Families!

I find myself struck by the contrariness of people. Just over a year and a half ago, the whole family was up in arms, “You’ve got to do something about your mother.” and “How could you have let her drive to Tahlequah for your wedding shower? You should’ve gone to pick her up because she doesn’t have any business driving.” And now, today, when I express concern about the fact that Mom is planning on driving Grandma back to Tulsa this weekend, I hear “Who am I to say that she can’t drive wherever she wants to” and “I’m 74 years old and drive everywhere I want to go.” Actually, no you don’t, because that’s why Mom is planning on driving Grandma home, because Grandma doesn’t feel comfortable driving all that way anymore, and hasn’t for years.

Apparently we offended Grandma last night by suggesting that we weren’t sure if it was a good idea for Mom to take Grandma home, especially if Phil is willing to come and get her. I realize that parents are protective of their children, but come on, it’s not like I’m trying to pick on Mom or something. It just happens that after receiving 3-4 phone calls from the highway patrol to come and pick Mom up or they are going to have to arrest her, the little fender benders, the major accident that should have killed her....I feel justified in being a little concerned. Remember this?


It was a very difficult decision to even get Mom another car. One the one hand, at the time of the wreck we were trying a little experiment called ‘Let Mom have control of her drugs’. That experiment didn’t work and so we moved onto the ‘Sherri is going to dole out your drugs for you’ and the ‘I don’t care how much you overdid it today, I’m not giving you an extra pain pill’ approach. Which seems to be working pretty well. It’s very rare now that Mom seems “out of it” and drugged up – although we still have a lot of those overdid it days (2-3 a week). Unfortunately, now that Mom has moved into her own place and I am not planning on seeing her every single day, we have moved onto the ‘I’ll give you a weeks worth of drugs at a time, and if you run out early I don’t want to hear a word about it’ approach. We’re still waiting to see how this one works out. But we did get her a car, she got a 2005 Chevy Impala and is very pleased with it, even if it is gold. (Don’t even get me started on the color issue! Who buys a car based on what color it is? My mother, that’s who!) I'll post pictures of it as soon as I see it in the daylight.

So Chris and I are going to Arkansas this weekend for another PTK event. We’re going to follow the bus there, and then Saturday afternoon when the PTK deal is over, we’re going to go somewhere to camp, and he’s going to do some fishing. I want to stop at one of the crystal mines and see if I can’t dig me up some crystals. Chris didn’t look very excited by the prospect, but I’m going to make him stop for at least an hour! Then on Sunday, we’re going to go pick up our new puppy. I’ve got to go shopping and get all of the necessary items – training pads, a bed, some toys and food, and of course a book on training since I haven’t had a puppy in years and am not sure I remember squat about housebreaking and teaching “sit” and “stay” and all those other necessary commands! But I am very excited and can’t wait to go get her. Stay tuned for lots of pictures.