The World According To Anne Arky

I’ve been told that I’m a “weird” magnet, because in and around the normal people in my circle of friends, I have some very strange people who wander through my life routinely and I attract very unusual people somehow. Since Mother’s funeral, I’ve decided that if I’m a “weird” magnet, she is a “scuzz” magnet. Every sleazy, scuzzy relative we have came out for the occasion, some of whom didn’t even show up for Daddy’s in 2004. Cousin Scuzzy, his crazy daughter Donna and his first in a series of five ex-wives (be the first in your neighborhood to collect all five) all graced us with their presence. Uncle Asshole, my dad’s younger (and only) brother, showed up – he didn’t even show up for DADDY’s funeral – with all of his five kids. I have to admit that even though I wouldn’t give two cents for any of his five kids, I was very pleased to see them all there. They all five came to pay their final respects for Uncle Bob (Daddy) when he died, and I had attributed that largely to the fact that they all came to town for the graduation of one of the grandkids, and as long as it was convenient, they might as well come by, but this time, there was no graduation, and several of them had to come in from across the state to bid adieu to Mother, and that pleased me greatly – especially in light of the fact that when Uncle Asshole dies, the only reason any of us would go (and we have unanimously elected my brother for the job) would be to make sure he was really and truly dead. (Their mother died in May 1992 -- see May 2007 "Fine Lace and Dirty Linen".)



Now I realize what a true scuzz magnet Mother really was. On 15 January, a conversation I was having with my sister went something like this: "How long has it been since you've heard from Mike HisLastName?" Quite taken by surprise, I said, "Oh, about 25 years, give or take a year or two, why?" "He signed the funeral home's on-line guest book." Here's what he wrote:



Anne; I was so sorry to read that your mother has passed away. She was a real lady, a class act, and she will be missed by all that knew her. I also saw on this site that your father passed in 2004. My condolences for his loss as well. Although I didn't appreciate them at the time, I now know that they both had good hearts and they have my utmost, although belated, respect. I wish I had told them this in person before it was too late. May GOD bless and keep you and your family in HIS loving arms. Michael



Michael HisLastName

3 January 2008

HisTown TN



Well, eeeeewwwwwwwww! Yes, the "GOD" and "HIS" were both capitalized. I don't know if he's gone and gotten religion or what. He must have seen the obituary in our hometown paper. I must admit, when I first heard this, once I got past the "ick" factor, I had a serious thought about stirring this bucket of worms just to see what would happen, by replying to his email with nothing more than a "thanks", which, of course, would give him my email address, and I just wanted to see what kind of response THAT would bring, just to see what his creepy little mind has in it. But alas, his email address was nowhere to be found on it, so that little playhouse collapsed pretty quickly, but it was still fun to ruminate about it. Also, as far as I know, he lives in Georgia now, so why he signed as if he's in HisTown, I don't know, unless it's because the person who signed before him did also, and he was afraid maybe I'd get him confused with some other person named Michael HisLastName. Yeah, right.



The only other person who signed the guestbook was the "heroine" from my More Jewelry Box Memories or “The Pre-Engagement Ring Caper” blog from Anne Arky Ology in Nov 2005 -- Teresa. She also emailed me via Classmates-dot-com, and I have emailed her back a couple of times, but I seriously doubt we will stay in touch. I don't really like who she grew up to be, so she has come and gone a couple of times in my adult life, with me always being the one to cut us loose. But it was nice of her to write, even if she does qualify as a quasi-scuzz. (Long story -- trust me on this one.)

Mother died at 8 AM on Sunday, December 23rd. My brother and sister and Charlotte and Uncle Joe were there, and I was there on cell phone, such as it was.


After days of grappling with the authorities in the state of Florida and the hospital staff and the crematorium/funeral home, the state of Florida finally released Mother to be cremated. The funeral home blamed the hospital, the hospital blamed the state laws and the funeral home, and I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between. Don’t die in Florida if you intend to be buried or interred somewhere else – it’s very inconvenient.


