I bought comics. It seemed monumentally important at the time, but now that it's done it's apparent that I might have been better served doing something actually useful.

Oh, well.

Too late!

Now I gotta go read!

Robin, okay! Eventually things will fall into place.

My mom just called with weird and bad news.

In the bad, my last grandmother died. She was almost 90 and had been fading but also a stubborn, independent woman. She lived on her own for the last 30 years. She was fierce in a way that is admirable even if it wasn't always easy.

In the weird, but good, my parents are probably coming to visit us over xmas. I'm going to try to get Rose Bowl Game tickets for them.

In the weirdest, my sister is on a missionary visit to Japan.

All of that in a 5 minute phone call.

Sorry about your grandmother, Kat. Not surprised that a woman realted to you was stubborn and independent (and loved.)

Your parents are invited to Christmas Movie Day, of course.

ooooh! Christmas Movie Day!

Robin, it's just weird because I haven't seen her for 15 years, give or take and we weren't always in touch. In fact, we rarely wrote to each other in the past 5 years. But when I was a kid, she would write letters to me all the time and I would write back. Our correspondence taught me to love to write with a real audience in mind.

But I also know that she wasn't an easy woman and she made my Mom's life occasionally uncomfortable and she certainly wouldn't approve of me now.

I feel most sorry for my dad. And guilty, like I should fly home for the funeral which is Tuesday, which is also somewhat impractical and impossible.

sounds productive Plei, good day.

ita, I sometimes really think you would benefit from a live-in mother.

Kat, that's a lot to take in. my thoughts are with you and your family.

I feel most sorry for my dad. And guilty, like I should fly home for the funeral which is Tuesday, which is also somewhat impractical and impossible.

That kind of emotional stuff is hard to figure out. I am sorry for the loss.

My parents came and watched Lillian (and Jeeves and Wooster, because I had to entertain them somehow). It's amazing how much more gets done when two people can do it.

My first job was watching the baby next door from like 5-6 every day, so his parents could make dinner. I started when he could just about sit up. I'm sure it was hugely helpful to his parents to be able to chat about the day and cook and everything, and I was only 10, so cheap labor.

I sometimes really think you would benefit from a live-in mother.

Her mother or any mother?

My mother is certainly not living in with me. And that's more her call than mine.

Believe me, I tried. Her plan instead, is to get me a live-in male caretaker, who counts impregnation amongst his duties. Although I've failed miserably in that regard, she's still not willing to live near me.

I am thinking not her mother, just a motherly person to do some things and to lay down some rules sometimes.

Yeah, I stopped visitng my Grandmother the last year of her life when she stopped recognising anyone. She had a loooong slide into dementia. She stopped knowing who I was for a couple of years, but was still glad to see me, so I always visited. Then she stopped being able to talk, but was still happy for company, so that was fine, since it clearly made her happy to have me there. Finally, she stopped being interested in people at all and slept most of the time. She got very good care, but my dad's health was so precarious by the end that I didn't want to take time away from him to spend the half day required to drive to the nursing home to sit at the bedside of a woman who had no idea I was there. He died about four months before she did.

ETA: It might mean something to your dad to write a letter about the good things you remember about his mom--thel etters, and whatever other memories you can dredge up. Then you can feel like you did something for him, which might make you feel better too.