Groceries Again

First of all, I apologize for the lack of posts lately, things have not been all that calm on the homefront.

Secondly, she's at it with the groceries again.

Granny really can't be taken to the grocery store anymore. She really can't walk or stand for any length of time, and her recent bladder control issues make anyone unwilling to put her in their car. So she depends on the family to fetch her groceries for her.

The problem is this...she waits until she is completely out of food to inform any of us that she has no food. In short, I think she likes creating emergencies so that someone, anyone, has to rush around to do her bidding.

Now I live here, but I don't really feel it is my place to keep a tab on her food consumption. She is an adult and still in her right mind (theoretically), and to do something like that is akin to infantalizing her, in my mind at least. However, if she continues to insist acting like a child, we're going to have to start treating her like one.

And The Hits Just Keep On Comin'

Making sure the top of the window was totally closed this afternoon...they have a tendency to fall when you open the bottom. Pushed on it a bit and... CRACK!

The house is very slowly falling down.

To All My Haters. All One Of You.

I was reminded recently, by someone out of my past, that I used to be a better person. This is most likely true. Weren't we all? I was thinking over the weekend that I'm becoming a mixture of Larry David, Frances McDormand's character in Friends With Money (rent it), and Liz Lemon when she bought all the hot dogs out of spite after some guy cut the line in front of her at the cart. So, no I'm not perfect. I have been a good daughter and a bad friend. I've been the best girlfriend in the world and a total bitch. I've been the life of the party and the sucking black hole that's killing the room.

I must be good at this though, because even my haters still read my blog.

Call me any name in the book, but please do not take joy in my misfortune, no matter how much you may dislike me or my actions. I'm not Hitler for eff's sake. I don't go around trolling on your blog.
It's not that my feelings are hurt, it's just that you have NO CLASS.
If it wasn't my dog that had died, but my father, would you have said "what goes around comes around"? If I had been badly hurt or killed in one of those car accidents (and I got hit hard, the rental was totaled), would you show up at my funeral to tell my parents "Good riddance"? Done a jig at my hospital bedside?

No class. None.

Any future anonymous troll comments will be trashed.

Drop The Puck

Hockey season started a few days ago, bringing with it Buffalo's renewed, neverending, useless hope for Lord Stanley's Cup.
Two years ago I returned from a late work meeting to the sound of a Sabres game turned up to ear splitting volume. That's odd, I thought, because Granny rarely watches television, and when she does she usually sets it on mute so she can read the captions. This is it, she's gonna be dead in the middle of the living room floor, having breathed her last to the sounds of ice skates.

But no, there she was, standing less than a foot from the television, fervently praying her rosary.

The Sabres won that night.

Cooking Vicariously

One of the hardest things about living with Granny is that the kitchen is not really "mine". I love to cook and bake, and I hate having people hover over me when I do so. Granny is bored, and likes things done her way, so when I try to cook I get, "Do you need a pan? I have this pan. Do you need salt? The salt is over there." She has set aside a small amount of space in the kitchen for some of my cooking stuff, but it's nowhere near enough - there are boxes and boxes of kitchen things in the cellar. So when I cook, I'm going up and down two flights of stairs, unless I super organize ahead of time.
She just bought a new refrigerator which ended up being smaller than the last, so God forbid I take up too much room. Not that I want to keep tons of stuff in there, as she'll just end up washing it all again. (P.S. If I live to 91, God forbid, I'm blowing all my money on expensive appliances. Stainless steel, French door refrigerators, Viking ranges, front loading washer dryers with nano-steam technology, one of those dishwashers that will wash a plate even if it has an entire piece of cake on it...)
Anyhoo, yesterday I bought a bookcase for my cookbooks, which is already nearly full. And I didn't even include what we referred to at the bookstore as "food narratives", books of people writing about cooking. I guess I'm cooking vicariously through my books for now.

And Then...

I got rear ended driving my loaner Friday afternoon.

I am beyond being upset or angry. I'm about 80% to sheer catatonia.

Worst. Day. Ever.

It all started with the television. I had been willing it to off itself last November, so I could take advantage of the Black Friday specials on flat screens, but no, it waited until I had been unemployed for three and a half months to go. So I spent $400 of money I don't actually have, but man, does Food Network look glorious in HD.
That was Monday.

One a.m. Wednesday, and Chloe breathed her last. Chloe was my ex's dog, who for the length of our relationship I considered ours, and well, never really stopped considering ours even though we were living apart. She was eleven and had been suffering from diabetes for two years, and for the last two weeks she had been on a steady decline, which is also why I have not posted anything. Still, we are heartbroken.

Can it get worse? Yep.

Aunt Maisy decided to take Granny for lunch Wednesday afternoon. I didn't hear her come, since it's hard to hear anything over the roar of the Thruway, and when I went to get the mail, I locked the front doors behind me, as she would normally do. Well, it turns out she doesn't have a key to the screen door (as I do), and when they came back, couldn't open it. I was upstairs listening to really loud music with my headphones, so I didn't hear them pounding on the door.
Oh, it gets better.
Maisy ended up dropping Granny off at my Aunt Rose's, about a mile and a half away. My mother called and said I had to go pick her up.
Now I never usually park in Rose's driveway, as there is an electrical pole literally a half an inch away from it, and virtually everyone in the family has hit the damn thing when pulling in or out. But I didn't want Granny to have to walk across the street, so I pulled in, thought to myself, "I really need to be careful with that pole" and went inside to get her.
You see where this is going right?
Yeah, I hit the pole, turning while backing out. Peeled off the entire front end of the Mini.

And this is the point where I really LOST MY SHIT. Because, you see, there are two things I absolutely, unhesitatingly love in my life...my dog and my car. The dog was dead and the car lay in ruins. I can't have anything nice, can I?

It's amazing really, when bad things pile on, how sympathetic total strangers can be. When I called State Farm, I burst into tears to the poor guy on the other end. He was very kind, told me how he had lost his dog two months ago, and when things like this happen, he puts on a funny movie to try and take his mind off of things. When I dropped the Mini off at the repair shop, the kid working the counter for the loaner cars asked me what had happened. I said, "OK, let me tell you about the worst day of my life." He said, "Jeez, it really piled on there didn't it?" Then when taking my info, he asked for my current employer. I told him I was unemployed. He looked at me, aghast. I said, "Yeah, everything's coming up roses for Kim Bojanowski!".

I can't help but think they're sympathetic because they're thanking God it's not them.

I know I would.