It's Not Nice to Blame the Homeless Guy

We make fun of my husband a lot in this house. He has a quirky way of thinking that only family gets, not sure how well he translates though.

But I'll give it a shot.

I asked the group of dog walkers at our local park how to keep the feral cats from pooping in our yard. They all agreed that there's no magic product out on the market, but most people think that CD's in the yard are helpful.

I was so fucking confused I did not even know how to ask my next question...

Like, aaahhh, what kind of music are you talking about that scares away stray cats and keeps them from pooping in the yard?

It was then explained to me that you just PUT the CD's out there, propped up, so the shiny side reflects out. It supposedly scares the cats away. Apparently my neighbors have not seen these cats up close.

Yeah. Right. Kooky people. I didn't give it a second thought for weeks.

Then, this morning while I was running BC at 5:45 before work, there was a stack of CD's next to the trash can. So I figured, WTF? Why not give it a shot? It couldn't be worse than all that stray shit the cats lay on the lawn and don't even bother to bury. I set the CD's up while I watered the yard before work.

Flash forward 12 hours later and Daughter and I are riding home from work (me) and college (her). Hubs calls all freaked the shit out because he found a weird layout of CD's propped up in our yard. Then he adds that he saw a stack of CD's at the park by the trash can. So the way he puts 2 and 2 together, a homeless guy took the CD's from the park, jumped the fence into our yard, and set up a little weirdo mirror action to the sun.

Daughter was laughing so hard she she was wiping tears.

I asked my husband if he has EVER seen a homeless person up around the boonies of the valley we live in.

Well, no, but what else could it have been?

* * *

I had intended this post to be a Random Tuesday, but that first diddie is long enough to fly solo.

How's this? I have figured out that all the cool stuff in my sidebar is at the bottom of the page. HOWEVER. On the design page of blogger, the layout is same as always (sidebar, not 10 feet under in hell).

Anyone know how to fix this? I hate dicking around with this kind of stuff.

For real Randoms, head on over to Keeley's at the Unmom's.

Thank-you Letter

Dear Readers,

I would like to thank so many of you for your advice in dealing with my mom and her current situation. Some of you have even been helping with emails and the wealth of information out here is amazing.

The kind thoughts and prayers have been helping more than you know. Even if my Mom's situation is still a crisis one, I am more centered and less anxious about it all.

A couple of you mentioned that you either are in a similar situation or fear you may be one day in the not so distant future. I will write some posts when I can to help pass on what I have learned.

At this point, we have done what we can and gotten the system to help, or should I say back us up.

Again. Much thanks and gratitude.

Mahalo,
Pseudo

Elderly Parent Issues

I leave tomorrow for a conference and since I have no laptop, I won't be around next week. Not a great time for me to go, but my new boss is sending me and I have no choice.

I'll be back July 18th....

Meanwhile, here's some not fun facts concerning the problems we are having with my mom.

Not a post for everyone, so don't feel obligated to read on. I am hoping for someone(s) in the fields of medicine, social services, elderly services, mental health services, or anything along any of these lines to point me in a direction. Perhaps someone has walked this path before me.

* * * * *

My mom needs to go into assisted living. She has several health problems and has fallen three times in the last couple of months. She has given herself a concussion, a broken hand, and a broken wrist. Her doctor has encouraged her to use her long term health insurance for two years and has been ready to sign off on the forms.

When I was in California last (2007) I stayed at her house to help her. She is a hoarder. It took me a week to clear the spare room, the garage, and the peripheries of the living areas. The only reason my mom allowed me to do this was so she could claim my sister who lives by her "never got off her ass to help." We all knew this was not true and that my sister had been trying to get my mom to allow her to clear out some stuff, but we rarely call mom out on her antics.

Situation of late:

• Mom has not paid rent since May 1st. She had been working part time and the woman she worked for died. Mom claims she got an eviction notice last week, but won't let anyone see it and she keeps changing her story of the date of the eviction.
  
• Mom has taken out several credit cards with big limits over the last several years. She has maxed them out, to what degree we have no idea. ( I have written letters to my elected officials about the WTF situation of non-regulation is in place when a woman in her late 70's, with a bankruptcy in her past, no assets, and only part time work can have access to large amounts of credit she will never be able to repay.)
• Mom lives in a retirement community. One cannot get past the guarded gate without a pass. Mom took my sister and niece (who live close to her) off the gate pass list and has not allowed them in for a year. Not even lately in this crisis situation. Every time she tells them they can come and help her pack, they get there and there is no pass and she will not answer her phone.
  
• Mom has mental health problems. Never diagnosed as she refuses to acknowledge any mental health problems. But..... believe me, it's a huge part of the larger picture.
  
• Mom did not save up a single cent for retirement. She came from money and inherited from my grandparents, but blew it all. She made money when she worked, but she spent it all. Her long term health insurance does not kick in until the fourth month. Mom wants us all to pitch in and pay for the first four months, but it is way more than the cash we can come up with.
  
• We have been told that these assisted living places will sometimes negotiate on the dollar amount for the time before the insurance kicks in, but since Mom will not give my sister POA, the assisted living home will not negotiate with my sister unless she has POA.
• All of these issues have added up to Mom being a bit more crazy than usual, even for her, including using suicide threats as a manipulation tool.
  

