GERD – That’s What She Said

There seems to be a pattern of BatPoo calling me for medical advice.  The irony is that I have received the least training in the medical field…absolute zero.  Whereas BatPoo, SpawnofBatPoo and my father have a combined 70+ years of training and experience.

So my call yesterday from BatPoo was to learn more about the symptoms of GERD or Reflux.  Do I need to again mention she is a Registered Nurse?  After about 15 minutes of her questions and discussion I realize that she has more info about it than JAMA.  In fact, she had already spent a few hours talking to old doctor “friends”.  She finally made an appointment for an official diagnosis for today.  It turns out she just wanted to “vent because she isn’t having some idiot stick a fu@king scope down her throat”.

BatPoo must not have thought that a 20 minute conversation on GERD was enough punishment for me.  So she decides to get in one final dig by saying that she remembers the first day she had symptoms.  It was about three years ago on the final day she was at my house visiting.  Remember, she has been to my house probably a total of 14 days in the past 3 years. She said that we made her meatloaf, mashed potatoes and carrots.  She tells me as she was eating it she was unable to swallow a few bites.  My guess it is just her body rejecting it because it didn’t come from Burger King or Taco Bell.  But she is certain that is when her GERD began.  BatPoo also adds that this is further proof that she ONLY has GERD because if it was esophageal she would already be dead.

As I am relaying the story to wifey later in the evening I tell her about BatPoo “contracting” her most recent illness at our house last year.  I make the mistake of giving details about her story including the info about her not being able to swallow.  Of course, at that point my oldest son walks through the room, drops a “that’s what she said” about his grandma then walks away laughing hysterically.  Not sure if wifey was more pissed about BatPoo’s accusations or oldest son’s impeccable comedic timing.

Note: I told you BatPoo should have called someone else.  Spawn pointed out that it is actually GERD, not GURD like I posted originally.  Thanks.

Scatter Grandma’s Ashes (or Marlboro’s ashes)

A picture is worth a 1,000 words, right?  When I will give a little background on this one you’ll begin to understand why it is one of my favorites.

We were on vacation near BatPoo’s house a few years back.  It was shortly after my grandma (BatPoo’s mom) had passed away.  Before vacation BatPoo mentioned to me that she had grandma’s ashes and wanted to scatter them in the ocean. Made sense to me so we picked a day for it.

That morning we packed the kids, my wife and SpawnofBatPoo into the small car and went to pickup BatPoo.  Everyone was in good spirits.  The weather turned out great for our plans.  We would scatter the ashes, spend some time on the beach then grab lunch at one of our favorite restaurants.

As we pull into BatPoo’s driveway she is sitting on the porch waiting for us.  She walks toward the car with her purse and says “let’s go”.  This is a big purse so my first thought is that an urn of ashes might actually be in there.  But I decide to ask if she has the ashes anyway.  ”Of course”, she says as she pulls out two 35mm film canisters.  I realize we live in a digital world now so many people may not even remember the old film containers. But I believe they were the same ones you young kids kept the weed in.  Out of respect for grandma I wanted to keep a straight face.  I just couldn’t.  The 20 minute drive to the beach was filled with laughter and jokes about mom grabbing her cigarette ashes from the day before instead of grandma’s ashes.  We did eventually let up on the jokes so that when we scattered them BatPoo felt like she was putting grandma to rest.

My guess is that we threw part of grandma’s finger in the ocean that day and that other parts of the family scattered the remainder of her.  In the end it really didn’t matter.  I took one of my favorite photos of all time, my brother holding the “ashes” on the cliff above the beach.  We had a ton of laughs and got to spend a beautiful day at the beach together.  It wasn’t nearly as painful as it could have been.  Nice way to celebrate a great woman.

Thanks for the Mammories

Before I get into our pre-Thanksgiving lunch with my mother I would like to give thanks. I would like to thank my mother for being a good mother and/or trying to be a good mother before and in between her bipolar phases. She has made it clear to us that she loves us more than anything in this world and that fact has made dealing with her shenanigans slightly easier. If it wasn’t for my mother being who she is, bat poo crazy and all, my brother and I wouldn’t be the relatively normal people we are today.  I’m also thankful for having a very supportive wife on my team, it makes all these crazy things easier to deal with.

Now, on to our pre-Thanksgiving luncheon with my mother…

In my line of business I have to occasionally work on the holidays so we have to celebrate days before or after the actual holiday. This has been the routine in my family from day 1 because my parents were both employed in medical/public service jobs. So this year when Thanksgiving rolled around we decided that we were going to go to my in-laws house only on Thanksgiving and would see my mother a couple of days before Thanksgiving. Last year was just a little too much with getting off work, driving home 1 hour, then driving to OC for 1 hour, then back home 1 hour and trying to coordinate everything.