With three-way consultations between my sister (either in Florida, en route to Mother’s in Virginia, or at Mother’s in Virginia), my brother (in Florida) and me (here in Atlanta), we managed to get Mother’s funeral planned for the 4th of January. After all the plans were set in motion, we all took a list of people to call or contact and set about to do that. I chased down Mother’s step-brother in Kentucky and a few assorted cousins, and when I contacted my cousin Jack about the arrangements, he said he would be there, and then as an aside mentioned that the 4th of January is his birthday. I almost went through the floor, because in 2004, my dad died 3 days before my birthday and Mother took great pains to schedule everything AROUND my birthday rather than ON it, when my birthday was a Saturday and the perfect day for out-of-towners to attend a funeral; she knew that I had been horrified to learn years earlier that when her sister Gladys died on New Year’s Day 1950, she was buried on her son Jack’s 16th birthday. I was so incensed over his family’s insensitivity that no way was Mother going to have any of Daddy’s services ON my birthday. Somehow, I was sure Jack’s birthday was January 6th, and it’s most unlike me to screw up on dates and birthdays because I have eaten calendars and almanacs for breakfast since I was 5 years old, and I’m the family archivist, so I don’t know how I missed that one. Not only was Mother’s funeral scheduled for Jack’s birthday, it was scheduled for the 57th anniversary of her sister’s funeral. Of course, by the time Jack pointed it out, it was too late to change it, and he wouldn’t hear of it anyway, but still…he adored Mother, and Mother adored him, so it just broke my heart in a new kind of way – what was left of it, anyway.

Mother had several days of delusional moments while they tried to get her heart rhythm back where it belonged, and many of those moments were tinged with paranoia. After four days, she went into respiratory failure, and I was told on the 12th that if I wanted to see her alive, I needed to get my ass to Florida ASAP. I made arrangements to be away from both jobs for the next few days, although when I called my boss at the bookstore, her response was something I considered to be somewhat less than charitable when I told her I would have to miss working Thursday night and Friday night because I had to go see my mother, who was very likely dying. “Well, this IS my busiest time of year, you know.” “Well, gee, honey, I’m sure my mother didn’t realize she’d chosen YOUR busiest time of year to die on us; maybe she can schedule a little better next time. By the way, you DO realize that I would rather be working at the store during YOUR busiest time of year than going to Florida to possibly bury my mother, don’t you?” She never apologized for that remark. BITCH! But that’s okay, because I doubt if I would have accepted her apology with any serious spirit of forgiveness, anyway.

My fun meter for this trip got pegged pretty early on when I was rolling happily down I-75 on the south side of Atlanta before the real rush hour got underway, still driving in the dark of O-Dark Thirty, and my left front tire began to shred at about 75 miles per hour. I somehow managed to get to the shoulder and called Triple A for a rescue. They took forever to find me for some reason. Granted, I didn’t know the area well, since I live north of the city and, as stated before, stay pretty much in my own little orbit up there, so I was only able to give them a general idea of where on I-75 I was, but even based on that, mine was the only little red car pulled off to the right with lights ablaze and flashing in the dark, so that should have been a lot easier than it was. Finally, he got the doughnut tire put on and I was able, with the help of a coworker, to find a WalMart in the neighborhood where I could buy a replacement tire and went on my way, sans $80 and one hubcap. I later found out that somewhere along the way, my right headlight went the way of the errant hubcap and I had to get a replacement for that in Florida. Yeehaw!

