Conflict, thy name is mother

My mother

I love her.  But she is such a different kind of person.  She is a hypochondriac and a drama queen.  Everything is about her.  She sets the schedule everyone else is suppose to follow.  She gets mad at my dad because he doesn’t jump up to do the things she wants done when she wants them done.  She likes to set my schedule and I’m just enough of a daughter to not to let her.  The house fire drama gave her months of being the center stage of attention.  If she wasn’t get enough, she would pull out her cards – she was “homeless”, her depression issues, etc.  Any time I suggested she needed grief counseling, she would say no she didn’t need it (because we all know it would take away from her attention grabbing ways).

Friday night my parents were going to take me and the kids out for a dinner to celebrate my birthday.  Every year we go through the following routine.  She asks “Where do you want to go?” and then she shoots down all the places I want to go until I give in and pick where she wants to go.  So this year I stuck to my guns.  Sure enough, while she is eating her dinner she is carrying on about it isn’t as good as where she likes her Mexican food from.   After dinner but before we have left the restuarant, she is in full mode about she just doesn’t like this place, etc.

Then I mentioned something about the X coming around to help with some projects I need done around the house.  She went into an absolute tirade about how he said something negative about her new house and how he always finds things to pick apart about anything and all the hundreds of times he has hurt her feelings.  She doesn’t want him to ever set foot in her house again.  Well she has no idea we are considering reconciliation, just imagine what that will do to her.  She then left the room, looking like she was going to cry.  My dad and I looked at each other, said nothing and then finally talked Cowboys.

She was going to have the entire family over for my birthday dinner but she wasn’t sure if it would be Sun or Mon.  Now the funny thing is that usually the birthday boy or girl gets to pick the meal.  Not for my brithday, I was told what we were having.  Saturday she never called to let me know and so Sunday am I called her so I could schedule a promised trip to the swimming pool for the twins.  It is going to be Monday so my aunts and uncles and grandfather can make it but she wants me to come Sunday afternoon as well because it is the only day my sister can make it.  I explained I needed one afternoon with the twins and I get this big sigh.  Well she needed to get with me and my sister to see what all we had already planned.  I told her I hadn’t planned anything, that I didn’t realize I was the planner.  Again, big sigh and a huff.

I go over Sunday late afternoon and my sister and mom have planned the open house without me (yeah!).  My sis leaves and mom stays out on the porch.  The tension had been thick so I figure I had better go out and make my peace.  She is on the porch crying, and said her happy pills weren’t working that day. 

The best we can figure is that she quit taking her depression meds (or cut back on them) thinking that now she was moved into the new house, she wouldn’t need them.  However, she has underestimated her depression before the house fire and the residual effect the fire had on her.  Add to that she has just retired plus her health issues (real, imaginary and self-induced), her depression is still around. 

Oh and then Monday when we show up, no other family made it.  Apparently there had been some kind of communication error.  Hmmm, not hard to believe.

MIA

No I didn’t disappear off of the face of the Earth.  With the new job, I just don’t have the time at work to cruise the internet like I did at my old job.  But I do like having the new challenges.  I’m enjoying it and think I can make this job a good one.  I’m being trained by the outgoing Director of Accounting.  She is bitter about many things but I’m also wondering how much of her troubles were of her making.  She comes across as someone who was overly strict to the point of almost abusive. 

I have good employees, with the exception of one.  On the Thursday of her full first week of work, she had been late to work 3 days of the 4 (by late I mean at least 15 minutes, I’m not talking a couple of minutes late).    I keep walking in and finding her on the cell phone or on personal emails.  Now I’m the first to say that sometimes I’m on my phone or check personal email, but not to the excessive amounts I’m seeing in her and I’m hearing about from others.  Then she has gotten confrontational with some of the supervisors in the company.  This is just too many problems from someone in two weeks of being on her job.  I would have let her go on Thursday but I need to make sure the people who back up her work are going to be present while I hire a new person.

My mother’s house is coming along very quickly.  In the two weeks since they started, it is weathered in, has drywall up on the walls and is ready for the siding to go on the outside this next week, taped, mudded and painted and for the floors to go in.  She will be able to move in the house in about 3 weeks.  Her builder has been absolutely amazing. 

I got a lovely hutch for my living room, although we broke off a door in the moving it.  I think I can fix it easily.  It has a nice little distressed look and beadboard back and sides.  I am a sucker for beadboard.  When I finish out my island, it will be done with a beadboard look to it as well.  For a little old house like mine, beadboard is a natural. 

Otherwise life is going along real normal like.

