I gave grandma lunch. A bowl of cottage cheese, a single serving container of mandarin oranges and a coffee. Just when I sat down in the other room she called me. I got up and went to her. She wanted me to dump the oranges into her bowl of cottage cheese.....................
You'd think with all the rain we have here in Oregon that we'd have more drive thru's. But noooo, I just endure a steady level of soaked from October- June! Bummer.
There are several nearby Outback, however, none are drive-thru, Sally.
I was flabbergasted - they are healthy, just aging. Plenty of money to hire help. Yet we are supposed to spend over $2000 in airfare, and use up all our vacation time, to do work around their house AND their vacation house in the woods. They are angry because we usually come over a weekend plus two days (five total) once a year and then we are heartless enough to only do SOME of the things they ask for.
Last visit I offered to clean the upstairs rooms and bathroom we use because my mother in law doesn't clean (never has) and it was filthy and we were all sneezing due to the dust. They blew a gasket when I refused to wash all of the windows in the house plus thoroughly clean two downstairs bathrooms and the rest of the house, which hadn't been cleaned in ages.
Get this - My FIL planned to take my husband golfing and my MIL take my son to the playground, and I was supposed to stay home and do all of the cleaning and window washing. Continue to day two or three as needed. My husband and I said "no - we'll clean the upstairs since we are using that" but no to everything else. We were lectured, called selfish and chewed out every day, including Easter dinner in front of all of the relatives. Finally my husband looked around the table and commented "you all wonder why we don't come more often???"
We flat out told them - your house, you maintain it - whether you do it yourself or hire someone, if you cannot - you need to move to senior living, but we have our own house to maintain and clean and we were not going to work on their two houses. We reminded them that when they were our age - they were not giving up their vacation time to care for parents' homes, but were enjoying their vacation home for weeks at a time. Explosion ensued. My grandmothers and my husbands grandmothers BOTH chose senior living and assisted living and didn't make anyone their slaves. What is wrong with my parents and my husband's parents?
I can imagine how many responses i'll get for being selfish and so heartless and "someday i'll be old and understand". Foo-hey.
Now, we live about an hour from Greek Town to begin with and most of the stores that I know of there have very limited hours. And I work full time.
But here we sat. Her, suddenly finding the ability of speech... but in fluent Greek, insisting that I serve her Horiatiko bread... and right now.