So, we have a mom about to be evicted, with massive debts and no money. She won't let anyone in her house. She won't let us negotiate for her with the assisted living homes. She thinks she can keep her charge cards.

Her doctor and my sister both called elderly services, but so far the social worker has said my mom has rights. The social worker has not done much to help us.

My sisters and I have taken a stand and told mom that unless she signs a POA over to my sister that lives close by, we are not giving her any money. We need to figure out her finances and move her quickly and safely and with her daily fits and mood swings and mind games, time is a wasting.

So. Any suggestions?

Spin Cycle: Bondage....I mean Bonds

The Spin Cycle this week is bonds. As in family bonds, the bonds that link members of family together.

Holy canolli.

So much of my life has been unbloggable these last 9 months, but I suppose one aspect is semi-bloggable. My mom. Mostly because she has never even learned to turn on a computer.

Circa 1960’s

My mom is the funniest mom on the block. Friends love to come to our house because my mom is a hoot. She can burp the ABC’s and talk like Donald Duck. She spends three hours every afternoon in the kitchen and makes scrumptious dinners. She is bigger than life and sings and dances around the house in her apron.

She has a dark side that appears now and then. We can see it coming. Her eyes flash, her upper lip hardens. We learn that no amount of ass kissing will prevent the storms, so my sisters and I learn to weather them as best we can. Usually that means watching television and pretending we don’t hear the escalation of emotions.

Circa early 1970’s

Three daughters hitting adolescence triggers my mom’s mood swings more often, or perhaps it is just her own hormonal changes. My father comes home later and later. My mom’s drinking increases. So does her depression. Her doctor gives her Valium and she combines these with vodka and beer.

Her journeys into nightly hell storms often evolve into suicide threats. At first it gets the reaction she is looking for, but eventually she and all of us realize nothing we say or do will really make her happy. She threatens suicide so often that when she finally downs an entire bottle of Valium one night, no one believes her until it is almost too late. My older sister and my dad rush her up the coast to the nearest hospital and leave my little sister and me alone. We were 9 and 12.

My older sister leaves home at 17, which seems to makes things even worse. At 12, I am suddenly thrust into the role of talking my mom down. I take this role seriously and believe for years that if I find the right sentence, the right combination of words, an epiphany will occur and my mom will see the light. I am the one takes the gun from her when she comes into the living room twirling it around her index finger and explaining her plan to “blow her brains out all over the pier.” When she sits naked on the stairs with a pack of my dad’s double edged razor blades, scratching one half-heartedly along the smooth, pale and innocent inner surface of her arm, I am the one to get off the couch and take the razor blades away from her, despite her throwing them at me while I ascend the stairs. When she stands at the open front window naked for all the neighbors to see, smoking a cigarette, I am the one that wraps a robe around her and leads her away, while she curses her worst at me.

1975

My dad finally leaves my mom and is awarded custody of my sister and me.

My mom drinks and dials when her moods hit her, but she gets lost in a world of divorcee partying.

1976

My mom is diagnosed with breast cancer. In the fight of her life she gives up drinking. It becomes apparent that it wasn’t just the booze and pills; she still has mood swings, but her recovery time is much better and the arc of the swings much less.

1978

My grandmother dies. My mom inherits her parents’ home and savings, and also has the home my grandmother bought her after the divorce.

She quits her job and lives off the money. She sells her home and lives off that. She refinances her parents’ home and lives off that. This process takes four years and all the while I try and talk some financial sense into her. It is the proverbial train wreck. I am still too young and idealistic to accept that I cannot help her. But there it is.

1982

I move to Hawaii.

My mom loses her home and is penniless.

She goes back to school and gets her CNA.

She works for 25 years.

During the best of these years she visits us in Hawaii. She is a fun and funny grandma. She burps the ABC’s and talks like Donald Duck. My children bring all the neighborhood kids in to be entertained by Grandma. They love her and she loves them.

2007

My mom is 79 and living in a two bedroom townhouse that she really cannot afford. Although she gets social security and a partial pension from her divorce, she works to stay where she is.

Despite failing health.

Despite having long term health care insurance and a doctor who wants to sign her into long term health care.

She says she needs help “going through her things.”

So I go for a week and I learn my mom has become a hoarder. She was never neat, but this is beyond that.

I clear out over 80 phone books, dating back to the 1980’s.

I go through hundreds of small plastic bags with receipts and remnants of packaging. Like the cardboard package from a light bulb. I cannot throw out anything without looking because she also has plastic bags with important papers and mementos.

I spend a week and a bit of money. I make 8 trips to the dump. 10 trips to the Salvation Army.

While I am going through her things in the garage, my daughter comes out and tells me to please rescue them from Grandma.

Apparently the purging has brought out her fidgety worse. I come in to hear her wreaking psychological havoc on my son, her grandson.

I ask my mom for a copy of her long term health care insurance so we can get on the same page and figure out how to get her moved.

But she refuses and I go home.

2010

The bond continues. I’ll give her this. She has a lot of guzpah.

For more spins on family bonds, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.