no four-day weekend for me
July 01-05, 2006

Not when I spend pretty much all of my four days off catering to him, to his friends, and his family.

Saturday, I had to dedicate most of the morning to his dad, at the rehab hospital. Then we rushed home so that I could hurriedly clean the house and prepare the food for the pool party he invited his friends to.

And I served, and entertained, and I cleaned up, and then I pretty much collapsed, exhausted.

Sunday, we again spent a chunk of the day keeping Papa company. Bringing him all the stuff he had requested on Saturday, and

Monday? I almost got a peaceful day. We swam, and kicked around the house, relaxing. But, sensing that I was nearly rested and at peace, he made it clear that he wanted homemade fried chicken and onion rings for dinner.

And then Niece and Nephew invited themselves to spend the night�since we were taking them to Milwaukee on Tuesday, to see Grandpa.
And as much as I adore those kids, they are exhausting. They take a tremendous amount of energy when they are there, and they leave my house in chaos when they go. Chaos left for me to sort out and clean up.

Since they stayed the night, I had to get up at 5:30 to shower and dress, so everyone else could get a crack at the bathroom. I had to make hot cereal for their breakfasts. I had to ride herd on them to get them out the door, washed, dressed, brushed, and tidy.
(Since they aren�t babies, at 15 and 13, I tried to leave them to their own devices the last time they stayed. Neither one remembered to brush their teeth before we left the house. So, it is back to riding herd.)

And then, I had the wondrous pleasure of preparing �treats for Papa�. I chunked up and packed watermelon and cantaloupe, washed and packed cherries, and boxed up strawberry shortcake. I iced down �those little tiny cans of 7-Up� he had requested on Sunday. I fetched the big umbrella to keep the sun off of him. I packed napkins and plastic forks and straws and a cooler cup for his beverages.

After we were all done getting ready, we all headed to Milwaukee to take Papa to the 4th of July parade. Which went right past the home, so we basically just had to wheel him down to the street. P had him all ready to go when we got there, and the kids accompanied him to his physical therapy while Spouse and I discussed things with P.

I didn�t really find out anything I didn�t know. Papa is back to being just exactly as lazy as he is allowed to be. Which, given the fact that he�s pretty much in a nursing home, is a lot. P plans on sitting him down and reading him the riot act today�explaining that if he doesn�t make some sort of an effort to help himself, he will never get out of the home. He�ll die, penniless, right where he lays, and he need not expect any sympathy or company out of his kids, if that is the choice he wants to make.

It seems harsh, but I know from long experience that Papa needs to hear that in order to get out of the laziness rut he�s in.

We all enjoyed the parade. It had a nice, small-town feel to it, and wasn�t too awfully long. I had serious issues with people marching in a parade that ostensibly celebrated freedom, with the intention of passing out anti-gay propaganda. But I�ll save that for another rant.

After it was over, we all went back up the hill and sat out in the courtyard. Papa had some more of his goodies, and Niece gave him a wheelchair workout, teaching him how to perambulate for himself. She has a lot of success with her grandpa, where others fail. There are several reasons for this�he adores her, he loves it when she pays attention to him, and�mainly--no one argues with the little blonde girl. It isn�t even an option. She takes charge, and you might as well do what you�re told at first, because you are going to eventually, anyhow. Will of iron, that kid.

Spouse and I were extremely proud of her.

We stayed until lunchtime, and then went to Kopp�s for burgers and malts before we hit the road to drop off the kids. I got home around 2:30, to a huge stack of dirty dishes, piles of wet towels and dirty laundry, and general disarray.

I cleaned out the cooler, put the first sinkful of dishes to soak, and informed Spouse that I had to go lay down, now. I didn�t want to sleep more than an hour, but I was so beat I didn�t wake up till six. And by then it was time to start dinner. The demand duJour was for a baked pasta dish with Italian sausages. I made him grill the sausages, to take some of the load off of me, but I still had to boil the pasta, make the sauce, slice up the sausages, and put the whole thing together. And make garlic bread.

All the time I was cooking, I was whittling away at the mountain of dirty dishes, trying to get everything clean. But since I was cooking, I was making dirty dishes almost as fast as I was making clean ones. I washed dishes for nearly an hour and a half, and still had a sink full of them when I finally gave up.

After dinner, I undertook a project, even though I had plenty to keep me busy. I sorted through our old VHS tapes, and pulled out about three dozen that we didn�t want anymore. Then I dug out and cleaned up a couple of plastic videotape storage boxes I had stashed in the basement, and packed up the unwanted tapes in them.

Spouse and I had decided, after reviewing the meager and mediocre selection available to residents of Papa�s unit, to donate these to the resident�s sitting room in Papa�s wing.

Red Dawn and Footloose? Come on�How many times can an eighty-year old watch those?

I�ve been meaning to do this for a while, in order to make way for our ever-growing DVD collection. True, I was going to donate them to the public library, but what the hey. Why not give them to the folks in the Medicare wing to enjoy?

I had some John Wayne, Cary Grant, Van Heflin, and Jimmy Stewart. Some Elvis Presley, some Three Stooges, some Barbra Streisand. Alfred Hitchcock, Wolfgang Peterson, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, and Nora Ephron. War movies and romantic comedies, musicals, adventures and dramas.
Both �An Affair to Remember�, and �Sleepless in Seattle�.
I even put in �Reefer Madness�!

Seemed like a nice mix to me.

Most of these are either movies we don�t watch anymore, or movies we watch often enough to have upgraded to DVD. Somebody might as well get some good out of them.

Well, that was my weekend. His wants, his dad, his niece and nephew, his friends. And swimming aside, not a whole hell of a lot in it for this old kid.
Ratcheting up the tension on the whole four days was yet another round of the �same old same old� with Spouse. He is having problems at work again. Somehow or other, no matter where he works, and no matter how hard it is stressed that he will not work third shift, it is only a matter of time before they try to stick him with it. They stuck him with it at 5:00pm last Friday. He was supposed to start last night, but he didn�t go in. He said he was going to go in this morning and have it out with management, since they all slunk off without facing him on Friday.

Well, I haven�t heard from him all day. He hasn�t called, and he hasn�t returned my calls.
I have a horrible sense of doom.

Today has not been fun for me. Compounding the issue, as always, is the fact that his unreliability traps me in jobs I hate. I have to stick it out, because he doesn�t. Some one has to be reliable, and it always ends up being me. No matter how untenable my position may become, I will never have the luxury of just walking away.

I yelled at him a little yesterday over it all, and reminded him of the two facts he really should have figured out in all these years of moving from job to job to job:
1) ALL JOBS, EVERYWHERE, SUCK!
And
2) After 23 years, he has GOT to come to terms with the fact that some of it has to be him.