My mother isn't happy with me

Big surprise. But it's just the reason for her being unhappy.

Okay, she's been telling me that something is going to happen in October. She told me months ago that something is going to happen in October. She repeats this several times. Okay, got it, something is happening in October. The something isn't happening to me, and it isn't happening to her, it's happening to someone else in the family. It doesn't really have anything to do with me, it is going to happen regardless of what is going on with me at the time, I don't need to be there, etc....

Okay, so now apparently, the thing is not going to happen in October, it is going to happen later this month, and I'm going on a trip, and then another trip, and for all I know after that week I'll go on another trip. I have no way of knowing that stuff very far in advance. My husband's schedule gets posted on Wednesdays, so that you know what you are doing that week and the next week, but you don't know what you are doing the week after next until the schedule is posted on Wednesday, and even then there are changes which sometimes happens at the last minute. So I might know where I am headed for the next day, I know where I plan to spend that week. Right now I know where we plan to spend the rest of this week and the next week and we would have to think about coming home probably a week from Sunday. And now it is Thursday, so I've seen the schedule, but at the time I talked to my mother I hadn't seen it yet, and there was a possibility that schedule posted on Wednesday would have meant another week in the same area or a week that is someplace closer to where we are now, and then there would have been no point in going home.

Anyway, I'm planning to be gone for about two weeks. That is the plan. Plans change. I have no way of knowing.

Before I left and I talked to my mother (and she was already not very happy with me), the plan was that I would only be gone this time for one week. See? Plans change. The plan at the time was to leave on Sunday and come back a week from either Sunday or Monday. But now he's working on that Monday, and we'll be doing tourist stuff on that Sunday, cause there just isn't any reason to come home for half a day and then turn around and head back the same way.

So I'm telling her the plans (at least, the plans as I know them at the time), and she's asking aren't I going to be home for the thing? And I'm like, I don't know, and anyway, the thing is in October. No, it is in September. Well, I don't know, maybe. Why? Cause we might need you to help out. Other people aren't going to be here.

Okay.

Well, I can't help that other people aren't going to be here. Last time anything like this was going on, I offered to help, though I couldn't really think of anything I could do. And there wasn't anything for me to do, and everyone was like thanks anyway. So I hadn't really thought about offering to help this time, cause I know from last time there really isn't anything for me to do except hang around and say, I'm here if you need me. But it was obvious that I was just in the way, and when I wasn't given something to do, I left.

So now my mother is upset with me cause I'm not promising to come home to hang around and say that I'm here if someone needs me. Someone does not really need me, just my mother wants someone to be here just in case, and other people have travel plans and aren't going to be here.

The other people who have travel plans are people with money who can travel any time that they want to. They picked now. I don't know why they picked now, but they did. I don't get to pick my travel time. Travel is offered, and it is rarely any place that I want to go, and I either go when it is offered or I don't. I can't turn it down and then expect it to be offered again at a more convenient time.

Not that later would be a convenient time for me. October is too late for some of the stuff that I want to do, and besides that I am usually a very busy person in October.

Oh, speaking of being busy in October, everyone seems to think that I'm co-hosting a children's Halloween party. I'm not, but that was announced. I just said that I was donating some stuff to the party, which I did, and I thought that was the end of it. I can't even say for sure that I'd be in town during the week of the children's party. At this point I'm not even that sure about helping out with the adult party, and I can't even say that I'm that excited about going to the adult party, which is something I look forward to all year. I'm just not having any good ideas this year, and it's all starting to seem boring on the one hand (if I don't do much) or a lot of work (if I end up doing a lot in spite of not having any good ideas or maybe having a good idea at the last minute). In fact, if there was really something interesting offered to me, I might go out of town instead of the party, which is something I would never do. But my husband was briefly talking about Orlando, but that wouldn't have been work travel and we would have had to pay for that all ourselves. But work travel is different (it doesn't cost near as much), and if something really interesting were offered right now I think that I'd do that instead.

