Cancer this week

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In order to heal deep-seated problems, people may need to engage in long-term psychotherapy, patiently chipping away at their mental blocks for many years. But some lucky sufferers get their neuroses zapped virtually overnight, either with the help of a monumental event that shocks them out of their malaise or through the work of a brilliant healer who uses a few strokes of kamikaze compassion to creatively destroy their deluded fixations. I think you’re now a candidate for this type of correction, Cancerian.

As I am typically a couple weeks ahead of the horoscope, I’m hoping that this is true this time and that getting fired and having a fire, all in a long week, well, that was some kamikaze something or other. As much as I hate to give any props to that crazy ex-boss, I did get back into the swing of working on her dime. It was good to get used to being somewhere in the early morning, good to get my day figured out, good to remember how to do certain tasks and get back in the groove of the university machine. I became a better worker, a better person, more positive. And our house is really coming together with a few last minute nerve-wracking coordinations left. This fire has made me a better coordinator too. Fine. The gifts of disasters. They exist. I admit it. Don’t have to be crazy about the method(s).

Can’t wait to show some photos. Everything is taped off downstairs. oh boy oh boy. Got the eggplant bath mat and a lovely shower curtain with bamboo stalks on it. Very zen bathroom. Sagey pale green with eggplant… edible.

Grrrrrreat

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Had two job interviews today, one in person, one on the phone, two different jobs. The one in person went especially well. Here’s to getting a second interview. One is a hybrid that includes web and the other is strictly web. I can’t believe it. I finally got a serious nibble for something in my field.

The painter has everything taped off. Mom decided to have him paint everything so no more work for me except to pick the carpet and get the furniture in the garage sold off. Then move my stuff in. Looking at April 3rd as the move in date, have a couple helpers standing by. Gotta get that garage empty by then. Should be able to do that. Right?

Groundhogs day

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I can’t remember the last time I worked this hard.  I am getting some muscles going on here.  And its looks good on me.  I weigh the same but I’m looking good.  Want to keep this going after the work stops.

We’ve really had so much stuff to deal with.  Yesterday we got all the furniture into the mostly empty garage. We need the rooms as empty as we can get them for painting and the new rug.  That work starts tomorrow.  Thursday I will go and get the rug part started.  Today, we finish with the smaller furniture, the last of the books, the camera equipment.

It’s all been very hard to do because we are Dad Wrangling.  That poor guy, he’s making our lives hell when we need it the least.  He wants to help, of course he does.  But everything he touches turns to crap, literally. What would have been a free desk now has to go to the dump.  At some point early this morning he went downstairs and started rearranging, which is bad enough, taking stuff out of the trash to keep etc…  But when I saw that he’d removed the panel that was the right support for a desk in order to fix it, well, jagged nails everywhere, hammers, broken wood. *sigh*

He refuses to have his stress test and we refuse to have him go up and down stairs, lift 100 pound boxes of books but then he physically threatens us and does it any way and then his blood pressure falls to 60/47 or rises to 202/140 and we spend hours trying to stabilize him and then a couple more telling him what happened and he forgets that and asks again.  If I could ship him somewhere right now I would.  The angry agressive jerk that was my dad growing up is back and I’m having a hard time loving him right now.  We tell him all that we’re doing and ten minutes later he shows up and says what are you doing.  Mixing Alzheimers with Diabetes, Hypertension, and a history of aggression together and you have someone that is challenging.  Argh.

So.  The last cleaning and boxing up, patching holes and sanding for prep work.  Mom and I have decided that we are hiring them to do ALL the painting and the new carpet and whatevers left is what’s left for the other things.  We just no longer have the energy to do that part.

I’ve been congested in the head and lungs ever since the fire.  I can’t tell if I’ve got a cold or if it’s from the fire, all the extinguisher/smoke/dust dust.  I sound like Mickey Mouse. Seriously I do.  Very squeakey and sometimes none of it comes out. And I have a major interview Wednesday.  I’ve got to knock it out of the park.  So tomorrow I take it easy, putter in my own room, make sure I get enough rest, prepare my clothes.

The best thing out of this besides that I get my own apartment sans kitchen?  Is that my mom and I are working together as though we’ve done this all our lives, amiably, we agree on everything, almost no crankiness, smooth as butter.  What a blessing that is.

M. said the other night that he was certain that the reason I moved home a year ago was to be here for these weeks and the coming months.  I know he’s right.  I never would have guessed this was the purpose.  My poor mother if I was working and not here.  OMG.

The one thing I hear is that caregivers can die before the sick person they’re caring for from all the stress.  My job is make my mother’s life as easy as I can so that she can take care of Dad.  We would never be able to put him in assisted living right now, he thinks he’s fine and would just escape. That time is coming soon and not that far away though.  He looks and sounds normal to folks who don’t know him but he told some folks yesterday he got diabetes at 40 and that he’s now 88.  He got diabetes at 52 and is now 82.  His dates and numbers and facts are all scrambled up in there. He makes the worst decisions ever, he believes we are insane and making his life a living hell when it is really the other way around. If he were amiable and simply complaing that would be one thing but he’s very strong and very aggressive. He wants to manage his diabetes but if we let him he will fark it all up.

2010 is The Ball of Confusion but this is temporary, we will pervail, we will survive.