Sunday, February 24, 2008

Super Tuesday

I often speak of life's challenges as waves. A wave can't last forever, eventually it crashes on the shore and recedes into the dark water of the ocean to form again. My wave of status quo- everything seems quite normal here - crashed on Friday. I've only been riding it for a week or so, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. Still the crash wasn't too bad. My mother-in-law's kitty died and she was beside herself with grief. She lives 30 minutes away in a retirement community that she chose last fall based on the fact they allow kittys. She didn't weigh anything else in her decision which is regrettable as the food is southern through and through - fried or overcooked, and virtually everyone there is in a wheelchair or walker. It's depressing. To me anyway. She's 72 and mobile but needs some supervision as she has some dementia.
On Friday afternoon, as my DH settled down for a nap on his afternoon off, he received a call from the Retirement Community that the kitty had died; my MIL wouldn't let anyone take the kitty from her, and was demanding an autopsy. The kitty wasn't that old, maybe 3 or 4. My husband took off to console her and brought her home to hang with us for a while. While here, she asked for a glass of wine. I politely refused. She has been sober since the fall- by that I mean Autumn and the time she fell down, drunk, and broke her hip. They can't stop her from buying alcohol on the weekly trips to the grocery store. In fact, once she was well enough to walk again, she made the trip and bought some. We conspired with the management and told her if she was going to drink, we couldn't stop her but it was either the bottle or the kitty. You can't take care of a kitty when you are drunk.
She chose the kitty. But with the kitty done, I'm afraid the bottle will be back. They go grocery shopping on Tuesday. I'm sure to hear about it if she does buy it. She can down one of those mega bottles in a couple of hours. Gives new meaning to Super Tuesday, eh?

1 comment:

Amy Rio-Anderson/Running Rio said...

Poor MIL. How could a kitty that young die?