Back to my mother's problem. I am supposed to give up my travel plans to hang around just in case someone needs me, even though I know from the last time that no one will need me and if someone did need something it would probably be something that I can't do and so they would still not need me, and the main reason for my giving up my travel plans is that someone else has made other travel plans and won't be here.

I don't think so.

So I'm sure that everyone thinks I'm a heartless bitch or something. But I don't see that I should give up something that I want to do just to be here for moral support. It is unlikely that I would actually be doing anything useful. And the person that might be needing the help didn't ask for help, just my mother is upset that I'm not going to be around to offer help. And the other person with travel plans apparently is not a heartless bitch for making travel plans and spending a lot of money to go out of town even when she knew that she had made the plans during this time that was not convenient, but apparently no one expects her to change her plans, maybe because she spent all this money.

I don't get it.

Phone call from my mother

Okay, I said that I might come back later and write about getting a phone call from my mother, and now that I've had some time to cool off, that is what I will do. But first let me say that the weather that threatened to get messy was only that, messy and and wet, not icy and dangerous. So it didn't really do anything to me or to anybody that I know, and my husband got home safely and all of that.

Anyway, a few days ago, I got a phone call from my mother, again asking me to help out with grandma. If you have been reading a while you know that this has been going on for more than five years, and that I keep thinking that we are done talking about this and that she won't ask again, but somehow she does.

So several months ago we had this serious talk on the subject, and she acted like she didn't get it that I really didn't want to do this, that the subject was closed, that I was avoiding talking to her because whatever the reason for calling me was supposed to be that she somehow managed to bring up grandma and couldn't I help her out with that, etc.... Now, I have tried to be nice, tried not to be mean and just blurt out "no, I don't want to do that, and I'm never going to, so just shut up," but I can't believe that I was somehow unclear on the subject. So I spelled it out. The subject was closed years before, and this was never going to happen, and it was now at the point that if she didn't tell me she understood that I would just have to stop talking to her at all.

So she said that she understood. She wouldn't ask me anymore. She really didn't understand that "I'm not comfortable with that" and "I would rather not" meant "It absolutely isn't going to happen."

And so I thought we were finally done with that.

A bit before Christmas, my grandma had to go into the hospital. And it was decided that she would need someone when she got out of the hospital, cause she really couldn't stay by herself anymore. And I just know that she isn't suggesting that I do it, cause we have already had this discussion and I had made myself very clear. And while my mom is talking, she even mentions that I have made myself very clear, she is just talking about what has been decided needs to be done for grandma, even though she understands that she can't ask me to do it.

But after she is talking for a while, after I relax cause she has said that she knows she can't ask me, she does sort of get around to asking me again, but she thinks that this doesn't count as her asking me, cause she is asking me on behalf of her brother. My uncle agrees that someone should stay with grandma, even if we have to go out and hire a stranger, but my uncle thought that I should have first refusal.

And so I was about to refuse when she mentioned how much money they would pay me.

Okay, I really could use the money, so I was thinking about it. I convince myself that the worse thing that could happen is that it wouldn't work out and I'd have some money in my pocket before they figured that out, and then they would know that I couldn't do the job and they would never ask me again.

Of course, that isn't the worse thing that could happen. There are much worse things that could happen, like I could get in a really bad fight with either my mom or grandma or my uncles or even all of them, and this could permanently damage our relationship. Or, they could leave me alone with grandma, and something could happen that I couldn't handle, and then what would I do?

And of course my mother never addressed my original questions of what would happen if I did take this job and I hurt myself. I wouldn't get workman's comp like at a real job, and I can't very well sue my grandma. Was mom going to take care of that sort of thing from her own pocket.

I never did get any of that straightened out. She seemed to think I was making all that up.

But still, they were dangling money in front of me, and I was thinking about it.

