August 1, 2009

• It's been a busy while since I last posted. I've been avoiding the computer here at home because after the day at work I'm whipped and not wanting to be near the slowest computer in Ripton. Lately, work has been chaotic and harried. We've been short on providers and long on folks with a list of demands they'd like honored yesterday. Some days I can find a place in the work where I can say, yes, I helped someone. Other times, not so much.

  I took a week off in July to go to Maine. The time was divided between spending time hoeing out the house my mother moved out of eighteen months ago and spending time rejuvenating on the beach and seeing friends. We spent one day at the house where I grew up after my dad retired in seventy. The grass was hip high on the lawn. The interior of the house is cluttered and littered. There was a dead mouse in one of the toilets. We bagged up two hundred pounds of trash. And there were plenty of things to recycle. It was overwhelming and soul sucking to be in the house that just filled up with useless stuff. I see a dumpster in that house's future.

  To make matters even more complicated, we found out that the man my mom asked to winterize the house never drained the pipes. So there are three floors of broken pipes that poured water between the floors and down the ceilings.

  My sister refused to go back the second day that we had planned to work. The two hundred pounds of trash is still bagged in the house. My sister has not gone back to put the trash out for the every other weekly garbage pickup. At least most of the smelly stuff is bagged up. I'm going back in September. I spoke with my sister today and basically we must screw our courage to the sticking place and get the job done.

  Meanwhile, my mother becomes more frail. She still has delusions that she is in a relationship with the thirty seven year old she was crushing on last fall. They have a new game that they play. He lets her know that he's been by the house she's in now by leaving cigarette butts on the roadside next to the house and in the driveway. It gets her out for a walk every day. She's convinced that he has people helping him because there are at least six different brands of cigarettes she's found. The game hasn't gone on too long. She only has half a bread bag full of butts to show for the effort. She really believes this is happening. There are other things she told me that tells me she's a little off these days. I did my best to listen and not judge, but it made me sad to see her and sit with her and see the cigarette butts.

  She's not cutting her hair because the last time it was cut, the stylist made it crooked. From the looks of the tub in the house, she's not bathing much, either, though she did not smell bad. I think she is starting to fall behind in her bills, though she will not let my sister help her. I hope I never put my children through this sort of thing.

  I haven't been seeing friends much. Mostly I go to work and come home. I've been reclaiming the garden. We've harvested snow peas. My potatoes are doing well. The beans are blossoming. And the oregano threatens to overcome it all.

  Blessings abound

  • 9:10 pm
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