That day (Thursday the 13th), about 45 minutes before I got to the hospital, my sister got to the hospital from Fort Lauderdale, where she and her husband had gotten off the ship as planned, with the original intent of flying back home to DC. Instead, after putting her husband onto a plane for DC, she rented a car and drove to the Tampa area where Mother was in the hospital and got there just before me. After we visited with Mother for a little while and got caught up on things, we went back to our uncle’s house. There, we found out that on Friday before Mother went into the hospital with heart problems (she had congestive heart failure anyway, which should always be taken into consideration), she had gone shopping with Charlotte, and while they hooked up her portable oxygen tank for running around, she ran around with it all day long with the damned thing TURNED OFF! God damned son of a bitch, what the FUCK were those people thinking?! No wonder she tanked!


One night over the next few days (I can’t remember which), they raised the sedation they had Mother under (because of the respirator) and I showed her the scrapbook of her 80th birthday party that I’d been working on for six months. (I wish to God I had taken it with me to the Marietta Diner and showed it to her then, but I didn’t think there would be time, and I was afraid a restaurant environment was not the best place for keeping a scrapbook in presentable condition.) Otherwise, the only time she hadn’t been sedated was when they were trying to wean her off of the respirator. The first time they tried, she lasted about five hours before they had to put it back, and she said when they try again, if it doesn’t work, she didn’t want to go back on it a third time – she’d rather go and be with Bob (my dad, who died in 2004). I had to leave on the 17th to go home to my house, my cat and my two jobs, and when I went by the hospital to tell her goodbye, she was semi-sedated and couldn’t talk because of the respirator, but there was a tear rolling down her right cheek. That was the last time I saw her alive, and walking out of there was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life, until the next week.

A few weeks before Mother left Virginia for Florida, I awoke in the middle of the night from a disturbing dream -- I dreamed that they wouldn't let me talk to Mother. I don't know who they were, but I was so upset at not being able to talk to her that I came very close to calling her at 4 AM to reassure myself that I could talk to her if I wanted to. Fortunately, I had presence of mind not to follow through with this very real desire. All I could think of was that this is what it would be like when she was dead, because then I wouldn't be able to talk to her. I was quite fearful and claustrophobic at this idea and knew that I was nowhere near ready to find out how that would really feel. I managed to get back to sleep for awhile, but fitfully. Later that morning, at a more reasonable hour, I called Mother and I told her how relieved I was to hear her voice, and I told her about my dream. She reassured me that she would make sure that they (whoever "they" may be) let me talk to her.

I called Mother this morning at Joe’s because she told me day before yesterday not to call her on her cell phone any more because the roaming charges were too high. I tried to call at Joe’s yesterday, but Joe has no answering machine, so they never even knew I called. I had some errands to run today, so I did them, and when I came home, I called Joe’s again this evening. “Oh, your mother’s not here – she’s in the hospital.” Well, thank you very kindly for notifying me, dammit! “Oh, we thought you’d be at work.” Well, hell’s bells, unlike some people, I have a @#$3ing answering machine, so you could have left me a @#$% message!”

What we knew then (or I found out when I called Mother at the hospital) was that Mother felt maybe they’d been doing too much gadding about, and she wasn’t up to it. My nephew, who held power of attorney in my sister’s place while my sister was on the high seas, took a flight the next morning to Florida to find out what was going on and what needed to be done. My brother, who is more than anything a most self-serving individual, was all bent six ways from Tuesday to find out that the nephew and not HE had power of attorney. My nephew proved why he was entrusted with this weighty responsibility at the age of 30 over his self-serving uncle, age 54, when he replied, “This isn’t about YOU.” (Why my brother backed down at this response I’ll never understand, because it’s ALWAYS about him.)

