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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2001-04-18 - 10:04 p.m.� I just got back from my grandmother's house. It was my good deed for the day; I went over out of kindness to my cousin. The poor girl is slowly but surely going insane over there. I can identify. I lived at my grandmother's for three months once. It was nearly 12 years ago now, but some of the wounds still feel fresh. My grandmother is a difficult person to be around. That is the nice version... quite often she is miserable, mean and unbearable to be around. But even when she is not being out and out mean to you, it is often quite hard to do something as simple as have a cup of tea and talk to her. See, she doesn't care about what anyone else has to say. She only wants to talk about what is running through her head at any moment of time. She obsesses about things, and will tune you out in favour of thinking about whatever it is that is her current obsession. Now, according to the specialist that my grandmother just saw, my grandmother is not suffering from any debilitating memory problem. No Alzheimer's, no serious signs of senility or dementia. He agreed that she has problems with her attention span and concentration, but didn't see any serious "problem" with it. Ha. Today her obsession was the deep freezer she wants to buy. We talked about it for a little while, and then conversation moved on. At least, it did for my mom, my cousin and I. But everytime my grandmother had a moment to interject she'd still be on about the damned freezer. And she knows she is interrupting. She'll use bizarre segues, to show you that she knows you aren't talking about her freezer problems anymore, but that you damn well should be. For example, the rest of us were discussing a recent break in and murder in the town where my cousin used to live, and she pipes in with: "It's just awful. You never know about people. You shouldn't open your door to anyone. Which reminds me, Kim, I need to make sure you are home with me when they deliver my new freezer. I'm so mad about my old freezer..." And on it goes. I won't even get into the various reasons why the purchase of a new deep freezer is totally frivolous and just plain wacky for a elderly woman who lives alone (or soon will), who nearly never cooks, and never has enough frozen food in her house to fill her refridgerater freezer, let alone a huge deep freezer. Yeah, so where was I? Oh yes, why I find it difficult to be at my grandmother's. I find that these conversations with her try on my patience more since I started back at my current job. I spend the whole damned day talking to seniors, and have many very frustrating conversations. My visits with my grandmother always feel very similar to the frustrating conversations I have at work. So basically I sit there across the table from my grandmother, sipping at my too strong Red Rose Tea, saying "Uh huh... mmm... yes... oh dear" and I feel like I'm still at work. Only I'm not getting paid for it. I am a mean, horrible, mean person for feeling that way. But I can't help it. It's just how I feel. Also in the category of things that make me a mean, horrible person, is the fact I am really excited that my mom is going back to work tomorrow! This makes my mean because I know that my mom's job is horrible and I shouldn't take joy in her misery. But by god, I am so looking forward to having some privacy. Oh privacy, I've missed you so!
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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