So, my plan was to help out for a few days for free, once grandma got out of the hospital, and then I would have a better idea what the job would actually be and be able to say yes or no, and if there was something I couldn't handle there would be other people there too. Only my mom said that she didn't need any help the first day, or the next day, or the next day.

And then she seemed to be getting worse. I don't remember the conversation exactly, but I hear something that told me she was beyond my ability to help anyway, that she really needed a nurse or at least a nurse aid, someone used to dealing with sick old people. I forgot about it and mentally moved on.

So a few days ago, my mother calls, and she needs an answer soon cause she really needs to hire someone, even if it isn't me.

????

I told her I assumed that was done with, that grandma needed more than I could do, and that everyone knew that, and that was why no one had wanted my help when I offered to do stuff for free, and no one had even talked to me about it since December.

And she is asking me what exactly it is that I don't want to do, and I tell her some specific things that I refuse to do, and she says that I wouldn't ever have to do that.

And I say that I don't believe her.

And I say that since my offer of free help was turned down, that they must need a lot more help than that. They just didn't want me over there to see how bad it was.

And my mom is saying that she has to go do something, and that I should think about it and she'll call me back.

She doesn't call back as soon as I would like, so I decide to get it over with myself. I don't want to think about it. It took me two weeks to talk myself into offering to help before, and I had mentally moved on when they didn't want my help. It would take me another two weeks to talk myself into trying again, and it would be a very unpleasant two weeks, and probably nothing would come of it, or nothing good anyway. So I call her back and tell her that I don't need to think about it, I just need to say no and get that over with. She said that she understood and she would talk to me later.

I keep thinking that we are done with this. I wonder if we are.

My skin hurts again. The stress of talking about this stuff with my mother and the earlier incident have ruined all the progress that I thought I had made. I have all this work that I plan to do, but most of it doesn't get done and I stay in bed and watch a lot of TV.

Enough of that. My skin still hurts, but I have to make cookies or something before the meeting today. I doubt that the meeting is going to be fun, but at least it should be a distraction.

FREE BOB

This month there has been The Twelve Days of Whataburger, during which you can sign up to receive coupons on odd numbered days that you can use to get something free on even numbered days. So on the first they sent me a coupon that I used on the second to get free fries. Down at the bottom of the coupon is a note to your cashier, telling her which number button to use, and next to that is something like FREE FRIES or FREE SODA or FREE PIE.

The coupon we used yesterday was for a free breakfast on a bun. Since breakfast on a bun is a rather long thing to spell out, the notation to the cashier was abbreviated to FREE BOB.

FREE BOB rather amused me for a bit. Sounds like something you should write on a picket sign. Like maybe someone named Bob has been unfairly imprisoned. FREE BOB! FREE BOB!

Anyway, we had a free breakfast on a bun before we headed out yesterday morning, and we liked it so much we stopped at a different location and had another one on the way home.

So far I have bought something each time I've used a coupon, but I don't suppose that I have to if I don't want to. I heard that they tried this same promotion two years ago, and then decided to cancel it after they had already sent out coupons. I haven't had that happen yet, though one day I did have a bit of an argument with someone who tried to tell me I couldn't use the coupon cause I didn't print out the whole email. This is a stupid argument meant to drive away people when they get tired of giving away free food, but I am not that timid, and it does not work on me. I will cause a scene and still get my free food, but I will not pay for anything to go with it.

If for some reason they really want the whole email, they shouldn't have designed it to only print out the coupon, and it should say in writing that they need the whole email and not to cut out the coupon.

Anyway, after FREE BOB and some minor shopping, we came home and I finished the blue scarf, which took me longer than I expected, but it didn't take as long as trying to deal with that Innovations machine. Joining the panel ends together took longer than I thought, and the fringe takes some time, but still, with the sweater machine I can get the thing done all in a day, if I had the whole day to work on it and didn't have to stop because I ran out of blue yarn.

So I have one finished blue scarf and one finish red scarf, and both will go in a gift exchange later today. I just have to wrap them now.

