Playing hard-ball and luvin' it

Well, after a near meltdown I called mean ol' sister for some advice. I got it alright, in her style that could be taken as cold hearted bossing and maybe is a little but that's why I called her.

A good knock up-side the head is just what I needed.

I decided to sleep in MY OWN bed last night. Not on a cold air mattress in a living room filled with volume 18 sounds of murder and screaming.

It was a bit of a rough start, 'get me this first' and 'are you still here?' I finally got her settled, closed my blessed bedroom door and had my hand on the light switch when I heard a frantic voice banging on my door. "Where are you, are you here??"

Rolling my eyes as only a pre-teen acting adult can do, I re-entered the livingroom to see her on her bed/couch looking (here we go again, she's blind) around for me. "Yes, Mom, what is it?" I asked in my kindest voice. Ok, maybe it wasn't the Kindest, but it was good enough to fool her into believing I didn't have blood shooting out of my eyes....

"I heard a growl", A Growl, I thought, what, does she have a boogyman under the couch?? WTF anyway? This was starting to look like a long night and I had only gotten close to the bed, not even in it yet...

Thinking quickly, I grabbed the cat and explained the noise was probably him. Honestly, that cat has never growled that I know of. WTF anyway?

I closed the door firmly, she had to hear it, I thought, she'll know I'm in here and the door is CLOSED. I slept the most wonderful sleep, never heard a thing all night. All is well, right? Wrong.

She asked for a sudafed this morning because for some reason, she said, her eyes were watering and swollen. I looked closely at her, durned if she wasn't teary eyed. Well, well, well, I've only ever seen her actually cry once in my long life, and then the tears came with things flying across the room. This was maybe 38 years ago. Huh!

As if I hadn't tortured her enough by abandoning her in that big, lonely livingroom for, what, about 8 hours, I added insult to injury by taking off for 5, yep, count em, FIVE hours today.

I walked out the door as she sniffled and blew her nose. I felt not an ounce of bad for her, I was angry. Really, REALLY angry with her. 35 years ago she walked out on me, not walked, sneaked out when I wasn't looking. For 35 years she's practiced throwing us all out, bringing some back only to throw them out again.

For 15 years she has been suffering life-changing illnesses and wouldn't let us kids reach out to her. The only reason she is here is because she knew she would die alone in that apartment and someone would find her rotted carcas 2 weeks later. She doesn't want to die alone.

So 35 years ago when I really REALLY needed her, she was a gonner, and now when I need a few hours to take care of me, she has a death grip on me. Oooh, maybe that's a bad analogy.

When I got home, 5 hours after I left, the tears were dry and she said she was glad I didn't elope 'or something' and that I came home.

I'm not sure I want to elope but 'or something' might have been interesting....