Guess who's coming for dinner?

Ok, so Mummers is going to be living with me for a bit.  Stop laughing.

She was released on Friday, and we decided it would be best for her to be here for a while, probably a week or so.  This is so that everyone will relax, knowing she’s being fed food that she can eat on something that remotely resembles a schedule, that someone is making her take her Plavix and other meds and check her blood sugar, someone to make her walk when she is supposed to…all of that.  

Well, everyone can relax but me, that is.  But I guess that’s the way it is.  

Last night, she told me that I don’t cook as well as they do in the hospital.  Oh, as if you should talk, Woman.  You boil pasta until it is mush, and then open cans of Ragu and green beans and call it Pasta Florentine, and then only after someone *demands* that you cook.  I grew up thinking lunch was a pixie stick and soda one got from someone else’s house, dinner was something that one nibbles at to ward off imminent starvation then tries to sneak to the cat (who usually had the good sense to not eat it, either), and had no concept of what the term “breakfast” meant for the first eight years of my life, which is when my father demanded that the next housekeeper my mother hired had to be both able and allowed to cook.  I firmly believe that one of the main reasons my father would cheat on her is that he hoped some of these other women would *feed* him.  Once I emancipated myself, I made certain that I learnt how to cook, and I am a *good* (enough) cook…when I do it, which is…well…sometimes.  So bite me, WitchWoman.

Okay…I said none of that.  I just heated a Healthy Choice dinner for her with six grams of fat in it.  I guess Meg anticipated this and stocked me up but good on them.  Sigh.  I know Mom’s just grumpy…but don’t criticise my cooking!  I am sensitive about it.  She says all of my food “tastes the same”.  WTF?  Ok, whatever.  *You* make kooky-ass combinations that no one in their right mind would eat together.  One of the few times I remember being able to make my father laugh was when he came home once and I was out in the garage (because I was using my brother’s paints to make something, and Mom had evicted me from the house because of the fumes she claimed to have smelt from all the way downstairs…whatever.); he pulled in, got out, and asked me what I was doing.  I told him that I was painting something for school.  He asked what Mummers was up to, and I told him she was making dinner.  He waited a moment, and then asked me what was for dinner, and I sprung my joke:  Pasta and tacos.  Only I said it as she does, “PASS-ta” and “TACK-ohs”.  The joke, in case you aren’t blood-related to me and can’t tell, is both my mother’s annoying pronunciation(s) and her peculiar food sense.  My father got the joke, primarily because I was trying not to laugh so hard that my nostrils were wiggling and my eyes were watering.  Otherwise he might have thought I was serious.  She’s like that.  I swear to god.  

Butsoanyway.

The harridan is currently napping with her annoying cat.  I picked up her annoying cat a few days ago to both keep her company when she was released, and so that I could feed and water the beast.  You’d think that would make the cat be nice to me, ‘cos Mom never feeds *her*, either, but no.  She’s loyal to her Mama and hates me.  Go figure.

But this is why, with age, I have learnt not to hold any of the things my mother does against her:  she does it to everyone, including herself and that damn cat that she loves more than everyone else.  She’s not doing any of this to be mean, or neglectful, or…anything; she is just That Way.  Probably she should never have bred, but here I am nonetheless, so we’ll all just make the most of it.  

And since Mom is sleeping, I am cleaning up the house—particularly the kitchen—to meet my mother’s rigorous standards.  My mother keeps her kitchen sterile by not using it; I take a different tack, and use things to clean it with, like soap, water, and cleaning sprays.  To each his own.  And I’ve had to contain Squooshable back in the hall bathroom, because (1) he would be so interested in Mom that he’d do nothing but find out how to best pounce on her; (2) Mom’s cat does not get along with him; (3) he is very vocal, and I can just hear Mom complaining that she can’t sleep ‘cos Squoosh keeps coming over, trying to talk to her or Arby (her cat).  

So I just went into the bathroom to check on Squoosh, and he’s decided to kill my bottle of Arosci aromatherapy oil, which is all oily and smells nice.  Or did.  He had spread it all over the counter, I guess because he likes the way it smells, also.  Thank you, Squooshable; the bathroom smells much better now.  

So I had to clean that mess up and get it all off his paws.  And I’ll finish this post, and then it’s back to the kitchen.  I’ve needed to do this anyway; my kitchen isn’t (contrary to my mother’s belief) dirty per se, it’s just…lived in.  I’m sure that is peculiar-looking to her, so I am trying to be understanding.  Plus I’m not trying to pick a fight with her, *plus* it wouldn’t kill me to do all the wiping-down of the cabinets & walls and sanitising of the trash can &c. that I haven’t had the time to really do in a while.  

Mom is supposed to be able to drive again on Monday.  She’s actually doing pretty well, in spite of her grumping and kvetching about everything I do and am.  But this is why I *knew* not to take her being nice to heart. She’s just like that, plus I’m not her most favourite person in the world.  

Butsoanyway.