My mother has now called three times to tell me that our hostess does not really want us to appear at the time given on the invitation, and that we should show up almost half an hour later. This makes no sense to me, but even after I've agreed to do this she will call me again and tell me the whole thing again. She interrupts my knitting to do this, and I have not yet started on the food. Without even getting into whether or not she is right about the hostess actually wanting everyone to show up half an hour late, she needs to leave me alone so that I can get ready for the party, and it seems a bit silly to keep reminding me not to be early for something that at this rate I will never be ready for at all. But I am mostly ready now, except for wrapping the gifts, and as it turns out my husband will be doing the actual food preparation, and we did manage to do the grocery shopping yesterday. So all is well, I think.

So I have a couple of things checked off of my list. As for the rest of the list, I need something for a different gift exchange, but at least I have my supplies now. J's gift is finished and wrapped and everything. R's gift is mostly done. The gift for Miss Allergies still needs some work. Another gift is finished but still needs to be wrapped. My sister's gift is here but needs to be wrapped, as is my brother's. I have to get a gift for another friend by Saturday, but as she will probably get a fruit basket I don't want to get it too much before Saturday.

And that leaves the pilot's gift, which will never be done in time, so I might as well forget about it and work on a nice card that says IOU.

Anyway, I expect to have a nice day today, in spite of having a cold and such. And then I have to get some serious work done before Saturday.

I seem to have forgotten what I was doing

This whole new business thing of my husband's has me distracted from what I am supposed to be doing. A friend of mine had told me about a job I might have been interested in, but somehow, I forgot to even look at it. When I should have been looking into that and doing other things, something came up about the business, and I just put everything on hold. At least, I put everything that required thinking on hold. So I didn't look into the job that week, and then I forgot to look into it later. It is probably too late now. And I'm too embarrassed to tell my friend that I forgot about it.

The things that did not require thinking also got put on hold after it was decided that I would do the sales job part of the business instead of that actual salesman that was originally supposed to do the job. So three weeks ago I was doing a lot of work, making space in the living room area for the rental equipment, and the usual laundry and washing dishes and such, and I was even doing a bit of gardening. It is too hot to do much gardening, but I got most of a certain project done. So that was something, and it made me feel better to get something done.

And then I had plans to do some other stuff, and I put them on hold until this first business account was done. So that was almost three weeks ago that I stopped doing whatever I was doing and seriously started worrying about the business instead. So I did the job the Saturday before last, and again this past Saturday. And we were both too tired to do much of anything on Sunday, though we did attempt to go shopping and did a few fun things. We have since eaten out at several restaurants, seen a couple of movies, gone to the park, and gone shopping some more, etc....

And I've pretty much spent the rest of my time watching the X-Files or something like that. I've done very little work. I have yet to even catch up with washing the dishes or doing the laundry. And as for the garden or working in the living room or the rest of the house, I've forgotten now whatever it was that I was going to do next. Three weeks ago, it seemed very important and I was glad to finally have the time and energy to get started on it, and now I can't even remember what it was.

Some of that is just an excuse for basically being lazy. It is like after I don't do something for a while, I can't seem to get back to doing it. So while I might not remember exactly what it was that I wanted to get started on, I should just get started on something else. I should just find something to do and do it, and not really worry about if this is the best thing to do right now, because doing any of it would be better than doing none of it. But it is like I've forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.

I tell myself that I am waiting for my husband to go back to work at his "real job", which is partially true. I can't seem to get much done while he is here, unless it is the two of us doing something together, which is usually limited to running errands. So today he was supposed to be back at his real job, only yesterday he was told that the account didn't start until five in the evening. So he won't be leaving the house til two or three, and probably by that time I'll have lost interest in trying to do very much.

I am also dreading a phone call from my mother.

I should just not talk to my mother anymore. I know that. I should never talk to my mother except when it involves other people in my family, or maybe only talk to her during those times when the whole family gets together. Other times, it just doesn't end well. So she has been wanting to know when my husband goes back to work, which is today, and she knows that it is today, so I suspect she will call and want to go to dinner, or worse, that she will have something she wants to talk to me about.

