs into the house and sits in her favorite chair. I left alone to carry all the packages big and small into the house and set the table for dinner that we will eat precisely at 6:15 pm. It was 4 o’clock and Mom is eating pasties and smiling.
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