corruption at the highest levels

Actually it was more like corrosion at about waist-height. Our internet connection has been down, and having ascertained that the problem lay within the walls of rancho FirstNations and not at the server end of things, the yummy biker removed a chunk of sheetrock and revealed a phone jack dissolving into a solid chunk from sheer age and damp climate. Now things are back to (as) normal (as it ever gets around here.)

I have gardened. I have mown; yeah verily I have weedwhacked, trimmed and edged. I have done so with great vigor, with careless abandon, with no thought for the fact that I am no longer 30. Therefore, I hurt. This has lead me to prescribe one order of spaghetti alla marinara, 5 ciders, two naproxin, and one acetominophin for myself. And I was feeling somewhat better.

And I was still feeling somewhat better right up until my father-in-law, the playboy of the western world, called. 20mg. valium was added to the medication rota. More than likely another 20mg. will follow.

He is in the hospital again. The emergency ward. For dizziness. Again. Oh, he's fine. Again.
Then we got a phone call from the friend who took him to the emergency ward. The story changed.

He had a stroke. His second one. Those dizzy spells? Were cerebral incidents. Yeah.
So tomorrow we have to go visit him and try to hammer something out concerning assisted living-whether home or in a facility. What I'd like to hammer is somebody right onto a log placed across the path of a speeding elevator.

This is not going to be fun. One man minimizes or outright lies about his physical condition so as not to get in the way or whatever the fuck his excuse is-personally I think it's vanity-and the other man, his son, avoids any kind of difficult interpersonal situation the way I avoid Fundamentalist Christians. Then you have me, someone who was so traumatized by the treatment her grandmother received during her decline that I still cannot talk about it. And somehow I have to make those two jackass men sit down and forge out a plan of action taking into account all those favorite manly topics like the inevitable decline of health, death sooner rather than later, the inability to take care of ones basic needs, money, property, legal issues, selling the house, fuck fuck fuck.

Then of course there's that whole bargeload of unfinished business between father and son about father being, oh, GAY and everything. And not discreetly small-town gay either. Full on. No excuses, no regrets, young men in and out at all hours at the house and even up in the hospital room. (My father in law rocks so hard!!!!!!!!!!) So that just puts the ketchup on that order of fries, doesn't it?

YAY!
I am so out of my depth.
I am so PROFOUNDLY out of my depth.

If it was just me dealing with fil, no problem. I am an a to b type of person. Kind of like Harvey Keitel was in Pulp fiction. Quilts on the back seat, rinse off under the hose, car sent off to be reincarnated as Furby parts; problem solved. But add one more player and it becomes the dance of the seven fucking veils with everyone avoiding the subject at hand as though it were the plague. And its kind of a serious subject, y'all. So if I play the responsible party here I have to keep the conversation on track and thereby come off as a nagging bitch. (Admittedly no stretch.)

Remember how ol' Harvey caught a lot of snipey bullshit from Chilli and Fro Guy after everything was fixed? Yup. Once you've sorted everyone shit out, is there gratitude? Are you thanked? Do people say "Bless you, you magnificent example of womanly strength? No, you are resented for making everybody face the mean old unpleasant nasty thing.

Actually what I just described is motherhood. So never mind; I guess I can handle this.