Since my wife was too traumatized to revisit the events of our lunch, I will try to hit the high points. My mom has a handful of places she wants to go when my wife and I come down to visit her and it becomes very routine. So every now and then I try to switch things up and expose her to something new/different. This year I suggested a place with a great view and some decent mexian food http://www.lasbrisaslagunabeach.com/ Las Brisas. I figured that since the weather had been good it would be pleasant to sit on the patio, and well lit for my mother. So we get there and find our way to the patio and it’s getting busy because it is lunch time. It takes a painfully long time for our server to come over. Usually I don’t mind hanging out, enjoying the view and company when I am out with people but as my wife said in an earlier post, it is requisite to have a strong drink or 4 while dining with my mom. So after what seems like 30 minutes the waiter comes up to ask if we want drinks, my wife and I don’t let him get out more than 2 words before we bombard him with our request for margaritas. I get a Cadillac because that little extra shot of Grand Marnier can mean a difference in 30-40 blood pressure points. He shoots off to get us our drinks. At this point I start to suspect that there is a separate patio menu than what they serve on the inside of the restaurant because our waiter only brought us a menu with minimal items on it. I ask my mother if she wants me to read the contents of the menu to her, she says no. She’s already got it all figured out. How? When I told her that we were going to Las Brisas she called the day before and had them read the menu to her, all of the entrees. I’m pretty sure the hostess must have thought she was being punked. So I’m about 1/2 way through my 1st Caddy when the waiter returns to ask if we’d like water. I reply in the negative but request my 2nd margarita, and I’m pretty sure he sees the desparation in my eyes because the next one is noticably stiff. He must have known what was coming with the main course. Shortly thereafter our food gets to the table and we start digging in. If you have read any of our prior posts you know that my mother makes smacking noises when she eats and talks with her mouth full. This is one of my wife’s biggest pet peeves with anyone, including when I do it (how can I help it though, look at who raised me). After I have a few bites of my meal I notice that my wife is kind of picking at her food and has only had like 1 bite. I’m a little disconcerted because I’m thinking she is following the whole “When in OC, eat as the Real Housewives do (well except for that one housewife/sea donkey).” I ask her if her quesadilla is okay, thinking how can a restaurant screw up a quesadilla? I thought you were hungry? She deflects my questioning a little more and then I see her sneaking a furtive glance my mother’s way. It takes me a little longer than usual to put everything together but it becomes crystal clear when she is talking to me and a bb sized food pellet shoots from her mouth onto my plate. F-ing awesome, I’m grossed out and my wife is mortified.

We continue as though everything is normal an as my mother is getting toward the end, she comes upon a couple of saucy, roasted, quartered potatos. I guess they were just getting in her way because she picks one of them up with her bare hand (she has and knows how to use a fork) and places it directly on the table, sauce and all. Shen then stabs another potato with her fork, asks me if it is another potato. I confirm that it is a potato and she proceeds to move it to the side and slide it off her fork with her other hand and again directly onto the table. I tell her that she just put the potato on the table and she is not bothered at all. She says, “It’s okay, they’ll take care of it.” She does crap like this all the time. So I take my fork and pick up both potatos and put them on my dish, so the bus boys don’t have to deal with any more BS than they already do.

As the meal winds down I ask my wife if she has any gum. My wife delves into her purse and finds a piece at the very bottom, but it’s covered in all of the stuff that is on the bottom of a purse. My wife explains tells me the gum is no good and my mom says, “Oh, is it one of those pieces that ends up on the bottom of your purse with hair all over it?” I reply, “Yes Mom, it is what they call ‘hairy gum’.” She doesn’t get the reference but my wife and I have a little chuckle over it.

So we get out of there and start driving my mother home when I realize that I still have to stop by her bank and have my name removed from her account. At some point she convinced me that it was a good idea for me to be on her account just in case something ever happens. I had totally forgotten about this fact until I went to go pay my credit card online and found a checking and savings account attached to it. I was shocked at first and convinced that I had been victim of the rarest form of identity theft, the kind where someone opens up an account in your name and deposits money (rather than draining your account). So I get into the bank statements to try to figure out WTF is going on and who is attached to my account. When I see the charges on the debit card I knew immediately that it was my mother. 7-11, Smoke Shop, Chevron (for smokes), Smoke Shop, 7-11, The Renaissance…this sequence repeated itself about 4 times on the statement that I saw. I poke around a little more and find that indeed, the primary name on the account is my mother. I guess when her bank went to crap, it got gobbled up by a more successful bank (the one my credit card is through).

