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In which I become the center of the universe and whine like a piteous whiny whiner

It was painful to leave yesterday's post up for the shear suckage of it, but a promise to blog every day is a promise and by 8:30 last night I didn't have much left.

I adore my kids, they are my life, every moment with them is a blessing if not a joy. It's not like they are purposely sucking my will to live from my soul.

There are very few things as critical as a teen aged daughter, unless of course it's an elderly mother. I have both. I am lucky to have these two women in my life. But really, sometimes it's enough to make me want to dye my hair, change my name, and skip town.

It's okay, though it's usually more okay when I can remain mindful that their criticism of me intensifies with their own anxieties and self doubt. Yesterday must have been fraught for both of them, either that or I had a Kick Me sign on my forehead.

My other kid is a lovely individual and not critical and is more demonstrably affectionate and loving. This other child has a kind warm heart and is prone to spontaneous declarations of his eternal love for me. He is also a stubborn little cuss who will ask for something and never take no as an answer. He will unrelentingly badger, cajole, demand, beg, weep, rend, and gnash to get whatever it is that he wants. It's like his superpower.

Sometimes he appears to surrender to my No, but within a few minutes he's back to wear away my resolve. Perhaps the object of his desire is a before bed snack. Though he ate 2 helpings of dinner, he tells me he's weak with hunger. I say no snack, he says maybe just a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I say he can have fruit. He says maybe a bowl of cereal, I say fruit, he says maybe another bowl of stew, I say fruit, how 'bout some chips? Fruit. Cheez-Its? Fruit. Ice-cream? Fruit. Just a little ice-cream? FRUIT. A very very very very very very small bowl of ice-cream? FRROOOTTTT. Okay, what about an apple and peanut butter sandwich? Will you make it yourself? Yes! Fine. And I honestly have lost my will to go on and for all I know he's made himself a peanut-butter-jelly-chip-cheez it-ice- cream-cereal-stew sandwich and I don't even care anymore.


His mechanations, no matter how maddening, are still easier to deal with than the icy "you are a f***ing moron, Mom" looks that have been delivered to me with increasing regularity from the teen. And the "you are a f***ing moron" looks from beloved daughter are easier to deal with than the revisionist family history as told by my own mother with a knowing glint in her unblinking eye, as if to say, "We all know I'm making this shit up, but I dare you to say so". Bless her anyway.

Have I mentioned that my mother's cats are living with me? Only until my mother is discharged from the rehab facility. She's been recovering from pneumonia for a few weeks now though it feels like an eternity. It's not enough that I deal with these smelly cat litter strewing vomiting little stink balls, but she needs me to tell her it's a my pleasure to do so. The cats must remain contained in my bedroom because they just must. They track amazing amounts of cat litter around, they deposit much of it in my bed. When I say much of it, I mean metric tons.

Before getting into bed at night I shake the blankets, I strip the bed and shake the sheets. It sounds just like frozen rain falling on the hard crusty snow as the bed litter settles to the floor. There is cat litter under the bottom sheet, too. How the fuck do they do that? I brush the naked mattress free of litter, I remake the bed. I fall to sleep while the dulcet tune, The Cat Ass Lick Lullaby plays only two inches from my left ear. Every morning I am awakened by the same sweet sound.  Every morning there is a sprinkling of cat litter by my pillow, an offering from the Cat Fairy. It sort of makes me sick.

I vacuum my floor daily and still by the end of the day I'm walking on a beach of cat litter. I love my mother, I tolerate her cats. I'm convinced her cats are not regular cats, but are Satan's own cats. I'm not saying my mom is Satan, she's not. The cats are on loan to her from Hell; it's some sort of punishment meant just for me. Hell is other people's cats wetly licking their asses in your ear as you try to sleep on a bed of hard scratchy clay bits of filth in a room that smells of Fishy Morsels and Cow Entrails in Gravy.

I'm really just complaining. Forgive me. My heart had been filled with love and beauty for several days and I guess it was just time for me to come down from my  high. It was nice while it lasted.




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