And I can't just refuse to talk to her without hearing what it is. I suppose that I could have, but I opened the door for this sort of thing when I called her a couple of weeks ago about the new business thing. I should have kept my mouth shut, but in a panic I didn't know who else to call.

And now I think that my brother wants to talk to me about something. If my brother wants to say something, he would usually just blurt it out. So now I am suspicious.

Maybe I shouldn't talk to either one of them.

Anyway, I should find something to do. I can't refuse to talk to them, but if I look really busy, I could at least limit the time I have to talk to them.

Oh, and I seem to have injured my leg, though there isn't a bruise or anything, and I can't remember doing anything to it. So whatever work I am going to do is limited, so I can't do some of the stuff that really needs to be done, like I can't get down on the floor and scrub the floorboards. Luckily, I can do both the dishes and the laundry without doing much to bother the leg. And I need to do the laundry anyway, so I can decide what to wear on Saturday.

Unfortunately, one of the things that I really have to do is clean out the fridge. I have to go grocery shopping, and what I am planning to buy will not currently fit. So I have to clean out the fridge, even with the injured leg.

I had been looking forward to Tuesday

At first I thought that I would go with him. It was just one day out of town to no place special. But I haven't been away for a very long time, and I thought that maybe just the one day would be nice. And one day away wouldn't hurt the plants or anything. A week away would be bad for the plants, cause I really cannot trust anyone to come and water them. Unless it is raining already, and then I have to worry about the house flooding. Not that the house might not flood if I stay, but at least I would be there to make sure that the pump is working properly (once it wasn't even plugging in). So I don't even think that three days in Waco is a good idea for me, but one day in the middle of nowhere might have been okay.

On closer inspection, we decided that it would be best if I didn't go. In fact, it would probably be best if he didn't get a room at all and just came back home that night. The place where he would have gotten the room was about two hours away, but the place he would actually do the work was just a little bit closer, and while I would rather not make that drive at night after working all day, he has done worse. And we are very short on cash now, even for motel rooms that they eventually pay him back for. We have to actually have the cash first before we can spend it on stuff that they pay back.

So I had been looking forward to getting out of the house for a day, but gave up on the idea. Then I got over it and starting looking forward to having the house to myself for twelve hours or so. I could sort through some clothes or do other work that I don't usually do when he is here. There's some stuff that I don't do when he is here, cause we will just end up getting in each other's way.

So we have a little bit to eat (which in fact was even food that he cooked), and then he leaves, and I take some time to do a few things on the computer before I get started doing any work.

And then my mother calls.

Now, I should know better by now. I just cannot talk to my mother one on one. But she calls and asks if maybe I would like to go and get something to eat.

Now, my mother has it in her head that the reason I don't talk to her very much is that I only spend time with her when there is something else in it for me, a bribe of some sort, like she is buying me something, usually lunch. And that isn't true. But lunch at a restaurant is usually the safest time and place to spend time with my mother, but I don't have any money, and I have to eat something anyway, so if she is offering to buy me lunch I usually go. But the truth is that now I usually don't want to go, even though she is buying me stuff, but I end up going anyway because I just feel like I should see her once in a while even when I don't want to.

She is still my mother, even if I don't like being around her and we really don't have that much to talk about anyway.

But I think to myself, this isn't so bad. She has called to invite me to lunch, and I've already had lunch. If I just go with her and have a soda, she won't have to buy me anything, I'll spend an hour or two with her in a public place, it probably won't get ugly cause it is in a public place, and then I can leave and I'll still have about ten hours to myself before my husband comes home.

And maybe since she isn't buying me lunch she'll get it out of her head that the reason we don't talk very often is that she has to buy me stuff before I will talk to her.

So we pick a place and agree to meet there in ten minutes. And I get there before she does, and I even manage to pay for my own soda. Now she doesn't have to buy me anything.