My mother's brother Joe, who was recently widowed, lives in Florida. He came up to Tennessee to see his son and the son's family, who live some 50+ miles from Mother, then on up to Virginia to visit Mother and other family. That town was his home also for quite awhile when he was younger, and when he and his recently late wife (he's been widowed twice) left the DC area, he would have happily gone back there to live, but she wanted Florida, and what she wanted, she generally got. Mother and Charlotte (Mother's paid live-in caregiver) had some tentative plans to go back to Florida when Joe goes, and spend at least Christmas there, if not maybe even the whole winter. Mother asked me when would be a good time for them to come and stop in to spend a night with me, and I told her it would just have to be a Saturday night/Sunday morning arrangement, because no way could I manage these three in my house on either a night when I've just worked or a morning when I have to go to work. My biggest fear was that they would come this weekend coming up, and bump up against my tree trimming party on Sunday. The last time Mother was here for that party, she insisted on making about 374 1/2-sandwiches, and they all got dried out and had to be thrown away. Hardly anyone ate any of them, so it was such a waste. Charlotte (who is in her 70s) is very pushy, and the last time the two of them got in my kitchen, I almost came to blows with them. Best-case scenario would have been next weekend, the 15th and 16th, but Joe (who is 84, by the way) decided he absolutely HAD to go home next Tuesday or Wednesday (meaning 27 or 28 November). Now mind you, Mother has a huge oxygen tank for inside of her house, and it gets plugged into a wall outlet to provide a steady oxygen supply. She also has a really big one for long trips, and lots of little ones for going out shopping, eating out, etc. That, plus two women packing for probably the entire winter, plus Joe's stuff, plus three adult people, makes for a VERY crowded car. Those of us on the periphery of this trip (my sister and I, et al) assumed that Charlotte and Mother would go down in Mother's car, but Joe insisted he wanted them to ride down with him, which means not only a very crowded car, but everywhere they want to go from now until they go home, they will have to be dependent upon him to take them, which could get to be a real drag real fast, in my opinion, and no amount of reasoning and cajoling could convince them of the error of such a decision.

If you look on a map of Georgia and focus on the Atlanta area, you'll see we have an interstate highway circling the town, called the Perimeter, a/k/a I-285; think of that as a big clock. To the top right of that, at around 2 o'clock, I-85 feeds in from the Carolinas. To the top left of the clock, at around 10:30, I-75 feeds in from Chattanooga. I live just off I-75, about 25 miles north of the Perimeter. The Perimeter is a 5-to-7-lane freeway that is always busy, where the unofficial speed limit is 90 MPH, and a pain in the butt. I almost never use it to go anywhere, mainly because I never go anywhere outside of my own little orbit over here in I-75-land. I go once a month (if that often) to the postcard club and have to take the Perimter to get there, and that's about it. At rush hour, it's especially busy and especially treacherous. A few years ago, Mother and Charlotte were going to Florida and wanted to stop in and have lunch with me; Charlotte insisted on taking I-85 down from Virginia instead of going through Tennessee and coming out on I-75, about 2 blocks from my house, and I knew they'd never be able to manage the Perimeter, so rather than directing them across the top end of the perimeter to I-75 and then north 25 miles, I just crossed it myself and went up I-85 to meet them. By the time I got there, they'd been there for awhile, and Charlotte was itching to get back on the road again, so I spent more time getting to them than I did WITH them, and I was furious. So you can imagine my reaction when Mother said they were coming down I-85 this time with my uncle, who insisted on it. I told her no way in hell was I going to play THAT game again, and she said, "Oh, I wouldn't ask you to. We'll come to you. We'll come to your house." She knew they wouldn't be spending the night, but that's okay, they'll get a motel room (after a 6-hour drive, they'd need it).

The city is doing construction on our water main right now, tearing up the streets all around my neighborhood, and for some weeks now they have had big earth-moving vehicles parked on my side street, which is how I drive up into the back yard to unload groceries on the main floor, or unload people who can't climb my stairs, such as my mother or my friend Yvonne (Yvonne has mobility issues). The vehicles have blocked that "driveway" (it's not a real, legitimate driveway), and I hadn't been able to catch anybody to ask them not to do that, so I told Mother she couldn't get into my house right now if she had to, because the way in was blocked. She said they'd still come up and Uncle Joe could at least see the outside of my house. (How exciting is THAT?!) I told her that there is no point in driving THAT far out of their way just to see the outside of my house (trust me -- it isn't all that!), so if she would just tell me where they wanted to eat, I would find such a restaurant down near the Perimeter, which is not far from where I work (both jobs), and I just wouldn't go home straight from work -- I'd go to meet them at said restaurant, then they could get a motel and I would go home from there, later. Oh, no, she says by this time -- we're going to come down I-75 after all, so it won't be hard to get to your house.