After the fire

Supposedly this morning my parents will sign the contract and the building process will begin about an hour later. The price is less than they have in the bank after the insurance paid off, the mortgage company took the balance on the old house (that was a huge hassle) and they have paid to have the lot cleared and prepared. This is also because the builder is knocking some off of his profit and negotiated with the subcontractors since my parents are homeless. Apparently the homeless, almost retired and partially disabled cards all got played by the builder which I am uncomfortable with but in the end my mom is happy with the price and what she is getting, so I guess it is ok.

My sister is still working on the content claims as replacement insurance has a lot of hoops to jump through.

The house could be ready before the end of August so just under 5.5 months from the fire. I’m pleased to think that they are getting a much better house than they had, out of the mortgage and they are helping a lot of local businessmen in this less than ideal economy.

And the really good news? My father and I haven’t strangled my mother yet.

That sounds horrible.  She has been through a lot.  But even before the fire, she was very self-centered.  She is a hypochondriac of the first water.  She enjoys a good pity party more than most people (as long as she is the hostess of the party).  The fire has just exacerbated her issues tremendously.  I have tried to get her to see the positives of the fire and there are really a lot (no one died, the old house was a disaster and wasn’t getting the maintenance it needed, she will have a house suited for the aged) but she wallowed her in her grief.  And yet when I suggested a grief counselor might help, she bit my head off.  She is no longer crying daily but that is more from being on two depression meds at a time than from having dealt with the issues. 

I’m like my dad.  We can’t change the fact that their house burned down.  What we can do is to move forward in the best way possible.  Unfortunately that doesn’t give my mother nearly enough attention. 

Two of my oldest friends in life (friends from grade school and high school) are wanting to throw my mother a shower.  Isn’t that sweet?  So I will be instrumental in planning that.  And I planted an idea to have a thank you open house to invite all the people who helped out right after the fire to come and see what has been built out of the ashes.  I imgaine, especially for the fire fighters, they don’t often get to see the reconstruction of lives after a fire.  Of course many people move away but my parents want to stay in their little neighborhood.  But I think it will be good for the fire fighters to have that moment of being invited into the new house and see that something good came after that day when they fought the fire.

Missing – One Stolen Carport

Back in March, my parents’ house caught fire and burned to a total loss.  During the time since, we have negotiated our way through insurance claims and mortgage companies.

My brother’s ILs are not very likeable people. They had already asked Mom and Dad if they could go through the house and salvage items (mostly metal for scrap). Mom said that they were pretty sure that it was part of the demolition company’s bid but that if they found it wasn’t that they would let me and X do it for the cash.

So last week my SIL C saw her parents over there tearing down the carport. She asked and they told her that my parents had given them permission, which they had not. Dad would press charges but doesn’t want to upset C.

Can you imagine the balls it takes to steal stuff from your daughter’s ILs house after a fire?

Actually many people have been in there to steal stuff.   It is pretty amazing how petty can be.  The den was an absolute loss, the only thing to survive was the fireplace.  On the fireplace had been some glass jars of loose change.  Stolen.  Someone took the brand new HDTV with its now warped screen.  I can’t imagine what they will do with that.  Drawers have been opened and gone through.  No it wasn’t boarded up, there wasn’t enough house to completely board it close. 

My mother

My mother is not grieving well.  I wish she would go to a grief counselor but she truly believes she is coping quite well.  However in the few hours I saw her over the weekend, she broke into tears multiple times over nothings.  She was battling depression before the fire and says her doctor has upped her meds but I think she really needs more than just meds. 

Add to that, the delays in getting electricity hooked up to the trailer they will live in for the next few months (the electricity is now on).  She feels like she is living in someone else’s place (which she is) and can’t feel at home. 

On the weekends, my uncle and his current wife come to see my grandfather and stay in one of the bedrooms in the trailer my parents are in.  We were told that my aunt has a habit of picking up things that aren’t hers.  Everyone was very nice in how they said this, like she accidentally mispacks things when she is getting ready to go home.  Well this weekend, one of my mother’s rings disappeared.  We hunted all over the place for it and then made a general announcement to all the relatives to be on the lookout for this ring.  Sure enough my aunt is the one who found it, right where we had looked many times over.  She is a really sweet lady but I think she has an illness.  But this is one more hassle for my mother, making sure all of her good stuff is put away each weekend when they come in.

I’m just not an emotional person and feel pretty helpless in dealing with my mother’s feelings.  My dad is like me.  You just deal with things.  You make a plan and go through it.  You focus on what is ahead rather than what is behind.  Things are things.  My mother is probably like most people, things represent more than just what they seem.  She is upset that the lace she bought for KB’s wedding is now gone.  Well, I doubt that KB was emotional concerned about it, doubt that she even knew there was lace for a dress that is 15 years away.