Crying wolf...
Dec. 17th, 2007 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoMy mum on the phone just then, trying to determine whether she is to buy the *deleted for surprise value* for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quatranoctal for Christmas, or whether I had told her I had already bought it but it was the sort of thing she should consider too.
Then she mentioned that my grandmother's nursing home has just called to say it looks like Grandmother is rather ill and sinking and that she had better go over. So she's going to finish her shopping and have a cuppa and then decide whether she'll go now or tomorrow.
Which sounds very callous, but this place has several times told us that Grandmother is sinking and likely to go soon and not going to last long... and each and every time she's perked up within a week and been insulting us and asking when she's going to move to Mum's place. My Belovedlederhosen mentions in his journals over the last few years at least 2 times when we were told it might be the last time we see her.
I think at this point I need to explain that she is not a very nice person. Not very nice at all. She insists on being the centre of attention, and has done all her life. She sent her daughters off to boarding school at the ages of 7 and 9, so that she didn't have to look after them. She's badmouthed all the members of the family to outsiders over the years, to the point where I decided whenda_norvegicus was a baby that I didn't want her in my life any more.
I had to have her at the wedding (where she would herself up too early and ended up being taken off by ambulance after a turn, but she was perfectly all right by the time the ambulance arrived) and she was also at my father's retirement (linked above) and the 50th anniversary of Column 8, but she was very very definitely not at my parent's 40th wedding anniversary, or my mother's 60th birthday, and we wouldn't invite her to Wafflers (the after-dinner speech making group we belong to).
And for the last 30 years, every year it's been "But this could be my last Christmas with the family" and her trying to make herself queen of the day, and making a huge fuss about the old souvenirs she doesn't want any more or the books she bought from a book club and has given to us. One year she gave me a cushion she had "made especially" for me, all new, materials from DJs. The stuffing turned out to be a very badly sewn cushion cover stuffed with an older cushion, a separate cushion cover and a perishing rubber foam pillow that would have started my asthma up like crazy. She swore she knew nothing of these bits - the older cushion was a rather nice velvet one that was just missing a centre button, and the case was a cordroy square one that I bought a fresh centre for and used, but it took several washings for the powdered rotted rubber to come out. And the case she had made, which was this ghastly polyester monkey hawaiian print, was used to hold toy cars for a while then junked.
And some of the other things she has done? I've had troubles for years trying to tell boundaries and appropriateness and what is not a suitable question - and I know where that comes from. Enough said.
Some people would say you should have respect for the elderly. This person has, over the last 40-something years of my life, done enough to lose any shreds of respect that she might have laid claim to. When she goes, it'll be a relief. For my family, for my mother who has had the burden for years of trying to cope with my Grandmother's non-existent money sense, pulled her out of financial ruin more than once, then had to cope with my Grandmother accusing her of stealing all my Grandmother's money. Several years ago, when she realised she was getting a little too old to run her own apartment, my Grandmother asked my mother to look at the possibilities of retirement villages. Mum did a lot of running around, and found a few which were nice and affordable (very important because my grandmother has seriously squandered a fortune). These were, however, in the suburbs, probably a 40 minute train ride into town. My Grandmother threw a HUGE hissy fit, and then told a reporter who was asking about her books that "The family are trying to have me put away".
So. Things may be different tomorrow, or this might once more be her pulling the attention. I guess she does get one final go. But I will be glad when she's gone.
quatranoctal for Christmas, or whether I had told her I had already bought it but it was the sort of thing she should consider too.Then she mentioned that my grandmother's nursing home has just called to say it looks like Grandmother is rather ill and sinking and that she had better go over. So she's going to finish her shopping and have a cuppa and then decide whether she'll go now or tomorrow.
Which sounds very callous, but this place has several times told us that Grandmother is sinking and likely to go soon and not going to last long... and each and every time she's perked up within a week and been insulting us and asking when she's going to move to Mum's place. My Beloved
lederhosen mentions in his journals over the last few years at least 2 times when we were told it might be the last time we see her. I think at this point I need to explain that she is not a very nice person. Not very nice at all. She insists on being the centre of attention, and has done all her life. She sent her daughters off to boarding school at the ages of 7 and 9, so that she didn't have to look after them. She's badmouthed all the members of the family to outsiders over the years, to the point where I decided when
da_norvegicus was a baby that I didn't want her in my life any more. I had to have her at the wedding (where she would herself up too early and ended up being taken off by ambulance after a turn, but she was perfectly all right by the time the ambulance arrived) and she was also at my father's retirement (linked above) and the 50th anniversary of Column 8, but she was very very definitely not at my parent's 40th wedding anniversary, or my mother's 60th birthday, and we wouldn't invite her to Wafflers (the after-dinner speech making group we belong to).
And for the last 30 years, every year it's been "But this could be my last Christmas with the family" and her trying to make herself queen of the day, and making a huge fuss about the old souvenirs she doesn't want any more or the books she bought from a book club and has given to us. One year she gave me a cushion she had "made especially" for me, all new, materials from DJs. The stuffing turned out to be a very badly sewn cushion cover stuffed with an older cushion, a separate cushion cover and a perishing rubber foam pillow that would have started my asthma up like crazy. She swore she knew nothing of these bits - the older cushion was a rather nice velvet one that was just missing a centre button, and the case was a cordroy square one that I bought a fresh centre for and used, but it took several washings for the powdered rotted rubber to come out. And the case she had made, which was this ghastly polyester monkey hawaiian print, was used to hold toy cars for a while then junked.
And some of the other things she has done? I've had troubles for years trying to tell boundaries and appropriateness and what is not a suitable question - and I know where that comes from. Enough said.
Some people would say you should have respect for the elderly. This person has, over the last 40-something years of my life, done enough to lose any shreds of respect that she might have laid claim to. When she goes, it'll be a relief. For my family, for my mother who has had the burden for years of trying to cope with my Grandmother's non-existent money sense, pulled her out of financial ruin more than once, then had to cope with my Grandmother accusing her of stealing all my Grandmother's money. Several years ago, when she realised she was getting a little too old to run her own apartment, my Grandmother asked my mother to look at the possibilities of retirement villages. Mum did a lot of running around, and found a few which were nice and affordable (very important because my grandmother has seriously squandered a fortune). These were, however, in the suburbs, probably a 40 minute train ride into town. My Grandmother threw a HUGE hissy fit, and then told a reporter who was asking about her books that "The family are trying to have me put away".
So. Things may be different tomorrow, or this might once more be her pulling the attention. I guess she does get one final go. But I will be glad when she's gone.