Now who in hell wants to go that far just to see the outside of someone's house? Tuesday night I busted my ass getting my house straightened out (not an easy task, because I had boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff scattered all over hell and half of Georgia, very little of which had been put into its proper place), and by the time I was finished, I decided Mother was coming in that house, if I had to drag her by the heals. I got everything just the way I wanted it (within the realm of possibility) and had the unpacked Christmas boxes put together in an orderly fashion, and I went to bed thinking I had things under control. YEAH, RIGHT! My only wish was that I'd had the time and energy to make some tea, because even though we were going to go out for dinner, I at least needed to be able to offer them something to drink; well, maybe I'd leave work an hour early tomorrow and come home and make some. Changed my mind and just stopped and picked up a couple of 2-liter Cokes (1 diet, 1 regular). Mother told me they'd probably be waiting for me in my driveway when I got home.

When I got home, what I found waiting for me in my driveway was three construction workers, up to their ass in a ravine that had been dug in front of my driveway. Not only was Mother not going to be able to get into my house -- I couldn't even get into my house! I freaked! I told the guy I had not only myself, but three elderly people and one very handicapped elderly person coming to my house post haste. He said if I could give them 15 minutes, they would get some plates put across the ditch and we'd be able to cross it into the driveway. I went around the corner to a strip mall parking lot and called Uncle Joe's cell phone (Mother's hadn't been working earlier) and asked where they were, expecting them to be coming up on the I-75 exit to my place momentarily. He says, "We just passed the exit to Winder off I-85." "What are you doing on I-85?" I shrieked. "I thought you were coming down I-75!" "Oh, I always come down I-85 when I'm going south." "So you couldn't have done it differently just this once, huh?" "Here's your mother." In other words, he didn't want to discuss it. I told Mother about the construction, and she said, "Well, we'll just meet you for dinner. How about Marietta Diner?" I had taken them there before when Mother and Charlotte were here before. (That's also where Melanie and I go a lot after working at the store, when we go out and play our word game.) Okay, fine, Mother. Gee, if I'd known you weren't coming to my house, I wouldn't have gone the 20 miles home and have to come back now; I could have stayed down in the area where I work and not wasted all that gas and time!!!!! I asked her if she wanted directions on how to get to the Diner -- oh, no, we'll call you for directions when we get closer in, says Mother.

I calleld Melanie and asked her if she knew how far it was from Winder to the Perimeter, and if she wanted to come and join me at the Diner to play a game of “Upwords” while we waited for the Golden Geezers. I took a route back to the Diner that I don't normally take, so I could tell them which exit to take (all the exit numbers across Georgia have recently changed, but since I already know mostly where I'm going, I don't usually have a need to know the new numbers, so I don't), how many traffic lights to go through, etc., and met Melanie there, where we played for about 90 minutes before my sister called me on my cell phone.

