OK. I'm starting to feel plenty of rancor about some things. I don't mind finding the milk in the freezer or dirty dishes in the cupboard when she had emptied the dishwasher before it had been run. But there are a few other things that are making me bitchy.

I resent that Leola's stuff has filled our guest room downstairs, boxes filled with god-knows-what-kind of shit - old photos she doesn't remember, letters and cards from people she doesn't recall. Yesterday, I told Jon I wanted to move it all to the garage so, just in case, someone - maybe one of our children - decides to visit, he or she will actually have room to walk around in the bedroom. He nixed that idea arguing that he just got the garage back to where we can put the cars in there. He said, "I'm just starting to go through it with her. I'll take care of it, but I don't want it all in the garage. If Whitney or Dan visits, they'll only sleep down there." Well, I'm not willing to wait for months. Never mind we have an entire storage locker filled with her crap that will eventually need sorting through and there's no more room in there either. I'm moving it to the garage. What irritates me about this whole thing is that I have to hear about all this "stuff" that Jon grew up with. When my mother died, I wasn't able to bring all her stuff from Alabama and stack it in the downstairs bedroom with the luxury of going through it at my leisure. My brothers and I had to go through things during the week after her death and make decisions right then. Jon acts like the photos (many of which he'd never even seen before - that's how important they were to Leola - she never looked at them or showed them to him) are the most important fucking thing in the world. After my mother's death, my youngest brother, Patrick, with whom my mom had been living, boxed up all mom's photos and sent them to me. There were several large boxes and I remember it cost about $90 bucks to ship them from Alabama to Oregon. I spent a day or two going through them - alone. Maybe that's what I resent. He's going through them with his mother who never cared about them enough in the past to even show them to him.

I'm losing patience with her being cold all the time. Coming home from the studio on a beautiful summer day to find the house closed up - doors closed, windows shut and Leola huddled under a blanket in the living room is grating on my last nerve. Tonight she was "cold" and asked why we don't build a fire in the fireplace or turn the heat on (It is 75 degrees outside. People in the South and Midwest would think they were in heaven). I said for the 100th time that it is summer and it is warm outside. She said, "My legs are cold." I replied, as I did many times in years gone by that she would be much warmer if she wore pants. Silly me, I thought I could teach an old dog new tricks. She's not going to change now. Yes, I know she's 92 yrs. old, but that knowledge isn't helping right now.

She keeps putting water in Ozzie's food and he won't eat it all soggy like that. Then he meows and she will ask what he wants. At least a dozen times Jon and I have asked her not to put water in his food, but she keeps doing it. We never actually SEE her doing it indicating that she is doing this clandestinely. We moved his food to another location so she didn't see it, but today I discovered a new bowl of water-logged food out on the deck! It annoys me she monopolizes my cat. Believe me, I love the fact that she gets pleasure from Ozzie's presence on her lap - and he loves her wool sweaters and the frequent blanket. He is company for her and he loves a lap that doesn't move too often with a hand that constantly strokes him. But now she thinks he is her cat and she knows him best - hence the water in the food thing - which is just weird. Since we have to lock our bedroom door at night now, Ozzie can't come in and get in bed with me. Jon never liked the cat in bed with us because he didn't sleep as well. However, Ozzie knew this and would creep onto my side of the bed and get under the covers. I miss my cat.