My second favorite comment during the movie was when Drizella and Anastasia (Cinderella’s evil step sisters) tore Cinderella’s dress apart, my niece declared: “Those are NOT nice step sisters!” And my grandma chimed in, “AND, THEY’RE UGLY!” Grandma’s lovely addition had the niece running around parroting her the rest of the day, “AND, THEY’RE UGLY!”

In the dream someone (I think it was the baby’s father) had taken her for some sort of field trip away from prison. I spent most of the dream wandering in and out of my cell, collecting pieces of red embroidery floss and needles. I don’t know what I was doing with them, but it was of the highest importance. I had a whole contraband stash of the red embroidery floss that I was going to do something very important with…and then I woke up. So I have no idea what I was going to do with it. Goodbye bad dream, hello waking nightmare….

I’ve been very quiet about my current (real life) pregnancy thus far because my last pregnancy ended in miscarriage, but (big BUT!) I’m pregnant. Unfortunately my pregnancy has coincided with some very serious marital issues. I am not quite sure what is going to happen or how I even feel…other than totally fucking sad. I need to protect the little 11 week old being inside of me; which has been giving me wretched morning sickness and making me feel tired beyond belief, so that it can keep growing. I am trying my best to be nurture myself and allow myself to be sad that my marriage feels so uncertain… but it’s all so fucking hard. I wasn’t going to talk publicly about the pregnancy until after the first trimester, but now that my entire life feels so uncertain and painful I had to get it out. If you can pray, think good thoughts, whatever you do. I need a little help and support for me and this little one… and my marriage too.

I interact with my grandma and my parents on a daily basis. I miss the days when my parents were perfect. When I was young and I could not see cracks and dysfunction in their communication style and I was not able to see them as what they are: regular people who are just doing the best they can. The dysfunction makes jointly caring for an elderly relative difficult. I get really frustrated. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing alone screaming and no one can hear me. If grandma were just “some old lady” none of this would matter.

I have the twitter feed where I post things grandma says but the things my grandma says sometimes annoy and pester my friends and loved ones. I know people tire of hearing about her and my other family but I don’t know what else to do… other than just shutting up and holding it inside. Which isn’t a healthy or viable option.

Yesterday gram’s dictated a birthday card to her son. I normally wouldn’t post this sort of thing, but I think it’s too good not to post. It’s especially funny because my grandma has some very Victorian/proper sensibilities.

Dear #2 Son,

Mom

Poor grams was so worried about not having enough time to get ready that she didn’t sleep most of the night and woke up at 5:00AM. The instructions for her test were to arrive hydrated. Which she misunderstood and got out of bed multiple times through the night to drink Gatorade. (SHEESH.) When grams does not receive adequate sleep she gets pretty loopy. The night of “hydration” and worry about the test sent her a bit over the edge.

All morning long (and most of the afternoon) Grams could not stop talking about Corrina Corrina, which we watched the previous day. Grams was up most of the night trying to solve the problems of Corrina Corrina because that’s what she does: solve problems (of fictional characters instead of getting much needed sleep). We talked A LOT about what she saw in the movie that needed fixing: little Molly needed playmates but was not ready for school, atheism, and smoking is bad. The hardest part about all of this is sometimes letting her talk on and on about something I see as pointless or a waste of time. It’s all very draining. But it’s where grams is in life and I just keep doing my best to let her say and do whatever she needs to do. I think maybe we should continue watching what we can find of old Cary Grant movies and stick to oldies. Though she still manages to fixate on things with old movies too. Ah, as grams says, “It’s a heck of a life.”

Today we celebrated by going to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant. It was great! Some highlights…

Prosciutto, arugula, “torched” pears, mascarpone, twelve year balsamic.

Killer braised Angus beef short ribs, warm pancetta spinach salad, garlic and mushrooms.

Crème brûlée! Mike had never had crème brûlée before! Thank goodness for anniversaries to fix such wrongs!

1. It’s impossible to find a proper fucking onion bagel in Utah. The only local bagel store caters to the local tastes (SWEET) and stopped making onion bagels. This infuriates me. I’m considering making bagels at home which is far more work than I want to put in to eat a bagel.

2. I hate it when I cannot solve a problem or conflict and I feel lost in it. I feel that way right now over something that happened with a friend. I’m not sure how to deal with it so I’ve decided to say FUCK IT. I’m not feeling very well about it.

3. Grandma has congestive heart failure and is carrying about 20 extra pounds of water weight so her doctor prescribed diuretics. Diuretics make Grandma CRAZY with anxiety and fear about the toilet and potty and accidents. I understand that it’s stressful to have to move around a lot to go to the bathroom (especially at my grandma’s age) but it is hard to talk about it ALL DAY LONG. Grams went to the bathroom three times in 3 hours and she was screaming, “I WENT TO THE BATHROOM TEN TIMES!” But it’s not worth arguing with her because it’s like trying to reason with a two year old. A very powerful two year old. She’s getting older and more confused (especially with water weight, which makes confusion worse) and it has been difficult lately and I feel like complaining about it makes me a bad person so I’ve been pretty quiet about it. (At least online.)

4. There is no “x” is espresso. I don’t think this will ever not bother me.

My old friend Stephanie is here for the weekend and I am so happy to see her. Having Steph around makes everything better. There’s thrift store shopping for us today (hoping for some fantastic Pyrex scores!), along with a trip to Moochie’s for the-best-cheese-steak ever, and tonight I will roast chickens for us. Hooray for the weekend!

A few weeks ago grandma declared, “I don’t like my life.” It was heartbreaking to hear her say that so I arranged for my dad and uncle to come and give her a priesthood blessing. Respecting her Mormon beliefs has been difficult for me but I do my best because I want to help her. It’s hard for me to see her take things to heart just because a man said them, especially when I’ve been saying the same things. It’s even more frustrating when what the man says is plain wrong. My uncle told her that she needs to enjoy her time here with the family that desires a relationship with her and it made me mad. First, because I felt like he was completely putting her own (valid) feelings of loss aside. Second, because after spending months of working full-time in her home I’ve begun to resent relatives (like my uncle) that have lived five minutes away from her for a decade but never see her, then expect to waltz in and be her BFF after her husband dies.

It’s been really disappointing to see her not doing well, especially when she began acting like obstinate grandpa. She was really sick and needed to go to the hospital. I very frankly told her so and she replied, “I’m not going to the hospital. I am a stone wall.” The “stone wall” crap is something grandpa used to do that drove both of us crazy and it’s sad to see her doing the same thing. After a few days being very sick at home, a home health nurse came (who was one of grandpa’s hospice nurses) and asked her what her long-term goals were. She said she wanted to get better and not feel like she was so the nurse told her she needed to go to the hospital ASAP. The nurse helped me put her into my car (because she refused an ambulance) and we were racing to the hospital within 10 minutes.

Grandma spent five days in the hospital and has been at a transitional rehab for a week now to regain her strength. She doesn’t seem to be getting stronger and it’s hard for me to hear my family all talk about how much stronger she’s getting. It’s frustrating and sad and I’m having a much more difficult time with it than I thought I would.

Right now I’m feeling like ten year old me. I wish that I didn’t get so incensed when I see injustice. Why aren’t the people around me upset when they witness felonies within our own family? Everyone says crap like, “No harm no foul.” Well, I say fuck that! A felony is a felony.

Life would be a lot easier if I cared a little less. But then I guess I wouldn’t be me. So I’m just sitting here, taking deep breaths, getting ready to be around my family tomorrow and not lose my shit.