Friday Night Crazies

I am back. It is time again for Friday Night Funnies. I can actually say that even I was surprised by how things went with our home game of Friday night dinner. Again, it was the Outlaws and my brother in law as the guests. I decided to pick up some flowers for the Wife on the way home. I figured that it is her birthday weekend (yesterday) and she likes tulips, so I would try to get some tulips.

I stopped to put air in my tire and hit the place close by. She did not have good tulips so I settled for some baby roses (yellow rimmed with pink, very unique). When I was in the habit of buying the Wife flowers, I had a florist with some of the most unique colored roses. They were great. Then again, all they did was look nice for a bit and then die, kind of like a pet.

Anyway, I walk in the door after six and the Outlaws are there. The best was that I walk in, my brother in law has not yet arrived and we have not eaten, and my father in law says to my mother in law, "Let's go!" It had to be explained to him that we had not yet eaten and that there was nothing prepared for him to eat at his home.

I love how it is that "we" have put the person least capable of being responsible in charge of the whole production. He somehow calls the tune, at least as far as my mother in law is concerned (I do not care and will question everything that comes out of his mouth). He stands around looking at his watch, calling out the time as if he is on guard duty. The best part is that his watch is fast, so his time is wrong. He won't hear of correcting it, because the world is wrong and he and his watch are correct. Then again, what happens when he answers the iron (oh yeah, he is not blind just cognitively impaired).

It is explained to him that we have not eaten yet and that we are waiting for B. to come (though this has been told to him numurous times, but he has no way of turning short term memory into long term memory, which means I get to relive the same mundane bullshit and questions numerous times in a visit. Call it my personal version of Groundhog's Day without Bill Murray or conventional humor). He then goes on to tell me that when the Wife served him some beer, he was shocked to see how brown it was (I only have Guiness in the house right now). He did enjoy it, though. I am not sure why he is telling me something that I obviously know considering I bought the fucking beer, but again with cognitive impairment this is how it works. Then again, without the cognitive impairment, he would have done the same, so I am thinking this cognitive impairment thing has been there for a long time but nobody really noticed.

My brother in law arrives. We eat. It is great. Food with flavor and good mouth feel. My mother in law is not near the kitchen (she can handle cleaning detail very well) and as I said the food is great. One of the best Friday Night dinners since the last time we were at our house. We finish eating and it is,, "A. Let's go!" and it is about quarter to seven and still light outside.

Fuck! Not only have we not had dessert, but the crappy white birthday cake (they all say they like it but nobody eats more than a fucking piece, so how much do they like that crap. Then again, they make fun of me for MY choice of cakes for my birthday, I am paritial to Health Bread Marble cakes or their Double Fudge Cake, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shit, I have to clean the drool off of my keyboard. Yet, I know with those, fuck you all, I will eat it again and again. Somehow, in that scenario, I am viewed as being weird.) They talked him into staying for cake or until 7:30, though I am not sure any agreement he makes is binding.

Anyway, after watching him pace and stare at his watch, my mother in law relented (folded like a cheap rug is really how it was, as usual) and they were gone before seven without cake. It is not as if he did much in terms of rearing his children other than fuck my mother in law (an image that really makes my skin crawl, but not as much as her sister and brother in law doing it, the Wife's aunt and uncle) so what does he care about honoring or acknowledging two of his three children's birthdays.

Obviously when the crazy voices in his head speak (there are no sane ones) he has to listen. They had put him on some sort of medication that was supposed to help relieve some of the anxiety he seems to feel (though I am still not sure why NOBODY questions his anxious feelings and engages to talk about them. I guess that would mean actually confronting the issue and dealing with it head-on and that is just not done in the Outlaws' world. It is comforting to see that there is no awareness or reflection, so there are no lessons learned. We can just repeat history and scratch our heads when the outcomes do not spontaneously change.). I cannot say it has worked because he seemed to more anxious this time around.

The Wife says there is "nothing you can do" and "this is how he always was". That is just bullshit. If he does not want to or is incapable of enjoying the moment (in his case that is all he really has, that and his old memories), then why do we allow him to ruin it for the rest of us. "What can you do?" Cattle prod is my answer. A couple of zaps and he may grouse a little less. What is that burning smell? Maybe it is not a great idea.

That is the story from another edition of Friday Night Crazies. Ciao!