"Call your mother on her cell phone," says my sister. "She is near tears and she couldn't find your cell phone number and I gave it to her three times and she couldn't get it right, so I told her I'd just have you call her." So I did, and she was near to tears; when I said, "Where ARE you all?" she quickly wailed, "Don't yell at me! You have no idea what a rough time we've had! It's been awful! It's been a long ride, and you wouldn't believe the traffic we've had to deal with!" "TRAFFIC!" I yelled. "Who knew you would have TRAFFIC?" This is the point when the "I told you so"s started stacking up, faster and higher than I could imagine! So okay, Mother, I repeat, WHERE ARE YOU? "We're at a Shell station in Marietta." Well, that certainly narrows it down! This isn't Mayberry, where there might only BE one Shell station! Would you care to elaborate a little more and help me out here, so I can tell you how to get here? "Well, there's a Dairy Queen." How about a street name, Mother? "Well, we're near Kennesaw Springs." There's no such PLACE as Kennesaw Springs, Mother. Finally she was able to give me the name of a cross street, and it turns out they were about 20 feet from Melanie's apartment! I couldn't figure out any way to direct them to the Diner without just having to go and get them, and they were still driving. I told them to turn around, go the other direction and look for the Walgreen's drug store on the right a little bit down the road. Finally, after 10 more minutes of drama and trauma, they somehow managed to find the Walgreen's, and I told them to go in there, park and turn the engine off before they hurt themselves. I got over there, told them to follow me -- we are going to turn right and get in the right lane and only make right turns to get to the diner -- no brainer, right? Well, Uncle Joe was going 35 MPH in a 45 MPH zone in rush hour traffic, it was dark by then, and he kept leaving enough space between us to build a house -- a sure way to get people to get in between us, whereupon I'd lose them and never see them again. Hey, now THERE's a thought. Nah, I couldn't do it. I called and told Mother to tell him to get closer to me, and we managed to get to the diner without further incident, unless you count the fact that I had gnashed my teeth down to nubs at that point, and my blood pressure was off the chart. But I behaved all through dinner and never verbalized all the "I told you so"s that were stacking up in my mind. Melanie stayed and had dinner with us, and she said I behaved admirably under the circumstances, especially when they said they were NOT going to get a motel room after all, but after having driven for about 8 stressful hours already, they were going to go ahead on to Joe's in Florida, driving another 8 hours to get there. WHAT???! Why in the world...? Oh, because June's oxygen supply is getting low. But wait -- she has an electrical one in the car that only needs to be plugged into a wall socket, and we can get you a wall socket, no problem. Oh, but it's too much trouble to get in and out of the car.

HERE IS WHERE I ALMOST LOST IT (but miraculously somehow didn't). So you all are telling me that because Mother's oxygen tank is too much hassle, you are putting her life and limb in danger at the mercy of your old and tired selves who are too damned old and tired to be driving another 8 hours, at the risk of falling asleep, getting lost, getting hijacked or no telling what else?????? Okay, I didn't say a word then (other than to convey my thoughts on the idiocy of such a plan, but only once), but my feeling is that if her oxygen tank is too much of a hassle, they ought to have left her and the damned oxygen tank AT HOME, and in the future, that will be exactly what happens if I have anything to say about it, and you had better believe I have A HELL OF A LOT to say about it. I have given them about a week's respite, and I may wait a little while longer, but I made sure that my sister (who is in charge of Mother, etc.) knew about it and plans to say something as well. She and my BIL are on a cruise right now and will be back the 13th, but I told her this can not happen again. Her response was that between the three of them (Charlotte, Joe and Mother), they couldn’t orchestrate a one-person trip to the bathroom! That is the damned truth! If they don't want to mess with the damned tank, leave her the hell home. If they had taken two cars, they wouldn't have had to pack the one car so tightly and made it so difficult to get at the oxygen tank. Like I said, the "I told you so"s just piled up like a brick shithouse. I told Melanie as they were getting in the car to leave that this would probably be the last time I saw my mother alive, because those idiots were going to take her to Florida and kill her.

Mother called me at 5 AM on Thursday to tell me they had gotten there, “and you wouldn't believe all the traffic we had!” Shut up, Mother -- I don't even want to hear it! I've talked to her a couple of times, but she won't express any displeasure in front of Joe or Charlotte, for fear they will dump her (and they might). So I don't know if she’s having a good time or not. And that, my friend, is the Adventures of the Golden Geezers in a nutshell -- where they belong!