This is a bad thing! I have a great credit score, I’m fiscally responsible and my wife and I anticipate buying a house in the next couple years. The last thing I want is to be linked up to my mother’s financial past (or future). Finances and credit get destroyed pretty readily with people who have mental illness, especially when bipolar folks are in a manic phase. My father and I once went searching for my mother during a manic phase and pulled up to a shopping center to find her car with the keys still in it, windows down, and about $1000 cold hard cash on the dash.

So we go to her bank to get me off of the account. I guess it was a little cold with the A/C cranked up in my car because my wife notices something very disturbing (read her blog for further details, it’s what the title of this blog references). We walk her into the bank and we are directed over to a cubicle where we can be taken care of. The bank employee asks about the dog, pretty sure just asking if it was a service dog, and my mom gets all militant and starts talking about how she has a right to have the dog in there and on and on. I step in to diffuse the situation and we proceed onward. My mom asks the same questions about 4-5 times even though she has already received the answers and I have assured her that everything is as we want it. The bank employee catches on quickly and assures me that I will have no financial responsibility for the accounts and my name will be removed. It’s relatively fast to take my name off of the account and we are out of there and back to reality.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I don’t normally drink at lunch, save for vacations. Really, I don’t. However, there is one occasion which absolutely necessitates a midday beverage: a visit with the mother-in-law. Spawnofbatpoo and I went down south today to have an early Thanksgiving lunch with Batpoocrazy. Here are the highlights:

As Spawn is trying to load Batpoo and her loveable service dog (whom Batpoo never grooms, bless his heart), into Spawn’s brand-new car, the poor dog becomes confused by Batpoo’s impatience to get into the car. Rather than sitting on the floor where Spawn has folded the back seat up for maximum cargo room, Batpoo’s dog jumps promptly atop the back seat on the other side (Batpoo’s intended seat), instantly showering the pristine interior of Spawn’s car with a coating of dog hair. Batpoo defends that this could have been avoided had Spawn allowed her to bring along her comforter to put down over the seat before allowing her dog inside. Spawn has already told me that he rejected this idea because Batpoo’s comforter, in all likelihood, is sullied with coffee, food, and God-knows-what-else, which he preferred not to transfer to his immaculate car’s interior. I guess the dog hair was the lesser of two evils.

As we are driving to the restaurant, Batpoo asks Spawn to apologize to his dad (Batpoo’s EX-husband) for “being a bitch” recently. Now, it must be noted that Batpoo and Spawn’s father have VERY little interaction these days. Which is, as divorce would have it, pretty standard. So when my mother-in-law says that she was being a bitch, what she means is that she told my husband to relay bitchy messages to my father-in-law. Spawn is an intermediary for his mother and father, transmitting all of Batpoo’s requests to his dad, who couldn’t have less of a reaction to said requests if he were in a coma. Being the upstanding guy that he is, however, Spawn’s dad does intermittently drop off dog food and supplies for the service dog (of course, I don’t want to be misunderstood- over the years, Spawn’s dad has taken good care of Batpoo, and still does more for her than most exes would). When he does this, he has gotten into the habit of making it a covert drop-and-run deposit. He basically slows down to 25 mph and hurls the dog food out of his open car window, peeling out in his haste to get away without being spotted. Batpoo, it seems, is finally on to this, and sort of snapped after the last drop-and-run incident; in her fury, she told Spawn to tell his dad to “shove the dog food up his a*@” and then administered an ultimatum stating that if he didn’t call her within a week, she never wanted to talk to him again (is that a promise?). This type of impulsive reaction is not unusual for Batpoo, and invariably, she feels terrible and apologizes (through her liaison, Spawn).

While I’m certain that I’ve already secured my spot in Hell for writing this much, I cannot possibly bring myself to talk about the lunch itself. Suffice it to say that I think the psych meds, bless them, have had the undesirable effect of impeding Batpoo’s motor coordination. Again, that consequence is the lesser of two evils. Oh, wait, there is one gem from our lunchtime repartee that is post-worthy. Batpoo goes on and on (and on and on) about how “intelligent” her psychiatrist has declared her. “He says that I am the most intelligent and savvy person in the house.” In the next breath, she asks my husband, “What does savvy mean?” Ah, the irony.

