My life, for what it's worth, part 2

My mom.  Honestly.  I'd forgotten what it's like to travel with her. As I mentioned before, this has been a revolting winter in Seattle, and I am going to die if I don't get to see some sunshine soon.  So I told my mom I wanted to go to Maui after tax season.  She hemmed and hawed (but she doesn't have any new summer clothes!) but finally agreed to let me buy her a ticket. Then she fussed very hard, because our tickets are non-refundable and what if there's some festival in Hawaii that week and we can't get a hotel? I started looking for a hotel.  I sent her one that looked promising.  She said it looked like a fire trap, but, and I quote, "whatever you pick, I'm sure it will be fine."  Sigh.  I sent her another one.  She honestly doesn't care, but maybe she should ask her friends who stay on Maui where they go.  Fine, please do.  I sent another suggestion.  She countered with the name of the condo her parents used t...

Last week, my business partner caught a nasty cold, and she insisted on coming to work every day.  I begged her to go home.  I told her how mad I'd be if I got sick.  And she would not leave.  Anybody care to guess where this is going? I haven't been sick in years.  Probably not since I left my former employer, where people would call in too sick to work and then come in to do their taxes and cough all over me.  I already had one cold this winter, and now I have a worse one.  Ugh.  My partner feels so sad and sorry, but I know she'll do it again.  Maybe I should get pneumonia to teach her a lesson. The good news is that I finally got caught up on all the work I got behind on when Dad was sick and then planning for the funeral.  For awhile there I was more behind than I've ever been.  Today I put the finishing touches on the last one, and then I brought myself home and put myself to bed.  I am going to go in briefly tomorrow...

So much has happened since my last post.  My mom kept my dad home for another week, even though something clearly had broken in his brain.  He stayed up all night, every night, calling out, reaching for something on the ceiling, trying to get out of bed.  And of course, mom gamely "slept" next to him, telling him to settle down, keeping him in bed, not getting any sleep herself.  I went over there on Friday morning and her hands were shaking and she was gray.  I'm not ashamed to say I cried to make her call and get someone to come watch my dad at night that night. So she got a good night's sleep, which was good, because the next day she decided to take him to see the doctor.  The doctor took one look and called the ambulance to take him to the hospital, where he had every test known to man and was finally admitted.  They never did figure out what exactly had happened, but he was just out of his mind. Monday was the worst day ever.  I got there...

This has not been the greatest week ever.  Business is booming, which is great, but that means I'm tired and working a lot.  The third partner is still working another job, so two of us are trying to do most everything.  We're kind of grouchy. I was really looking forward to having yesterday off, but when I checked my phone there'd been a call from my mom at 2:30 a.m.  Crap!  I called her right away, and my dad had tried to get up in the night and had fallen.  His skin is like tissue paper, so even though he fell on carpet he tore his skin and was bleeding all over the place.  She couldn't get him up.  Naturally she tried to call all the kids in town first, but no one heard their phone (I refuse to sleep with mine).  I would have told her to call 911 anyway. That's what she ended up doing, the paramedics came right away and got him back into bed, but he was bleeding so much they took him to the hospital.  The hospital bandaged him up...

It is hard to get back into the habit of writing.  But I'm going to keep doing it. My cold turned out to have the longest staying power of any cold I've ever had, I think.  After two weeks I'm still snuffling.  We have had snow, and cold, and record-breaking rain.  I went for a walk today for the first time in two weeks, it felt so good just to get outside! After the usual slow January, clients have started coming in at a brisk rate.  I have half a dozen folders stacked up waiting for me on Monday.  I have the feeling we're busier than usual for this time of year, which is nice. Emily has still not heard from Western, which is frustrating.  They will be registering for classes in another couple of weeks, and she needs to know where she should register.  If she registers at the community college where she's going this quarter, then I have to pay within seven days or they drop her, so I'm not super excited about rushing into that.  This m...

I never get sick.  Seriously, it's been years since I even had a cold.  So two weeks ago, when Emily got a cold, I didn't worry about it.  She snuffled and honked.  I went about my business.  Then I started noticing a tickle in my throat.  I still didn't worry, confident that my body would fight it off. Long story made short, if I'd just given up and gotten sick when she did, I'd be over it by now.  Instead I'm sitting here coughing, with a fever and plugged sinuses and a voice scratchy enough that people look at me with alarm when I talk.  Ugh.  I must remember not to be smug. Tax season is a terrible time to have a blurry brain. I was amused to get a call from someone at my former employer today, telling me she's giving someone my name.  This happens every few months.  They have a premium office that's supposed to take care of this kind of thing, but apparently they're not interested, so they send them to me.  It's a hu...

A year ago my dad turned 90.  He had just survived a long session in the hospital, and then two months in rehab, coming home right before Thanksgiving.  He was wheelchair bound, but other than that he was feeling pretty good.  We threw a big party for him and invited all his friends, it was quite a night. Since then, he's had a stroke that affected his ability to speak.  The man who made his living communicating and writing can't get more than two or three words out, on a good day.  Sometimes he can write on his whiteboard, more often he can't. We had a much smaller party for his birthday last night.  Only about half the family was there, but we had a good time.  I couldn't help looking back a year ago and feeling sad for the turn his life has taken. I was also so impressed with my daughter.  She and I were there for lunch a couple of weeks ago when the speech therapist came.  Emily watched what she did carefully, and now whenever she's...