Has Anybody Seen My Sidebar?

I just looked at my blog and it appears to be, uh, gone.

Update on The Drama: First phone call of the day around 1 p.m. My mother reported that a case worker from hospice came by at the hospital, and she told her she wanted to talk to the doctor. Here is the thought process: "If he is on home health care he will live, if he is on hospice they will let him die." Then she tells me that she can't understand him when he talks. Then she tells me a story he told her, about a woman in his room bothering him, asking why he let his son join the service. I point out that it most likely was a loud woman nearby whose voice intruded on his dream, or a hallucination. Oh no, my mother actually thought someone had been in his room. Count to ten. Count to ten again.

I went over it again - home health (in this context) is good but it's basically drive by care, they check on you. Hospice has more staff, and more staff with special skills for things like feeding tubes. They are better able to evaluate a patient, etc.

Transfer of all of her decision making and abdication of any responsibility for anything from my father to me begins: "So, you think he should be on hospice?" (She can't ask him, because he's, um, not really coherent and even she knows this.)

Me, counting to 50, because I've been saying this for two weeks now: "Yes, he should be on hospice."

Long dithering magical thinking conversation omitted for everyone's sanity.

Later in the afternoon she called back - the case worker from hospice is on the ball, she called the primary and got him to call my mother and talk to her. She's willing to accept hospice services. At least as of the last phone call. This is a big relief for me, because this situation really needs a professional managing it - my mother needs monitoring as much as the patient. And if I want to keep a lick of sanity about me, I have to be able to do drive-by visits, help out when I can, and GO HOME.

Thank you all for your supportive comments, they really do mean a lot. I should clarify that I was using "Bad Daughter" with heavy irony - lots of baggage here, but I do realize that I am being rational and I am not bad. I am not riddled with guilt. I am riddled with annoyance.

If she says "I don't know...." one more time I may lose it. I'm sorry, it's not like he had a sudden stroke on the golf course and he has been perfectly healthy up until today, and she's in shock. How the hell do you live with a very sick man for years and not give a single moment's thought to how you will manage the situation as it deteriorates? Especially after she watched her daughter go through it (albeit from afar, they never visited) just a few years ago?

I vent here. I called my cousin, who lost her husband last year, and vent to her. There are many layers to this situation that I don't have the energy to talk about right now, but there is money, and good insurance, and there is no excuse for this.

Thanks for "listening."

Meanwhile, back at the office, it was a Surly Thursday. I received an email from a woman I work with who was asked by a guy we work with the status of something I have been trying to resolve for 9 months, and he knows it and he's been sitting on the information we need to get it done. She has had similar issues with this person. I'm really underutilized on this job, every now and then there is a shitty problem nobody else wants to handle and they throw it at me. Meanwhile, there are people who are wildly unqualified to do what they are doing creating havoc hither and yon. Still more meanwhile, I am randomly asked questions about the status of things I know nothing about and have no control over. I am tired of all of this. I am ready to have a long chat with the owner of the company, and don't think I won't do it. This is not a good week to fuck with me.

I haven't bought any linen yet. I think I will do that this evening. I think I'm going to go with the Beginner's Triangle in Gathering of Lace. I adore the Shaped Triangle, but honestly, I don't have the attention span for it. I think I'm going for Milan, in Blue Jay.

I keep thinking I really should be working on cool summer tops, not a shawl. So I'm also thinking about the Louet Lily pattern. Follow links on Handknitting.com if you're curious, I'm too lazy to link again. I'm thinking that in Barcelona Sunset Flame.

Yes, I self-medicate with yarn. Want to make something of it?