Yeah, still flippin' out....

Hiya Steve....hope you had a nice weekend. Somebody posted a photo of you at a Giants/Mets game that they claimed was taken on Saturday...but somebody ELSE said that was the same photo of you from LAST YEAR, so who the hell knows.  If you went to a game, I hope you had a great time.  If not, well, whatever you DID do, I hope it was fun.

I had fun over the weekend, as you know from my last post...yeah, my head is still spinnin' a bit about it, as you can probably imagine.  I checked out Doug Speyd's web site, and it's pretty cool, actually.  I had never even heard of the guy before Friday, actually.  Totally clueless about it.  Pete says, "I am going to the Toonseum (a museum about cartoons), to meet an artist that I like."  My thought was, "Ahhh, he didn't ask me to go with him, so that's something I wouldn't enjoy."

But then he says, when he comes home, "I'm taking you to the comic book convention tomorrow, so that you can meet this guy...he's looking forward to it."  So of course my brain says, "Why the heck would he CARE about meeting ME?"  And when we get there, he's all enamoured---like a little lost puppy----falling all over me, LITERALLY, hugging me, and kissing me on the cheek, and telling me how "refreshing" I am, and that our conversation was "the most amazing and interesting conversation" he's ever had at a comic book convention.

I'm lookin' at Pete like, "wow, this guy is easily impressed...this is weird..." But after I found out who this guy IS, and what he DOES, well, I was like, "uhhhh...okay....wow....I'm a little embarrassed about talking to this dude about things that Hugh Hefner doesn't even know about..."  (Seriously.  It is true.  I told Doug about camp, and he had never heard of it before, and he said Hef would have never heard of it either.  I said, (as I smirked like a smart-ass), "That's because Hef is VANILLA)."

He didn't even know what THAT meant.

So, this dude is like, "Come back and talk to me some more, please, I really want to explore this conversation much deeper with you, I think you are fascinating."  So we go off and do a little shopping, and my head is spinning, I'm all confused, and yet Pete's freaking out and giddy like a kid in a candy store.  We go back to see him later on, and for SIX HOURS, we were there talking to him and Heidi Hutson, his "chicky," (not sure if they are married), and it was pretty fun.

This guy thinks I can be a billionaire, just by giving talks about blow jobs.  He thinks I need to go all over the country, and write articles for Playboy, and he's going to help me get "in" with the boys on the magazine, etc., (He said, "They will all be ecstatic, they've been trying to find something new to write about, and this will just tickle them to death.")  Pete suggested that I send an article to HIM, to proofread it first, and give me advice about it before I submit it to the editors, but he said, "Noo, no, no, I'm not a writer, Heidi does all of MY writing, I'm just the guy who draws naked women.  Just send as many articles about this subject as you possibly can, and they will go wild about it, I just know it."

I want to mention something that has also happened recently, that has changed my world.

Florence is now in an Alzheimer's assisted living facility.  We are letting her "try it out" for a respite program...but we all feel (that is, Pete, my mom, me, the doctors, social worker, and other sources), that she will most likely want to stay there, and live there permanently.  We are hoping she likes it enough to do that, but ya just never know with her.  It could go either way.  We've got her there for at least one month, until we return from camp.  From that point, it could turn into a permanent placement for her.

My house feels so empty.

I cried like a baby Thursday night....she and I had talked about this, when she said to me, "I want to go live with those other people."  It took me a few hours to figure out who "those other people" were and to talk with her about the choice to do that, and how her life would change, etc., and I finally got my iPhone voice recorder turned on, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't just hearing something that I might have misunderstood.

She said things like, "I need to socialize more, I know, I need to grow, and get on with my life, and start being more active."  She also said, "I know this place is really an extension of the care that YOU give me, so I will try it."  She was COGNIZANT, she was SHARP as a tack, and she knew exactly what she was saying, she understood everything we discussed, and so I started packing her suitcase.

I went in to tuck her into bed like I always do, every night, and usually she'll say something to me like, "Thank you for everything that you do for me, I really appreciate it very much, I don't know what I would do without you helping me."  And I tell her I do it because she's my family and I love her, and then I say, "Have a good night's sleep and I'll see you in the morning."

This time, however, she said to me, "Thank you for letting me VISIT you....I....miss.....you."

And tears sprang to my eyes, instantly.  But I covered it up by laughing nervously and saying, "Oh come on Flo-Flo, I'm here every day with you, how can you MISS somebody that you see every day!"

But when I shut the door, I bawled my eyes out like a baby.

So, I sat there, writing her name on the tags of all of her clothes, like a mother would for her kid going off to camp...Pete even said I reminded him of his mom, doing that very thing for HIM when he was young.  I just sat there, blubbering and wiping my nose with kleenex, feeling the loss of Florence already....mourning her...even though LOGICALLY, she's only 5 minutes away, in a great place that understands Alzheimers better than I ever will, with people who she is familiar with, who take excellent care of everyone there, and they have been highly recommended by so many sources that we have investigated over the past year, so I do feel confident that she's in the right place.

Whether or not it's the right TIME for her to be there, remains to be seen.

But, I must express my feelings of guilt, when I tell you that I had a very relaxing weekend away.  Sure, I called the place every day to check on her, but for the most part, I felt RELIEVED, and RELAXED for the first time in a very long time.  And for that, I feel awful, and guilty.

We took her Friday morning, she chose which room she wanted to be in, we made the bed, hung up all her clothes, hung pictures on the wall, and made it cozy and familiar with her things.  Then we left, and she was already off with other people, on her way to lunch, so we didn't get to say goodbye.  After that, we attended the comic book convention.

So you may have a better understanding of why my head is still spinning from all this.

I would never have the TIME to sit down and write articles....but now....now, I'm facing this strange emptiness, that I've never really felt before....I joked that I must be one of those annoying "helicopter mom's," because I want to "hover" over her and make sure they are taking as good of care of Flo as I do......but it's true, it's not a joke, I want to SEE how she's doing, I want to KNOW if she's miserable, upset, angry, frustrated, filled with anxiety, depressed.....I want to KNOW if she hates me for putting her in that place....so all this emotion I'm feeling is overwhelming...

But we all feel it is the right time for her to be there, the right place for her to be, and the right quality of life that she deserves to have...she is a "highly functioning Stage 3" Alzheimers patient.  Stage 2 and 3 are the shortest stages, however.  Stage 4 is when she no longer knows who I am, or who Pete is, etc., and doesn't talk much anymore, can't really think right anymore or do things for herself anymore.  That stage is coming soon, and I'm mourning it.  I am really feeling like she's gone from my life.

And so then this old dude gloms onto me, telling me I could be rich by helping women everywhere learn how to enjoy blow jobs.  All in the same day.

It kinda messes me up a little, ya know?

I'm exhausted.  I'm off to bed, but I have no idea what I'm going to do around here tomorrow.  It's like this gaping empty hole is opening up all around me, and I might fall in, to a big bunch of nothingness. My sense of PURPOSE is kinda gone right now.  Playboy magazine is really NOT the thing I would expect to replace that purpose in life, ya know?  It just doesn't quite gel in my mind very well.

I told my mom...and I joked with Doug, "Ohhhh, great, so like all those OTHER bunnies, my mother would be so PROUD..."  but when I told my mom about all this, she said, "GET BUSY WRITING AND BRING IN THAT PAYCHECK GIRL!"  I couldn't believe it.

Meanwhile, everybody AROUND me seems excited about it, but I am feeling horribly SAD.  Life is really screwy sometimes, ain't it.

Well, I'll write again soon, but take care and enjoy your upcoming week.  Love you lots.  SMOOCH!!

---Rebecca