I'm sitting here with the phone off the hook so my mother won't call
me...it's a long story with more to it, but it's 12:30 AM so I'll just
tell you the end of our phone conversation which went:
Her: I guess I'd better get rid of the cats, go into a nursing home and
sell the house. What do you want me to do?
Me: All I want is to get a person to come clean your house!
Repeat sequence another four or five times; then final line:
Me: All I want to do is get a goddamn person to clean your goddamn
house! GOODBYE!
After I got off the phone, I jumped up and down in the hallway for a few
moments while letting out a primal scream. Then I walked into our home
office, looked at Bob and said, "I have to call my sister."
Which I did, and while I was on the phone I could hear call waiting
beeping a number of times. As soon as I got off the phone the phone rang
twice within about five minutes; both times the voice came over the
answering machine:
"Oh, hi, it's your mother. I just wanted to find out what you and
your sister decided to do with me. Goodbye."
I CAN'T deal with her at freakin' midnight with a freakin' small child
who's still awake and all wound up from the excitement already (I
finally got her to bed a few minutes ago). So I took the phone off the
hook. Tomorrow will be another day... 
Those of you who work or have worked in an office...have you had to
have everything you hang on your office wall approved by someone? Our
office moved in August, and today it was announced that in order to
maintain our image nothing hung with pushpins is to be allowed,
everything must have frames, and all is to be approved by one of the
assistant directors. Now, I had nothing more nefarious planned than a
few of my matted and framed former county fair entries, but this is
burning my butt on general principles. I'm also wondering if they're
expecting me to frame my calendar? 
(Part of me wants to, just to make a point that they're being idiots.)
So, this seems control freakish to me, but I'm wondering if in my
limited employment history I'm missing something and it's common?
So what I'm doing now on the mother front is 1) trying to talk to the
owner of the service and get his version of the story (unfortunately he
was out yesterday and will be out today, although his office manager is
supposed to call me today) 2) if he really did tell her he can't serve
her with the cats there, I'll try calling the other service (the one
whose first choice pulled a no-show at the interview), level with them
about the litter box situation, and find out if it's something they can
deal with. If not...well, Marie is all ready to use this to say she has
to move. I'm more thinking, she probably has to get rid of the newer cat
(the one with the litter box problem). Mom actually called me Sunday
saying she'd been worried sick all weekend - she had gotten herself
convinced that the owner of the service was going to MAKE her get rid of
the cats! I told her he couldn't do that, but that there was a real
issue that sooner or later the cats will probably need to be rehomed (I
mean, she's 79, the cats are I think something like 2 and 4), and while
my sister had already promised to take the older cat (before Mom had the
other one), neither one of us wants the one with the potty problems. She
wanted me to PROMISE to find a home for that cat. Right now I have an
e-mail in to a very strictly no-kill shelter that I know is totally
overwhelmed at the moment (having taken in some huge number of animals
from an old lady who wasn't taking care of them), but I'm hoping they'll
have some ideas for me on what one does with a cat like this. Maybe a
barn cat? Meanwhile, Marie wanted to look into ways to force the issue
with Mom moving, and we were supposed to check in with each other
sometime this week.
Wow, sorry, that turned into a book. Bob and I went on an apple- and
pumpkin-picking field trip with Laurel's class yesterday - it went
pretty well through the hayride, pumpkin picking and picture taking, up
until the part where we were trying to push the wheelchair down to where
the apples were. But the ride was bumpy and I think a bit scary and
Laurel was getting cold and she started to cry, so we aborted that and
"picked" apples out of boxes instead.
OK, time to end my book and get to work...
OK, we need lots of positive thoughts here for Laurel's med change...
I finally talked to the neuro's assistant today, and Bob went a
couple of rounds with her nurse. We are going to put Laurel on a second
seizure med called Topamax (the one she's on is Depakote). We are
supposed to increase her dose by 1/2 tablet every five days until she's
up to 3 tablets/day (we'll have to crush the tablets, of course). I wish
we didn't have to do this - possible side effects include sleepiness
(like all anticonvulsants), cognitive effects, and problems with the
eyes including glaucoma (and I'm not sure I could tell if she was doing
worse visually...her speech therapist said to me Friday that she felt
Laurel wasn't visually attending as well and I've been suspecting the
same thing. I had a lot harder time getting her to pick her Halloween
costume [by choosing between pictures] this year than I did the last
two. I suppose we should haul her to an eye doctor and make sure there
isn't a physical cause). But Lamictal can cause a rare but fatal rash
which is more likely in combination with Depakote, and Keppra isn't
known to be effective for general seizures (which Laurel's EEG showed
even when we didn't see evidence of seizures), plus it can cause
behavior problems. And not adding a med is not feeling like an option
anymore - in the last two weeks she's had two long (50 - 60 sec)
seizures. With the exception of that one after the asthma attack at my
mom's house before Christmas we hadn't seen any long ones since 2001, so
this is freaking us out.
In other news, my mom called both my home and office (didn't happen to
catch me in either place, I think I was nuking my coffee at the time) to
tell me that the woman from the service didn't come to change her cat
litter and take her shopping. This of course being the same service that
Mom told me on Friday wouldn't come unless she got rid of the cats
(still haven't gotten to the bottom of that one - the owner's been out
the last two days and his office manager was supposed to call me today
and didn't). Whether that's true or not, she thought so, so why would
she be expecting someone? I think she is really, really losing it... 
Anyway, please pray/think positive thoughts/send a message to the
universe that the new med will get rid of Laurel's seizures and not have
any side effects. And if you've got a few spares that the situation with
my mom resolves, those would be good, too...
Well, I called Mom last night and it wasn't QUITE as bad as I was
afraid. It wasn't that she thought that that service she called me about
Friday night was going to send someone, it's that she had thought I had
someone from another service who could come. I sort of see where
she got that, because I'd talked about trying the other service again
(the one whose employee didn't come to the interview) if it was really
true that Service A had said what she reported. But obviously she had
made some leaps from what I said, which does seem to be happening more
often lately. Not to mention the paranoia about her cats, although she
didn't mention it last night. My sister told me though that she wasn't
too sure she was going to come east for Thanksgiving and bring Mom down
to see us after all, because Mom didn't want to have someone sit the
cats, she wanted to bring them with! UUGGGGHHHH, what a thought.
Anyway, it was something of a relief to know that she hadn't forgotten
something that had had her that worked up, but still - it's becoming
increasingly obvious that her brain isn't working the way it used to...