Dad

Dad

I rang my dad last week. Oh? You may wonder where this is going. It’s not going anywhere you imagine. Just trust me.

I rang him, he never rings me. He is my Italian parent, if you recall and it is fifty minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

The first five minutes he starts with ‘oh, I don’t know if you know/I don’t know if I told you?’ and I have to be rude and interrupt him to remind him, I saw him at Christmas and he has Sciatica and his left leg hurts.

Yes. Then he’s confused and surprised I am aware. A bit of extra information re my Pa, is that he was a builder all his life, he retired a little early, due to having bowel cancer. Don’t stress, he had chemo and radiation, he beat it.

NOT COMPLAINING

Then he got/had bladder cancer. (at least he is consistent, same are of the body) and he’s beaten that (again not complaining).

While he hasn’t got dementia, he is seventy-years old, I think undiagnosed, he may have had a series of heart attacks and strokes or just a bit of ‘brain-faze’ from all his treatments. Relax, he’s cancer free.

In reality, with his very serious dedication to smoking, cancer may eventually be his downfall, but he will not go down without a fight. But right now, he’s doing everything he can to complain about everything and not listen to anything I have to say to help.

Anyway, I digress, he then went into a rant about he would do anything to not have to use a walking stick to get around and how hard it is when half your body doesn’t work.

Oh my God, when he uttered those words and he could not be interrupted because he was not done. So, if you can’t feel my eyeroll and if I’d been there, he would have received a sever bitch slap (or a back hander).

He was so severely oblivious to who had had just made that comment to, I decided to give him one of my classic Helen lines.

“Shut the fuck up”

He actually stopped talking (I was impressed). Now, you may think that is the rudest thing and completely disrespectful to speak to one’s father that way. But, however, I will say that to my mother and she does. So, I should be able to say it to my father.

I love both my parents; I just love them differently and I deal with them both as sternly as they each need and can take.

Honestly, I am much tougher with my mum because if I don’t pull her into line no one will and on somethings she will never change, so I’ve learned to let it go. I guess I’ve learned to choose my battles there also.

Ah, the fifty minutes I said I’d never get back, yes! My father, at 70 decided to get a smart phone! His first smart phone and likely his first taste of the internet!

And I proceeded to help-desk him through how to use his search engine! “Dad, just put your finger in the white bar up the top!” And he grumbles the (and I stress) “typewriter” has gone away!” God help me! “Just tap in the white bar dad and the keyboard will appear!”

And fifty fucking minutes later! KMKMKMKM!!!!!!!(Kill Me!) That was the fifty fucking minutes of my life I will never get back! And I’m not even the Samsung daughter! I’m the Apple daughter!

 

And hit Like!

 

Communication

Communication

I often find how I communicate things somehow misses the mark. My mum, who I love to bits because she is my biggest supporter on Team Helen, often hears half of what I tell her and runs for the finish line, with it and then of course rants at me because she didn’t hear the rest of what I told her.

Sometimes I will be writing about her and you will need to read between the lines because the lines because I won’t be able to say so. But not today…

Today I asked my carer to take the meat off a BBQ chicken, that way I could freeze it and preserve its freshness until I needed it.

That is exactly how I communicated this task. Can you please take the meat off and keep it? No skin, no bones, no fat, Right! God help me. The barrage of questions, sometimes I go stand next to them to watch what they are doing or how they are doing it.

It may come across as intimidation, but today she was putting the skin on the bench…WFT…

Put the meat in the bowl and everything else in the bag.

Eventually standing over them, elicits the query “What? What have I done wrong?” And then at least it’s easier to tell them a ‘better’ way to do things.

So, again I think I communicate things very well, people just don’t listen.

“We have two ears and one mouth. We should use them proportionately.”

Wise words from a colleague, once upon a time…

Deaf Ears

Deaf Ears

In Memory of Jamima.

Pointless things to say and your cat. I love (note when I hear the opposite) when parents of children argue that being a parent of a fur-child is not the same.

Gave Jamima her three-monthly worm tablet last night in a rather expensive tin of food. Twenty-four hours later, it’s mostly still there!

“Come on, Eat your food”

“It’s got your medicine in it”

“You will feel better – I promise”

“It cost mummy a lot”

“There are starving kids in Ethiopia”

OK, I didn’t really say that one…

I guess this is why I buy three of the worming tablets at a time. The man in the shop, warning me not to poison my cat. Never fear, not much chance of that.

Usually the first tablet goes down a treat, three months later when else her next dose she eats some of it. A week later I’m trying again, placing another of her favourites. Again, barely touches it.

I’ve tried not feeding her more wet food to encourage her to eat it but all else has failed.

Open to suggestions…