Wanna see me make this Scotch disappear?
What an exciting adventure! Since coming home, I have only gone out with friends twice, helped watch my lung-cancery (great) aunt's decline progress, helped move her shit to the mother house in Monroe,MI (she's a nun, and they turned part of the massive, incredible complex into nursing care), and been witness to her apparently losing her mind. Maybe it's the morphine, maybe it is a guilty conscience, maybe it is osmosis from being around people with lesser faculties. She has been panicking in the mornings, and calling everybody, saying they need to come help immediately (from two hours away, during work), and then being fine. Everybody here is running out of patience with this, and she is apparently convinced that all of the other nuns there are out to get her (or after her money, I don't know). Wow, awesome summer so far for all involved! It might sound harsh, but you might be a little too far removed from the situation to appreciate the bizarre twists the story has taken.
Some fun has finally been had. I finally made it to 24grille with a resume. The chef, who was sitting with his kids, nearly ready to go to their soccer game, came over to talk to me, an unannounced guest for about a half of an hour. Then he asked if there was anything on the bar menu that I wanted to try, finally sold me on it on the second attempt, and I tried the game hen rillette which was a perfect little lunch. He also said the he would take care of my beer, make the calls to get me in at any other restaurant I might be interested in, and offered to start filling out paper work to qualify the time I spend there toward my internship for school. That could potentially save me a trimester's tuition. Wow. Amazing guy, great food, and I hope to be a part of that operation. It sounded hopeful.
Then today started with a frantic wake up, moms was downstairs tapping out a coffee dealie, and it sounded like someone was beating down the front door. That was three hours after I got to sleep. Auntie Blanche, who finally came up to visit her dying sister, was also awooked by them shits. Next, at 9:10am, or five hours after falling sleepwisey, the calls from the mother house started, on my phone which got cut off shortly after the call started, with somebody telling me that Sr Mary is panicking and blah blah think the medication is making her paranoid, blah. Well, I called back on the house phone, aunt Mary answered, and said that she needed my help right away. Mind you, this is an 87 year old woman who can not breathe well and is having a bad trip. She told me to tell my mother, who was at work and who was interrupted in a similar fashion the preceding day at her somewhat new job, that she needed to respond immediately, and to call George and tell him not to sign anything and not to come out there, and to call her as soon as possible. Wow, what a fucked up way to start my day when I'm already sleepy and basically stoned on out of control allergies in a house with two cats. Did not know what to do, talked and texted to the people I needed to, talked to one of the broads at the mother house, and she said aunt Mary thinks they are trying to keep her there (they are, because she needs constant care), and they are trying to prevent her from making phone calls. The next one I talked to said everything was fine and she was just upset about her phone not working right, and IT is coming to check it out, and there was a problem with all of the phones there Monday. Great. Well, George had told me he'd call and get back to us, apparently he quit his golf game and went out there, somebody else cancelled appointment with a couple of clients and went out there. I talked to another nurse from a different hospice about changes in meds and withdrawals from the morphine being a part of this mess, she said she would follow up with the hospice out there in Monroe, and everything sounded like I couldn't do anything about it and it might be weird junky paranoia anyway. So I got showered, suppressed the feeling that I was ignoring pleas for help, and took Auntie Blanche Marie to the casino.
I had dreaded the trip, even though I'd suggested it, as last time she was here, we took her to the MGM Grand and watched her zombie out on the slots for hours and refuse to even come to eat with us. This time, mom wasn't there, she gave me fifty bucks to play with, we had a big-ass lunch that a really super-nice guy with a baby hand bought for us with his comps. I tried a few different salads, about ten different things from the entree line (it was a classy-ass buffet, Palette), and probably seven desserts! WOWWY! AND COFFEE!!! Then we waddled out onto the gambling floor. I had some awesome luck with the machines I found, and made some horrible decisions while at them. The fifty bucks dwindled a little, then I got it to a hundred, then it dropped, then I got it up, and down, and on another machine up to 110+ and then to not that much, got eighty dollhairs of my own out of the ATM, and slowly turned the full amount into about twenty cents. The whole time, I was admiring the psychological process that I was participating in, thinking about how "now I'm just going to play twenty-five cents" win fifty cents, bet seventy five cents, think "here is a fifty cent donation to your facility" and just press on, thinking that this machine loved me the same way that I loved it, and we could repair this failing relationship if I just tried a little more. I know that I should quit while ahead, and it occurred to me repeatedly during the process. I take full responsibility for my actions.
Next, the drive home started to resemble Gilligan's Island. I wanted to see how fast taking I-75 from Detroit to Rochester was, got to chatting, wasn't using my phone's gps, as I know what fucking exit I wanted, I do this all the time!, and just didn't pay attention to anything but staying in the lines, and not swearing in front of Blanchie. I didn't see any landmarks, and definitely didn't see the Crooks exit. AB saw a Dixie Hwy sign and insisted that I was driving toward Monroe. I was on I-75 SOUTH, g-darnit! That was right, I even talked to my moms, told her what we were passing, and she said we were heading the right way. I think that was after I'd already missed the exit. We ended up about half way into the state before I gave up, got off (ooh! another issue, the exits are like three miles apart out by Holly, MI!) and switched on the GPS. We made it home, at some Thai, everybody else has since gone to bed, and I am now drinking Scotch, the effects of which seem to be amplified by my cat allergy, and thinking about running away. I just hope to get back in the kitchen soon, and I am thinking about trying to tend some bar a night or two per week. Now I just need to see what kind of mullet I can sprout over the summer, and hope the hissy fits and panic attacks stop with everybody. Goodnight!
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