SOAP OPERA DAZE

Jr on the phone

It's hard to tell what I'm feeling anymore. Two days of Jr's niece from down the mountain, a woman who watches soap operas all the time. The women I've knowN who watch soap operas make their lives into soap operas to the point that when you're in their presence, you're in the cast. There's no way out of it. Two full days in full soap opera and I was about to pack up and go home. We get along good, but I know I can never trust her in even the littlest way; therefore, I watched everything I said, trying never to say anything that can be twisted into drama. That gets old.

Plus, today, the girlfriend that calls multiple times a day wanting me to wake Jr so she can hear him make noises she can't understand, then hang up when he falls asleep with phone in hand and the thing starts beeping, telling me it's time to put it back on the cradle. Today I'd been through so much the last couple of days I needed a quiet day with just me and Jr in the house, no dramas, nor girlfriend calling. The third time she called I just let it ring about 25 times until it finally quit. Then she shows up in the car. When she saw him, she came to me and said, 'I didn't know he was this bad.' I said, 'You've seen him, and I've told you repeatedly.' She said, 'But I didn't believe you.'

That was it. From then on I only encouraged her to leave. She's a drama mama too and 2 of them together in succession was the limit of what I can take. Though, I had to remind myself she's not right, after she told me that was my sister she talked to day before. I told her it was not, my sister is in Kansas, told her who it was, but she continued to believe it was my sister. Whatever. It's my sister.

And last night niece below the mountains called me at home to tell me she wasn't comfortable with me leaving Jr alone. I told her I need 3 hours a day of my own to feed cats, etc., and it is on the condition I have those 3 hours that I am able to spend 21 at Jr's. I wait until he is off into dreamland and comfortable before I leave. It's not like I just go out the door when I feel like it. If she wants to come and sit with him while I go home for my 3 hours a day, please do, I'd love the assistance. I don't like him being alone either. Oh, she didn't want it that bad.

It just happened that it went all over me after days and weeks and months of all I've been through with Jr that these soap opera queens come in and start telling me their preferences. They can just perform their preferences and I'll be glad to let them do it. Oh no. They want me to. Oh no, I've got things worked out with Jr, me and Hospice, with a good flow and a good balance---I don't do what I'm told by people who drop in from time to time for 5 minutes and know everything there is to know about it. I'm friendly with both these women, would like to like them, but I don't care for made up drama in every day life. There's enough without making more.

I'd called Jr's friend Jerry earlier in the day leaving a message on answering machine I'd like him to see Jr, because it seems to be getting close and I'd like him to have a chance to see him while he's still here, if he wanted to. Jerry couldn't go in the house, afraid he was coming down with something he might have caught in the hospital, so we sat on the porch on a good 65 degree sun shining day. As we talked, I told him I've remembered what he said last time we talked, 'You don't know these people.' Told him I'd thought plenty about it, knowing his meaning, thanking him for the counsel. It reminded me that even though I think I know them, I really don't.

I told him of some people I know who came here from Savannah, got a raw deal from a particular realtor and they were mad. They wanted justice. I said, Wait a minute. You don't know where you are. Yes I do. No you don't. It's different here from where you came from, not better, not worse, just different, and you don't know what you're jumping into. Then I get some bluster of not being afraid and all like that. I said, You oughta be. I recommended they pipe down and let it rest. I knew Jerry was telling me the same thing I was telling them, and I knew there was truth in what Jerry said. Only difference, in my case it wasn't about being mad over getting swindled, it was about expectation.

Also with Jerry I was able to vent about the craziness over the last couple days. It's like a little tornado came through, stirred everything up and left. At least it left. Today I spent quietly, Jr sleeping or dreaming out loud in whispers some of the time. When he would come around a little bit I'd give him little sponges with cold water in them on sticks like tootsie pops water flavor, and then some sponges dipped in ensure. He was unable to do anything today but lie in the bed and sleep. All that drama energy wears him out too. He was happy to see her and have her there, and it was mostly the attention he gave her that wore him out. Paying attention wears him out in a hurry now. It's like his mind is set on drift. The mental whirlwind affected me more than it did him. He can't connect with mental any more.

It's felt like a mini-crisis for me, having these two women and a couple others coming at me out of the blue the last few days telling me to do things I already know don't work and have known for a long time don't work. Sometimes it gets into long lists of things I must do right now. All of them things I've thought about or tried long ago and they didn't work then, they'll certainly not work now. I've had to get with myself to remind me this is Jr, me and Hospice. I do what the Hospice nurses tell me to do and nobody else. They say I'm stubborn and they're right.