Friday, February 25, 2005

I Can't Hear My Parents Call

My mother's been in and out of the hospital over the past few weeks thanks to problems from laser eye surgery. She's torn the retina like 3 times now and there's a new surgical procedure for each subsequent injury.

"She'd called one day this week after she'd come home from the hospital as she'd heard from my sister about my arm. "How you doing, Mr. Clumsy?" She says. "This coming from the woman who can't blink without having to go the hospital?" I replied. Loving relationship, really.

Well, the bad news is she has to rest 18 hours a day to keep the gas bubble in her eye on the proper side. She hates it and apparently her eye itches like crazy (I suggested putting a cone around her head, but my father didn't want to get that close to her). But she's stuck like this for at least another 3 weeks, eating into the time they were finally going to finish their "1-month bathroom renovation" in my basement that they started back in 2002. If they were a friggin' contractor I would've fired them by now. Oog.

NOW my father has a couple of requests for me --yet again eating into the bathroom renovation time. First, he wants me to travel up to their place to take care of my Mom while he comes down here to attend a bunch of Masonic business meetings. He doesn't quite 'get' that I don't really feel like spending Easter weekend alone with my Mom while MY FAMILY celebrates Easter without me. Besides, can he NOT see that family should be a priority to him too? Yeah, he was a Big Muck-A-Muck (not an official Masonic term --I looked it up. Neither is Grand Poo-Bah, by the way, that was only on Flintstones) a few years ago, but family comes first. And hewojnders why I abandoned all that crap 10 years ago... Oh, the second thing he wanted to ask me about? Money. Yep, ask the unemployed son about a loan --not the daughter and her husband who are suddenly making $75K+ a year.

They're killing me.

Apparently, a few years back they cashed in some life insurance policy they'd set up (probably more of our inheritance --I know I'm going to get stuck with a procelain turtle collection!!) to go on a trip to Australia (funny. When I don't have money for something, it doesn't happen...) and the federal government's found out about his "capital gains" and now wants a piece of the action. Oh, and the interest for not getting action a few years back of course. Not that all the B.S. shares they had in Nortel would counteract the 'gains' when they'd bought the shares for $60 each and sold them for $10 each... The only way to get the government to pay attention is to send the paperwork in, but that's how my father thinks. He just wants to pay them and get them out of his life.

Government out of your life.... Good luck Dad!!

Gotta stop answering that damn phone.

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