Now, most of the first hour or so goes well enough, and if I had just managed to stick to the original plan and leave, it would have been fine.

I am halfway through reading a book about why the bees are disappearing. This is very serious stuff. If the bees all die, we won't have any food. Well, maybe not literally no food, but a lot of the cultivated food that we take for granted just doesn't grow without bees.

So I try talking to her about the bees. She doesn't care about the bees. She is not one little bit interested that most of our fruits (and this includes a lot of stuff that we don't think of as fruits like tomatoes and almonds and squash and cucumbers), just won't be around anymore. I might as well have tried to start a conversation about Star Trek or Harry Potter. She just doesn't get it.

Anyway, she won't stick with the unimportant small talk. She has to talk about stuff that is important to her, and bees don't measure up, even for talk over lunch. So eventually it gets to some subject that I don't want to talk about. So the talk gets ugly, even though we are in a public place.

At some point she says something like if you say you will do something you can always change your mind and not do it.

Sometimes I wonder where I get my morals from. And I said so. If you say that you are going to do something, you are committed to doing it, except in the most extreme circumstances when something more important comes up.

Now I have seriously hurt her feelings, and I have to stay longer and smooth that over, even though she is the one who said what she said.

By the time things are better, I figure that I have wasted most of the day anyway, so I might as well go to her house for a bit.

Big mistake.

We played with the dog for a bit and mostly didn't say anything ugly. And then at some point she noticed that it is past when she usually eats dinner, so she invites me to dinner.

So much for getting through the day without her buying me anything. But I really did not plan to stay this long, and I do have to eat something and I don't have any money. If I had just had the sense to leave before that, it would have been okay.

After dinner, it gets ugly.

I really just cannot talk to my mother anymore. I felt fine Monday, or at least, what passes for that now. I just never feel really good anymore, and I suppose that I am never going to feel really good ever again. But Monday wasn't so bad. I didn't get anything done Monday, but I had plans to do something Tuesday and felt okay about it. I wasn't spending days at a time in bed feeling sorry for myself. I had the idea that things would eventually get better, even if they would never really be good again. But Monday I was okay, and then Tuesday I spoke to my mother, and usually after speaking to my mother I come to the conclusion that I can't do anything. I can't get a job that is worth having. I can't even get a job that I don't like that might eventually be useful. I am a drain on my family and I don't even deserve to have the car that I drive because I don't drive it to a job. Nothing that I will ever attempt to do is worth doing.

After talking to her I think that I might as well do nothing. I can't do anything. It isn't even worth getting out of bed to wash the dishes and such that I can do.

So I not only wasted Tuesday, but now I feel bad right before I have three days to myself, and I really should be getting something done then. Now I don't have any energy. Now I just don't see the point.

I eventually leave my mother's house and walk to the car. I cannot take anymore. She follows me. There is just no getting away from her. I try to be nice.

She finally allows me to leave. I think that I might have finally gotten through to her that I don't want to talk about things, but no. Her parting words were something like, we'll have to talk more about this later.

I go home. I don't even have an hour to myself before my husband comes in. It was a totally wasted day and I feel awful. He even mentions that the laundry isn't done. I don't even bother telling him that I've been gone all day.

Wednesday we went to see a movie called Moon. I only just heard about it a few days ago, and it isn't on a lot of screens, and it wasn't at our usual place. To get a reasonably priced ticket we had to go to a theater we had never been to before. It was okay. Moon is mainly about this one man who has agreed to work alone on a station for three years. If Silent Running or Solaris is your thing, then you would probably like this movie. But most people won't be really crazy about it. Then we went to lunch and did some shopping.

I should have stayed home instead of going out and spending money, but I felt so bad after Tuesday. I just needed to do something to feel better.

All of us are probably going to lunch Sunday, so I will see mother again, and I don't want to. Probably nothing bad will happen with everyone else there, but after Tuesday I am not looking forward to it.