On the way home from lunch, we stop at the bank. This is possibly the first time all day that I have really taken a good look at my mother-in-law in the brilliant midafternoon sunlight. It strikes me with all the welcomeness of a surprise rectal exam that Batpoo has stolen a 12-year-old’s training bra and is trying to pass it off as her own. Now, Batpoo is a buxom woman, and a brassiere that is reminiscent of two deflated balloons on a string is just not going to cut it. Especially when you’re wearing a very sheer, flimsy top. She may as well have been topless. Which leaves me to ponder, how does one broach the delicate subject of wearing appropriate undergarments with one’s mother-in-law? The best answer that I can come up with is to buy her a couple of bras meant for an ample-chested gal and bring them down on our next visit. Other than that, my hands are tied.

Well, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my loving family (Batpoo included) and aside from the emotional toll that our visits with Batpoo take on us, we are fully aware that we are lucky to have people that care so much about us. This blog is very cathartic for me, and right or wrong, I feel that the free therapy offered by each post actually facilitates a somewhat healthy relationship with my mother-in-law. And I am thankful for my brother- and sister-in-law, with whom I can share my experiences and from whom I can gain insight, and of course, I’m thankful for my wonderful husband, without whom I wouldn’t be able to see the comedy in craziness! I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!

The Faux Wood Station Wagon

Flashback – Fall 1988

High school can be a little awkward in the best of circumstances.  Most parents recognize this and make an effort not to invite ridicule from their son’s peers.  BatPoo definitely missed that parenting lesson.

I’ll preface this story by saying that I am not a “car snob”.  If it has four wheels and gets you where you need to go, WooHoo.

My freshman year BatPoo would drive me to school.  Despite my pleas to drop me off at the shopping center across the street she would still take me right up to the front. Did I mention she rolled in the 1978 Ford Country Squire station wagon with wood-paneling similar to this one?  On most days she would come in hot then run it up the curb because her eyesight had already dropped well below the standards required for a driver’s license.  Every once in a while as I was walking away she would step out of her car (in the bathrobe) to yell for me to have a good day.

Fortunately, I didn’t take to much abuse. But I probably should have kicked my own ass for allowing the humiliation.

Ma…Meatloaf…F

Flashback: 2005 Journal Entry

Tuesday

-Mom decides to ice down her shoulder (she fell down our basement stairs last night) with a frozen pizza then leave it out to melt.

-Mom places 50 phone calls (this is the actual number from our call log) from 8:30am-2:30pm today.

-Mom was hungry around lunch time.  Instead of filling up a bowl with leftovers then eating it, she decides to take her fork into the fridge and dig into what she thinks is the pasta from last night.  After the first bite she realizes it is not the pasta.  But it still tastes good.  After the second bite she realizes that she is eating the raw meatloaf mix that wife prepared last night for tonight’s dinner.

-Mom goes out back for a smoke break and comes back in immediately.  When I inquire what happened she says that she lit the cigarette backwards.  She needed to get a new one.  I still cannot figure out how someone who has smoked for close to 40 years doesn’t know which end to put in her mouth.

-Instead of using the four other cups she has been using to drink water Mom decides to use my cup.  How do I know?  There is lipstick all over it.

I still can’t figure out how I learned to use silverware and walk upright.  Definitely not genetics or environmental influences.

“What is Athlete’s Foot?” asks the Registered Nurse.

February, 2006 – Journal Entry

I am getting ready to take the family out to lunch when mom calls to ask me if I know anything about Athletes Foot.  “Just what I know from all the Lamisil commercials that are always on TV” I tell her. The woman asking this question is a registered nurse.  One would think that she should at least know it is a discolored, itchy rash on your feet and in between toes.  Obviously, she is having feet issues and is concerned about it.  Obviously, I have stomach issues because I just vomited in my mouth.

Mom calls me back the next day to tell me the good news.  Apparently her issue is not Athletes Foot but rather Eczema.  She is excited about this because she couldn’t understand how she would get Athletes Foot because “she has really good hygiene”.  Right and so does Matthew McConaughey. This coming from the woman who gets off of train in PA during the winter wearing shoe boots with no socks that have been on her feet for the full 72-hour trip (from CA).  Did I mention she has a phobia related to air travel?  No planes, just trains. This is also the same woman who doesn’t bring socks or undergarments on a 10 day trip to visit her grandkids.  And the same woman who has been known to go 3-4 days without bathing and only washed her hair once during her last trip 10-day trip to PA.

Dog hair, stale smoke and body “funk”…need I say more?  I would think there are higher priorities than itchy toes.

The Lone Star Liar

Okay, no one hipped me to the fact that we were blogging about exes. But since I now know that any bat poo crazy bastard is fair game, I have a little story to share—just to even up the score.

