Wednesday, January 04, 2006

51 selling the truck

I talked to my mom last night and she said my dad decided, on his own, to sell his truck.
He stopped driving on his own over the summer and my mom's been trying to keep both cars going, having to switch driving them, and do all the service and everything on both. Plus my grandma's hardly driving anymore, so my mom's been dealing with her car too. It's a lot of work. Too much work. The son of the guy who my dad "works" for is going to buy it. I did the Kelly Blue Book value on it for private sale, and I guess that's what he's buying it for.
It makes me sad, to think of my dad with no vehicle, my dad who sold cars for most of my life and always had a new "demo" to bring home and show us. (Car salesmen don't get demos anymore. What a perk that was, a free car.)
My grandma was quiet and sick on New Year's Day. I've learned not to ask how she is, not to say anything. I was trying to help my mom set the table and Gramma was hovering between the kitchen and dining room, basically just in the way (horrible to say) . I asked her to just move for a minute so I could get by and get into my chair and instead she sat down and totally blocked me so I had to go through the living room and in the other door and have my husband move so I could get to my seat in the corner. She ate about 2 bites. (Not that I ate much more; I had a bout of food poisoning over the weekend which I wasn't recovered from yet.) And kept sighing loudly. She didn't talk, just sat there with her mouth all turned down--what is known as "the puss on" in our family, as in "she's sitting there with a puss on" (what a stupid saying). We were about to have dessert and she wanted to be taken home. My mom was trying to deal with the dishes and clearing the main course and setting out the coffee and she asked my husband to take her home, and Gramma refused, saying it had to be my mother. She wouldn't walk down the stairs in front of the house (not that I blame her, I hate those stairs too) so Will had to get up anyway to move our car so she could go out the side door.
My dad didn't talk much during the meal, not even about the birds outside or the raspberry bushes, which are his usual holiday topics.
After the dessert we all sat down to do a puzzle, which is what we do now instead of cards. It was my parents, my mom's best friend, and me and my husband. The puzzle was of castle in Scotland--Stirling. My father did his usual method of puzzle solving, which is picking up 2 random pieces and trying to stick them together, and then saying "do these fit" and passing them around. Meanwhile I was going to town on the border and my husband had pulled out all the building pieces and was putting that together. Of course my father got frustrated and kept leaving the table. Or sitting there farting.
He's also been so damn flatulent lately. It's really gross. My mom says he has no idea he's farting. He'll stand right behind someone and let a huge ripping one loose. How could someone NOT KNOW? Argh. Some of them are room-clearers. If you say something to him, he says "What?" like he honestly has no idea.
So my grandma has to go back to the doctor for new medicine. She says this medicine makes her dizzy. And she's not taking the full dosage of her depression medicine either. I think by next Christmas she'll be living at my mom's house. She's stopped doing her sewing and stuff because it's "too much" because she "doesn't feel good" and her "mornings are bad" and all sorts of other reasons. Which means my mom will sell her car too. What my grandma will do if she can't go to church EVERY DAY and grocery shopping EVERY DAY and to the senior center (where she lives now) EVERY DAY I don't know. My mom seems to think it will be easier to have my grandma there under her thumb but I think it will turn my mom into a glorified chauffer. (I can't spell that damn word.) I am working every day, not full time, but enough that I can't help her much. I wish I made more money, for myself as well as my parents.
I just started selling The Body Shop at Home--I go around and do parties. Please help me and buy something from my special web site.

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