All through high school and college, I was one of those serial-boyfriend chicks who waited all of two minutes after ending one “serious” relationship before jumping headlong into another one. Of course, all of these boyfriends defined the term “tool shed” and would merit their own blog posts, but there is one incident that goes down in my personal D-bag Chronicles as the oddest thing that any of these jackasses ever tried to pull. 

I had been dating this particular ex, let’s call him Big Fat Liar, off and on for years. We had begun to talk marriage, but I knew in my heart he wasn’t the one, and that I had to end things in order to be fair to both of us. A few weeks later, I was in the back of a limo with six push-up-bra-clad, cheap-limo-champagne-slugging girls, bound for Hollywood to celebrate one of my girlfriends’ 25^th birthdays, when I received a text message from Big Fat Liar. 

It said, “Our breakup has been too difficult for me. My company has offered to transfer me to Texas and I said yes.” I shrugged, took another Kamikaze shot, and texted back, “Do you want to get a coffee and say goodbye sometime this week?” to which B.F.L. replied, “No…sometimes it’s best just to go.” Okay, buh-bye. 

So, two weeks later, I was walking up the little walk-street in the laid-back beach city that my ex lived with my brand-new boyfriend (I told you, I didn’t waste any time) when I noticed that B.F.L.’s bedroom was illuminated. I peered in, half-interestedly, and saw my ex sitting on his bed, strumming a guitar. Weird, thought I. He must not have moved to Texas yet. I didn’t give it too much thought as my new bf and I went on to enjoy an Italian dinner and a bottle of wine. 

Fastforward several more weeks. I am playing the “hostess with the mostess” at the restaurant where I worked at the time. One of B.F.L.’s roommates comes in for dinner. “How’s B.F.L. liking Texas?” I ask. B.F.L.’s friend shoots me a befuddled look. “You know, the job transfer! To Texas!” I press on, but I can feel my own face beginning to mirror the perplexed expression of B.F.L.’s friend. “B.F.L. didn’t move to Texas,” his friend says slowly. “He was fired months ago.” Months ago? While we were still together? When I got home from work that night, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I shot B.F.L. a “friendly” e-mail, asking him how his new job and the Lone Star state were treating him. I received his response the next day, detailing the weather in his new town and the characteristics of Texans. I guess he hadn’t run into his roomie yet. 

For months, every so often, I would text him things like “Howdy, pardner!” and “Hey y’all!” and “The stars at night, are big and bright…” just for kicks. Still haven’t gotten a response. So, now that you’ve heard some reflections on our respective exes, you might have a little insight into why spawnofbatpoo and I feel so incredibly lucky to have found each other.

Lesson Learned from Last Halloween

Earlier this week while speaking with my mom she jokingly reminded me to not drink to much Jagermeister on Halloween.  I nervously laughed not understanding how she could so accurately predict my future plans.  As she went on to describe the previous Halloween phone conversations the fog slowly began to lift.

We decided to do the right thing and let the kids call her the morning of Halloween to describe their costumes, humor Bat Poo, submit to paranoid questions about whether they would accept candy from strangers, etc, etc.  The kids all went out trick-or-treating with friends while we went to the next door neighbor’s party knowing the kids would join us later in the evening.  I managed to avoid answering the first 15 calls from my mom while at the party.  However, I made the mistake of answering the 16th call around 11:00pm after half a bottle of Goldschlager.  During which I say ‘I’m not sure where the 3 kids are but I hope they make it home safe before I pass out’.  Note that they made it back to our party safely by 8:30pm and had been upstairs relaxing while watching TV.  At this point I throw the phone to my wife who corroborates my claim then hangs to phone up so we can enjoy the remainder of the evening.  We decided to turn off the cell phone at this phone and the home phone when we arrived home.

About the last coherent memory the next morning was the kids arriving at the party safe from trick-or-treating.  We check the messages and realize that there are three of my mother…raging.  Apparently she doesn’t think it is funny when we tease her.  Before the messages we THOUGHT we had a fun Halloween.  After the messages we KNEW we had a fun Halloween.

This year I am thinking Southern Comfort and Limes.  Be safe and have a good one everyone!

Do you think I’m Dyke-ish?

So I decided to call my mother today after a few days of cool off time for us. She explained to me that she was just having a rough day when we got into it because she was having some problems with a friend etc. To get it off her mind she went to her favorite haunt on Wednesday and was approached by not just one, but 3 women, individually asking if they could buy her a drink and chat her up. Now, I just think they were being friendly since my mom is there on a weekly basis but my mom insists that they were hitting on her. Even more hilarious is my mother’s new fixation on whether she is “dyke-ish,” and attracting the wrong sex altogether. I hope that she wasn’t coming out to me and I was too oblivious to recognize it.